Updates

Hey y'all! Forgive me for going 2 months without a post! Things have been crazy busy! At my school, we have been going through our State and Federal monitorings, my husband and I have been recovering from walking pneumonia and sinuses, along with just finishing up celebrating Halloween and celebrating Veterans' Day this upcoming week with Thanksgiving to follow. It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving time is already here because that means Christmas is quickly approaching! Here are some great things that have been going on in my class since I last posted.

September- These sweeties, along with some precious moms and my sweet husband, gave me a surprise birthday party filled with cupcakes and ice cream and wonderful gifts. I brag about my kids on a daily basis because they are such a great group. They have some really sweet hearts, which I will talk about in a little bit. Also in September, my DonorsChoose project for a document camera was fully funded!!! My kids and I are so thrilled and love using the document camera!

October- We did a book study on Charlotte's Web during a short week for Fall Break. My kids LOVED the book and activities we did with it. We watched the movie after reading the book, and some of my sweeties had a few tears in their eyes. It is such a sweet book and really lets you see the tender hearts of little ones. In Social Studies, we have been learning about America and being good citizens. We are doing a fundraiser for UNICEF where we have a contest going on with each class in our school. Whoever donates the most gets a special snack. I showed my kids video clips about what UNICEF is and what they do, and their sweet little hearts were so opened to how good we have it even on our worst days. They were broken to see kids suffer and were all saying they would bring all their money to donate. We will find out Monday whose class won. *Crossing my fingers that my sweet ones did because they earned it with their hearts.*

November- This upcoming Tuesday, we will be doing our Veterans' Day program at my school. Both 2nd grade classes will be performing The Star-Spangled Banner and they are loving it! I thought they would be nervous about it, but they literally walk around everywhere singing it. I have had parents message me telling me the song is stuck in their heads. I am so proud of my patriotic sweeties and how they are taking this performance to heart. In Social Studies, as mentioned before, we are learning about America, and I think that makes them proud to be an American. Soon, we will be doing activities for Thanksgiving and beginning prepping for Christmas. I am the type of person who refuses to put up Christmas decorations or play Christmas songs until after Thanksgiving, but we are having to make Thanksgiving/Christmas art projects to sell at our Art Show. I'm trying to bend just for it. Also coming up, we have an Animal Habitat project to be looking out for. I will post about it once they turn their projects in. :)

Classroom Tour

Yes, I know. It has been a whole month since my last post. This past month has been such a whirlwind. Second grade is different than first grade from last year, and I have met many challenges in adapting to harder curriculums. I have been doing extended day 2 days a week, so sometimes my sweet hubby has to cook supper since I don't get home till 6:30 or later.

On top of that, our sweet Charlie has gone missing. I am just hoping that he has taken up with a loving family who needed him like I did during my young adult years before marriage. Needless to say, I have been exhausted.

But I am excited to share some classroom pictures that I took literally the night before school started. (Props to my hubby for all his help in getting everything ready for my first day and every other day he helps me.)

Keep in mind that school started for me nearly 4 weeks ago, so some things have changed a little but I am happy to say that I like my class layout for the most part. Most of the changes came in putting students in groups after the first week of school.

This is a panoramic view of all the important parts of my classroom.
(L to R: Listening Center, Reading Center with Focus Board above it, My Desk/Word Work Center,
About Me Corner, Front Board, Alphabet wall, Technology Corner, Small Group Area)

Here is the back of my classroom.
(L to R: VIP Area, Cabinet Space, Cubbies)

I have a huge white board I never used last year behind my desk. This year, I turned it into a focus board that has been super helpful this year. I also did a little refurbishing to the front of my desk. I purchased contact paper on Amazon and used Dollar Tree Borders to make it pop a bit. The kids use it during their Word Work Center. I have magnetic words and letters in the little totes under my desk. They also must write the words and sentences they build on whiteboards I bought at the Dollar Tree. (Those are hiding under my desk as well.)

Again, the whiteboard is an extension of my focus board. I am so excited about my Reading Center this year. It's organized and so inviting to the kids with bright colors and comfy pillows. I inherited the black shelf on the left with the classroom. I found the white Sterlite totes in our storage room, so they were free. The shelf on the right is from Fred's for $15. I spent maybe $20 on the 2 rugs. One is from Wal-Mart and the other is from Ollie's. Almost all of the colorful book bins were $1 that I got from Wal-Mart and the Dollar General. The big green pillow, peace sign pillows, and butterfly pillow were old pillows I used in my teenage years. The 2 metallic pillows were $5 each at Dollar General.

On the left you can see my little corner. I have things hanging that students have given me, important pictures, and important papers. The little lantern lights were $3 from Target, and the tall lamp is from my college dorm year.

Here is the front view that my students see. I have my Promethean board and a good chunk of a whiteboard to use. Below are numbers 1-10 (off TPT) and above is the alphabet (Dollar Tree), 100 Chart (Dollar Tree), Class Rules (TPT), US Map (Target), and Shapes poster (Dollar Tree). To the right, you can see our Calendar Math board.

These are the letter and sound cards that come with the Wonders curriculum that we are suggested to have hanging. I am excited to have a great Tech Corner this year which will hopefully get started after Labor day. I have 2 Chromebooks and 2 Kindles to use. Above the Tech Corner is my infamous Happy Birthday corner. My kids love seeing their names and it makes them feel important.

This is my small group area. It has lots of helpful skill information posters and all my small group manipulatives and needs stored in the shelves (and big cabinet). The hanging lanterns were $1 from Five Below, the window banner was $1 from Dollar General, and the stools were $5 each from Five Below. To the right, you can see my VIP area. It has light up lanterns and a fun, comfy chair. On Fridays, I pick a student who has had a good week to sit there during snack time and draw/write in our class journal.

I am bless with lots of storage space. I cover the cabinets with motivational posters for the students to read. On the counter, I use magazine bins (IKEA) to organize what I need for the week and for different subjects. It is probably my most commented part of my room. I have 2 buckets for pencils (dull and sharp). I also have a speaker and microphone to wear that sits in the back of the room as well.

Above the cubbies are my "special" books and school supplies. Each cubby has a number assigned to the students. I put adorable magazine bins that I got at the Dollar Tree in each child's cubby to help keep them more organized this year. To the right, I have a welcome table where students turn in their folders and work each day. On the other side of my cabinet, I put down chalkboard contact paper where I write an inspirational quote for the kids to read when they come on.

I hope you have enjoyed the tour of my classroom and I look forward to looking at all of the other wonderful classrooms in this link up.

2nd Grade Bulletin Boards

I have been looking forward to this blog post ever since Ashley and Angie announced it live on Periscope weeks ago! I want to make this year my best year of teaching and want to do so much better on my blogging. With that being said, here are some of the bulletin boards I have put up in my *NEW* second grade classroom.

Last year in first grade, we did Calendar Math every day though it is not a 1st grade standard. For me, those 10 minutes were so important for many reasons.

1. It got students into a routine to WRITE the date and sentences about the days of the week each morning for their morning work. My favorite thing (and the kids loved it too) was to look at how well their handwriting improved from August to May. *tear!*
2. We went over Calendar Math together in whole group right before our Math lesson where I incorporated many Math standards along with Science standards. Even before I "officially" taught how to interpret data, my students were very familiar with it because we had been doing it all year. FYI, we didn't get to data until the last month or two of school. We also talked about the weather and temperature and how we could make good educated predictions.
3. Routine, routine, routine. The kids got so used to exactly how Calendar Math went that I used it as a reward coupon where the student would get to be the teacher and lead the class through Calendar Math. They loved it on both sides of getting to lead their peers and having a peer lead them.
4. Those 10 minutes of whole group time got their little brains turning to get ready for a Math lesson. Light bulbs would turn on, and they would be ready to learn.

How did I make this board? The background is a turquoise $1 vinyl tablecloth I got at the Dollar General with purple border that I got at a local teacher store. The calendar was a lucky find that I found in my school's extra supplies/resource room, so it was FREE! The cute chevron calendar stuff was purchased on TPT by Stephanie Cain. The "Today's Number Is..." was made by yours truly. I ordered the little pockets on Amazon. The cute little weather options and "Today's Weather Is:" was a steal of a deal in the dollar spot at Target. The Place Value Chart was a freebie on TPT by Mrs. McDermid. The Weather Chart was a freebie on TPT by Yay-For-PreK.

This is where I will post weekly Spelling words and each week's sight words. The background is a green $1 vinyl tablecloth I got at Dollar General. The purple border was purchased at a local teacher store. The pre-cut letters are from Dollar Tree. The cute little blue chart was a find from the dollar spot at Target.

Last year in first grade, I felt like my kids weren't exposed to vocabulary as much as they should have been. So, this year I am making vocabulary a BIG deal. I used one of my bare whiteboards (that I wasn't going to use anyways) and outlined it with Dollar Tree borders and pre-cut sticky letters.

And for the grand finale, this was my big summer project. For Math, we use Go Math. For Language Arts, we used Wonders. I took important things we cover and used some cute free fonts to print out my headers for each subject. I glued them to scrapbook paper, laminated them, and them put magnetic tape on the back. I did the same thing with what goes with each header as well. I still have to laminate them which is why they are not up fully yet. The chevron border is from a local teacher store and all the letters are from the Dollar Tree.

I try hard to make all my bulletin boards educational, multi-functional, and interactive with the students so that they have a purpose. I have learned that if bulletin boards have no meaning or purpose to the students, then they are just wasting space and the students are losing out on wonderful learning opportunities. I hope you have enjoyed looking at my bulletin boards and hopefully they gave you some inspiration of things you can do in your classroom. I will post updates later on in the year one the bulletin boards are in full use!

New Year, New Grade

If you follow me on Facebook, then you will know that I was offered a new position at my school and I couldn't be more thrilled to be returning to a place I came to love last year. From my co-workers to all my precious students, my heart is there and am so blessed God opened a door for me. Because I am moving up a grade (yes, I'll be getting some of my same sweet babies again), I am making updates to my blog. Since I just got married, changing my name has been a big deal. My first big change here is my blog name: Smith's Second Sweeties. My next big task is to design a new page because (drum roll please....) I am going to be linking up with Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd and Lucky Little Learners in August and September, so I want my blog to be fabulous!

My goal for the upcoming school year is to be more involved with my blog to not showcase what I am doing, but to showcase what my students are doing so that parents can see student work and so that other teachers might can find new strategies and activities to help out in their classrooms. So, stay tuned for big things coming!

Reading Vocabulary

This semester, I have really been pushing knowing and widening my first graders' vocabulary. The curriculum we use is very rigorous and has expectations for the students, which I love because I set high goals for them as well, but sometimes it will teach something for about 10 minutes on one day and expect them to know and fully understand it when they take their test on Friday. I am new to this curriculum and am still learning how to use the online tools all the time, but I am always looking for additional resources to pull from to provide aid with what we are learning.

Vocabulary just happens to be one of those things that is taught on Monday for about 10 minutes, and then never discussed again. I do it differently. I will TRY to go over the words on Monday, but there have been times where I waited until Tuesday because we spend a good 30 minutes really digging deep into the words to fully understand them.

Each week, the students have 7 new vocabulary words about our topic for the week. We spend about 5 minutes on each word doing lots of activities to meet each child's learning style and to differentiate learning abilities. I will show the word, say the word, and then the students repeat me. I then read the word in a sentence, and the students turn and talk to their group about what the word means. They have some really fantastic conversations. Some students provide examples of the word in different sentences while others can give a good definition of the word. I like to walk around and listen for keys words to mention when we bring it back to whole group. This is a great informal assessment to see what words students already know and to see students working together to gain vocabulary. When we come back to whole group, I mention key words I heard and give them the kid-friendly definition along with other examples. I try to make it all as kid-friendly as possible. Finally, the students write the word and can either draw a picture of what the word means or use it in a sentence. Below are pictures of the worksheet I use for that.

As you can see, this simple worksheet helps to meet the needs of all learners in my class because they write the word and draw a picture that best represents the word or they can write a sentence using the word. It works with all learners because the students TALK about the word and its meaning with their peers, they LISTEN to other students and the teacher within discussions, they WRITE the word and may possibly write a sentence using the word, and they DRAW a picture of what they word would look like.

Now, don't give me any of the credit for this activity. I got the freebie on Teachers Pay Teachers from the lovely Leslie Ann Rowland. Click here for a link to this amazing freebie! She has 2 awesome blogs that I love: Life in First Grade and Life in Fifth Grade. She is a former 1st Grade teacher and current 5th Grade teacher. (The opposite of me as I am a current 1st Grade teacher and former 5th Grade teacher!) I can't wait to try out her Vocabulary Graphic Organizer soon!

Students as Teachers

I am super pumped in today's post where I get to share a little bit of what my awesome students do during Math.

These last 2 weeks have been completely crazy between Valentine's, Mardi Gras celebration, and Snow Days.

Here are my sweeties at our Valentine's special snack. They made precious
kitty Valentine bags for friends to give them Valentines.

I had my students write 3+ things that they love
about First Grade and school. They all went
"EWWW!!"when they finally saw what I put
about the heart of hearts. :)

One of my amazing parents helped make this door. The kids
held one of their favorite books as I took their pictures. All
of the teachers loved the Mardi Gras pun. ;)

I bought masks, feathers, and glitter glue at the Dollar Tree and let the students
make their own Mardi Gras masks. I think they turned out pretty cute!

No, we can't do a class photo without doing a silly pose. It's just not possible.

So as you can see, our last 2 weeks have been *eventful* to say the least! We tried our best to squeeze in any ounce of learning whenever we could. The past week, we had a wonderful Math lesson. Let me start out by saying I LOVE mini white boards. I use them in centers and in small group. I am trying harder to work them in my Reading and Math lessons, but sometimes I forget (getting old!). Thank goodness I remembered them for our Math lesson this week because it was a toughy and their worksheets didn't give them any room to work. Students had to add 2-digit numbers to multiples of ten (i.e. 47 + 20, 50 + 21, 36 + 60, etc.) Students used the white boards to draw out their work to help them find the answers. Below are some examples of their work.

As you can see, each student had a different style of working them out. Some worked one at a time while others split up the board to make room for everything. My favorite thing (and I think the kids love it also) about Math is I will go over an example or 2 and we work through 2-3 together. I give the students 1-2 problems to do on their own. I walk around, and if they get them right, they get a sticker. (Stickers are huge motivations in my class. If you don't believe me, I will have to show you their name tags where they put all their stickers to "show them off".) Those who get the problems wrong usually meet me at my small group table to work together until they can complete a problem independently. Sometimes, however, I let students who earn stickers go help another student who is struggling. I don't do this too much because many times they will just give each other answers, but I had 2 students who did an awesome job working together. Here is just a small clip of what I was able to catch on my phone.

Students Helping Students on TeacherTube

This really makes me a happy teacher!! I can't wait to show it to my other students on Monday so they can see what it looks like to help other students without giving them the answers. By the way, the student that was helping said that he understands why I sometimes get stressed when they don't listen now (LOL!!).

Dirty Things in First

I have always wanted to be a teacher blogger. I have just never had time nor felt creative enough. I am in the middle of planning for a wedding and working on my first year in 1st grade after moving down from 5th grade. So, I have decided to do a blog showing how I use other teachers' awesome creations to help promote them and to show how a different class uses them.

Last Friday, things got a little dirty in 1st grade.

Students were able to play with dirt and explore
it in so many ways.

They loved breaking up the clumps of dirt and using magnifying
glasses to get a better look. I bought the magnifying glasses for $1 at
the Dollar General.

This is probably one of the most engaging activities we have done in
Science as you can tell from all of the pictures.

Don't they look like cute little Scientists looking at the dirt with
magnifying glasses, observing what they see, using their senses to
describe it, and having collaborative conversations with each other?

Honestly, I think my girls were more into it than my boys!

This picture captured the activity wonderfully! Each child is engaged in some way. Most are feeling of the dirt to feel its coolness and consistency.

We concluded our Science Experiment by eating dirt pudding.

Their personalities really shine when it comes to getting gross!

Some were a little weary of it really being dirt, but it was just a chocolate pudding cup with crushed oreos on top completed with a sour gummy worm. I really wanted plain gummy worms, but the Dollar Tree was out of them.

This is definitely something I will do again next year as long ad I am teaching a K-2 grade.

We have Science books that we "use" at school, but I mainly use it as a guideline. Sometimes we pull it out when we talk about Nonfiction books or to introduce topics, but I use it only as a resource. We are moving into Landforms & Soil, so I went on Pinterest to do a little research for something fun to do. My kids LOVE Science! Unfortunately, we only get to do it 1-2 days a week for about 30 minutes. I try to splurge on my time a little bit on Fridays or if we finish Math early. :)

I started finding bits and pieces of things that I wanted to do until I stumbled upon Nancy Vandenberge and her awesome first grade resources! We used her We Dig Dirt Unit to help us in our 1-day mini activity. I was going to have the student collect their own dirt, but it was a cold January day and it was a little mucky as it rained the day before. I went ahead and got the dirt in  ziplock bags for each group. I put a paper plate in the middle of each group and dumped the dirt out. The kids were fabulous about not touching the dirt until all materials were on their desk, and we had a minimal amount of mess to clean up afterwards. I gave each student an observation worksheet where they colored what they saw on one side and wrote about it on the other. I also gave each group a magnifying glass to look at the dirt.

Without prompting them, the kids started saying things like "This dirt is cold!" and "This clump has a lot of rocks in it!" After we had our fill of touching the dirt and looking at it closely (and even smelling it for some of my lovelies), we washed our dirty hands and began to color what we saw. I told them to use those awesome descriptions they were saying when they touched it to use on their writing.

After we cleaned off our desks, we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon eating a special dirt pudding snack. All of the special snacks for 15 students cost me less than $10, and I got everything from the Dollar Tree (aka Teacher's Paradise). :)