Congrats to:  Erika (2B Honey Bunch), Lori, and Heather (Swinging Through Second Grade) Send me an e-mail to thelemonadestandteachers@gmail.com and I will send you a copy of Stan's Common Core Standards.  Thank you so much to all who participated! ...

Holly has already introduced y'all to our friend STAN.  STAN is a very wise owl who teaches our students the common core STANdards!  When Holly told me about it, I thought it sounded so cute!  Y'all, I cannot believe what a difference he has made in my classroom.  Students are actually interested in and excited about the STANDARDS!  I have never seen anything like it!  And STAN is everywhere!  We put him in our SMART board lessons, and refer to the standards constantly.  In second grade, we have seen so much growth with these little ones, and I know STAN has been a huge part of it.  I am telling you, HE.WORKS!!!  Our principal loves STAN, too!  She has made several comments about how great he is! This is Holly's owl.  We bought them at Michael's around Halloween.  We also had half off coupons!   Gotta love a deal! This is her display of her standards.  She used a large space, but you could easil......

Whoa!  What a weekend!  Saturday, the other two lemonade teachers and I, along with our cohort Caleb, worked the Scholastic Book Warehouse Sale .  If you have never been, you HAVE to go!  You can get so many books for your classroom at SUPER discounted prices.  We volunteered for 8 hours!  Yes, you read that correctly 8 hours....with no lunch break.  We were literally about to pass out by the end!  {I am pretty sure I started getting dizzy from the lack of food!}   But we are hard core!  Check out all the books I got for about $10.00 out of pocket!!!  There are over 50 books here! You earn $10 an hour towards your purchase if you volunteer.  I also had a $25 off coupon for spending $100 or more.  And the books are discounted.  Most are half off!  They also have a Build a Box section, where you can fill a box for $25.  So check to see if you have a warehouse in your area, and GO if you ......

Hello friends!  My second graders have been learning all about Common Core Literature Standard 2.7-using illustrations to understand story events.  We used one of my favorite stories to practice: Officer Buckle and Gloria .  I was really inspired by Lesson Plan SOS's Guided Reading with Pizzazz packet.  There is a sheet in it called Picture Descriptor .  Students describe with words an illustration in the story.  Then, their partner has to find the illustration based on their clues.  It was super fun! During small groups, I gave them picture books to do the same type of activity with, except this time they used index cards.  They loved doing it so much, I just couldn't say no.  I was amazed at how well they were able to put their thoughts into words, and how much attention they are giving to details in the illustrations. I made a die for the Common Core Standard Literature 2.1 to review with during small groups the same day......

We are still here!  Sorry for the absence this week!  If you have not checked out Scholastic's First Thanksgiving page , you must!  There are some great webcasts and activities for teachers and students.  Last week, we watched tours of the Pilgrim Village and the Wompanoag Homesite.  We then compared and contrasted the two with this Venn Diagram. I have shared the file with you if you want to use this sometime during the week.  The webcasts are definitely worth your time.  My students really got into it!  Just click below on the "Click to Download" icon to grab the headers, phrases, and a student copy.  {For some reason, when I open it in google docs, there are some random words and images in there.  I can't figure it out!  It is doing it in both documents I uploaded.  Aaaah!  If you have ever had this problem, can you let me know how to fix it?  Thanks!} I also made these Thanksg......

Happy Veterans Day!!! A BIG Thank you goes out to all those who have served and is serving in the U.S. Armed forces!! Thank you for our freedoms and your sacrifice that has made it possible to live in such an amazing country!!! It was very emotional for me today. As I taught my students this week about how and why we must be thankful and show how thankful we are, I found myself getting choked up... I really think the students felt that reverence and I hope I helped them understand how thankful I really feel. Our school went all out and found some great resources form TPT and other amazing BLOGS to teach and create a meaningful day to help our youngest citizens take a moment to appreciate those who sacrifice for us... Here are some of our hallway decorations put up today.....(1st grade thru 3rd)..I have to say I am very impressed with the ideas and timely manner that was put into such an important and often overlooked holiday.....WAY TO GO WGS!!! This acrostic poem was created ......

Happy Election Day!! Here is an Election day FREEBIE!!! I love this story...you can incorporate so much .... Elections... leaders.....what makes a good citizen....letter writing.......and jobs that people perform. As you can see my book was ONLY $3.00 dollars from Scholastic!!! Snap it up there OR at AMAZON.com My Teacher for President This is the Can, Have, and Are chart I made for whole group. Can Have Are Chart and Writing Click Here for Freebie The Freebie includes:  student Can, Have, Are chart, Letter to Channel 4 news for students to fill in the reasons their teacher should be president, and a campaign poster for students to draw a picture of their teacher. This story as a teacher is so cute... teachers really do have a hundred different jobs... just like the President!!! and we don't have a cabinet of people keeping us going... we have our class and our flexibility!!! WAY to GO Teachers!!! Happy Election day... from The Lemonade Stand Teachers!!! ......

We read this sweet little book this week:  I loved the illustrations in this book!  The little white owl loved to tell stories, but the other brightly-colored owls did not like him at first because he was different.   Once they heard his stories, they loved him!   This book is great for discussing what makes you unique.  I have attached a writing prompt for you down below.  But check out the owl puppets first: So sweet!  I grouped students and gave each a different color piece of construction paper.  One student in each group got a white piece.  I also gave each a secondary color to add to their owls.  We tore the construction paper and pasted it onto an owl template I found online.  Then, we glued them to popsicle sticks.  I let each group retell the story with their puppets when they were finished.  The kids loved it!  They turned out really cute and covered a common core standard, so......

November Morning Meeting SMART board Lesson I love FALL! I love morning meeting and so I felt like sharing! As I have just finished this months SMART boeard Morning Meeting I thought I would share with you what we do for Morning Meeting. So...here it is for this month... I change it monthly to go with the theme... and the skills we are covering for the month... lately I've been changing it weekly to include the word family... or phonics, letter, or grammar skill we need to review. I also want ot let you know I choose one song per slide a day.... or we'd be there all day... but it keeps the kids wanting more... Happy November....The Lemonade Stand Teachers  ...

Have any of you EVER felt like this????!!!! So.... the funny part is I came into work after being in my room three days during my fall break and this was sitting in my chair!!! Noone is claiming this little joke either!!!! I laughed until I almost wet myslef!!! Soooo... if the person who set this up is reading this post....I am truely laughing  myself silly about it!!! This little funny has inspired me to blog about my SKELETON activity that I did for our FALLOWEEN rotation.( YES, I DID SPELL IT RIGHT!!) Falloween was a combination of fall and halloween acitivities that we did for a whole day before we went on fall break. It was so fun. This is my whiteboard and book display and the skeleton we made. Each student got a bag of bones--- 18 Q tips 6 cut in half, a 1/2 sheet of black cardstock, and a head bone(on the SMART board lesson).  . They concentrated so hard on this and they turned out sooooo cute! https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B9Wus1f8K8GdZDQy......

Just dropping by to offer you all this little freebie !  We are on fall break this week, so I am making this short and sweet.  This game would be great for reading centers or even whole group.  It is played like "20 questions, " and is wonderful for teaching students how to make inferences.  Just click the pic below to grab yourself a copy!  Enjoy! ...

I posted yesterday about my new obsession with OWLS and how it started....SO.. hear is a better picture of my door.   The ground is starting to fall off... but isn't it sooo cute?! This is MY STAN the owl. He watches over our classroom. Everytime the kids see him...He is showing us what we are learning...AKA. the standards!! Here's a better look at him. Perched up high...looking down on our class. This is Tiffany's little cutie. He is perched right next to her Standards board. This is Rayann's Stan. She thought our OWLS were to lifelike and a little creepy(heheee)... so, she opted for this super cute WISE owl to watch over her class. This is Ms. Alysia's Kindergarten OWL. Super cute... and way brilliant.. She put him on a glitter stick and points to everything they are learning!!!! STAN is the MAN in my book. The kids look for him and love to know what he is teaching them. Happy Fall Y'all    The Lemonade Stand Teachers ...