Teacher Week-Five Fun Facts About Me!

     Yay! It's teacher week. I look forward to reading all about everyone during teacher week each year. Without further adieu, here's five fun facts about me.

1. My faith and my family are the most important things to me. We have busy soaking up all the time we can with my Grandpa and brother while they are in town.

2. This is my eleventh year teaching. I'm not sure how that can be since it feels like I graduated with my certification yesterday, but teaching is my passion and I love it more and more each year.

3. I love to read! My friend and co-worker, Krissi Dallas, is writing this amazing series of book called The Phantom Island series. They are young adult fiction, and a good, clean, fun read. I just love them.! She currently has four published, and is writing the fifth one now. They are great if you're looking for fun, easy read. You can purchase them on Amazon.

4. My life verse is I Thessalonians 5:16-18.

"Rejoice always;

Pray continually.

Give thanks in all circumstances; 

for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus."

5. I love Alabama Crimson Tide football! I'm so glad football season starts this weekend! Roll Tide!

Head on over to BlogHoppin to link up and read everyone's fun facts. 

Characters Have Feelings! and a Freebie

     Last week we focused on characters, their feelings, and how story setting affected their feelings. On Monday and Tuesday, we read two different stories about the beginning of school. We charted the characters, setting, and feelings for both stories as a class. On Monday I modeled. On Tuesday I modeled the first one, and then allowed students to to tell me the rest and support with evidence from the text.

     On Wednesday we read Pirates Go To School again. Then we created an anchor chart about character feelings and discussed examples from the book to add as our chart example. Then students recorded characters, feelings, and setting from the book.

     You can grab this freebie here. The students did really well with this activity independently. 

Peek at my Week 8-31-15

     This week, we are working on retelling the beginning, middle, and end of stories in reading. During writing, we are still working on procedures, and will be writing about something we have done with a friend or family member. In grammar we will be learning about commands and exclamations, and reviewing capitalizing the first word of the sentence, and putting punctuation at the end. I will also continue introducing literacy station activities and pulling students individually for DRAs. In social studies, we will learn about rural, urban, and suburban communities and using a compass rose. Our character focus is kindness. We will create an anchor chart with examples of kindness.

     You can download the PDF here. I made sure it was set to anyone with the link can view. :-)

Resources I'm using:

Writing Through the Year Unit 1

School is Cool! Literacy Stations

Character Traits: Kindness

Head over to DeeDee's to link up and view other lesson plans. 

Classroom Rules

     We spent our Social Studies time the first week of school focusing on our classroom rules. On the first day, we introduced the rules. We talked about the rules contract they would discuss with their parents and sign for homework that night. We also sorted situations by whether or not students were following the rules and began working on our classroom rules book.

     On Thursday we sorted situations by the rule students were following. They were really into this! They got a little heated when they were explaining their reasoning. We continued working on our classroom rules book.

      On Friday we had a fill in the blank quiz about our rules. Then we finished up rules book. 

     These activities are from my Classroom Rules Pack. 

Back to School with Pirates

     During the first week of school, our reading and writing activities centered around the book, Pirates Go To School by Corinne Demas. All of my students were super pumped about the pirate book!

     On the first day, we read the story and focused on the Pirates' character traits. I modeled identifying the traits and using evidence from the text to confirm the character traits. Then we charted  their character traits and the students had to support their answers with evidence from the text. I teach two classes, so I recorded one set of answers on one color sticky notes and the other classes' answers on different color sticky notes.

     

     Then we sorted some pirate and school words by the number of syllables in each word. 

     On Thursday, we read Pirates Go To School again. This time we focused on the characters and setting. As we read, we identified the characters and the setting. Then we created an anchor chart and sorted pictures as an example of characters or setting.

     We also put pirate and school words in alphabetical order. 

The syllable sort and abc order activities will be added to a literacy station once we begin stations.

     We also worked on writing stories about what would happen if pirates were in our class. On Friday, we made pirates to go with our writing. The pirate patterns are from Rachel Lamb. You can get them here. 

      You can get my pirate activities in my store. 

      It was a successful first week of school!

Peek At My Week 8-24-15

     It's my first full week of school this week, so we're hitting the ground running. This week I'll begin introducing station activities-one a day until I feel we have enough to begin stations. I'm also going to begin DRA testing this week, so I can create my reading groups.

     It's such a blessing to have had both of these classes last year. We did a quick review of procedures, and things are running smoothly.

      You can download the pdf here.

Resources I'm using this week:

Writing Through The Year Unit 1

School is Cool! Literacy Stations

Head over to DeeDee's link up and view other lesson plans.

First Day of School

     Yesterday was mine and Logan's first day of school! I can't believe my baby is in 4th grade! This sweet boy told me yesterday that he wants to be a preacher when he grows up. Bless his heart!

     I'm blessed this year to have two of the classes I taught last year. There is only one new scholar in each class. They were reminding each other of our procedures, so I didn't have to do very much with procedures at all.

     In English, we read Pirates Go To School by Corinne Demas. We focused on identifying character traits of the pirates. I modeled this for them as we read. Then afterward, they brainstormed character traits of the pirates and defended their answers with evidence from the story. We sorted some pirate and school words by the number of syllables. Then we brainstormed ideas for what if pirates were in our class. These activities can be found in my Pirates Go To School unit.

     In Social Studies, we focused on our class rules. We reviewed each rule and discussed a couple of examples of each. Then I had situation cards that we sorted as the students were following the rules or they weren't following the rules. Finally, they began working on their classroom rules book where they filled in the missing word for each rule, illustrated an example of the rule, and wrote a sentence about their example. These activities are from my Classroom Rules Pack.

     Then I repeated theses activities in the afternoon with my other class. 

     Today was my baby's first day of kindergarten! I'm not sure how we got to this point with this guy either. He's the last one I'll send to kindergarten. It was a hard day for this momma, but an awesome day (his words) for him! Of course, this crazy boy wants to be Batman when he grows up! 

    Our school year is off to great start!

Back to School Teacher Gift Freebie and TpT Sale

     Because we are in a university model of education school, my boys have multiple teachers. They change classes starting in first grade. Because we have multiple teachers, we just do a little gift to show our new teachers some love. Each teacher is getting a cute pen and sticky note pad. The pens are from Dollar Tree and the sticky notes are from Target Dollar Spot.

     You can download the tags here.

     Teachers Pay Teachers is hosting a one day More Love for Back to School sale tomorrow, Wednesday, August 19th. My entire store will be 20%. Use the code MORE15 to receive an additional 8% off. I know I have my eye on a couple of resources.

Happy Shopping!!!

Peek at my Week-Back to School

     The first week of school has finally arrived! We have teacher inservice and meet the teacher on Monday. Then on Tuesday we have the day to use at our discretion. We can stay home or come in and work. Finally on Wednesday, the little darlings arrive! I am super excited because I will have two of my classes from last year.

     I teacher second grade English Language Arts and Social Studies in a university model of education school. We are a K-11th grade school this year. Next year, we will add 12th. We have two classes in each grade level. This year first though fourth grades will have all four core classes each day, so I'm going back to teaching five days a week after three years of teaching a Tuesday/Thursday only schedule. It's going to be an adjustment for our family, but I am so excited! I will teach 2nd grade ELA and SS in the morning to the B class, and then repeat the lessons in the afternoon for the A class. When the other class is not with me, they are with the math/science teacher. Our elementary students have PE two days a week, music two days a week, and art one day a week. We have a shorter school day; our students have classes from 8:30am until 1:50pm. Once I get my schedule worked out in practice and not just theory, I'll share that with you too.

      On to my plans. You can download the PDF here.

Resources for this week:

Pirates Go To School

Classroom Rules Pack


     Head over to DeeDee's to check out more lesson plans!

Back to School Resources and Sale

      Today begins the Teachers Pay Teachers two day Back to School sale! Here are some resources in my shop that are perfect for back to school.

     My classroom rules pack has rules posters in two sizes. It also have a couple of sorts to help your students understand what following these rules practically looks like. There is a rules contract to be taken home and signed by the teacher, student, and parent. There are also two versions (younger and older) of the Classroom Rules book for students to complete.

     My Pirates Go To School unit has reading, writing, and word work activities that are perfect for the first few days of school. The reading activities focus character traits, setting, and feelings. The word work activities include abc order and syllables. The word work activities are perfect to move into a literacy station. The writing is If pirates were in my class. These activities go with the book Pirates Go To School by Corinne Demas.

     Finally my School is Cool! literacy stations is filled with activities perfect for the beginning of the year and are a review of skills from first grade, but also address second grade TEKS. These stations come in a full color, partial color, and black and white version.

     You can save up to 28% off in my store with the code BTS15. 

Happy Shopping!!!

Currently August

I'm linking up with Farley for Currently August.

     I'm watching Grown Ups 2 with my hubby. These movies always make me laugh.

     Today was my older son, Logan's 9th birthday. We played and swam.  We had our special birthday breakfast and chocolate chip cookie cupcakes. He declared it a great day!

     I'm thinking about things back to school all the time. I mean all the time. Like sit up in the middle of night because I randomly thought of something school related all the time.

     I have ten glorious days of summer vacation left, and I'm going to enjoy each and every one of them.

      I need to get my classroom set up. It's the first time in three years I will have a classroom to myself. I can't decided if I'll try to set up my room early or not.

     I'm planning on handing out some random treats to some of my favorite teacher peeps the first week of school. I'm thinking notes, cute supplies, homemade treats, etc.

     Head over to Farley's blog and link up to share your currently.