We have been up to our heads in parent gifts!  We made 4 different crafts for our sweet parents this year.  First up, we made these adorable Christmas trees that have been all over Pinterest.  We used Christmas scrapbook paper and cut it into different size strips.  It's a great activity for incorporating largest to smallest. We made these super cute thumbprint ornaments.   Of course, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product.  But here is the original source . These were my favorite gifts we made.  We picked up these pots at Ikea on our latest trip.  They wrote with a sharpie "There's Snow Place Like Home."  We used cotton balls to dab on white acrylic paint for the snow on the bottom.  The littles then made the snowmen with 3 fingers painted in white acrylic paint.  Once they dried, They used colored sharpies to draw the rest.  Do not spray when finished if you use sharpies like we did.  The colors will smear.  You probably coul...
One of our second grade common core standards is using  information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.  I love to use the story Officer Buckle and Gloria to teach this skill.   It's also in our reading series.  We talked about how important illustrations are for helping us understand what we are reading.  They love seeing what Gloria will be up to next in the illustrations. I made this little recording sheet for students to record illustrations from any story.  You could have them write the page number of the illustration or have them sketch the illustrations from the story.  They then use the box below each to record what they learned from the illustration that they would not have otherwise learned from the text.  You can grab this freebie by clicking on the pic below. I also want to share with you a book my dear friend just had published.  You can check out...
After days of photos, we finally got our Christmas card picture down.  The hubby is just a little picky when it comes to the card.  :)  Ready to order them tonight.   On another note, I've tried to cram as much Thanksgiving I could into the last two days before Thanksgiving. We made these messy and fun Thanksgiving Trees.  The kiddos traced their hands and wrote something they were thankful for on each.  I painted their arm and hand for the trunk and branches.  I thought they turned out super cute. Get ready for picture overload!   I read the Great Turkey Race and we made these.  I love these turkeys from Kindergarten Monkey Business . I put up my little desk tree Tuesday.  We were listening to my favorite Pandora Christmas station that day, so I got eager! Here's what I've been working on.  My lovelies need lots of practice on synonyms and antonyms so I made this mega pack to pull from throughout th...
I used to not look forward to teach inferencing, but since the blog world exploded with teaching blogs, I love it!  There are so many creative resources out there.  So, last week, we did a whole collection of them!   We started out with the Mystery Box .  There was a spider inside, since we were going to be learning about spiders throughout the week. I love Abby's Snow Day Inference Investigators packet.  I knew I had to do this more than once during the year, so I came up with my own Fall Break Case File.  We worked on it last week.  Here are some pics from the lesson.  {You should definitely pick up Abby's packet if you don't have it!} We named some different fall break activities. We made inferences.   ...and our timeline of events. They absolutely loved it, and so did I!  I hope Abby can make some more of these.  They are just too much fun!   We also did Cara's activity with No David!  She has a free printabl...
I went shopping at Green Hills in Nashville last week over fall break and went into the store Paper Source .  I had just never thought to go in there before.  I about died!  It was adorable!  You teachers would love it!  Anyway, they had this super cute owl garland, but it was a little more than I wanted to spend.  You can look at it {HERE} .  They had made each of them individual Halloween costumes with paper.  So if you are more ambitious than me, you should do it and let me know how it turns out!   Since I am cheap, I just came up with my own owl garland for my door. I downloaded Amy's free owl template and then used Halloween scrapbook paper, which is on sale now at Michael's. I strung up some twine on my door with hot glue.  Then I picked up these teeny tiny clothespins at a craft store, and voila!  An owl garland! Tomorrow is Friday!  Yay!  Happy teaching, sweet friends! ...
I don't know about you, but my students always have trouble with transitions.  I love this little group, but they can be slow!!!  I have to incorporate songs, chants, and timers ALL DAY LONG!  If I didn't we would never get anything done!! I have compiled a short list of some great videos and songs I love to use to speed up our transitions when moving from one place to another. This one is for making a circle.  I don't know why, but my students can make making a circle the most complicated task ever!   I like that this one makes coming to the carpet super quick! This one might be one of the most helpful with going back to their seats. This is a quick clean up song. I use this one in the afternoons when we are cleaning up and when centers are over.  Saying that they love it is an understatement!  We play Find It and Fix It which can be found on the Clutter-Free Classroom blog .  She is seriously a genius and my hero for coming up ...
So, my littles are all about these two guys! Even Steven and Odd Todd They were excited to hear that my husband's name is Todd, so we've referred to him as that all week!  ;) We refer to these anchor charts a lot.  We only spend a couple of days learning about even and odd numbers, because it is a concept you can refer to a lot to throughout the year.  We play a game everyday in morning meeting called secret number.  We have an interactive hundreds chart on our SMART board.  The teacher picks the secret number and clues at the beginning of the year.  But we eventually get to the point of letting the students create the clues.  Here is an example of the clues.  As I give the clues, a student comes up and gets rid of the numbers they know cannot be the secret number. {Example} Clues: 1.  My number is greater than 40. 2.  My number is less than 80.  3.  My number is even. 4.  The sum of the two digits is 13. 5.  You can make my ...