For Alisha...

    This post is for Alisha at The Bubbly Blonde. I probably don't blog enough. This week has been hectic, to say the least. I love, love, love reading everyone else's blogs. I love to tell stories and talk, so why aren't I blogging more? So, thanks, Alisha. I believe I will! As you so succintly put it, no one has to read my blog if they don't like it, right?

     I've been fighting off the crud since the week before Thanksgiving, so I haven't taken pictures and posted as I should. Please forgive me, peeps. I truly love blogging. I always have something to say and try to be consistent about commenting on posts. I love the freebies people share...and have great plans to learn to make games, etc. for sharing. Soon, very soon!

    I must say that until Christmas break, I don't relax. To my way of thinking, second graders really "show up" and "show off" after Christmas. They're just so young before Christmas. I guess my favorite age to teach would be the second half of second grade and the first half of third. Maybe next year I'll figure out the magic ingredient...maybe not, though.

    I must brag on the Volume Control Levels poster and the Clip Chart, too. My life as a second grade teacher has been much easier this year because of those two things I found blogging. Blogging has also provided me with hours and hours of activities for my students' further practice of concepts we're learning. Hallelujah! My bloggy friends are the BEST!

   There are days (okay, weeks and maybe a month or two) that I haven't posted. I just didn't think anything was fabulous to share. I can share this...(no pictures, yet--I'll add those after I go to school and take some tomorrow)...we built robots this week. Yep, robots! Our students brought in boxes of all shapes and sizes, paper towel cylinders, cups, water/drink bottles, etc. We used this as a midway springboard exercise to get our children thinking about edges, faces, and vertices. We make shape mobiles each year with the shapes from the Accu-Cut that must be folded and glued together. This year we added robots made of various boxes. You should see some of the cuties! Students were asked to discuss with a partner the number of edges, faces, vertices, and even shapes their robot contained. WARNING: recruit parents to come and spend the day helping glue! We used 3" masking tape, elmer's glue, and hot glue. That's why you need parents!
     Our principal wanted to spend the day in each grade. She came to our class to help glue robots. She loved it and my students were thrilled to have her attention directed specifically toward our class for the entire hour! They loved, loved, loved having her with us! We had a mom come help finish up the last few today (thanks, Mrs. Mathis!). I am sooo thankful they went home today! Boxes, boxes, everywhere! Am I whining? NAH! Just glad it's over!
     We start fractions next week and we are going to hit dictionary, thesaurus, and glossary use hard next week as well. We're also pushing those silent sounds (mb, kn, dje, etc. ... thanks to Hope at 2nd Grade Shenanigans for Second Grade Word Work! It is awesome! I found this over the Christmas break, so I am pulling out what works best for the remainder of this. I will follow the schedule next year from the beginning because I believe it ROCKS right along with my reading instruction! MARVELOUS job, Hope! :) Thanks a million!

   Happy weekend, my beloved bloggy friends! I pray you rest well and are pumped up and ready for the next week on the school merry-go-round! ;) 

Fry Phrases

Jennifer over at First Grade Blue Skies has an awesome game called Banger! and another one called Banger2! on TpT and Teacher's Notebook. I bought both of them and created Banger! which uses the first 150 Fry Phrases.

I teach second grade, and have some students who are struggling with fluency yet. I googled and found the first 600 Fry Phrases which I thought pretty awesome since I can probably use them all with some of my developing readers.I typed all 600 making 2 columns on each page, similar to what Jennifer had done. To save money, I didn't put my fry phrases on popsicle sticks. I bought colored cardstock ($3.97 @ Wal*mart...savings of about $6.00) and used the yellow. I printed the Fry phrases on the yellow, but them apart, and laminated. We had some of those little "Go" cups from mini Oreos (back when we tallied Oreos) that I had saved, so I used them to store my new little yellow strips, 100 per container (they look like fries~and would even more so with "crinkly" cut scrapbooking scissors or pinking shears!). I have the first 100, the second 100, and so on. I intend to use the first 300 with my students reading around first grade level to hopefully speed them up. The second 300 (Fry Phrases 400-600) will be used with my students who are reading right around 2.0. I wanted to give a shout-out to Jennifer at First Grade Blue Skies for her awesome idea! I tweaked it a little for second and I'm thrilled! :) Thanks, Jennifer!

Back to school, back to school...THANKS, BLOGGING FRIENDS!

So, it's back to school for me! We started Wednesday. I have the sweetest group of children. Using the volume control levels really made my first three days awesome ones!! I am thrilled that we are going to have a fabulous year because I found blogging! Thanks everyone for being such a wonderful group of teachers. I appreciate all the wonderful ideas you have shared. Blogging is like having loads of teammates you can discuss ideas and concerns with every day. I love, love, love it!

Back to School

Thanks to all you wonderful cyber-friends with whom I blog. I have 23 years experience teaching. I am more excited about school starting back than I've been in a few years and that's thanks to all the marvelous ideas and fabulous freebies I've found online. God bless you each and every one with the best school year ever!

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~~~~ Wishing you an amazingly blessed day! ~~~~
¸.¤·º°´¯ ♥ ¯`°º·¤. ♥♥Hugs, Melly<><♥♥.¤·º°´¯ ♥ ¯`°º·¤.¸
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