The Writing Process

We have been actively working on and have completed our first published writing piece! I always start with a short twisted fairy tale story to go through the writing process with my kiddos. They enjoy it and we work on each step in great detail. This helps outline the process for the rest of the school year!

I always have trouble with finding posters that are Upper Elementary friendly. My kiddos are fairly advanced writers and really need to be able to dig deep and challenge themselves to become better at revising and editing. I used this chart for them to record their own notes and add to their writers notebooks.

I was not very good at using their Writer's Notebooks last year, but this year we are off to a great start of making them a useful organizational tool for writing! So we hole punched this and added it to the reference section along with this checklist:

My room is all fun chevron design so I tried to make these fit the mold. They are informational and I plan to use them as a clip chart to help track the writing stage my kids are at. This will also help the problem of "Who is ready for Peer Editing? So-and-so needs a partner!"

These posters (the full set), checklists, and graphic organizers are all available in my TPT Store HERE! I included the chart/organizer for ARMS and DARE to Revise. I personally like the DARE to Revise because I feel like it is easier to remember than ARMS. :) 

Teaching the US Regions

My students love to become the teacher, well 99% of them! Public speaking is a major emphasis at my school, so this project meets MANY of our needs! Meet the 

US REGIONS GROUP PROJECT!

The students are grouped into 5 groups, one for each region. Each student is assigned a job and each group will present their information to the class. So essentially them become the teacher!! My students are combining their information into a PowerPoint and presenting it to the class. I create some organizers for each student to record their research on. (Too bad I created this after my students completed this project...oh well!) Here is an example of two of them. 

The jobs descriptions for this project are:

· Travel Agent- presents major tourist attractions in the region  (minimum of 5 locations)      

· Food Guide– researches food that are famous to the region (minimum of 5 location based foods)

· Historian- Researches interesting facts, events, and people from the region

· Geographer- studies and describes the climate, landforms, and uses of the region

· Cartographer- involved with creating a map of the region and doing a population study (map must contain all states and capitals that are in that region)

You could add or remove jobs according to the needs of your classroom. There is a research organizers page for each job! 

Next week my kiddos will present their regions to the class. They will each have to document their travels on these sheets: 

This hold the students accountable for learning about the other 4 regions. At the end of the presentations students will have a test over the 5 regions. I will make the test based on the information that was presented to the class. It will be up to the students to take good enough notes to use in studying for the test. 

There you have it!! A hands-on project that requires public speaking, research skills, reading non-fiction text, using technology to present, and all of the geography/history standards as well! You can pick up this project and all of its organizers in my TPT Store! 

Up next for these kiddos, memorizing the states, capitals, and their locations! 15 days of school left! 

  

Western Classrooms Displaying My Products :)

Take a look at these AWESOME classroom ideas that display some of my Western products! Thanks to these wonderful teachers for letting me take pictures of their super cute rooms!

My months used as a birthday display!

Name tags that I made

Classroom labels used for a schedule

My Cowprint Alphabet

Another classroom label

I LOVE this little piece!! I have mine hanging on the door in my room! 

Objective Board and Classroom Schedule using my labels

My alphabet again and my welcome banner! So cute!

My calendar set...adorable display!

Daily 5 Chart

Another birthday display!

I just love these classrooms and that I was able to help out my teacher friends during tight budget times! 

Classroom Workday, Reward Tickets, and FREE Class Sign!

Today has been a busy day! As I said before, I am moving from 2nd grade to 4th grade this year. This means a new room...which is such a challenge! I was able to work in my classroom today for the first day. It mainly involved arranging furniture and unpacking as much as I can. It is going good, but this little mommy-to-be bent over way too many times today!!

On to even more productive items of business...I decided earlier this summer that I am going to have some positive behavior tickets instead of always using candy or a treasure box. So I created positive reward tickets.

There are 24 rewards and 6 blank reward cards. I look forward to using these with my classroom management system!

Also, I have been seeing all of the posters and signs that say "Our Class Does..." and it looks so cute. So I made a simple one for my own classroom! I made several different prints, but here is the one I made for preview! I will post links below for each template as a FREEBIE!  I plan on cutting, laminating, and then attaching them using ribbon. It will be cute! Pictures to come when it is up in my room!

 Click on the pictures above to download the black dot!

Cow Print Version

Red Bandanna Version

And LAST point of business...here is the finished sewing projects as promised...

Changing pad cover...just DO NOT take a look at the seams ;)

Crib bumper pads-recovered-pictured below- before, during, after!

Punch Cards and 2 Posts in 1 Day- GIVEAWAY!!

Wooo Hoo! 2 successful posts in 1 day!! A serious record in this household! I have been crossing things off the To-Do list today (which is better than just adding to it like most days)! 

I have decided to use incentive punch cards this year for Spelling and thought while I was at it I would make several other incentive cards. I have made 8 different punch cards.

Spelling Test Punch Card (5 punches)
Homework Punch Card per assignment (12 punches)
Homework Punch Card per week (5 punches)
Whooo's Got Good Behavior? Punch Card (Owl Theme 22 punches)
Roundin' Up Good Behavior (with girl clip art 22 punches)
Roundin' Up Good Behavior (with boy clip art 22 punches)
Reading Punch Card (1 punch = 10 minutes; 10 punches)
All Star Behavior (20 punches)

Here is a preview of a few of them...

Click HERE for the product in my TPT Store!!

While I am at it...I will GIVE AWAY a set of either the Punch Cards or Post Cards to the first two people who comment on this post with one of their Back to School Goodie plans or ideas! Please leave your email address so I can send them your way! 

Teacher Binder Production (TADA!!!)

TGIF! Except for the fact that it is the end of my "NOT TOUCHING" my Capstone paper. Let's hope the week away from it motivates me! After spending all week getting plenty of sleep (the joys of being 6 months pregnant during a Missouri summertime) and accomplishing nothing other than making a huge To-Do List!

Pinterest finally pushed me into finishing (and starting) my own teacher binder for this year. I will be moving on up to 4th grade so I am determined to start organized! I created this file in Black and White Cowprint with red accents AND Black and White Polka Dot with red accents. I will eventually work on adding some colored polka dot designs too! Check out below for the preview of my creations! I promise when I get ink for my printer and get my binder put together I will post pictures of that too.

Various Page Examples

Followed by a Break Down of the Entire Package

Polka Dot Binder Cover Example

Tabs for Both Binders

Sample Calendar Page (also available in black and white dot)

Hope you like it! I will get started uploading it to TPT here in a little bit! This has been a very timely project! :)

What's Happening End of Year Edition

The serious countdown is on...11.5 days of school left for this teacher!! Woo!! I am getting the End of Year fever to clean clean clean!! So...what have we been up to in 2nd grade...

Well every year at the end of the year we create a 2nd Grade News Cast. This year was no exception. We use this unit to combine our Social Studies topic of sources along with numerous writing and even reading standards. The students in each 2nd grade class are assigned a job on our news team. Each classroom has their own news cast. We design a set, posters, conduct interviews, and write news stories. We had sports broadcasters, special guests, anchors, and even a weather man. In the end we record and edit the news cast then share it with our school and 2nd grade families. To view our newscast please follow this link: http://mrslewisfg2.blogspot.com/ and look at the NEWS post! 

In addition we have been hitting multilication hard! My kids LOVE this time of the year and I am so glad that we have had the time to really dive in this year! I have came up with some great games from Education.com and several from Amy Lemons blog! I will share these ideas tomorrow (hopefully)! 

ALSO while I am chatting...I just spent over 2 HOURS on a TPT product request that would have taken me less than 30 minutes on the old dinosaur computer. Have I mentioned how much I HATE Windows 8!!! Along with the impossible version of Publisher...grrrr!!!!!!!!

Happy ALMOST end of the year!! 

Here are the newest Technology Statements...per request...ZEBRA PRINT! 

Geometry Games!

I love teaching Geometry! There are soooo many hands-on activities that can be done. I came up with 2 matching games. One for 2D Shapes and one for 3D Shapes. There are 4 different cards for each shape.

1- Shape Picture Cards 

2- Shape Name 

3- "Real Life" Shape Pictures

4- Shape Attributes

Here are the 3-D Shape Matching Cards...  

Then I created Scoot Games for both 2D and 3D Shapes... Here is the 2-D Shapes Version (Sample- Recording Sheet Included)

And here is the 3-D Shape Version... 

Each image is linked to my TPT Store. 

Be the first (or only :) to comment on this post and FOLLOW me if you aren't already will receive all of these games FREE! :)

I'm Back! A full Unit!!

I have been MIA for much of the new (and almost 3/4 finished) school year. I blame it on not purchasing curriculum (which I am soooo happy about) and having to create everything by myself and working on my masters degree. Now I'm done with excuses...

TaDa!! Here you have it...we just finished up a graphing unit that only took us a week. Our Pre-K through 1st grade teachers do lots of graphing, so it makes my job much easier! The best part about graphing...it is hands-on and an active unit. The kids absolutely love it!

In this unit I have included:
The Graphing Mini Book (FREE in my previous post)
Graphing Posters
A Pictograph Activity- Favorite Candy
A Bar Graph Activity- Favorite Food
A Line Plot M&M Activity- M&M's of Course!
-Each activity contains Data Collection page, Graphing Page, and Questions following the survey

Here is a preview of some of the pages:

Check out the Mini-Unit Here at my TPT Store! Tomorrow I will upload some pictures of the fun things we did in our graphing unit! Did I mention that I finished this unit well after we completed our own unit. I found lots of Freebies out there that were Valentine's related for the week before VDAY! :)

Here's to my sanity on a week that consists of 2.5 days of sub plans...2.5 days of presenting at a conference...1 1st and 2nd Grade Music Program...a VERY important Dr. Appt...AND a half-day reading lock-in day before Spring Break. Oh and did I mention that I WILL have my grade cards done before Friday?? HAPPY MONDAY EVE!