Hello Mrs Sykes

Here's another quick round up (in no particular order) of some Amazing Resources for classrooms available online.  Best part of all?  They are all free!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If your class is stuck indoors, no worries!  Hop on over to Adventure to Fitness , and register for a free teacher account.  Mr. Marc guides the class through a dynamic and fun adventure to keep fit while exploring the arctic, the pyramids, or the jungle.  New episodes are added often, and teacher guides are available for each episode.   Be swift, be safe, be adventurers! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ With all of the focus in Common Core on nonfiction text, it can be a challenge to find engaging, age-appropriate materials.   National Geographic Young Explorers has put all of their past issues online for free, and students can explore the articles or even have the articles read to them!   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please welcome Michele from Miss Nelson's Got the Camera .  Her blog is so cute, with many helpful posts.  Be sure to check her out! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hi! I'm Michele from Miss Nelson's Got the Camera . I’m glad to be guest blogging here today. Thank you Jen for having me. Today I’m going to share some tips for motivating students and using incentives to increase a desired behavior.   I've taught for 10 years so over the years, I've had a chance to add tools and tricks to my teaching bag. I use many different tricks and tools and some years I change it up depending on my students. If you don’t agree with candy or treasure box items you could always use stickers, stamps, extra recess, free reading time, etc. Brownie Points- This is a sweet way to get kids motivated to walking quietly on campus, being polite in the lunchroom and being on their best behavior at specials. This system is used whole group for posit

Don't judge, but the song Summer Nights is stuck in my head today.   I've loved this song for ages, even though I had to break it off temporarily after working in a tex-mex restaurant that had karaoke 4 nights a week... I heard Friends in Low Places and Summer Nights sung off key so many times I lost count.    I'm loving being tracked out, but July is coming up fast... too fast. Confession time - look away, because this is just too embarrassing... I went to school this morning.  {gasp!}  I know; it's a perfectly good Sunday morning, and I went in for an hour to clean out my mailbox and see if my classroom is still as clean as I left it.  (There were rumors about a carpet-cleaning crew coming in and moving all of the furniture, but it looked ok.  Maybe they forgot to clean my carpets??)  Anywho, my room still looks intact, I tracked down my Donor's Choose package before it ended up being distributed to another class, and I watered my plants.  It felt good.  

I'm at the beach this week, but I thought I'd bring you a quick round up (in no particular order) of some Amazing Resources for Reading I found online.  Best part of all?  They are all free!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project has their Reading Assessments online! Reading Assessments You can download and print assessments to determine reading level (GR levels A-Z), Letter/Sound identification, and Concepts About Print.  I'll use this for those kiddos who hang out on a level for so long that they can read the book from our AlphaKids kit, even though they are not proficient at that level.  They also have writing assessments available. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Author Mary Pope Osborne's Teacher Resource Center : Magic Tree House Teacher Resources  My second graders love Magic Tree House books, and here are teaching guides for

I'm in full-fledged summer track out mode - making friends with the pool, my local thrift stores, trashy mysteries, and afternoon naps.  Believe me when I say that very few projects are getting finished at this moment...  My ADD is in full swing.  It's taken several  many hours to get this far in this post, because I keep starting something else, like packing to go here... {source} taking these guys to the pool... and assorted other things, like make dinner, clean up, make s'mores over a campfire in our backyard {so fun!  hubby's idea!!} Anywhoooo... I thought I'd share some random bits of awesome I found while websurfing: Genre poster - love the way they highlight the similarities of different genres! http://mrsteacher.org/?p=314 PluckyMomo has a fabulous Summer of Fun activity pack that I might use with my own kiddos - {source} Read Tennessee has a bunch of CCSS resources for Pre-K-3rd grades... Read Tennessee And just for giggles.

Several people have asked about the year round school schedule and how it works...  Here's my explanation:  {Please note: the dates are old - that's because this is an old post.  Enjoy!} FAQs About Year-Round Schools from a Teacher It can be super-duper confusing, so let's start with the calendar.  Here's the multi-track year-round calendar from my district for 2011-2012: A Sample from 2011-2012.  It still works similarly. I'm on track 1, so anywhere you see red is when I'm in school with students.  My workdays are during the track-outs (the white days - students are not in school).  As you can see, each "track" has its own color, and there are always 3 tracks in at a time.  Since we have 8 2nd grade teachers and 7 classrooms, we actually will be moving out of our classroom when we track out, and the teacher returning from their break moves into the classroom.  The building's capacity is for only 3 tracks in at a time, so year-round

I know... you're wondering why the title of this post mentions cabbage, right?  It's not really a common topic on teaching blogs, so I understand your curiosity.  When I arrived home yesterday after a l-o-o-o-n-g day, I found 8 heads of cabbage on my kitchen counter.  Really! It turns out that we have big plans this weekend, and I had completely flaked on remembering!  My hubby has the cabbages to make oodles of coleslaw for a *huge* annual pig pickin' (it's a southern thing, y'all!)  Anywho, I'm really excited, as it means I'll be seeing a couple hundred family members and friends this weekend!!  What I nice way to celebrate the end of our school year.  Which leads me to... (sniff) the Last Day Blues!  I said goodbye to my class today.  It was hard, since they are really a phenomenal bunch.  We invited their families to an end-of-year picnic, which was in the classroom due to the rain.  It was amazing to see students with their parents, siblings, au