Another 3-Day Weekend Has Come and Gone!

I always love my 3 day weekends, even though they still never seem to be long enough.  I can say that I feel as though I was able to get A LOT accomplished this weekend, even if most of it was stuff that I should have done after I entered grades and made lesson plans for the week.  **Which I still have NOT done.*** :-/  Oh well, sleeping in, taking naps, making cookies with my cookie monster, going to the movies, washing ALL of our laundry, and hanging out with friends was a little more important.  I guess it will just be a L-O-N-G night! 

Last week was such a whirl wind .... one that I hope not to experience EVER again.  Tuesday started off great, we had our mock election.  Now, when I say mock election, it was pretty legit.  Several of my kids had jobs to help the voting station/booths run smoothly.  Not going to lie, I think I had just as much fun watching them as they had participating! :)  I just loved the unit I bought from Amanda over at One Extra Degree that helped prepare my students for the election, the plus side of it is it's something I can use for US symbols and the branches of the government, too!

The bulletin board above the voting booths.

Prior to ever voting, of course students had to register!

Students had to sign as they arrived, prior to entering the booths.

"Workers" explained how to use the ballots to the voters.

Students voting in their "booth."

Once students voted and they put their ballot into the box, "workers" checked their name off and gave them an "I VOTED Today" sticker!

Then that evening I had a professional development session with a teammate.  It was releaving  to find out that we are NOT the only ones behind, but also that our writing is going SO much more smooth than most others.  (I'm not trying to brag, but seriously, most peoples stressors were our successes!) On my way home my tire became flat, I pulled over to air it up, well GOD was watching over me.  I had a massive blowout, not the kind where you're driving and have a blowout, the kind where you're airing up the tire and the tire explodes.  Yes, while I was airing up my tire, the tire exploded, luckily it was inward towards my car, rather than out towards me, otherwise I would probably not be typing this right now.  As I was on the phone with AAA (bc as much as I hate to admit it, I do not know how to change a tire), a gentleman offered to change my tire.  At first I refused his help, but as he approached me (yes, I was in a well part of the gas station, on a central road), I agreed to take his help seeing that he was a discount tire employee.  Thankfully he was able to change it, that my baby wasn't with me, that the tire did not explode outwards, and well that I am safe.  Seriously, GOD was without a doubt watching over me.  

Ok, so enough of my rant.  Here are some pictures from the last twoish weeks. 

 I posted a unit a few weeks ago for the Hallo-Weiner's.  Here are our examples, a few weeks too late! ;)

We also just finished our Texas Symbols Art Project.  This was an art project that I sent home, an easy way to get my art grades and to allow students to work with their parents. Loved the turn out, we also had a little open house for parents, which was a huge hit.

I came up with an idea last week as I was contemplating what to do with contractions .... contraction cornstalks!  I thought it would be a fun fall twist on contractions.  In the past I have made the contraction caterpillars, contraction sailboats, and who knows what else.  I was dying to make something fun and fall to put in the hallway, thus the contraction cornstalks.  So I decided to put together a couple other things I made last spring to make a fun little contractions unit.  You can grab the craftivity alone or in a bundle with all the other funtivities.  (Yes, I think I made up a new word. I like it... FUNTIVITIES!) :) 

This is the preview of all that is included in the unit, lots of fun stuff!

 I pulled out two of the activities to sell outside of the bundle, if you're interested, contraction surgery.  My kiddos L-O-V-E-D this!

Oh & of course my inspiration, the contraction cornstalk! I'm in love with how cute they turned out! :)

For those of you who didn't have a 3 day weekend, I'm sorry.  I hope that a good week is in store for everyone, just remember, it is almost Thanksgiving break and Black-Friday madness!

Kelli

Ahoy Matey!

So today was the much anticipated PIRATE DAY!! :)  

I love how baffled the kids are as they arrive in the morning, wondering why all of the 2nd grade teachers are dressed like pirates!  I usually do math after our morning work, but today with all of the excitement, I had to move up my phonics lesson so my super curious kids could find out what it was all about.   So I introduced the Pirates "AR" that say "AAAARGH!"  We came up with a ship full of "ar" words and then the students created a ship of their own and added MORE "ar" words to their ship.  As the week continues, we will talk about more pirates the rebellous pirates "er," "ir," and "ur"... they say "ERR" and then there is the confused pirate "or" that says, "ORRR?!?"  After we discuss each group of pirates we will continue to add more words to both our class and individual ships. I have my wonderful co-worker, Gwen, next door to thank for the idea of having the kids make their individual ships! I will have to take a picture of the completed project after the week is over.   The ship we did today looks similar to this one, only our ship today was the "ar" ship so it is FULL of "ar" words!

With all of my excitement about today, I created a couple of supplemental items for this lesson, well pirate themed, not so much phonics related, yet.  Click on the pictures below to go to my TPT shop to get them for FREE! :)

 

My kids are in love with the few trivia items that we did today, they were shocked with several of the facts!  I had them work as a team to come up with an answer.  Their team captain wrote it on the board to share their answer.  It was definitely a hit!  I'm excited to finish the rest of them throughout the week.

I can always use something new and refreshing in my centers, or well my kids can.  I can't wait for the kids see the new addition to their centers box tomorrow!  Can you tell we are all about pirates! :)

With all of the pirate madness, I couldn't resist but to make a pirate incentive map to stretch out my pirate theme this week.   Throughout the day, my kids earned coins.  They earned coins for being on the ball, actively participating, following simple directions (seriously, we are in week 10 and some still have major difficulty with this, AAARGH!).  Each time they earned coins, they got to put their coins in the table bucket.  They never questioned what they were for, they were just beyond excited to have a bucket of coins!  At the end of the day some of the kiddos began to notice our "treasure map" located on the wall.  We had a little pirate trivia and then a tie breaker to find the team with the winning number of coins.  The winning team got to pick the card to flip over, on the other side of the question mark was the picture and all of the incentive cards.  The group that won today earned the "read with anyone you want" card.  I love how excited they get over these simple rewards! :)  I can't wait to see how improved their behavior is tomorrow.  Why can't every week be pirate week?!?!  

Without any cards flipped!

The pirate ship in the bottom left flipped over.

 

What it will look like on Friday after all of the cards have been flipped! 

Tomorrow and Wednesday, we will be finishing up our Halloweeniers! Click here to see a post and a little more info on it.  I can't wait to see the product of some of my creative students.  Below is the example that I made to give the kids a visual of what I expect. 

Isn't Oscarina cute, dressed all the way down to her feet.  The kids L.O.V.E.D. her!  Click on the picture to go to my TPT store to buy it, it's on sale through tomorrow evening.  It includes a suggested lesson plan for writing and art, brainstorming pieces for the writing and a template for the Oscar or Oscarina! :)  Gotta love when we can incorporate multiple standards into one activity!

I also plan to make adjective witch skirts and putting witches brew on REPEAT!  We listened to it twice last week and it is already stuck in my kids heads.  As we came in from recess today they were yelling/singing it at the top of their lungs!  Probably another one of my favorite lessons.... I'm starting to think everything is my favorite lesson...But seriously, Pirate week is my FAVORITE, FAVORITE lesson.... :)

It is hard to believe that this was a year ago.... :(

 Tonight, B and I carved her first pumpkin.  She was not quite sure what to think about it, once she got warmed up to the pumpkin, she thought she needed to eat it! Needless to say, we had fun, it is the biggest joy watching my little pumpkin grow up and explore new things! 

Happy Howloween week! :) 

Kelli :)

October Update!

So I made a goal to post once a week.... well it has been almost 3 weeks since my last post, oops!  My excuse is that my sweet baby was sick, I got sick, and then it was the end of the 9 weeks.  As all teachers know, the end of the grading week is full of all kinds of hustle and bustle, last minute grading, inputting grades, verifying grades, entering competencies, etc!  Thankfully, about a fourth of the year is over, which means it's almost Thanksgiving and then before we know it, it will be Christmas time! :)

I have been working hard to create a few new things to add to my TPT!  Two of the units are my absolute favorite things to do this time of year.

Verbs!  Verbs! Verbs! I love SUPER VERBS!!!  I have created a TPT unit for a Superhero craftivity, along with a few lesson ideas, anchor chart, and verb charades game! :)  You can click on the link below to check it out in my TPT store, I have it discounted now, too! :)

I also LOVE to read The Hallo-Wiener by Dav Pilkey around Halloween.  After we read this story, we brainstorm ideas for writing a story about our own Oscar or Oscarina.

 I created a unit to go along with this story as an extension, it includes a writing piece for students and the template for students to create their own Hallo-Wiener dressed up! :)

Click on the super cute dog below, made specially by MelonHeadz, to head over to the unit in my TPT store.

 As a team, we've made a goal to work on our students basic fact fluency.  To monitor and improve our students fluency for basic addition problems 1-12, I have created a unit includes an explanation to the unit, a parent letter, flash cards, two versions of timed tests, a tutorial for printing multiple pages, and a tracking method with templates.  I am currently on week 2 and I have to admit, my kids L-O-V-E this!  I think it also helps that as they earn their gumball for our tracking, that I also give them an actual gumball to chew on it class.  With a few rules and threats if I find gum ANYWHERE other than their mouth or the trash can! :)  You can click on the picture below to be taken to my TPT store where this unit is available.  I also have a preview available on TPT that shows several of the pages within the unit.

Last weekend, as we started feeling a little better, we headed over to our local pumpkin patch.  We went last year, of course, Berklee was so tiny, she has no recollection of this.  She was IN LOVE with all of the pumpkins, the animals in the petting zoo, the hayride, and well just being outdoors in general.  My only complaint was that it was in the 90's, this weekend it is in  the 50's.  Go figure, that is Texas for you!

She looks too grown up, it's not even funny!

I am so looking forward to this next week, we get to continue our Robert Munsch book study and do a few of Amy Lemon's craftivities from her Teaching with Robert Munsch unit AND we are going to be doing our PIRATE lesson to teach R-CONTROLLED vowels!!! EKKKK, I am a little excited!  Here is a picture of the pirate ships that we list our words on, sorry it is side ways, but you get the point!  Can't wait, can't wait!

Have a happy weekend! :)