tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3781793806058775292024-03-19T06:29:08.325-06:00Teacher and a MomA blog for educators, parents, and anyone else who is interested! :-)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.comBlogger71125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-81115254778493901802015-05-14T11:33:00.001-06:002015-05-14T11:33:33.443-06:00Art Walk 2015 - Rousseau Inspired Toucans
Art Walk 2015
I am lucky to teach in an art integration school. Each year we do a cultural art walk. Second grade teachers all chose French artists to represent. Below are my second grader's Rousseau inspired toucans!
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-9357501316204120662014-12-17T16:52:00.000-07:002014-12-17T16:52:43.417-07:00Christmas CraftsI'm preparing for my Christmas craft centers this Friday. The last day before winter break is always crazy, so I have parent volunteers come in and run craft stations! Students get to make different ornaments, a gift bag, and a card. This way they have a gift to take home to parents for Christmas. I also have a station where they make Reindeer Chow, which is just a snack Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-55302872532671063692014-12-16T16:38:00.000-07:002014-12-16T16:38:55.009-07:00Talking ElvesI started a new blog page for my students to post their work! I'm using the iPad app Easy Blogger Jr., which sends the student's posts directly to my new blog page. It automatically labels each post with the student's name, so that parents can click on the label and see only their child's work.
Today we made our first post, which was so fun! Students wrote a paragraph Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-86769787425276003372014-11-13T16:45:00.000-07:002014-11-13T16:45:15.698-07:00Turkey Facts and Comprehension and Turkeys in Disguise
Turkey Facts and Comprehension
Check out my new Turkey Facts and Comprehension on TPT or Teacher's Notebook. A Common Core aligned, informational passage about turkeys - perfect for Thanksgiving - with strategies for finding information in text and comprehension questions that require higher level thinking skills.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-74474234737118786912014-06-18T07:14:00.001-06:002014-06-18T07:15:02.620-06:00Freebie! Groundhog Fact and ComprehensionI have high hopes of getting animal fact sheets completed for all of the animals we offer students to choose from for their animal report and diorama. This is part of our habitat unit we do at the end of the school year.
It was so crazy at the end of the year that I didn't get even one picture of my student's dioramas taken! :-( Hopefully, I'll be more organized next Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-61520695170303710392014-02-14T13:34:00.001-07:002014-02-14T13:34:43.435-07:00Valentine's Day Fun!I'm pretty sure that holding school on Valentine's Day is some sort of cruel and unusual punishment for teachers! It's been crazy here all moring. Now that I have my kids working independently for a few glorious moments - I'll update you on our projects!
We made the super cute owl bags! Mrs. H. used my templates, but put her own twist on them - they came out cute too! TheAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-26574868224534558052014-02-10T19:00:00.000-07:002014-02-10T19:00:15.024-07:00Valentine's Day Owl Bags - FREEBIE :-)I created these little cuties today with a bit of inspiration from Pinterest :-) Click here for your FREE template! Copy pages onto a variety of colored construction paper. Have students cut out and glue to paper bags (larger size lunch bags work best!) Use one heart for the body and one heart (cut in half) for the wings.
Enjoy :-)
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-76393273777580353722014-02-07T07:44:00.000-07:002014-02-07T07:44:37.361-07:00Eric Carle Inspired Art
We have a snow day today - yay! So I'm posting a project I do at the beginning of the school year. I use it with the Mixed-Up Chameleon, by Eric Carle - one of the first stories in our basal. I show students video clips from Eric Carle's Official Site where he shows how he paints his own tissue paper and creates his pictures by making collages.
I don't use tissue paper Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-39502850544316748872014-02-06T14:14:00.002-07:002014-02-06T17:15:38.904-07:00Tears Of Joy PerformanceHave you had the opportunity to see a Tears of Joy performance at your school? It is truly an amazing experience. These are the most incredible puppet shows I've ever seen! I have had the opportunity to see many of their performances over the years and am always impressed!
They travel to: Idaho (except Kootanai County), Oregon, California, Nevada, Tri Cities WA, and PortlandAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-44213790868476466672014-02-05T12:39:00.003-07:002014-02-05T12:39:50.296-07:00Van Gogh Inspired Art ProjectOur school has a parent led art program called Meet the Masters. This year parents will be having students create Van Gogh inspired art work. In preparation for this, Mrs. H and I decided to pre-teach a bit about Van Gogh.
I found a great idea on Pinterest that was done by middle schoolers, see here. Being that we teach second grade, we pulled blackline masters of Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-58784651091408304882014-02-04T21:16:00.000-07:002014-02-04T21:45:42.213-07:00Common Core Math CurriculumAre you struggling with finding math curriculum that aligns with Common Core? Join the club! I have recently been introduced to engageNY and I am LOVING it!!!
This is offered (currently) for free - yes free! I am downloading all of the modules for my grade level, just in case it's not free in the future! I have to say that I am very impressed with what I have used soAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-72745901428750405822013-12-30T20:29:00.001-07:002013-12-30T20:30:51.102-07:00Going Paleo! This Teacher-Mom is officially F-A-T and is going Paleo in 2014! All this research counts as teacher prep now that health has been added to our plates, right?
After a quick trip to Barnes and Noble (did you know you can use your teacher discount on cookbooks? I didn't until today!) I'm devouring Well Fed 2, by Melissa Joulwaa. I love her down to earth advice and sense of humor! The recipesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-23104751753969089452013-12-05T08:14:00.001-07:002013-12-05T08:16:42.652-07:00Jingles the ElfWe have a visitor in our classroom again this year! After much deliberation, our class finally voted on Jingles for our elf's name. With Butterball and Rudolph as close runners up :-) Mrs. H's class named their elf Ginger Sparkleton (perhaps Ginger had a previous, less respectable, career in the past?) Ha ha!
Jingles was up to no good last night...
It's Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-57181337368679121052013-11-15T09:25:00.000-07:002013-11-15T09:25:51.763-07:00Hedgehog Facts, Comprehension, and Salt Dough ArtI've been M.I.A. for about a year now! I'm going to make a concerted effort to start posting regularly again!
We are at the end of our trimester and are a bit off of our regular schedule, so we dragged our basal story out for two weeks allowing us to do a bit extra.
We've been reading Hedgehog Bakes a Cake by Maryann Macdonald. Yesterday we made little hedgehogs out of salt dough.&Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-7939116436394564132013-03-18T11:53:00.000-06:002013-03-18T11:53:12.944-06:00Rate Your WritingAs the end of the year is rolling around, I'm identifying areas that I need to emphasize more next year. One of those areas is writing. I don't feel like I've focused on it enough this year, so I intend to make it a BIG focus this last trimester and approach it differently next year!
Here is a picture of my writing focus board.
As we are addressing common core this year, there Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-40825112068066659222013-02-25T13:34:00.000-07:002013-02-25T13:34:03.630-07:00Lesson Planning WebsiteLesson planning has to be one of my least favorite things to do! I already have a plan in my head and it's a big pain to formally write them out. My principal the last few years has required us to turn them in each week, which since I avoided doing them until the last minute, was always a mad rush! This year I'm lucky and don't have the pressure of having to turn them in, Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-35467082994571955002013-02-02T09:05:00.000-07:002013-02-02T09:05:50.450-07:00MLK Wall Mural and Book TalksFor MLK Jr. Day this year, I teamed up with another teacher and we created this amazing wall mural of MLK! The template came from Art Projects for Kids and was $5. - totally worth it. Each student in the two classes used oil pastels to color one 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper. Then we put it all together and created a huge wall mural.
I can't take tooAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-15516106618976870432013-01-27T09:37:00.000-07:002013-01-27T09:40:18.171-07:00Winter Blahs and Student Restlessness!The weather in our area has been terrible the last few weeks! We have had unusually cold temps, snow, and ice storms! So, we have had indoor recess for weeks now! The kiddos are tired of being cooped up inside and are having a hard time concentrating throughout the day!
Out of sheer desperation, I have been trying everything I can think of to get my students to concentrate for more than 30 Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-56429958175019510702012-12-16T20:35:00.001-07:002012-12-16T20:35:31.152-07:00Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-83391066494075952012-12-12T16:28:00.000-07:002012-12-12T16:32:23.508-07:00What Did They Say? Linky
This story actually came from a good friend of mine who teaches 1st grade. It's too funny to not share!
The teacher saw a girl in her room who looked sad, so she approached her and asked if she was ok. The students replied, "Yes, it's just that all you do is talk, and talk, and talk, and I get soooo bored!"
Boy are they honest! :Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-11690130154852348842012-12-12T15:13:00.001-07:002012-12-12T15:13:36.385-07:00Gingerbread House Art and Writing ProjectSo many fun projects to do during the holiday season! I love that I work at an arts focus school and get to incorporate that piece into my assignments! This week we have been working on a writing project called Gingerbread House for Sale by Mz H.
My students had so much fun just picturing their houses in their heads, but today we brought them to life by drawing them! SeeAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-34927035886121358032012-12-11T14:00:00.000-07:002012-12-11T14:29:26.027-07:00Elf on a Shelf Behavior Management!I am having waaayyy too much fun with the Elf on Shelf in my classroom! My students were B.A.D. - BAD yesterday! I had a principal from another school in observing me and they were noisy and difficult to manage the entire time (don't you love those kind of days???) Sooo, our elf "Ginger" didn't return this morning! Here is what the students found....
(Edit: CheckAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-53482439651388747132012-12-03T11:59:00.001-07:002012-12-03T12:00:12.950-07:00My Snowman Came Alive!Even though I haven't posted much lately, I've still been working behind the scenes! Now that we are in the second trimester in our district, we are working on narrative writing. So, I created a fun winter/holiday writing activity called "My Snowman Came Alive!" Students can create their own snowman, bring it to life, and tell about the adventure they have! Check it out Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-37194450895851121092012-11-11T20:03:00.003-07:002012-11-11T20:07:04.535-07:00Thanksgiving Compare and ContrastThanksgiving really snuck up on me this year! So after utilizing my Amazon Prime (LOVE the 2nd Day free shipping!) and ordering a few books last week, I needed some activities quickly!!!
Luckily, I happened upon a recent Clutter Free Classroom post and found the Pilgrims and Wamanoags Portfolio. I'm so excited and can't wait to use it this week!!! There are greatAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378179380605877529.post-49426869487201338712012-11-07T19:30:00.000-07:002012-11-07T20:03:07.794-07:00Turkeys and a bit of October ArtOur Turkeys in Disguise project is due tomorrow, but we got a few in early! The pictures below show the very beginning of our wall display and a few of the early birds :-) Along with this family activity, we will have students complete a Don't Eat the Turkey Persuasive Writing assignment - created by my awesomely talented co-worker, Mrs. H.
Angry Bird
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11627003828924177889noreply@blogger.com0