Holly and I had been wanting to do video announcements for our school for years.  The tech department kept telling us they couldn't support it with our current system.  We were determined to find a way to do it and with the approval of our principal, we made it happen!  I have to give Holly all the credit for figuring it all out.  She's amazingly creative!   First, I'll take you through some of the basic steps and introduce you to the apps you will need.  Then, I will tell you why you have to do this at your school in some form or fashion.  I promise, it will transform your school culture and start to the day immediately!!! We have an announcements team made up of three of us teachers.  We do a weekly rotation.  So, I will make announcements one week out of every three weeks.  We do a whole new set of announcements everyday.  I have heard of other schools only doing it every couple or few days.  We make our announcements in iMovie.  You can get the app in t...
That first week of school is always exciting.  You meet those new, sweet faces.  The smell of fresh crayons and new books are in the air.  But I always have that stress of figuring out my daily schedule.  It seems like it's different every year.  At our school, our intervention staff uses those first couple of weeks to assess our students for us.  Therefore, we don't have intervention pull-outs and I am still trying to perform my own assessments to determine how I want to group students. I like to use this time to really establish a desirable classroom culture and classroom expectations and routines.  I have used these books for a while to teach proper reading block routines and to help students to maintain that love of reading.  I decided this summer to create some craftivities to go along with each one, since we have more time together during the reading block that first week. Dex: The Heart of a Hero by Caralyn Buehner is great for teaching students about building...
A linky party about shopping???  I'm in!  I haven't really gotten into back to school shopping just yet.  I am trying to put it off as long as I can.  ;)  I will miss sitting in my pjs in the morning drinking my coffee while watching the Today show so much!  I have, of course, been thinking about shopping.  {As always!} I need some more shelving in my classroom to house the tubs I use for centers.  I am eyeing something like this from Ikea.  Of course, we don't have an Ikea here in Middle Tennessee {Sadsville!}, so I'm going to have to improvise.  I could order it, but I thought it was a little high for what it is plus shipping.  It doesn't even have to have that vertical piece down the middle.  If you have any ideas of where I could get something similar, let me know! I REALLY want these frames from Lakeshore!  I just need to figure out where I could put them.  My classroom is really small.  I just think they are super cute for displaying student work!...
I am constantly telling my students, "Read like a detective!!!"  Every week, we take our anchor text and dig deep for about 3 days.  I use whatever that week's anchor text is and create a theme for the week.  If it's about kites, everything we doing in reading is kite related.  All things ELA tie back to that theme.  Our reading series always has a paired text that we use, as well.  But I also rely a lot on Read Works .  There are tons of passages related to all kinds of themes.  I also love that you can search by lexile level, grade level, text type, and comprehension strategy.   I was trying to think of a way to keep my favorite selections organized and within easy reach when teaching a particular skill.  Last year, I just went to the sight and printed what I needed, which worked okay.  I did print some and stick them in my weekly reading series file folders. So, I decided to go ahead and start printing off appropriate 2nd grade passages that targeted...
I am so excited about my new blog design!  I just know it will motivate me to get to blogging again!  Thanks to Kerri at The Cutest Blog on the Block for her amazing work!   My apologies for the long blogging vacation.  I have truly missed it and missed y'all!   Mid-summer I get to thinking about what books I would like to add to my classroom library.  I love using fun books that first week of school to teach procedure and proper classroom culture.  Here are a few of my favorites to use in reading those first couple of weeks. This book is so fun to read if you like to change voices!  I love to use it to teach how to increase stamina and that becoming a great reader takes lots of practice.  We also discuss how all readers are at different levels and learn at different paces.  It's important to be respectful of others no matter what level they are on.  :) The kids think this one is so funny.  Second graders have teeny tiny attention spans, as you know!  ...