World's Fair

This week is the World's Fair in 2nd grade!  Wow, talk about fun.  Talk about chaos.  Organized chaos.  Yep, that's it.  ;)

Each 2nd grade classroom studies and features a specific continent.  We have one classroom doing Asia (focus on Japan), one doing Europe (focus on Great Britain), one doing South America (she featured a little bit of everything), one doing Australia, and I'm doing Africa!  We're honing in on Egypt a little more.  Everyone completely transforms their room for the week.

Here's the entrance to my room...

Prior to the actual fair, we studied goods and services.  The students pair up and come up with something authentic from the continent we are studying to sell during the fair.

Here are some of my students cutting out money for the other kids in the other classes to spend at our market.

Some students are making braided bracelets in honor of African textiles.

I found this awesome pattern online for the large Egyptian collar necklaces!  The students colored them and glued beads to them.  They are fab!  

Next a group of students made their own petroglyphs (rock wall carvings).  They simply used white crayon to draw pictures and then painted over it with watercolors.

Another 2nd grade teacher had gone to the museum in Chicago a few years back and brought back a hieroglyphics stamp set!  So I had another group of boys make hieroglyphic bookmarks!  They stamped out different words onto card stock and then tied some yarn to the top.

And of course we decorated our outside bulletin board with a collage of African animals...I just love children's art!  TOO FUNNY!  :P

I'll be back this week with more photos and updates!  Our class goes on Wednesday.  I can't wait to share more and let you take a peek at our room transformation!

Happy Monday and have a great week!  I don't know about where you teach, but we are down to 23 more days!!!!!  Yippeeeee!!!! :D  

Explanation, Winner, and Voting!

Ladies,

I apologize for being absent.  Really, I do.  Let me do a quick, brief recap of what's been going on, just to tell you I really do have a reason...

My son (10 months old) got really sick.  I mean, REALLY sick.  There's this nasty bug going around apparently.  He got it, then I got it.  I only went to school on MONDAY last week.  :(  I'm overwhelmed about what awaits me tomorrow morning!  We ended up in the ER and almost took him down to Nationwide Children's Hospital.  It was that bad.  I hated seeing my poor baby hooked up to IVs and monitors.  He's MUCH better now.  I'm STILL not 100% (uggg!!!!), but well enough to where I've GOT to move on and start getting back to normal.

Also, my aunt (age 49) had a heart attack around a week ago.  It was very touch and go and they brought in a  special surgeon to do robotics surgery.  She had to wait a WEEK before they could perform the surgery.  So we left Friday (with me still being sick...hubby and baby stayed home) to travel up to Michigan to be with her during her surgery and see her.

I apologize for getting personal on my "teaching" blog, but hey, teachers go through real-life stuff!  :P

So.  Here we are.  At least it's before Mother's Day, right????

Our winner is...

That means Amanda Cypher is our winner!!!!  Congrats!  :)  I will e-mail you the file shortly.  :)

Also, Teachers Pay Teachers is doing a fun contest!  They are asking people to redesign their "It's About Time" banner!  I've created a few...if you like them, please head to their Facebook page, look on the right side under "Recent Posts by Others", find mine, and click "Like"!  Here's a peek of what they look like...

Click HERE to vote!

Happy Easter + A Giveaway!

Happy Easter, bloggy friends!  I hope you had as blessed of a day as I did.  Church, family, food...it doesn't get much better.  Today is my last day of Spring Break, so I'm kinda sad.  But there's only 8 more weeks until SUMMER!  This week has made me so anxious for it...

I was inspired by a student when she gave me this:

I thought it was SO sweet and creative.  Mother's Day will be here before we all know it.  I got this idea to turn this into a fabulous Mother's Day Craftivity!  I give you..."COMPLIMENTARY" FLOWERS!

They were SUPER easy to make!  If you find the container has a hard time folding and staying put, then you could just use a whole entire sheet of paper.  I used scrapbook paper for my bouquet holder, but you can use any type of paper (it might be fun to copy it onto plain white and have them color and decorate it).  The cost is only $3 at my TpT store!  You can grab it here.

OR...I will give this item away to one lucky winner this coming Friday (April 13th).  This Friday will be lucky for someone...there's hope!  :P

Just follow my blog and leave a comment below WITH YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS.  I will randomly pick a winner sometime Friday evening!

Have a great week!  We're on the home stretch, y'all!  ;)

Daily 5?!?!?!?!

Hola my bloggy friends!  I'm officially on SPRING BREAK and I am SOOOOO pumped.  We aren't going anywhere...just staying here and trying to sell our house!  We put an offer on one we want and they countered, and I think we're going to accept!  Now we just have to sell our house...*FINGERS CROSSED*.

So as I think about teaching 1st grade next year, I'm thinking of incorporating the Daily 5.  This is where YOU come in!  I read the book in 2 days and am really excited.  However, I have lots of questions!  I started to write out my 1st grade schedule for next year and quickly realized it is going to be a MAJOR challenge to get 4 sessions in!  Those of you who do it, how on earth?!?!?!  My problem is that our day is broken up.  There is no way I can fit in 30-minute blocks for Daily 5.  I took it down to 25 minutes, but I'm still only able to fit in 3 sessions.  Here's a look at what my schedule will be next year (to the best of my knowledge):

9:00-9:10 Morning Work/Daily Number

9:10-9:25 Calendar

9:30-10:45 OPEN (Was thinking Math 9:25-10:05, Mini Lesson 10:05-10:15, 25-minute Daily 5 session)

10:45-11:15 Reading Intervention (which I teach...we take the bottom 12 or so kids in the grade and do an intervention class with them...my kids will get split between the other 1st grade teachers)

11:15-11:35 Lunch

11:35-12:05 Recess

12:05-12:15 Restroom Break

12:15-1:50 OPEN (Was thinking Mini Lesson 12:15-12:25, 25-minute Daily 5 session 12:25-12:50, Mini Lesson 12:50-1:00, 25-minute Daily 5 session 1:00- 1:25, Mini Lesson 1:25-1:35...but then that gives me 15 minutes....)

1:50-2:30 Specials (Art, Music, Library, Computer, Gym)

2:30-3:15 Recess/Wrap Up/Pack Up

Ahhhh....I'm so stuck!  Any guidance on this crazy schedule?  I'm looking for ideas!

ALSO, when you work with small groups during Daily 5, do they just miss a Daily 5 session?  I'm just trying to wrap my brain around how all this works!

I'm looking forward to hearing how you do this!  And for future reference, I'm going to work on a Daily 5 packet for next year, so be on the lookout!  I'll give one away when I get it done!  :)

Isn't Life Just Crazy Sometimes?

I tell ya...my life has been a whirlwind lately!  I think I will just list a few things that have been going on in my neck of the woods...

1.  We have looked at a couple houses within the last week.  We love both of them.  So the realtor is coming to look at our house on Wednesday and we're going to meet with him Friday to list it!  Our family started to grow 9 months ago when we had our precious son, Rowan.  So now we're running out of space and the last thing I want to do is get pregnant again and be house hunting!   :P  Now tell me, is this little dude not the sweetest?  Of course, I'm biased.  ;)

2.  I ran my 2nd 5K yesterday!  I only did one other one when I was a sophomore in college.  I have NOT been training, whatsoever, so I was just wanting to finish around 45 minutes.  I was PRAYING I wouldn't take longer than that, but that was my goal.  As it turns out, I finished in 37:21!  I was pretty pumped.  Of course my teacher brain started thinking, "Ok, now I have a baseline and I will work to improve so that the next time I run one, I will have a better time!  I just want to see growth!" :P

3.  The biggest news of all...which is what has made my last week INSANE...it's official that I will be teaching 1st GRADE next year!!!!! :D  With enrollment numbers being kinda crazy and our school having a low budget (we have GOT to get a levy to pass!), they had to do a little bit of shuffling.  Well, lucky me, I get to move AGAIN.  :P  I taught 1st grade my very first year, so I already have a little experience.  But honestly, after I got over the initial shock I became VERY pumped.  And of course, I already have the first 8 weeks of guided reading plans done and made a book to correlate the Phonics Dance with Reading Street (so I know what hunks and chunks to teach when).  I've already started creating spelling homework.  :P  I'm ***HOPING*** this move will get me into a more secure spot so I can stop moving around.  But I truly am thankful for teaching 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades (and being in a kindergarten room my first year in the district), because it has made me the teacher I am today.  So get ready folks..the tables are about to turn to FIRST GRADE!  :P  And if there happen to be any of you out there who are PANICKING about my 2nd grade Reading Street packets...don't you worry!  I want to continue to help you out, so I will be finishing ALL the 2nd grade stories.  :)  Whew...what a crazy time I have ahead of me!

4.  Leprechaun traps.  Enough said.  I love seeing students get creative!

I hope y'all have a wonderful and BLESSED week!

Winner of Biography Study and Some Pics

Would you believe I fell asleep last night at 5:30?!?!?!?!  I'm NOT even joking.  I laid down with my 8.5 month old son to try to get him to take a nap before our Small Group Bible study and I fell asleep, too.  Slept right through the thing.  I didn't wake up until 8:45 p.m.  I grabbed a quick bowl of fettucini alfredo that my husband had made and then climbed right back into bed.  It was a LONG day creating famous Americans...

Here's the 2nd grade hallway...and here are many of the kids working hard in the hallways to trace, cut, and dress their Famous Americans!

It's always so fun (and funny) to see how creative they get.  I will try to snap some photos tomorrow of the finished products.  They are AMAZING!

So now that you know how I fell asleep yesterday, I hope you understand why I didn't get to choose a winner and blog last night...SO...here we go!

The winner is...DELLA!  She found me via Pinterest, which is awesome.  That is SUCH an addicting site!  :P  So CONGRATS, Della!  You'll be receiving the unit momentarily!

Don't forget, if you didn't win you can pick it up at my TpT store.  I'll also be doing another giveaway of my next unit in the works.  It's called "Measurin' Up!" and it is a until on length.  It's gonna be a piece of work, but I'm pumped about it!

Stay warm everybody...spring is almost here!

Famous American Biography Unit

It's finished!  FINALLY!  Oh my word...it has taken FOREVER because of my millions of chiropractor visits and tournament games this week.  But it's done!

And I will tell y'all a little secret...not so secret anymore...anytime I create a new unit (except for Reading Street resource packs), I will post about it and ALWAYS give one away for FREE!  Exciting, right?

I consider this one a pretty big giveaway.  It's 42 pages of biography goodness!  It guides you along with how to run it and gives you plenty of resources, activities, craftivities, reports, forms, and more!  This is one you TRULY don't want to miss!  It's all about writing a biography, plus it gives the students some great info about Famous Americans!  The kids LOVE this because they can be independent and research someone that interests them.  It's simply a favorite in second grade!

So to enter, please leave a comment below WITH YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS.  And if you'd please, pretty please, pass along my blog site to others.  I'd appreciate it!  :)  I will pick a winner on Wednesday, March 7th!  It's March, March is considered "lucky", 7 is considered a "lucky" number, and it's Hump Day!  I can't think of a better day to give this baby away!  :P

I'd like to give a HUGE shoutout and THANK YOU to Latricia from Wild About Second Grade for nominating me for a Top 10 Blog Award!  Wow!  You are too sweet!  How encouraging!  You seriously made my night!!!! :D

Ok, here it is!  A Biography Study of Famous Americans!  You can pick it up at my TpT store!  :)  Enjoy!