Don't Let the Pigeon...

My marvelous student teacher taught a lesson today on persuasive writing. She read Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late between exploratory classes and lunch. When writing time rolled around, she told the children that we all have opinions and want to share them. She reminded them of the Pigeon story and how much they enjoyed it. Then she played this:

After watching the video clip twice, the children wrote their persuasive paragraph about whether they'd let the pigeon drive the bus trying to convince the reader to do the same. :) This was precious and hilarious at the same time. The children were sooooo excited and all of them except one finished. Even my struggling writers wrote! The one who did not finish has troubles. :( What a fantastic way to introduce persuasive writing! Try it! :)

Craaaazzzzzzzyyyy Day!

Wow! What a crazy day! We worked on Cause & Effect by reading Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia! and Play Ball, Amelia Bedelia! Thanks for sharing, Amy @ Step into 2nd Grade. Your post on Amelia Bedelia and the Baby was awesome! Did you share the cause and effect activities with the two stories above? I can't find where I found them... (sigh). It's been a  looonnnng day with Cause & Effect, PSA making, and Contraction Surgery! My children could NOT stop the talking today, but I know they were learning. They just chattered away about cause & effect, got even louder working on the story problems together, and couldn't even be STILL when they got their surgeon's masks on to perform Contraction Surgery.  We made the masks using paper and yarn (I forgot all about going to find some masks, so I improvised). I found some small bandaids in a teamie's room (she had a sub, but we often go in each other's closets) and also found some bandaid stickers that made for really cute contractions. I just hope I can find some more of those bandaid stickers! :) They worked rather well. I did get some pix...I'll paste some tomorrow...too tired tonight. Sweet dreams everyone. I'll update this post tomorrow with pix and more info... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. :D

Kids Say the Darndest Things Linky Party

Jeannie at

is having a linky party! Join the fun...and please don't be offended by my student's comment. He was only a Kindergartener...

Denise @ Sunny Days in Second Grade is giving away...

Little Pockets! Check them out @ Sunny Days in Second Grade. I certainly hope to win! :) They'd certainly be put to quick use in my second grade class...we're studying cause and effect now!

Denise was my Valentine Bloggy Buddy and sent me such an awesome box of goodies...winning this would be the icing on the cake. The cake was already so sweet, though, that it doesn't require any icing. ;) Thanks, again, Denise! I'm still enjoying my goodies.
Hugs!

A Bad Case of Stripes

Thanks to Amy Lemons @ Step into Second Grade for sharing this!  We were just beginning cause and effect when I found this project using A Bad Case of Stripes. I knew this story would be a good one, and honestly I just didn't want to do the Mouse & Cookie thing again. It's a great story, but I think even the children get burned out on it. I know they do it in first grade at our school, so that was my excuse to go with this...as if I needed one! Par excellence!!

Check out Camouflage Camilla!

         
See Camilla Orange? ;) Somehow I got two
of this one...

          
Not everyone is finished...anyone have an idea why it takes

some of our sweeties soooooo long to write a paragraph or two? Yeah, I know...they're just immature, not ready, and all that...It just hurts my heart when some simply won't write even tho' I know they are capable. :*(  This was an amazing story idea, though!! Much thanks to whomever shared...I love it! :D

Happy Valentine's Day!

   What a marvelous day! It started out with my sweeties decorating their CapriSun boxes I blogged about yesterday. They were excited to get the party started so early! :) As soon as the boxes were decorated, everyone received his/her penpal letter from the wonderful Mrs. P! The excitement on the faces of my little sweeties was worth the hour drive on Sunday to deliver the letters we wrote for Mrs. P.'s students. I just hope our letters were 1/2 as exciting as the ones they wrote for us!

   At our regular exploratory class time, we got to go to a Valentine Dance in the gym. Students received a bag of popcorn. When they finished it, they danced away for about 45 minutes! Fabulous way to release some energy, especially with the cold snap we've had the last couple of days plus rain last night keeping us inside.
   We returned to our class and took turns putting Valentines in the now decorated boxes, went to lunch, returned to deliver more Valentines, and were called back to the gym for our annual teacher/student volleyball game. Finally, we returned to class and started our party! We had brownies, mini ice cream sandwiches, juice boxes (of course!), cookies, Cheetos, and about 8 different individually wrapped candies per student. (I made encouraged the children to take their candy home!)The children loved the penpal letters most of all! They seemed excited to write back and get more letters from our pals!
     I left school early enough to visit my chiropractor, go by Publix, then go to the minor emergency family medicine to get another antibiotic since I haven't shaken this crud yet. Please keep me in your prayers...I've had this since around Thanksgiving! :(

     Then I got home to open my Bloggy Valentine! Oh WOW! Denise @ Sunny Days in Second Grade sent me the most loveliest Valentine of all! Denise sent Ginger Peach White Tea~yum!, a domino Valentine pin, a necklace for St. Patty's Day, those sweet LOVE blocks (with XOXO on back), a sweet note, a heart lolly, and two cutie patootie clothespins. I love, love, love it all! Her note says her hubby talked her out of fancying up a stapler for me... :D That cracks me up! Actually, I don't have a fancied-up stapler...never even crossed my mind. ;) Thank you, Denise! I love your blog, and I'm not surprised how much I love everything you sent! :) The picture doesn't do it justice at all!

Liebster Award and Today...

Wow! Thanks, Ms. T. at Second Grade Math Maniacs for awarding me the Liebster Award.

I am honored! This award is given to blogs with 200 followers or fewer and is meant to give recognition and love to wonderful, upcoming blogs. Wow again! Thanks, Ms. T! I choose five blogs and pass on the Liebster Award. They are:
1. Mrs. Shepherd @ Shepherd's Shining Stars
2. Denise @ 2nd Grade Ponderings
3. Ms. Chrissy B @ Buzzing with Ms. B.
4. Sara @ Ms. Pagano's Place
5. Frau @ Half a Dollar in the Jar

Now to tell about my day! It was busy, busy, busy as usual in a second grade classroom. My student teacher helped soooo much, but we still didn't get it all finished! She's there Mondays and Wednesdays. I'm very thankful to have her with me! She just jumps right in wherever she thinks I need help and has been a Godsend! I still haven't gotten all my copies ready for tomorrow morning...even with her there which means I gotta get up and to school by 6:30 to get those done! I do have Conversation hearts ready for my children, as well as their penpal letters from the awesome Mrs. P! I can't wait to see their faces when the children get their penpal letters!

So, this evening my teamie (Leah) and I taped up Capri Sun boxes to make Valentine holders for our students. :) Pictures follow...yep, I got a little crazy with the camera. We had an assembly line going and it was amazing how quickly we knocked this out. We had a blast while we were doing it, too!

My brother brought me loads of paper when he worked at a printing company and I still have about ten rolls. It seems they have to recycle when the rolls get so close to the end because of the humidity of the paper. So, check with local printing companies. They seem happy enough to donate and the paper goes a loooooooonnnnnnggggg way! We use it for everything! Leah had considered spray painting the boxes red, but I remembered that if the temperature is below about 60 degrees, the paint won't dry. My brother found a shelf at the dump one year on Christmas Eve (he's always trying to save a dime!), went to Wal*mart and got spray paint (six cans), and tried to paint the shelf for me for that night when we had our family Christmas exchange. It took him four hours to get it dry with his spotlights on his carport, an extension cord, and his hair dryer. That is one of my favorite gifts of all time from him...the other being a grand piano keyring. I still want a baby grand! Oops...sorry, I digress again.

So, I cut the piece of the box out where the fingerholes were to make the slit for the Valentines to slide down into the box. Leah wrapped the boxes around, taped, and passed them for me to fold the ends down and tape. Our students will decorate their boxes tomorrow morning after reading their penpal letters and sharing them with their buddies. We have lots of cool Valentine activities to share, they have the Valentine Dance from 9:50 to 10:40, more fun in the classroom, cheerleaders and football players from the high school we feed into will be in the cafeteria at lunch, taking pictures of the students in groups of 4 or 5 buddies, a Volleyball game at 1:00, and our party begin at 1:30. Whew! Stay tuned tomorrow...I'll have pix of the decorated boxes and hopefully I'll find time to get my "You Know You're a Teacher" links ready for the linky party. ;)  Can't wait for you to see them all!

Sweet dreams!

How I Met My Hunny...Linky Party!

So, I'm breaking the rule...blogging twice in one day. Well, it seems like another day...I stayed up late, got up early, went to church, stayed for the new member luncheon (even though I'm not officially a new member-yet), finally got home to check e-mail, and gotta run again...an hour away to deliver Valentine/penpal letters that I didn't get in the mail soon enough...you know the life of a second grade teacher. The sweet children just had so much to do this week. I kept them hopping! Why do they sometimes HATE to write, and other times just write and write and write? It seems that when it's an assignment, they hate it. When it's writing notes back and forth, they love it. I think next time we'll write notes back and forth to explain the new information we're learning. Have any of you done that? Oh, I digress...
Ms. Chrissy B. @ Buzzing with Ms. B is having her first linky party!

How I Met My Hunny...er, Teddy Bear! The picture was taken about a year after we married, when he talked me into getting our first Chihuahua puppy, Cocoa! We'd been at the lake...see the windblown hair?

    A skating rink was built at the end of the highway upon which I live...five miles/minutes away. I loved skating and went every Friday and/or Saturday night (both if I could talk my parents into it). I met my hunny Teddy Bear there at age 15. I told my bff that I was going to marry him the first night I met him. Yep, followed through!
    Anyway, we dated on and off for 6 years. He dumped me once (right before Valentine's Day...after I'd made heart-shaped cakes and everything) so he could take out his secret love. She only wanted him to go and buy liquor for her (he was 18 at the time) and he quickly realized this. He called me back within five days, but OH NO! I would have none of that. I told him, of course I was planning to go out with other guys...that's what breaking up meant, right? He was free to do as he wanted, as was I! Oh wow! I cried for two weeks! :D It's funny now.
   During the time we were apart, he went and signed up to join the USNavy when he graduated from high school. He was gone three years. We dated on again, off again during that time as well. He always broke it off, never me. :*( I love, love, love him, you see.
   When he got out of the Navy, I decided I didn't need to see him...he'd broken my heart too many times. It took him about ten days to call me, just to wriggle back into my good graces. When the phone rang, M was there with me and wanted to answer the phone. She said, "Oh, it's a MAN!" I knew immediately it was my hunny Teddy Bear. He always had a deep voice. . .  still does. I had plans and told him he was welcome to go scooter pootin' around with my bff (different one from when I was 15) and me. She tried to leave and I threatened her if she did! ;)

     After many more stories, we finally married 2 months after my 21st birthday and 2 months before his 23rd birthday. We've been through lots and lots, but God has blessed us with good times that outweigh the bad. I am thankful for grace and love abounding in our marriage. One of the best blessings we received is our son. He was born on my Gramma's 84th birthday and we brought him home three days later, on our fifth wedding anniversary. I think of my hunny Teddy Bear as the "wind beneath my wings." I'm the extrovert, he's the introvert. He may not agree with all my crazy schemes, but most of the time he'll go along for the ride. He tells me I overextend myself (as does my mom), but he helps me out of the quandries in which I find myself. He builds cubbies and other fine wooden furniture for my classroom, he paints, he draws, he colors, he cuts laminating, ah, he's a jack of all trades!

    I could go on about him for days, but you get the picture. He welded for 30 years, but all the local welding jobs have gone to Mexico. Now he works part-time at Publix. Our son is an assistant manager and got his dad a job. My TB worries about making 1/3 his former salary and only working 12-20 hours weekly, but I remind him that he was understanding and supportive while I finished my M. Ed. and Ed. S. for just this purpose...to support us if his job went south. He cleans the house, does laundry, and even loads and unloads the dishwasher. Just lately, he's started cooking! He told me before he left for work just now that he has soooo much to do tomorrow. Being a house-hubby is hard work and he doesn't know how I worked, took care of our son, and did all these chores all those years! What a smooze! :D I love him even more today than I did when I was 15. <3

Songs for Teaching

  So...I've blogged about our Genres Journey and how much my students love to sing and learn. Today, as I was "pinning" on Pinterest, I saw some songs teaching friendly letter, verb, adjective, and pronouns. WOW!! I've gotta get "K" involved again and write songs about nouns, adverbs, and some other stuff.

     For now, here are the copies I made for my students' Poetry Journals...click on the link underneath the picture if you want it. Please leave a comment if you download. :) Thanks!

                                          Adjective Song,

                                       Friendly Letter,

                                              Pronouns, and

                                      Verbs in Action.
   They love to read/sing the poems and what an easy way to get the information stuck in their heads! Music...ahhhhhh...it soothes the soul! It is also something they already know, so it's a marvelous anchor activity! Hallelujah!

Fry Phrases

I just saw a post about Fry Phrases. I typed the 600 Fry phrases, copied them on bright yellow carstock with a couple of "KABOOM!"s for each 100, cut them into small strips (like french fries) and stored them in the little white cups with yellow lids that you get from "Go" cups...Oreos, Ritz cheese crackers (or peanut butter), etc. I bought extra packs of Oreos & Ritz cheese crackers to make more, put the cookies & crackers in freezer bags for hubby's enjoyment, cleaned out the containers, and labeled the top and bottom of with "Fry Phrases 1st 100" "Fry Phrases 2nd 100" etc. Here's a link to the first post...Fry Phrases ,but I never shared the document...so anyone who wanted could use it. Click First 600 Fry Phrases to get it.

My children love playing "Fry Phrases KABOOM!" It's just like any other "KABOOM!" Pull out a "fry" and read it, keep it unless you pull "KABOOM!" If that happens you lose your fries, but continue game until time is called or all fries have been read. I like this because the Fry phrases get harder with each increment of 100. So your children reading at early second grade level get something that is a little challenge...and can enjoy playing, too. According to Fry, the first 300 words contain 67% of what students read. WOW! I hope this helps your students. It really does help mine. My lowest reader told me Friday that the Fry phrases help and he loves to play! :)

Today and Currently February

Anyone else have a problem with students wanting to cram everything and I mean EVERYTHING! into their desks? Well, today Miss L. was ripping and tearing everything she took out of her desk. I told her, "No ma'am! You leave that on top of your desk for me to check." She left quite a bit...she also left a little bit somewhere else...wanna guess? Take a look...

Of course I sent these pix to her daddy...but it sort of got me tickled, you know? She's a cutie patootie, spunky little redhead and I love her dearly! I just can't quite believe she did this with papers that had her NAME on them. She's too smart to do that... (sigh).  

Anyone wanna 'splain to me how to do this without having to convert it to a picture? I feel so duhhhhh...



Drowning?

I found this surfing the web the other day and it really speaks to me. I just wanted to share. I'm so glad Jesus is my lifeguard. I just wish I didn't get caught up in the moment and forget to lean on Him. Here's praying that we all remember to "lean on Jesus!" Enjoy DC Talk...they're one of my favs! :)

Fractions again...

Have you had enough fractions yet? No? Well, okie dokie! Here is one more fraction recording sheet to reinforce denominator using Unifix cubes. I think everyone has Unifix cubes or can borrow some for a week. :)

Unifix Cube Fractions

More Fractions...

Hello, Bloggy Friends!

I am preparing for my CLASS KEYS observation on Thursday. My teamie and I have created some stuff together.

I got out the little yellow and purple boxes I got at Staples in August. I used them for place value dice so they wouldn't go all over the floor when I taught place value. The students loved those little boxes, so we found some colored overhead counters I'd bought a while back and made colored sets for fractions in those little clear boxes. Leah had 10 as did I. We wrote letters on the bottom of the boxes so we put a place for the letter on the recording sheet. The children will count the counters (no pun intended...well, maybe just a little!), then write two fractions to represent the two colors. Check out the picture for the example.

This box has red and blue counters.

Fraction Box Sets Recording Sheet

She has a set of play farm animals, so she decided to use them to help the children practice making fractions of sets, too. That seems harder for them than fractions of a whole. They are also struggling with denominator. Instead of putting 1/4 of the animals are pigs, they put 1/3 because there are three sheep and one pig. Any of you have students who do that? Anywho, she decided to use her farm animals that way and of course I had to make a recording sheet for it. :D That's how we roll...we bounce ideas off on another, tweak them and make them better, and I get on the 'puter (as Monica said when she was 3) and roll 'em out. I checked out the farm animal counters at Lakeshore. A tub of them was $29.99. I think those from the Dollar Tree will do fine, thank you very much!
 

                         Farm Animal Fractions

Please download if you can use this...and please leave a comment if you do. Thanks for visitin' my blog!

TAG! You're It!

Amy over at The Resource(ful) Room! tagged me.

1. You must post the rules.
2. Post 12 fun facts about yourself on the blog post.
3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create 12 new questions for the people you tagged.
4. Tag 12 people and link them on your post.
5. Let them know you've tagged them!

12 Fun Facts about me...

1. I graduated Salutatorian from high school...missed Valedictorian by 1/5 (yep, one-fifth!) point.
2. I was talked into entering a beauty contest by my two best friends in seventh grade. I won, BBF #1 won first runner-up, BBF#2 won second runner-up. :)
3. I have been married 28 years June 2012.
4. My darling hubby and I brought our bouncing baby boy home from the hospital on our fifth anniversary! He is our fabulous 22-year-old son who is an assistant manager at Publix and got darling hubby a part-time job (after his welding job was sold out to Mexico...again!).
5. We have three dogs...ever heard of a three dog night? It's that every night at our house!
6. I am now in my sixth year teaching second grade.
7. I have taught PreK, K, first, second, third, and fourth grades as well as third through fifth graders in Art and adults working towards GED totalling 23 years!
8. I love to read and write. I have three children's books on the back burner...can't wait to get at least one published!
9. Walking our doggies in the woods is a favorite form of exercise for darling hubby, son, and me.
10. The school where I teach earned the Bronze Award last year in the state of Georgia for 95% meeting and exceeding on the CRCT! Whoop!Whoop!
11. I bought my friend's $49,000.00 Cadillac (she was going to trade it in for $3,000.) for $3500. It is an awesome car and I was so thankful to have it to drive to Texas when my uncle died and we went to his funeral. 
12. I live next door to my parents and 1/2 mile from my brother. I thank God every day for the days I have with my family..parents, hubby & son, brother & his family, and mother-in-love.

Questions from Amy 1 - What's your favorite season? Spring is my favorite because everything seems so positive...flowers blooming, vacation looming...
2 - What's your favorite book? The Bible is my all-time favorite...so much love there! My favorite work of fiction is Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. She's awesome! I also love the Atonement Child.

3 - What's your favorite TV show? I'd have to say CSI Miami.

4 - How do you celebrate March is reading month? We read all day on March 2 (if it's a school day) or the closest day to it. We also celebrate our reading achievements with our AR program.

5 - Do you live close to your school (work)? I travel about 10 minutes over the river and through the woods to get to school.

6 - What's your favorite thing to teach? My favorite thing to teach is writing. I love the six traits...recently bought the Trait Crate from Scholastic. It's awesome! Songs for the traits which I copied and shared with my little friends for their poetry notebooks. They love singing together to learn information.

7 - How do you track student progress? Our EIP teachers do Probe and Maze to track fluency and comprehension. I use the AR program as well as Guided Reading. I am loving me some Second Grade Word Work by Hope King at 2nd Grade Shenanigans . It's awesome for tracking and teaching spelling and reading. Parents are loving the pretest and the two spelling test options and I'm loving being able to see exactly where my little readers are needing remediation. My school/county is all about pre/post tests for Math.

8 - How do you use technology in the classroom? I have a computer with four stations as well as a Promethean board. I'd love to have some MP3 players ... maybe someday.

9 - Do you use Accelerated Reader? YES! How do you reward kids for points if you do? My students receive a new pencil of their choice from my collection and a ring pop to eat in class when they earn their first five points. For each ten point milestone, they get something out of my huge treasure chest (it's an old trunk). I have a friend who works at the General Dollar who calls me when things go on clearance. I can get some stuff for $0.05. They also donate to me sometimes. :) My school also has AR celebrations each quarter. The first and third quarters are rather low-key. The end of first semester is a grade level planned activity. We had game rotations. The children LOVED it. The grand finale comes in May. We have a Luau with the blow-up slides and bounce houses, water games, loads of fun stuff to do, and snowcones and snacks. It's an all day event!

10 - Do you play sports? what? My only sport currently is blogging! ;) I walk my dogs...

11 - How much time do you spend doing your hair each morning? That's a day by day thing for me. On Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, I probably spend 10 minutes with drying and styling. My hair is naturally very straight. Drying it with a little styling gel makes it lie down quickly. Wednesday and Friday are dress down days, so it's a baseball cap for me on warm days. On cool days, I have an assortment of hats from which I choose an appropriately matching one.

12 - Whats your favorite memory from high school? WOW! I suppose my favorite memory from high school would be winning Student Government President, being chosen STAR student for having the highest SAT scores in my class, or graduating Salutatorian and receiving 2 scholarships for college.
People I'm Tagging...

1. Becky at 2nd Grade Rocks!

2. Hope at 2nd Grade Shenanigans

3. Fern at Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas

4. Jess at Rambling about Reading

5. Mary at Pitner's Potpourri

6. Heather at Heather's Heart

7. Kelli at Castles and Crayons

8. K. Mo at Falmingo Fabulous

9. Ginger at Ginger Snaps

10. Erin at Kleinspiration

11. Kim at Konecny's Star Talk

12. Kristen at Ladybug's Teacher Files

Questions for those I've tagged...

1. How did you decide to become a teacher?

2. Did you marry your high school sweetheart?

3. Where would you choose to retire and why?

4. What is your favorite cook-at-home meal?

5. Do you have a teacher "bestie" with whom you plan? Tell about him/her if so.

6. What is your pet peeve?

7. Does your team share everything or do you have some "stingy" teamies?

8. What is one of the funniest stories you can tell about your teaching experiences?

9. Have you ever run into your garage door? (I personally--not my car--did this last week one morning before school and slammed myself to the ground...OUCH!)

10. Do you have pets? What kind and how many?

11. Are you an early bird or a night owl?

12. Where is the most exotic place you've ever been?

Fraction Table

Hello Fabulous Friends!

We are working on fractions. I made a fraction table for my students to use as an example. I am going to make copies, laminate, and use this as a Math Journal station. I may regret this and wish I'd just handed them a copy to complete, but creating the product should help them better understand all these things about fractions, don't you think? My buddy/teamie, Leah, suggested adding numerator and denominator. Please help me out by sharing your opinion...

I hope someone can use this.

Click here for your copy...Create a Fraction Table .

Now I'm off to visit with my Auntie Nell before she heads back to Texas tomorrow morning.

Solid Shape Robots

One of my teamies has built robots for the past two years to help her students learn their shapes. Students brought in boxes, paper towel holders, tissue holders, water bottles, anything they thought they might like to use to build their robots. So...this year I decided to try it. Here's some advice: ask an unsuspecting  a helpful parent to come do this! Plan to take the entire afternoon! The children love it. Here's what we did...

Students had to plan their robot with drawings and explanations in their Math journals. They brought all their parts to the sucker who planned this me. We ended up taking three days to complete the hot glue part of our robots. The children added yarn for hair, small boxes for purses, construction paper parts, and even googly eyes! One child in my teamie's class even put a heart inside the box her robot's body. Our principal planned to come down to help out in our second grade classes for the day. Yep! She helped glue robots...and loved it!

Students counted the faces, edges, and vertices on their robots with buddies to extend the learning. :)

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! ;) 

a blog all about books

I am thrilled to be reading all about what others are reading and enjoying! Reading is such a favorite, relaxing pasttime for me! Erika at the Honey Bunch started this blog for everyone's enjoyment. Check it out!

Snow Day!

Mary at Pitner's Potpourri is having a Snow Day Linky Party and a Happy New Year Amazon card giveaway. Check her out. Here's a link to my Snowmen---Building, Painting, Globbing post. I show the pictures below to my students, we discuss their snowmen (if they built any), and then go on to create our own snowmen in class so they have many things to include in their writing!

I love, love, love snow! I always pray that everyone is warm, has shelter, and food. Then...it's out into the snow I go to party! I love, love, love to build snowmen snow people! Check these out... ;)

I made the Red Hatter Snowlady pictured below with charcoal, scarf, sticks, and mittens from a Snowman kit given to me for Christmas in 2008 by a third grade student. His younger brother is now in my second grade class. :) I added a tiny carrot, the red hat, and Luden's cough drops (her red mouth).

This Snowlady (below) was about 5'8" tall. She had leis from our Luau celebration as hair, tangerines cut in half for her mouth, a rose for her nose, the same scarf as my Red Hatter Snowlady, my clown glasses to shade her eyes, a little Valentine basket as her purse, and a round tablecloth as her "Doo Rag." :) While I built her, my hubby sat on the porch and made fun of me rolling snowballs. My son had gone to visit a friend in Miami so I had no help. He usually lifts. It was a job getting her head on! 

 

My niece and my brother built this Snow Cowgirl on my brother's truck. I hiked through the woods to their house to get to see her. Her nose was a Dorito chip. Her mouth was a red hairband, and notice the Mardi Gras beads, too!

This is my little Iceman. We had icy snow and it was really hard to form. So, in order to have a picture (How tall does he look?), I made an iceman. The flag is one of those small flags you wave at the Fourth of July. His nose is the smallest of carrots I had, and his eyes are pea gravel. His mouth is a broken piece of gold decoration off my Christmas tree. When I showed this picture to my students, they thought he was as tall as they are...or taller! :)

I hope that we have some snow this year that packs well so I can build a snow family. I want to build a snow family including a snow dog and a snowman like this...

Don't you just love it? I would not have thought of that, but I will definitely build one like it! :)

I also saw a friend's snowfamily last year that had a snow princess. I wanna build one of those, too! Can you think of some other snowpeople to suggest? I'm always open for suggestions...maybe a hula snowgirl, a snowbaby.... Ideas, please! ;)