Sorting Animal Groups with Animal Crackers

While at a discount grocery store last night, I was thinking about creative and fun ways to make our upcoming Animal unit fun for the kids. My class LOVES Science and they enjoyed growing lima bean seeds in a ziplock baggy. If it is hands-on, they get so excited (also they love the Smartboard)!

So, I decided besides putting them into groups and sorting photos of animals, they will sort animal crackers as well as discussing what traits each animal has that helps them stay alive in the wild. When finished, they will have a yummy treat!

IStation

This year, our school introduced a computer Reading program that assesses and then gives suggestions/lessons on how to re-mediate each student who has areas of weakness like in comprehension, text fluency, etc. I am LOVING this program! It validated everything that I have seen so far in reading weaknesses of a few students!

I plan on teaching these suggestions lessons with ready-made handouts/practice sheets during small group time on Tuesdays.

The kids are enjoying their time on IStation because they think they are playing games and don't realize that they are learning!

First Week Summary

First of all, I apologize for leaving the blog for 2 weeks. I contracted an awful parasite and I was mostly home-bound the week before school started and barely made it through teacher in-service. It was so not pleasant!

Slowly but surely I am gaining strength. The first week of school was last week and it went well despite the teacher! I have 16 students who are very eager to learn and now I get the wonderful responsibility of creating exciting and authentic lessons for them!

Stay tuned for more ideas, tips, and lessons!!

DONE!

I have a few small projects I need to do, but the majority is finished! I spent most of the day in my classroom. It feels great to be finished! Now, I need to finish lesson plan, get organized for Open House, and make copies!! School starts in one week!

Bulletin Board - Displaying Student Work

I am going to display awesome work on this bulletin board.

Birthday Chart

I am trying something different this year with my birthday chart. I have such few birthdays and several months there are no birthdays at all so we will celebrate it on the pocket chart whenever we have a birthday.

Hallway

Students place their lunchboxes on the shelf and use the hooks for backpacks and coats. This is in our second grade hallway.

Trying not to stress

This week, our classroom carpet was cleaned and the hallways are being stripped and waxed. This means NO ONE can work in the classrooms! I am so hoping to get in by Friday since next Wednesday is when Teacher Inservice begins. Not to mention that Back to School Night is next Thursday (August 18th).

So, while I cannot do anything but look at the photo above, I am working on my Back to School packet, lesson planner, and new classroom website. If anyone has a Google website with tips of the trade, please let me know!! Thanks!

Two weeks from today....

school will begin! Yes, school will start bright and early on Monday, August 22nd! This week, I will only be able to visit my classroom maybe once due to carpet cleaning and hallway floor waxing. Tomorrow, I have CPR training and I should be able to get into my classroom on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday are hallway waxing days. Today and tomorrow are carpet cleaning days. Needless to say, it's a good thing that I got all my laminating done and have it at home with me since working in my classroom is not an option!!

I am also experimenting with a Question of the Day first thing in the morning with student involvement that will culminate with a graphing activity on the Smart board.
I also doing Daily Math and Language each morning and we check our work via the Smart board.

This week, I plan on finalizing my lesson plan format with DI inserts to make it so much easier to modify my lessons for those who are advanced or below level.

Making Progress

Yesterday, I went to the teacher store to get lots of tags for students names and a few other necessities and then off to the classroom I went! More progress was made. I took a few pics and will post them later today with more progress. When my classroom is finished, I will post the final pics of my classroom layout.

With all the de-cluttering and organizing, it has given my classroom more space! Yay!

Today, I am going to tackle my tall teacher shelf, get Back to School Night packets ready and copied as well as other things for that night. If I have time, I will create more Smartboard calendars and lessons.

I have enjoyed visiting fabulous teacher sites who give free resources. If you would like these sites, just let me know!

Getting 'er done!

Today, I went to my classroom for about 3 hours and besides lots of talking, I did accomplish a BIG goal: organizing and cleaning out my teacher desk! Honestly, I should do this every year, but haven't had the time. This year, I made the time and it was well worth it. Now I am not embarrassed if someone opens one of my four drawers. I love organization!

On the agenda for this week:

*GAP (Get Acquainted Party)at a skating place to meet all 2nd graders
*Organize teacher shelf
*dust student library section
*vacuum
* put up hallway decorations
* write 16 names on practically everything
*work on Smartboard files

This is just the short list!!

Making space

I would never show anyone my cabinets let alone take a picture. However, I have been motivated by an awesome teacher blog I stumbled upon and it has motivated me to get my cabinets organized and de-cluttered. In this process, I also re-arranged and moved shelves which created more space! Gotta love more space in the classroom!

De-cluttering and Organizing

Back to School Sales

While shopping for my own children, I found the Target dollar bins very intriguing. Last year, I bought the small pocket charts and they have worked out great in my classroom. Also, I bought the gradebook for a dollar. The only negative thing I found with the gradebook was the it wasn't durable for the entire school year. Basically, my started to fall apart around late April/early May. Target has them again, but they look a bit more durable. For a buck, who can resist?! We have our grades in an online system, however, we have to keep a paper file just in case.

Alas, I am thinking of how I want to set up my room for the new year. At the beginning of the previous year, I had a utility cart holding my laptop and project/monitor for the Smartboard. Now the projector is mounted to the ceiling, I have a LOT more room. Of course, I really need to see how many students I will have before finalizing the design.

I love created classroom desk arrangements!! Stay tuned to see pics of my classroom for the new year.

Teacher Networking

Do you use Twitter? I have found Twitter great for networking with fellow teachers all over the world.

If you would like to follow me on Twitter, I can be found as TeacherJen.

Please send a note as to why you want to follow me as I screen who follows me! Thanks!

I also joined a teacher community:

http://www.the21stcenturyteacher.com/

Great site!

Check out the flashcard generator. It is free!

http://www.flashcardmachine.com/

Class Webpages

Do you have a class webpage? If so, would you be willing to share it with me? Please leave a comment and I will link it with a new tab I am creating for teacher webpage sharing. Thanks!

I will be the first to share. Here is my class webpage:

http://www.teacherweb.com/OH/CincinnatiChristianElementarySchool/MrsSchmidtsShiningStars/apt1.aspx

The blog is back!!!

Summer is here and I have quite a few ideas for the blog! I also wanted to let you know of a FREE webinar that TeqSmart is offereing for Smartboard training. It is set for Thursday, July 7th and I am attending as well.

Go to:

http://www.teq.com/webinar-registration

Please leave any comments for ideas that you would like for me to discuss on this blog!