Back to School...

I had a great summer.  Full of relaxation, family time, and trips:)  

But, now its back to work and I have had a busy week setting up my classroom and getting ready for my students to arrive.  I am very excited about only have 15 (I can't believe it!!!) students at the moment.  I am just thinking of all the neat things we can do!

I am starting off the year with a robot theme.  Here are some pictures of my classroom.  

A wonderful friend/parent made these for me!  The idea came from: http://booky4first.blogspot.com.  I LOVE them and they allow for so much more room in the classroom.

These are my birthday bags.  I prep the bags at the beginning of they year with b-day pencils, the calendar paper, bookmark, and treats for the students.  It makes it so easy when there is a birthday - all I have to do is going to the bag and take out the "gift."

This is my Welcome door.

This is my vocab. word wall

The large bboard in the back is going to be a "Gearing Up for our Future" board where students can post their monthly goals.  I have a large "robot" pinata to hang up there, just waiting for it to arrive.

I was a little crafty with this one…I purchased small cork board squares, covered them with black fabric and hung on the wall.  

Life Cycles / Animal Stretch Books

Thanks to Kris at I {Heart} Teaching for posting the directions to make these fabulous books.  I came up with the idea to use them as a life cycles lesson.

 The covers were decorated using fingerprints and stamp pads.

 The students used spinners with different animal traits on them to create their own "new" animal.  It was from an AIMS activity.

The Learning Safari!

Today is what teaching is all about!  Every year I invite parents to come in and see what their children have been learning in Second Grade.  We turned our classroom into a Safari complete with Jeeps and all.  Then students took their parents through a journey of their Second Grade year.  They shared a book they wrote, taught their parents how to play a math game, read their favorite story from the Imagine It book, and shared their portfolio of all their writing projects from the year.  I enjoy watching all the giggles, smiles and enjoyment from parents and students.  The afternoon came to an end with the surprised Candy Bar Awards.  I love presenting these to my students and have so much fun matching their personalities to a candy bar.

Some cute monkeys greeting parents as they arrive (Thanks Mrs. Jump!  I got these from her Zoo Unit)

The students created a "map"and organized the things they needed.

We wrote about "Two" cans for Third Grade.  These writing forms and patterns are available on Teacher's Notebook.  Just click the picture above!

These are our portfolios.  Students keep their writing projects in them all year to share on this special day.  The idea came from "The Bag Ladies"

The Candy Bar Awards

We couldn't wait for the parents to arrive!

We had a full house!  Thank you to every parent who rearranged their schedule to spend the afternoon in Second Grade!

Learning Safari Sneak Peek...

At the end of the year I host a Learning Safari.  Our class invites their parents to come into the classroom for a few hours to see all the things we've learned and worked on in Second Grade.  The students share their portfolios, read their favorite Imagine It! story from this year, teach them a math game we've played, and present them with a "Family Fun" magazine that they created.  We are getting ready for our Learning Safari on May 25th.  Here is a few "past" photos and the current invitation we used.  I will update pictures as we get things prepared for it.

 

Our classroom will transform into a Safari.  Here is what our room looked like last year...

Hairy Grass!

As part of our plant unit we planted rye grass seeds.  The students watched as the "hair" grew and grew.  We measured how tall our hair grew, charted it and compared who in the class had the longest grass hair.  Then the students gave their person a hair cut.  We remeasured and compared our results again.  

If you would like to do this activity with your class, you can find directions and materials at my Teacher's Notebook Store.  - Thanks:)

http://www.teachersnotebook.com/product/dmlp/hairy-grass

Field Day 2011

A little late...but worth the wait!  My students had a blast at Field Day.  Our PE Team is awesome and every year they go above and beyond organizing a day where the kids can have fun doing physical activity!  This years theme was centered around WII games.