Second Grade Perks: September 2013

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Monday, September 30, 2013

My Baby is Two and Giveaway Winner

I want to thank everyone that entered the Fall Blog Block Party Giveaway. Sadly, it is now over but we do have the winner to announce...........


Congrats Katie! Your inbox should be filled with goodies very shortly!

Now, I don't have a lot of time to write because it is my baby girl's 2nd birthday today. It makes me a little sad because it literally feels like I was just having her. I had to share a couple (ok more than a couple) of my favorite pics from her party yesterday. It was a Yo Gabba Gabba themed party because that was the show she was obsessed with. Ok well, as soon as I buy all of her party decorations she decides she is now in love with Bubble Guppies. So we had to compromise. She still had Yo Gabba Gabba decorations but got all Bubble Guppies gifts. Whew I guess this is what I have to look forward to with a girl. Always changing her mind. Ha Ha. Well I'll leave you with these pictures and hope you have a great night!


This is her finding out she got the Deema doll from Bubble Guppies! You would have thought she won a million dollars!

 
This has to be my fav. This is my best friend since 3rd grade's little boy who is 2 months older. We call them boyfriend and girlfriend and it looked like they were slow dancing. Adorable!

 
 Is this not the cutest cake ever made by my sister in law??





Thursday, September 26, 2013

Morning Work Routine

Tomorrow we have to have a sub for the morning so we can attend a writing training. As I started to write my sub plans the first thing I listed was morning work. All I had to write was they come in and do their morning work and they all know what to do. It felt great, so I decided to snap some pictures to show you what I use and explain to you why I am in LOVE with our routine. First, every table in my class has their own morning work basket with a number on in.


Inside of the baskets are all of the materials they will need for the whole week. (We rotate baskets each week). These materials are a ring with 5 morning work task cards all aligned to CCSS, books, morning work sheets, and a bag with their name for unfinished morning work.

 
 
When the kiddos first get to the room they have their basket already on their table. They pick a card from the basket and get to work. Some cards may ask them to read a book from their basket and complete a task and others may ask them to get a morning work sheet to complete. All of this work is done in their morning work notebook. The pages are numbered in their notebook so they know what page to complete each task on (makes easier for grading). The cards are simple enough that they can complete one card each morning. At the end of the week, I take up the notebooks and baskets and grade them. On each page I either put a check or I circle the number if they need to go back and look at it again. I might even put a note as to why it was circled. Most of the time it is because they did not follow all of the directions on the card such as color your picture.
 
 


 
 
On the inside of their notebook I put the date and the grade they got for the week. As you can see in the picture the first time we did these I waited and graded at the end of the month of August (we had only been in school 2 weeks) and the girl missed 10. After that they start to get the hang of it and do much better.

 
 
I mentioned above that each kid has a bag in their basket. Some days students just don't get finished with a card and if they need to they can put the card and any materials they were using in their bag. That way the next morning nobody gets their card before they get to class.
 
Now why do I LOVE this routine so much? Several reasons. One, it is aligned to CCSS and increases in difficulty through the year. Two, I can get grades from it each week. Three, the kids know what to do all year long without me having to explain it. And the biggest reason of all is because at the beginning of each month all that is required of me is to print and laminate the cards (which I won't have to do next year) and make a few copies of the required morning work sheets to put in their baskets. After I take care of that I am finished preparing morning work for the entire month. Ahhhhhh sigh of relief! It feels great.
 
If you want to try this out in your room there are two choices. You can purchase one month and decide if it is something that would work for you OR you can purchase it as a bundle for the whole year and save $$$.
 
I am so thrilled with this product that I am going to offer a $5 credit to my TPT shop from now through the first week in October to anyone that purchases the bundle and emails me (secondgradeperks@gmail.com) or comments below with your TPT user name. And on top of that right now my shop is 20% off through the 29th!
 
Click on the picture to be taken to the bundle. If you do not want the bundle you can still click on the picture or my shop link above and then search my shop for the month you want to try out.
 

 
Make sure you read my previous post if you missed it about the Fall Blog Block Party so you can snag your 10 freebies and enter the giveaway!
 


 

Saturday, September 21, 2013

It's Here.......The Fall Blog Block Party

So, you have been in school for a while now and starting to get over the first few weeks back madness. You made all of your back to school purchases on TPT and are now ready for some new and fresh ideas. If this sounds like you then you've come to the right place because we are having a Blog Block Party where you can blog hop to download TEN awesome freebies plus enter the giveaway to win a ton of amazing products from some lovely ladies.

 
How it works: Each blog in the hop will have the button image of the next blog in the hop. After you download your freebie from the blog you are at click on the button of the next blog to get the next freebie! To enter the giveaway just enter the rafflecopter below on my blog. Wanna see what all you could win in the giveaway?? Well get ready, here you go:
 










 
Ready for my freebie? I wanted to make it a great one so, for the entire week (Sept. 22nd-29th) you can download straight from my TPT shop 30 comprehension posters. Click on the preview image below to go straight to the download.
 
SORRY THIS FREEBIE HAS ENDED

 
Now, click on the button below to go to Soaring Through Second to get your next freebie. Before you go though scroll on down and enter the giveaway! Thanks for hopping with us! We hope you enjoy all of your goodies!! Oh and did I mention while this blog hop is happening this week my entire TPT shop will be 20% off.

 
 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Something Big is Coming Soon and A Plant Foldable Freebie

First, I have to start out by saying that there is something HUGE coming your way very soon. Here is a little preview. Didn't want to give too much away yet.....



 Let me tell ya it involves 10 bloggers and we have been working hard on getting this event ready for a while now! Make sure you check back on Sept. 22nd to get all of the details. Follow me on Bloglovin so you don't miss out!



Now onto a little science. We have been talking all about plants this week. Someone showed me this  this idea, but they didn't have the template so I just created it myself because it was super cute! It is a plant foldable. I created a template for the flower but once the kids glued it on it was way too small and looked funny so I had them rip it off and just draw their own. You can use the flower template or just have them draw it. Either works just fine. Here are some pics of how ours turned out.



 
Like me on facebook {HERE} and you can get this as a freebie. If you notice on the template there are leaves which I just realized I forgot to have the kids glue on. Oops.
 
Don't forget to check back Sept. 22nd for that big surprise!!!
 

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Making Ten and Assessment Packet Suggestions

I always forget how hectic the first of school is. It's been forever since I have posted anything. I feel like I am going a million miles a minute all day.

Today we were working on making ten in math. The math series says for students to use chips on their place value mat to do this. Well, I am assuming I am to use the place value mats and chips that you so generously provided me with right?? Wrong! Don't you just hate it when your series tells you to use something that you were never given?!?! The same thing happened in our reading series this year. We are told to use the vocabulary picture cards to introduce the vocab words for the week but yet we were not provided with these cards. Anyway, mini rant over.....so at the last minute I had the kids whip out the dry erase markers and make their own ten frames on their desks. Oh my word! They loved doing this. Luckily I had my own set of red/yellow chips. Here are some pics of them in action.


 
Short post today but just wanted to share this in case anyone else out there is lacking the appropriate teaching materials. There is always a way to make it work : )
 
Also, if you have a common core assessment pack for reading, language, and math from TPT that you are super happy with would you mind sharing the link of where I can get it? I have the common core assessment mega bundle that I made, but I want a back up for retesting students. Any suggestions??
 
Hope everyone has a wonderful night!