I am so excited about our theme this week: DOGS!  The kids always love this one because who can't relate to those adorable, sweet dogs!  Our comprehension skill that we will be focusing on is author's purpose-one of my absolute favorites!  We will also be meeting our new friend, sneaky e and making some cute puppets.   The author's purpose and ELA materials come from these two units.         I found the cute dog craftivity on Pinterest but cannot find the original source.  I just drew up my own template for next week.  The sneaky e puppets came from First Grade Wow .  We will also be practicing handwriting with our Saxon Phonics, which I need to go back in and add. My teaching partner puts together morning meeting.  She got her template from the Promethium board site.  We will be using our math series along with Learning our Subtraction Strategies to continue practicing simple subtraction.  We also do a problem a day in our math journals from the S...

I feel like we are finally starting to get into a normal routine.  Those first few weeks of school are all about establishing routines and some groups just take longer than others. ;)  In reading this week, we were talking all about families.  We compared and contrasted our families to the family of Camila in our anchor text My Family from the Journeys reading series.   We added this little flap book to our new Interactive Reading Notebooks .   We are all about reading like detectives.  This week, I introduced them to their first Reader's Case File .  They were so excited about it!  They were begging to do another one the next day.  This will be a weekly routine for them.  Each case file has three text dependent questions in which they have to provide text evidence to support their answer.  We did it all together this week, because this skill takes LOTS of modeling.  They were so excited to get their little magnifying glasses, too.  Each week, I will introduce so...

I haven't made a whole lot of changes to my classroom this year.  I do a total transformation last so I just stuck with it.  I also had finally figured out a classroom arrangement that worked for me.   The chair pockets were made by a sweet grandparent.  I love them!  I am trying the little drawers at  my tables this year.  So far, it's going well.  I need to add labels to the drawers.   This next board is where they will pin their exit tickets at the end of a lesson.   That's their word wall above that they mainly refer to during writer's workshop.  Below is our behavior board .  They can buy things every two weeks with the cub cash they have earned for positive behavior. This is our math focus wall.  The shapes and colors are from Cara Carroll .  The numbers are {HERE} . Anchor charts will go on this board.  I divided each section with washi tape and cut the letters with my Cameo. This is our writing...

Hello, friends!  I can't believe it's already time for Blog Hoppin's Teacher Week again!  I don't usually share much about myself on the blog.  I am a pretty shy, quiet person which you might can tell by my blog!  So, here we go! I've been married to this guy for seven years now.  We were in the same class in high school but didn't meet each other until our senior year.  We started dating that year and have been together ever since!  We are a perfect balance for each other.  The travel bug has bitten us over the last few years, so that's become our favorite thing to do together. We don't have children yet, but we do have these two sweet dogs. I am incredibly blessed with the best family.  I was raised to put Jesus Christ above all, and I am so thankful to have a family that instilled those Christian values in me.  I am also blessed to have some of the most amazing friends!  I don't know what I would do without them! ...

We survived the first week of second grade last week!  I have a really sweet class.  I know we are going to have a great year.  It seems like at the beginning of the year, it takes so long to complete each activity and you just never know from year to year how each class will be.  The first two weeks are all about teaching procedures and getting acclimated with one another.   The first story in our reading series, Journeys, is Henry and Mudge.  We will be treating it more like a thematic unit this week doing lots of fun activities to go along with the classic stories.   I am also starting to teach the Daily 5 routine this week, and we will be completing some little craftivities to get the kiddos excited about it.   We are still up in the air about how to do spelling this year.  We have done the words that go along with the series in the past.  We have also tried Words Their Way.  What do you all use for spelling?  Resources: A Boy and His Dog by Amy Lemons Re...

It's back to school time again and time to share our lesson plans!  Our first day was Friday, so I am including those plans, too.  There isn't too much on them, because we do lots of school wide activities on the first day. Super in Second Back to School with Books Beginning the the Year Activities (2nd Grade) September Math Journal Interactive Printables Let's Get Started My Calendar Companion Be sure to hop on over to Mrs. Wills' Kindergarten to link up or to see tons of other teachers' lesson plans.  Have a great week!!! ...