Five for Friday

Two more weeks of school left!  The best part is, they are only four days each. But I am still jealous of everyone that is already on vacation.  Then again, I am working on creating assessments during the month of June...but it will still be less work and more free time to look forward to.

We continued our ABC countdown this week with N (No Homework), O (Outdoor Lessons), P (Pajama Day), Q (Treat Your Teacher Like a Queen), and R (Relax and Read).  The students most looked forward to no homework day.  For outdoor lesson day, one of my coworkers typed up questions for the story we were reading from our basal about space.  I laminated them and attached them to the fence all around the playground so the classes could go out, find the questions, and look for the answers.  I'm not sure how much work they really got done, but it was a lot of fun!

My students started their end of year memory books this week.  I purchased Joanne's book from Head Over Heels for Teaching.  I needed a cheap and easy way to bind them, so I just went with holes and yarn, but they actually seem to be holding up pretty well.  We have just been working on them a little bit each day and will continue next week.  For whatever reason, their favorite page is the "Doodle Page."  I'll have to take some pictures of what they have going on there.  Mostly a lot of Angry Birds...

All of my students' graded assignments have been completed! We are required to get so many grades.  We need at least ten for each subject area every six week marking period. With the end of school nearing, I had to finish them in four weeks because each day that goes by they put in less and less effort. My kids still think they have a spelling test next week, but I don't really plan on giving it.  I despise having to give my second graders number grades.

Packing...Since my school is so big (10-15 teachers per grade level) and under construction, this has been a huge deal.  Basically, every single teacher is moving classrooms, so we have to pack and label EVERYTHING for whomever they hired to move it this summer.  This week has been all about collecting boxes and getting answers as to what to do with our stuff.  Tomorrow I am heading in for a full day to get started with the packing.

We finished our Alliterainbow poems, which brings me to a quick tip.  See the back wall in the picture? The entire thing is cement.  Nothing sticks to it.  Tape falls off, etc.  But hot glue works perfectly.  That's why I have those genre posters up there permanently.  But I also simply hot glued clothespins (with a star glued on top) scattered around the entire wall.  That way I can easily change out student work and my wall doesn't look as ugly as it really is!  Click on the image below to join Jean (Diving into Second Grade) and Angela's (Hippo Hooray for Second Grade) Thursday Quick Tip linky.

Good Bye CSCOPE... {and some linky parties}

So I think I am following too many blogs!  I feel like I can't keep up with the reading and all the linky parties that are going on.  But I'm trying...  I actually just started another Master's class in writing this week and one of our tasks is to write 30 minutes a night and submit it at the end of the week.  Fortunately, my professor is really into technology and says blogging totally counts so these posts are serving a dual purpose!

Before I forget, are any of you from Texas school districts that use CSCOPE?  (CSCOPE is basically an online curriculum that comes with scripted lesson plans, etc. that some of us have been forced to follow...  There has been a lot of uproar lately about the appropriateness of the social studies lessons and the government as gotten involved.  They recently made the site public because of all the hoopla.)  Anyways, according to the news the government will be banning the use of CSCOPE beginning August 31st!  {Big smiles here.} We are completely a CSCOPE district...but teaching ELAR, we have just been following the sequence, not the actually lessons because there aren't actual books or anything provided and my principal hasn't been on us about it much.  But, I think the math/sci/ss teachers follow it closely and it will be interesting to see what decisions come from above as a result of this, especially since the news reports that 70% of Texas school districts use it.  Click on the icon above if you care to check it out.  Sort of sad, that so many districts are working with a curriculum that has enough flaws to be officially banned by the state...

This week's theme for Workshop Wednesday with Ideas by Jivey is reading responses.  My students generally record all their reading responses in their reading response journal (a composition notebook).  I'll admit that something I definitely need to improve on is getting my second graders to respond to reading while reading independently...thing is then they spend more time fiddling with their notebooks than reading...  Anyways, most of these responses are as a result of some sort of shared or small group reading lesson.  Usually I have a sentence stem, graphic organizer, or directions up on the Promethean board as a reminder of what they are to be doing for their reading response.  After they complete their reading response, they leave it on their desk for me to glance at when I can and go to their Daily 5 station.  I try to make sure it isn't anything that should take them more than 10-15 minutes.  Here are some examples:

Poem with the onomatopoeia words highlighted and the visualization to the right

Text features chart showing those present in the story we are working, as well as their purpose and an example

Venn diagram comparing two main characters

Making inferences graphic organizer

Alisha from First Grade Follies is hosting a new linky party in which you highlight something wild, something wacky, and something wonderful about your week.  I didn't really know I was supposed to link up with all three so I'm not really prepared, but I will do better next time.

I'll link wacky/wild together with my students alliteration rainbows from this Poetry Pizzazz unit by Teacher's Clubhouse:

Yonely went to Yugoslavia yesterday and ate yellow bananas that tasted well. 

Owen loves Olive Garden with orange octopus.

Yogin loves yellow, yummy yogurt. Yeah, yes!

Omar lives in Oklahoma and he has oranges.

And here are some wonderful (and maybe slightly wacky too) cards that one of my classes made in art for our principal that is leaving:

Good luck "being" a doctorate degree!

Gotta love the cowboy!

Someone must have shown them a drawing with a man and a suitcase/briefcase because I've never seen our principal with one...

Why not a dragon that says bye?!

Tried it Tuesday {Bloglovin' & Instagram}

This week i tried a couple of techy blogging tools that have been all over posts for the past few weeks.  Yes, I am a little bit behind but at least I got around to them!

First, Bloglovin'!  I love this app.  I definitely see a use for it in my daily routine because I like to always have things to do.  Basically, in my opinion anyway, it's like a little Facebook stream of daily blog posts.  It gives you the blog name, a picture, and a snip of the post.  If you are interested, you can click to read the entire post.  It will then fade it out so you know which ones you have read and which are left.  Also, each night it has been sending me a daily summary of blog posts.  It's good for waiting in line, etc. when you just have your phone and need something to occupy your time.  It also helps give you an overview of the posts for the day so you don't miss anything.  Also great, I was able to import all of the blogs I follow online!

This is a sample of what the stream of posts look like.

I think the numbers are the posts I didn't open to read on my phone.  I have lots of catching up to do apparently!

Next, Instagram.  This one I am having a hard time catching onto.  Probably because I am not a big Facebook user and have never used Twitter, so all of this hashtag stuff is completely new to me.  I'm not much of a photographer either. But, I thought I would try it anyway!

I set up my account so you can follow me (however that works) at literacyspark.

I also took a few pictures and labeled one #teachertalktuesday.  (Today was "O" day, so we worked outdoors.)  I did see thousands of other pictures labeled with the same hashtag, I think!  

Annnnnnnd...that's as far as I have gotten with Instagram!  

Apples and ABC's as well as What the Teacher Wants have some great tips and tutorials that I will be checking out.

One more thing to share for Tried it Tuesday:

Ben and Jerry's Pina Colada - Limited Edition!

Budding Blog!

I have a budding blog!  If your blog has less than 200 followers, so do you!  Head over to I {Heart} Recess and link up your blog.  I figure I better join this month because I'm almost to 200 followers!

1.  Why did you start blogging?

I had been reading teaching blogs for about a year and then started making purchases off of TpT as well.  I found everyone's blogs and ideas to be inspiring and thought it would be something fun to do and a way to rejuvenate my teaching.  So, as a new year's resolution, I set up this blog in January.

2.  What is your favorite subject to teach and why?

Reading!  I currently teach ELA to two second grade classes.  I fell in love with teaching reading when I got my first job teaching first grade.  I actually had no idea how to teach reading, but  I had to learn fast!  I love being able to turn kids into readers.

3.  Describe your teaching style.

I integrate technology into my teaching constantly and am always exploring the use of new tools in the classroom.  I am big on small group teaching and stations, as compared to whole class instruction.  I have been working on implementing a form of the Daily 5 for a couple years and want to begin using a reading workshop format. I also always make sure to keep a steady daily routine/schedule with my students while using a variety of instructional activities to keep my students engaged.

4.  Give three interesting facts about yourself.

I am originally from the Northeast (Massachusetts/Connecticut).

I got married last summer in Greece, just my husband and I.

I have this reputation for being extremely organized and on the ball, but in reality I'm a procrastinator and kind of messy!

5.  Do you have a TpT store?  If yes, post the link.

Yes, I do.  It is a work in progress, but click here to check it out!

I shared this summer reading list yesterday, but I am posting it again and linking up with Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies.  Click on the image to access the document.

Please don't forget to join my linky party and share some vocabulary tips!  Click the button below to find the post.

Summer Book List & Mentor Text Linky

I went to a Scholastic Book warehouse sale yesterday!  It was my first time and I spent double what I was supposed to...  Luckily, they said they aren't coming back until December.  Everything in the warehouse was 25-80% off.  Basically, from what I saw, everything was 50% off, so most kids books were between 2-4 dollars except for the hardcover ones.

I got 92 books!  I know, I apparently have no self control.  Here they are.  It actually doesn't look like 92 books!

I bought a bunch of sets of early chapter books since these aren't really available to us in my school.  Plus, I was thinking maybe I can do some chapter book clubs during the final two weeks of school.  We all have to move classrooms and will be packing things up, so we won't have access to all of our materials and technology.

Then  I just got a bunch of random books for independent reading.  I did find I Wanna New Room! by the author of I Wanna Iguana! so I picked that up too for persuasive writing.

I also found The Book Whisperer which I have heard so much about.  Summer reading!

Speaking of summer reading, creating a summer reading list for our incoming second graders was one of my tasks this weekend.  Here is what I came up with.  Feel free to use it if you would like, just click on the image!

It is also time for Collaboration Cuties weekly mentor text linky.  This week's theme is science.

The text I chose is "What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?" by Steve Jenkins.

This is a great book for teaching animal adaptations, which we are required to teach in second grade.  It goes through different body parts and then explains specifically what each animal uses it for.  The kids also get a kick out of predicting which animal the body part belongs to.

When I taught science, I would have my kids create their own animal and describe the adaptations that help it survive.  It is always interesting to see what they come up with.