Just dropping in quickly to share my visual plans.  I only write the ELA plans for our grade level, and Rayann writes the math plans.  I don't have her math plans to share, but I'll post them as soon as I get them.  I've been asked what my students do during small groups.  They are either pulled by another teacher for a small group or they do the daily 5 rotation.  I don't put that stuff in my plans, so that's why you don't see it below. With Halloween this week, we decided to take a break from the basal to do all things BATS!  I love Halloween!  I can't wait to do Abby's Candy Corn Bandit  on Thursday.  It was a huge hit last year.  We will also be having witches' brew and putrid punch that afternoon. We use What the Teacher Wants' recipe for the witches' brew.  She has a super cute freebie for it!  Check it out by clicking on the pic below. You can get the punch recipe by clicking {HERE} . And to see the original idea...
Hello, sweet friends!  We are on fall break this week, so I am curled up on the couch with my coffee doing one of my favorite things-blogging!  I have missed it the last few weeks.  I wanted to share some things with you I have been working on this year.  I have always kept some form of a data notebook with all of my students' various data.  We have a sixth grade teacher at our school who went to individual student portfolios last year and she had great results from it.  So, I decided to do something similar with my students this year.   My focus was more on students tracking their own data.  It makes them accountable for their learning and gives them a great visual for where they are and where they want to go.  I must say, this has been a great tool for my second graders.  This is the first year they get grades on their report card so it's hard for them to understand how they work.  This tool has made it all make sense for them and most importantly, it's made them car...