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Showing posts from April, 2012

Animal Research and Giant Tongues

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My 2nd graders just completed their Animal Research Projects as our expository writing project this quarter.  They turned out so cute!!  We pulled a lot of the ideas from the "Not Your Average Animal Research Paper" unit from Lesson Plan SOS .  To begin, we pulled *tons* of 2nd grade appropriate books about animals from the school library.  {Love my Media Specialist - she was so a-maz-ing-ly helpful during this process!!  I came back to class with about 50 different interesting animals for the kids to choose from!}  The kids did a gallery walk with the books, previewing lots of interesting texts to select the animal they would like to learn more about.  Since I had such a wide array of animals, we didn't have many issues; I had 2 girls who both wanted giraffes, but one of them decided to study Harp Seals instead. Anywhoo, then the modeling began.  As a class, we studied the Giant Anteater using this book .   I modeled how to use non-fiction text features, like headi

Gratitude

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Gratitude. I take a moment every now and then to remember how fortunate I am to have such a fabulous family who drop everything to help, an amazing hubby who cooks (especially when I'm tired!) and makes me laugh every day, and my amazing children, whose hugs and kisses make my day! I adore my school, my teammates, and the really special group of kiddos in my class this year.  With only 27 school days left, I've started to dread them leaving!  (Then I remind myself that I gave someone 18 redirections in a very short amount of time, and I start to feel a bit better...)  I have gratitude that I'm able to share my experiences in teaching with others through the wide array of resources available.  Thank you for reading my little blog; it means so much to me.  (Not as much as it means to my hubby, tho!  He's grateful there's someone for me to share all of my school "ideas" with, too!!)  ;) What are you grateful for? --------------------------------

Science Resources, Reading Response, & the Weekend!

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Yay!  The weekend is here!  So much fun!  My hubby and I took the kiddos to the grand opening of the new Nature Research Center, a new wing of the NC Museum of Natural Sciences .  It was amazing.  If you're close to Raleigh, I recommend going. We saw a scientist Skype with Jane Goodall about Chimpanzees. We also saw mosquito larvae eating under a microscope, and explored the amazing facility.  One of my butter-beans played a game where he was a raindrop moving through the water cycle in the NASA sky & atmosphere lab.  My other butter-bean was impressed by the fossil excavation lab, where she was able to vote for the name of an unnamed dinosaur. A museum volunteer passed along a resource for teachers: Elementary Globe .  5 science based storybooks and 15 classroom learning activities for students in grades K-4, including weather, water, seasons, and soils.  You can order the books (which is not free), or download as PDFs and print or project your own.  They also have  res

Morning Meetings and Positive Behavior

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I am going to find time in my day to have a Morning Meeting again.  I started strong at the beginning of the year, and we always have them for a bit when I track back in, but they fall by the wayside as I've been strapped for time in Math instruction.  I'm a huge believer in the Responsive Classroom model; if you're looking for more information, check out these links... Click here for an overview of Morning Meetings , and here's a quick video on a quick and easy greeting: Do you use Morning Meetings in your classroom?  What are your favorite parts?  How effective is it in your classroom? Keeping with the theme of classroom management, I have a freebie for you!   33 Reasonable Rewards .  Click here to download from Google Docs.  :) Thanks for reading, and for your comments. Happy Wednesday! ~Jen

Reading Response - 21 Free Prompts

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What a busy weekend so far!  I thought I'd take a couple minutes to share with y'all while recovering from going out to watch the hubby play guitar (I'm no Spring Chicken anymore; I got home at 4:00 this morning, and have been in a zombie-like state all day!)  For the record, if you're out till 4AM, and you have 2 young kiddos, the next day is a wee bit demanding.  Not recommended unless you have an au-pair or nanny. I'm already planning ways to get my 2nd graders ready for the transition to 3rd grade.  Since I'm in a year round school, there isn't an entire summer between grades.  In June, they are 2nd graders.  4 weeks later, in July, they come back as 3rd graders.  I thought I'd work on their responses to reading, so I created a set of task cards full of prompts to use when responding to reading.  A couple of my green beans just need me to give them the list, model it once, and they'll do great.  Most of the class will require a couple weeks o

Monsters and Mystery Words

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I have some terrific supportive parents in my class this year!  One of my parents sent in a *huge* box of envelopes, along with a craft suggestion: Monster bookmarks that eat your page!  Love it!  Here's the examples my student brought in from home: Kisses! Scary Teeth! Here's what we did: 1. Seal the envelope closed.   2. Cut the corners off, making sure each corner is big enough to decorate. Cut the corners Make 4 per envelope  3. Use a contrasting color paper to create teeth, eyes, etc. We traded the scraps from our envelopes to make teeth!   4. Get out of their way!  The kids had such great ideas! We scrounged around in the recycling bin for small scraps, too! adding teeth I was informed that this one is a ninja Sorry for the glare - they were in a ziplock bag to go home Variety of fangs and teeth 5. Remind them to use them on a book!  :)  We did figure out that they make cool finger puppets, too.  Just   sayin'.

Team Teaching and Currently...

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I need advice.  To team teach or not to team teach?  Here's the background...  {see how I'm developing your schema?}   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you're just here for Farley's Currently , feel free to skip to the bottom of the post.  No feelings hurt here!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I work with an amazing teacher, Casey , and she loves to teach Math.  I am happiest teaching Reading.  We've talked for 2 years about team teaching, and we're seriously talking about team teaching with Reading and Math.  We already do this with Science and Social Studies, but it's really just that I teach the science unit 2 times, once with my class, once with her class.  If we team teach Reading and Math, I would be responsible for teaching Reading twice daily, Writing, and Science.  She would teach Math twice daily, Writing, and Soci