Goals

I am loving being back in the blog world!!!

Thanks to those of you who commented on my last post.  I appreciate knowing that someone's actually reading this thing.  :-)

This past week, I had my evaluation (It went great-thanks for asking).  Being evaluated always makes me think of what I want to accomplish and/or how I want to grow as a teacher each year (partially because my evaluator always asks me :-)).

This year, the goal I'm setting for myself (and the area I want to focus on) is becoming more skilled at guided reading.  I have a tentative plan to accomplish this, but I'm definitely open to suggestions and help from my blogging community.  For example, I read a great post by Tanya on her blog, Mrs. Dwyer's A+ Firsties today.

So here's my plan:

I'm going to read some books.  I have chosen these 2:

I know that this book won't help with guided reading, but I want to read it anyway.  I'm sure I can get something of value from it about whole-class reading or reading in general.  

I figure that the title and the authors make it an obvious choice as a source to use to learn about guided reading.  

After reading Chapter 1 of The Book Whisperer, a few things stuck with me:

• I love when she says, " I know from personal experience that readers read richer lives, more lives, than those who don't read" (p. 11).   
• I love how Miller gives her collection of books from which she draws reading wisdom.  2 that I think I might want to read are: In the Middle by Nancie Atwell and Fountas and Pinnell's Guiding Readers and Writers (Grades 3-6): Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy.
• Atwell's components of reading workshop (interesting as my district promotes the use of reading and writing workshops): time, choice, response, community, and structure.  

After reading Chapter 1 of Guided Reading, here's what I want to remember/refer back to (I LOVE that my blog is a record of what I do and what I learn!): 

• The biggest thing I took away from chapter 1 is that I need at least one uninterrupted hour for guided reading.  Right now, I probably have 40 minutes.  An hour is so difficult to conceive with tutoring demands, helping absent students complete make-up work, etc.  
• I realized that I have the basic formula down: introduce a book, read it with the group, discuss it, and maybe include a minute or two of word work.  One thing I still can't get behind with my struggling readers is having them read all at the same time softly.  My struggling readers tend to find this very distracting.  
• I like the idea of completing a running record on one student at the end of each group, getting through everyone every two weeks or so.  Often, I reserve a group meeting to do this with each group member.  
• For students to effectively develop problem-solving strategies, they need to be working with a text they can read with about 90% accuracy.  I already knew this, but a reminder never hurts.  

I'm excited to keep reading both of these books and continue to refine my practices in both guided and whole-class reading instruction.  Have you read either of these books?  Do you have any guided reading wisdom for me?  What book do you consider to be your "guided reading bible"?

I'm Back (if anyone's still here)!!!

Hey blog buddies,

I know that I am a very unreliable blogger.  At this point, I'm just keeping this blog for me.  I feel like it is only appropriate as the majority of the professional development I'm getting is through the internet.  Anyway, in the spirit of networking, I'm linking up with Denise over at Sunny Days in Second Grade for her new 12 part series My Truth.  How motivating is it that at the conclusion of the series, we will be ready for the new year?!

I love this idea, and I'm so excited to discuss the first topic as I'm getting ready to run in my first Color Me Rad 5K.  I ran my first 5K last Thanksgiving, and I can't wait to run in another race.  Anyway, read about my fitness truth below.  I hope that some of you can relate-I find it so hard to get out there and MOVE after a 10 or 11 hour day at school.  What is your fitness truth?

Anyway, things at school have been simply loco, as I'm sure they've been for all of my readers.  However, I hope that by participating in this series, I will be able to maintain semi-regular posts on this sweet little blog.  

See you next Monday!

Plant Research and PBLs

Hey everyone!

I'm returning a bit later than I wanted to my good ol' blog, but I'm here, so I'm happy.  :-)  We have been working hard on researching the parts of the plant in class lately.  When I saw Amy Lemons's Earth Day unit, I knew I could use her parts of the plant foldable to help my students with notetaking.  The results are below. 

One of my student's flower foldable

Student notes on plant roots and leaves



Once we found and recorded information about how the roots, stem, leaves, and flower help the plant, we formed groups in class.  My students are working with partners to develop a product and presentation that can answer how each part of the plant helps it survive.  It's been a fun week! 

Do you do project-based learning at your school?  What's your favorite PBL unit or topic that you teach?

Finally, I'm getting ready to celebrate Earth Day on Monday.  What read alouds are your favorite to share with your students?  I'd love to hear from you in the comments below.   

A Long Time Gone, DonorsChoose, and Great Ideas Soon to be in Action

Hello blog buddies (if you're still here),

It's been a long time.  It's been quite the school year.  I can't believe we are coming to the end of it.  Tonight will be a short post as I simply get back into the art of blogging.

As for the title, it was completely accidental, but it made me think of this Dixie Chicks song (Long Time Gone).  I loved them when I was in high school.

 

1) I have a new Donors Choose project posted, which you can view here. I have had one project funded by DonorsChoose before, and it was such a great experience that I decided to try again. Best of all, if you donate to any projects this week (through the 14th) and use the code "INSPIRE" the DonorsChoose Board of Directors will match the donation.

2) I saw a great guest post on Christina's blog, written by a guest blogger (Sara from Smiling in Second Grade that you can read here.  I LOVE the idea of Friday journals, and I can't wait to start this next year.  Frankly, I was so excited about this idea, especially for my English Language Learners, that if it didn't mean that I would have to find an extra journal for each of my students I would have started this immediately.  

3) I recently took advantage of the TpT Easter sale, and I picked up two great units.  I picked up Hope's poetry unit which you can find here and I picked up Amy's Earth Day unit which can be found here.  We have just begun our study of plants so we are working on Amy's parts of a plant foldable in class right now.  I'm excited to give you an update about this study later.     That's all for now.  It's definitely time to go home.      

The Week Before Thanksgiving

Hey everyone!

I'm at work (I know...WAY too late), but I wanted to post.  I don't have a math/Investigations post ready yet, but after seeing a craftivity on Step into 2nd Grade with Mrs. Lemons' blog (something she got from A Cupcake for the Teacher).  So I headed right over to that TPT shop and happily spent $3.  Here's a picture of some finished turkeys on my hallway display.   

I'm so happy that I took the time to do this.  We listened to our Disney music, and worked away assembling the turkeys.  I had traced all of the patterns on rectangles and put them in baggies for the kids.  They followed along with me, cutting out and assembling their turkeys-GREAT practice in following directions.  The students then wrote what they were thankful for.  Some of them wrote lots and lots!!! 

This was such a successful, fun activity, and I must thank both Amy at Step into 2nd Grade and Teri at A Cupcake for the Teacher.  Amy, thanks for blogging about this great activity.  Teri, thanks for putting it together and sharing it with us...it's adorable. 

This craftivity was so fun for my class that I am making a resolution now, to incorporate more "fun" activities like this into our plans.  Whatever happened to learning being fun?! 

In other news, I'm reading this book with my kids this week:

We read Henry and Mudge stories at the beginning of the year, so a Cynthia Rylant book fits right in.  Do any of you read this book?  What activities/assessments do you do with it?  My students will all take the Accelerated Reader test on it tomorrow, and we wrote a response to it today, but that's pretty much been it.  Do you have other favorite books to read for fall/Thanksgiving?

I know I mentioned AR (sorry, I feel like this post is ALL over the place).  My students have recently become very motivated to achieve the points levels at which they earn a prize (sponsored by the PTA).  Some teachers at my school do their own rewards within the classroom as well.  I'm about to start this, because as the students move up the levels, the point increments get bigger and bigger.  I don't want them to lose motivation.  Do you have a reading incentive program in your classroom?  How does it work?

Okay, that's all for now.  Time to go HOME!  Thanks for reading.  :-) 

Saving Science

Hello blog readers (if you are still out there-I've been gone for a long, long time),

I need your help today.  Science has become terribly, horribly boring.  Our 2nd grade students are so desperate for engaging science that they are literally digging up the playground at recess (No, I'm not kidding)!!! 

Not my students, but I think this captures how they feel.  :-(



We are about to embark upon our energy unit, and we need your help!  We are looking for engaging experiences to provide our students that will still yield a grade.  What do you do for science in your 2nd grade classroom?  What do the kids really love?  How do you grade it?  What are your sources for lessons/experiments? 

I've looked around the internet a bit, especially at the websites of two of my favorite scientists, Bill Nye and Steve Spangler.  I'm about to check out Pinterest next, but I'd love to hear your science success stories.  Please help us...BEFORE my students dig to China!

I hope to make my way back to blog land.  Maybe next week I can write a post to update you on how Investigations is going and what it looks like in my classroom.  Thanks for reading (and hopefully helping!). 

DonorsChoose and giveaway winnner!

First things first:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congrats Jessica. You have an e-mail from me in your inbox.  :-)

2nd great news: KIA Motors matched my DonorsChoose project and paid for half of it.  Yay KIA!!!  I only have $64 to go and I'm so excited!!!  You can check my project out by clicking on the widget on the right of the page.

Time to go to school!  I'll do a better post this weekend.  :-)