180 Days of Teaching

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Was having a hard time teaching my students how to find the difference. Used this activity and saw students beginning to understand subtracting better.

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Worked on the alphabet with a kindergarten kiddo. Success? Hearing the child singing the alphabet while in the bathroom.

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Ost puppet project. So much fun.

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Yesterday was no bullying day at our school. Students wore purple to take a stand against bullying. In class we made posters and took a pledge to stand up and not stand by.

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1,452 beans in all! The picture shows the great work of all the students. The final part of the bean project was a writing piece. Students had to explain whether it was easier to count the beans by 100s, 10s, and 1s, or if it would be easier to count each bean one at a time. Can't wait to read what they wrote!

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Today my class worked on a second grade math project. First, they estimated how many beans were in a jar. Then we began constructing base-10 "rods" using Popsicle sticks and the beans. Tomorrow we will put the rods together to make a flat. The kids loved the project today. Everyone was busy making tens while talking about math.

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Super student of the week has begun. Students will bring home this super stuffed hero and write about their weekend adventures.

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Lessons Learned

The first few weeks have come and gone. The students have settled into the classroom and suddenly the "honeymoon" phase is over. Sound familiar? These first few weeks of school have certainly taught me a few new lessons. Here are my top 2:

1. Transitions are a part of a lesson, not what happens when you are done teaching. 

At first, I would finish up a lesson then somehow magically expect the students to be able to clean up and be on the rug in a matter of moments. It just wasn't possible. I began to plan in about 5 minutes of "transition" time- time to clean up, time to move from one place to another, etc. In doing this, everything has been moving smoothly. I feel less flustered and the kids seem to appreciate the extra few minutes to do what they need to do.

2. Every lesson you teach will not be perfect.

Okay, honestly, I've known this all along, but I think it is worth saying again. I often expect lessons to go perfectly especially when I've put in so much work, but the reality is that things can and will go wrong. Be willing to go back and do a lesson over again, you may find (as I did) that it goes even better the second (or third) time. 

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Oreo day! Our school tries to have monthly funshine events in the teachers room. I kicked the year off hosting oreo day. Check out all those cookies!

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My students love this noise level thermometer. I adapted a version I had found on pinterest to make it larger. I use a binder clip to indicate which level students should be on.

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I saw a post on pinterest with an idea similar to this and just had to do it in my class.

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"Together we can do great things!"

First of all, sorry for the smiley faces, but I don't have photo permissions for my kiddos and I want to protect their privacy.

Anyways, on Friday we ended the day with a team building activity. I split my students into teams of 4 and gave them straws and connectors. I told everyone that the challenge was to create the tallest tower. My students began to collaborate with one another and there was a buzz in the class.

At one point, a student asked if they could get more supplies. I told her no, but that there was no rule saying that they had to stay in their teams. Immediately, she and another classmate spread the word and before I knew it, there were 21 busy second graders working together to build a tower. The picture above is their final product.

Although the tower is very impressive, it was what they said as we debriefed that I found to be most meaningful. As posted above, one student summarized the lesson best with "together we can do great things." I asked the class why they decided to join together instead of sticking with their team and trying to win. The students explained that they if they had done that, only one team would have won. By joining forces, the students were all winners.

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Peek of my classroom. New floors this year which is very exciting. More detailed shots to come.

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Objective Writing with Bloom's Taxonomy

Last year, I posted my objectives in sheet protectors on my whiteboard- one sheet of paper for ELA and one for math. While I think I grew in writing my objectives, my display was lacking.

Today I attended a really great professional development session on teaching ELLs. In the session, we discussed writing learning objectives. As a group of us were talking about the importance of written objectives for both the teacher and the student, an idea came to mind. Wouldn't it be nice if the verbs were already written, separated by the different domains and ready to be posted? 

After a quick trip to target to gather my supplies, I got started putting my idea into action.

Here's where I began:

Index card holder:  $1, Index cards:  $0.74, Sharpies (back to school treat):  $5

I looked around the web until I found a list of Bloom's Taxonomy verbs that I wanted to use (I only did about 4-5 for each domain, I'll continue to add as the year progresses), then I started writing them on index cards. 

Here's what I ended up with:

These are just a few examples of the verbs I wrote on my index cards. 

I neatly organized the verbs by domain in the index card holder. Each domain is a different color and the verbs in each domain are alphabetized.

In the fall, I plan on posting my objectives using a pocket chart. I will have a pre-written sentence strip at the top that says students will be able to. I'll use sentence strips along with my verbs to post objectives each day. If I find common phrases being repeated, I will create sentence strips to reuse. I'm hoping this will keep me more organized and engaged in thinking about worthy, measurable objectives. 

How do you display objectives in your classroom? 

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Celebrating Students

I love giving my students an opportunity to share about themselves. It is important aspect of community building in my classroom. One way I do this is by having a "star of the week". This gives each student a chance to have a week dedicated to learning about and celebrating them. In sticking with my superhero theme, I am renaming "star of the week". This year, it will be called "super student of the week". One of the special privileges the super student will receive is the opportunity to wear our special class cape.

I bought this cape through Amazon (although it is an oriental trading product). While it isn't necessarily the best quality, it will certainly do the trick. I made the graphic on the computer and then printed it on an iron-on paper. 

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Up, Up, & Away!

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's 180 days of teaching in photographs.

 As you may have guessed, this year my second grade classroom will have a superhero theme. In an effort to document the school year, I will post a new picture each day.

Stay tuned for more!