Organization is a Beautiful Thing

With summer coming to a close (it's not QUITE over yet, though - we still have 14 days until we officially go back!), I've been starting to put a lot of focus on the upcoming year. I've been working very hard on my future students' organization, but started by making sure I was very organized myself. After reflecting on last year, I took all of my favorite organization components and decided to combine them in one notebook. The notebook has five sections and I plan to take it with me everywhere. No more grabbing this notebook for one meeting and another notebook for another! Simplifying...it's a beautiful thing.

Here's how the notebook is organized:

Section 1 - Calendar: 

After searching for the perfect blank calendar, I finally decided to simply make my own and I'm thrilled with how it turned out. You can download it by clicking here.

Section 2 - Student Information: 

This section has transportation, email, and phone numbers for each student for quick reference. It also has students' data scores and other important information (DRA, DIBELS, MAP scores, student interest surveys, etc). You can download student information here (sorry the font's not as cute!).

Section 3 - Parent Communication: 

I'm able to keep all phone numbers, parent information, and contact logs in this section. I plan to put the completed "Back to School Student Information" sheet first, followed by the contact log. Each student is separated by a piece of green card stock. You can download both pages of the "Back to School Student Information here (again, sorry about the cute fonts disappearing!)

Section 4 - School and Team Meetings

Section 5 - District Meetings: 

These two sections are full of lots of blank notebook paper, ready to be filled in with important notes from meetings throughout the year!

Now that I feel organized, I'm ready to tackle the final bits of my students' organization! That will be for a later post :)

Enjoy your last few weeks of summer!

Brand New Look

My blog has a new look, and here's what inspired me. 


My district hosted an amazing technology conference this week and I learned SO many new, useful things while I was there! Here's a recap of what I learned and plan to implement in my classroom this fall:


- Prezi.com: I plan to use this site in SO many ways! It will replace my "All About Me" bags I do at the beginning of the year - I will make my own "All About Me" Prezi to show the students and then they will get to create their own. I also plan to use it for parent orientation (much snazzier than a PowerPoint!) and various student research projects during the year, such as our Native Americans and community workers presentations.
- Blogger: While this session didn't give me quite as much information as I would have liked, it did inspire me (and my teammates) to revamp my blog. You can thank this class for prompting me to get my new layout, as well as this site where I got the template. They have GREAT templates, backgrounds, icons, etc. Their work looks much better than mine ever would!
- Study Island: I'm lucky enough to have a school that already had a subscription to this amazing site, but I will say that I honestly didn't use it as much as I could have last year. This session gave a wonderful overview of this site and I am certain that I will use it in class (reading and math workshop, perhaps?) and in after-school tutoring. I also plan to use it for students that need assistance in specific areas by assigning needed tasks and pushing them to work on these weak areas both in and out of school.
- Google Earth: I knew a bit about this program, but had no idea how useful it could be in the classroom! This site can be used in almost all subject areas, from math (perimeter, area, distance - check out www.realworldmath.org) to reading (check out www.googlelittrips.com - it shows the actual locations stories take place in) to social studies (country projects, Flat Stanley locations, Where in the World, landforms, etc. etc.) to science (weather around the world). I am so excited to implement this program in my classroom and know my students will LOVE getting to see this amazing view of the world.
- Visual Storytelling: This sessions was created to encourage storytelling through pictures. The presenter encouraged us to use only pictures for writing prompts (no other information), as well as introduced me to the idea of "6 Word Stories". The 6 Word Stories could be a great writing technique for older students that need to condense their thoughts, but would also be excellent for my young students that have limited writing abilities. Another inspiring session!
- Demo Slam: The conference ended with a "Demo Slam" where oogles of presenters shared their favorite technology tid-bits. They presented for about 3-4 minutes each and gave great, useful information about products, websites, and other forms of technology. 
Some slamming highlights: 
- Search Stories: digital storytelling through Google searches
- Socrative App: student response software through ANY technology - phone, computer, Chrome book, iPad, etc. Just like SMART Clickers!
- Google URL Shortener: shortens any URL and can be added directly to your GMail account (search in the Chrome store)
- AccessNow: This website allows you to access your computer's hardware from any computer
- Slide Rocket: Presentation app for Google Chrome
- Stich.it: Puts together a bunch of URLs (audio, websites, presentations - like from Slide Rocket - videos, images) and turns it into one seamless presentation
- Skitch: Use to take screen captures and add arrows, captions, and more
- Scratch: Created by MIT, this site allows you to make your own interactive stories, games, music, or art, almost like an interactive comic book.
- StudyBlue: Make your own flashcards (available in an app)
- BookSource Classroom Organizer: Keep track of your classroom books and who checks them out
- Google Drive: This is the Google Cloud - a must to download! You get 5GB free (lots of space), and can buy more if you want.


All in all, this was a wonderful conference and I left rejuvenated and inspired to use even more technology in my classroom. I'm grateful I was able to attend and I know my students will be, too!

Wrapping It Up

Goodness, where has the time gone? The last few weeks of school were a wonderful blur and we are now officially on summer break. We learned up until the last minute, though, and had lots of great experiences. We filled our time with Cultural Arts Day, awards day, memory books, and end of the year parties - whew! We also experienced supply and demand by creating our own classroom stores. The students got to create their own products and then sell them to their classmates in our classroom mall (Shopping in our classroom?? Yes, please!). It was very interesting to hear their reflections as they discussed what items sold and why they think they were top-sellers in our room. Video games were a big hit, FYI (surprise, surprise), but model airplanes really struggled to sell. 

It's hard to believe that my precious group of second graders has finished their year and will be third graders next year. We had an amazing year and I know they will do a great job next year. To my lovely students: enjoy your time off, but make sure you read something every single day!!! Look for more posts next year when I get a new bunch of kiddos!

Enjoying popsicles after a hard day of work!

Busy creating advertisements for our classroom stores.

A shoe store! 

Who can resist a candy store??

A picture one of my wonderful parents took on one of our last days. We sure did have a great year!

Riverfront Highlights

There are a few things that all students (and teachers) look forward to each school year and one of those things is a wonderful field trip. The last one we went on was last fall so it was due time for another one. After contemplating various locations, the other second grade teachers and I decided to take our students to Columbia's Riverfront Park. We had never taken students on a field trip here, but we were SO glad that we did! The trip was completely outdoors, was filled with tons of hands-on activities (including wading/splashing/trampling through a river), hit tons of second grade standards, and, best of all, was completely free! I would highly recommend this field trip to anyone in the Columbia area and I think that all of the students would agree. They couldn't stop talking about all of the things they learned and I could tell it really reinforced many of the science concepts we've studied throughout the year. Other than the snake we caught in the river (eek!!), I would go again in a heartbeat! 

Here is my small group going on a walking tour/scavenger hunt. We found lots of interesting plants and animals...

...such as this snail!

We might have scared away most of the animals with our trampling, but we had a good time.

Our little snake...eekk!

Poetry Month

In celebration of National Poetry Month, we wrote a different type of poem each week during the month of April. Our celebration began with us writing acrostic poems, followed by cinquains and haikus. The students really caught on to these different poems and had a wonderful time picking topics to write about. For our acrostic poems students chose a "springy" word as their topic and then created a kite to display their work on. Our cinquains focused on friendship (and included an official friend interview to become informed of their writing topic) and the haikus centered around animals, which we were studying in science at the time. In addition to writing poems, we also read poems whenever possible. The students have become obsessed with Shel Silverstein and all of his wonderful poems! We have started a new end of the day tradition in which students pick a page number and I randomly read aloud from one of his books. I think the students can officially be called poetry experts at this point!

Our acrostic kites proudly displayed in our hallway

Fantastic Field Day

I'm a bit behind the times, but wanted to share our field day nonetheless. We had a wonderful, busy, exhausting field day a few Fridays back. Our wonderful related arts team created an entire day of events that revolved around the theme "The 50 States". Students traveled to different states and did activities that went along with the history of each state. The day was a blur, but everyone had a great time - me included (I might have had more fun than some of the students!!). The kids couldn't stop talking about all of the fun activities!

Let the games begin!

Students did an "Eskimo Pull" when they traveled to Alaska.

Group games in the multipurpose room put our teamwork to the test.

Boys vs. Girls relay

Clickers!

We have MAP testing next week, which means that we had to spend a lot of time this week reviewing what we've learned all year in the areas of math and reading. Reviewing is not the most thrilling thing for most students, so I decided to use SmartBoard clickers to make the math review more exciting and engaging. We practiced with the clickers the week before and the students LOVED them! I loved them, too, because they showed me every student's scores without me having to do anything! How handy dandy. The clickers were a great resource to help students practice important concepts and I just know that they will do great on their MAP tests next week!

Pure joy using the clickers! Look at what pros they are :)

Science Day

Our school did the most wonderful thing this week - they decided to host a school-wide science day! We promoted it for weeks so by the time the day finally came the kids were SO excited about their activities. Throughout the day, the second grade students traveled from room to room and viewed a hilarious science presentation, heard from a true chemist, investigated magnets, learned about bubbles and air, made gloop, and learned about animals from an expert. Every single station hit on second grade standards in an engaging, fun way. By the end of the day I was left with a group of exhausted, happy, educated second grade scientists who couldn't stop raving about all of the fun activities they did during the day. I can't wait until next year when we get to have another science day!

The day began with a great science presentation! Here the presenter, with the help of another teacher, is demonstrating how air travels when force is applied to it.

The stations I taught all day dealt with magnets and racing cars! Students investigated the cars and learned that you could make them move by placing two similar magnetic poles next to each other. 

After a bit of practicing with the cars, we had a race to see who could make their car move the fastest without actually touching it with your hands - only magnets!

After the races were done and a winner was declared, students created chalk mazes and tried to stump their partner. We learned that turning these cars using just magnets was VERY difficult!

What a wonderful day we all had! It was a great last day before Spring Break! Enjoy your week off :)

Mock Elections

One of our key standards in second grade social studies is the community. After studying the job of mayor and the importance of this occupation, the students had an election and five candidates ran for the position of "mayor". With the help of their fellow learning club members, they were given a chance to develop a platform and come up with a speech to present to the class. Their speeches were inspiring and highlighted many important wants and needs, such as longer recess, more use of computers, no more strange noises from other students, and no shoes in school. It was interesting to see where their priorities lie! After a tough competition, the students elected their classroom mayor. Let's hope they're really up for this big job!

Here are two candidates giving their speeches in the front of the classroom. You couldn't take your eyes off of them as they spoke!

Bulletin Boards

This is just a short post to share a few math bulletin boards we have on our 2nd grade hallway. We are blessed with three bulletin boards to decorate and decided to keep one always reading, one always math, and alternate the last board between science and social studies. I've taken on the math bulletin board and have had a great time coming up with fun ideas! 

Our 2nd graders "hunted" for shapes around the school!

After investigating fractions in our classrooms, this board reinforces how fractions are all around us!

Floating Magnets

We've been studying magnets this week and the students have had a great time seeing what attaches to magnets, how much weight a magnet can hold, and learning about its north and south poles. Out of all of our investigations, however, the students most enjoyed figuring out how to make a cup float using a pencil and two magnets. We brainstormed lots of creative ideas, but in the end the students figured out that the north and south poles would allow the cup to float on the pencil. They had a great time moving the "magically floating cup" up and down the pencil. We have one more week of magnets and I'm excited to continue to allow the students to explore them through fun activities!

Black History Month

As February comes to a close, I thought it would be a great time to share a little bit about how we celebrated Black History Month in our classroom. The month kicked-off with each classroom decorating their door. A large variety of historic African Americans were showcased on the doors around the school, but I decided to spotlight Al Roker on our door. Not only is he a current influential African American, but he studies weather every day (which is a second grade standard) and he has a wonderful book club for kids. My students helped put the finishing touches on the door by writing about their favorite type of weather. We also read James and the Giant Peach as a class, which is a book that was featured in Al's Book Club for Kids. 

In addition to our wonderful decorated doors, our school had an African American read-in. For one full day, we invited influential African Americans from our local community into our school and had them read to our classrooms. We were lucky enough to have two readers come to our room and, boy, did my kids LOVE it! We had an excellent time celebrating Black History Month and my students learned a lot about the many African Americans that have influenced the world around them.

Flat Caroline

Our class had a wonderful new student join us this week! My precious cousin, named Caroline, is a second grader in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and her class just read Flat Stanley. I was very excited when she asked to send her Flat Caroline to Columbia because it meant that not only would I get to meet a new friend, but my students would have a new classmate for a few days. After showing Flat Caroline around our capital city, I took her to school with me to introduce her to my students. My students adored her, just as I suspected they would, and did a great job of teaching her all about our classroom and school. She played with us on the playground (it was cold, so my students made her a scarf out of toilet paper), ate lunch with us (yum!), and traveled with us to Puerto Rico. We had a wonderful time and my students liked meeting another flat friend. We were sad to see her go, but would welcome her back anytime she's in the Columbia area!

Math Concept Day

We had a half-day this week and my second grade team decided to switch up our usual half-day routines and try a math concept day. The students traveled from room to room and participated in hands-on, engaging math activities during four, 30 minute rotations. Each teacher targeted a different major math standard - graphing, money, geometry, and measurement. I got the chance to do measurement in my room and boy, did we have fun! The students let toy cars go down ramps and measured how far they went (hello, 5th grade force and motion!) and also measured their friends' heights in centimeters and inches. It was interesting to see how the different measurements compared. All in all, it was a fun day and I'm already looking forward to the next half-day so we can have even more math fun!

 Students worked together to measure how far their cars went. It was interesting to see how the rougher carpet (friction!) effected the distance the cars went!

The students had to use multiple yard sticks when measuring their height. They learned to add the two lengths together to find out their true height!