Christmas Around the World

This week we started our Christmas around the World unit. It is going to take us about two weeks to visit all the Countries. The students are loving it so far! We have made our passports and our suitcases. You have to have those to travel of course! On Tuesday we visited Sweden and Wednesday we went to Italy. The kids think it is so strange that everyone around the world does not celebrate Christmas the same way we do. I absolutely love teaching this unit. I also managed to fit in some time to take my kiddos downstairs  to get a Christmas card picture. It was been a busy week so far. We still have a lot of places to visit and many more Christmas activities to complete. Here are some pictures from this week.

  

Passport and suitcase

Merry Christmas From Ms. Wilson's 2nd Grade Class

Of course we have to have a silly one!! 

Mrs. Rains tacky Christmas Sweater! She won 2nd place!

Merry Christmas!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

We are in full Christmas mood in room 216! I have already put up my Christmas bulletin board. I got the packet from tunstalltimes.blogspot.com. We have also started our Christmas Around the World unit. I will post pictures of all the activities we complete!

"Tech the Halls"

The students wrote their Christmas list on iPads.

Tech the Halls.. Just a little Early!

My classroom received seven more Ipads last week. I wrote a grant and got seven beautiful ipads from it. My students are loving them. Instead of Free play on Friday they asked if they could stay in and play on the Ipads (instructional games of course) We incorporated them into stations this week. I got the idea from Pinterest. In my reading/listening station, after they read the story as a group they got with a partner and retold the story. They used the retelling cards. They practiced using sequence words and complete thoughts. When they had practiced with their partner a few times they got to use the ipads to record their retelling session. I am such a technology fanatic!! It makes me so excited. I can't wait to learn what all ways I can incorporate these ipads into my teaching. Check out our pictures. 

This made my Friday Wonderful!!

Just because....

Thankful to have such a wonderful teaching partner as Jen!!

Math Talks

We have been working on Chapter 3 in the GO Math Series. It is a tough chapter for my sweet babies to comprehend. I am having to be creative with ways to help my students understand these math concepts. On Wednesday after we did a lesson we did our first set of math talks. The kids loved it. They had to get in groups and solve a math problems showing all their work. Then they had to come up with sentences telling me how their group solved it. Each groups shared their work. I hung them in the classroom and we will reference to these during the rest of the chapter. Here are some pictures of this in action!

Homecoming Week 2013

We had a very fun Homecoming week. Here are some pictures from our crazy dress up days!

Biker Day

With our Football Reader, Braxton

Ms. Wilson and Ms. Turner

The faculty Cheerleaders!

My sweet friend and teaching partner, Mrs. Rains

Farm Day 2013

Here are few pictures from Farm Day! The kids had a wonderful time. They loved getting to pet all the animals and ask questions about them.

I even got to hold a baby chick!!

Library Fun

We are having a great beginning to school! I have an amazing, smart, loving bunch of kids! We are enjoying the specials we have during the week. I have a group of readers. They LOVE library day. I have shared with my students their AR goals they have to get for the first nine weeks. They are motivated and ready to read. I promise their favorite part of our day is the 30 minutes we have for AR reading. Please make sure your child is also reading at home. This will help prepare them for DIBELS. We have DIBELS test in the Fall, Winter, and Spring. Look how excited they are to be in the Library!!

Grandparent's Day 2013

We had an awesome turn out for Grandparent's Day. Thank you to all the Grandparents who came to APS. We spent Monday afternoon during our unit time making crafts to give to our grandparents. My wonderful teaching partner bought a great unit full of writing and crafts for Grandparent's day. The best part was they were in both English and Spanish. Here are a few pictures from yesterday. Also check out the picture of the cute crafts we created.

HAPPY GRANDPARENT'S DAY!!!

Welcome Back!

Today was the first day of school for my sweet second grade babies! We had a wonderful day. We started the day by playing with play dough and getting to engage with our friends. We had so much to share that happened over the summer. We then dove right in to sorting school supplies and getting our lockers and desk ready. We have breakfast  I mean lunch at 10:25 this year so that makes the morning seem to go by fast. We read First Day Jitters and did a fun comprehension sheet to go with it. We took first day pictures with our creative back drop. My friend/teaching partner is the bomb and created a picture back drop. (See the picture below) I had a great first day! I am exhausted but I can't complain. I have a few challenges the year, but I think I am in for a really good year. I hope all my other teacher friends had a great day! I can't wait to hear stories :)

Our picture back drop!!

Check it out!

This is the first week back for teachers. We will get our sweet babies next week. I have been working hard this summer in my room and I can officially say "My classroom is complete!" My wonderful Daddy built my bookshelves for my classroom. He even picked out the beautiful colors. My sweet step-mom took me to Wal-Mart to grab a few things to make my classroom feel more homey. I am truly blessed with wonderful parents. I wanted to update my classroom pictures. Since my classroom is done, I am going to be spending this week working on orientation packets and goodies for my kiddos. Check out my classroom!

My Reading center. 

Check out my awesome bookshelves. Thank you to my teaching partner

(Jennifer) for adding the cute curtain to cover the shelves!

I am in love with the green! These are my math kit shelves and they

hold my math games/ stations

More updates

I have been working in my room all this week trying to get it ready for kiddos. We still have about a month before school starts.  I am trying to be very careful about what I am putting up in my classroom. I don't want something to just fill space. I want everything that I put up to have meaning and purpose. I am making writing a much bigger focus this year. (I love my writing board I did) I am a less is more kind of girl. I don't want clutter in my room. I go for the organize neat look. Here are my my newest additions to my classroom. I created a new word wall and an Author of the month board. Also, I found some cute items at Wal-mart I couldn't leave without. :)

My new word wall beside my classroom library.

This is my author of the month board. It is in my class library. 

Cute finds at Wal-mart. I couldn't  resist the chevron plates for board and the hot pink basket!

Classroom Update

I have been working in my classroom a lot over this past week. A dear friend of mine is moving from 1st grade to 2nd year this year. She is moving to the classroom across the hall from me and I couldn't be more excited!  We spent Friday at the school changing our boards and organizing in our classrooms. This year we both decided to do a lot of painting and changing the fabrics in our rooms. Here are some pictures of the latest changes to room 216. I can't wait to have it all done and put together!

This is the board outside my classroom.  I went a little crazy with the burlap :)

This board is in my classroom library. I think I am going to display my Author of the month here. 

This is Jennifer's board. I had to share because it is so cute!

End of the year party.....

This morning when all the students got here I had my camera out and I was ready to take pictures. Then when parents started arriving and the party started I forgot..... I was so busy serving food and giving hugs I did not remember to take one picture. We had a successful party and it was a lot of fun! Thank you parents for helping me and bringing snacks for us to eat. I have had a wonderful year with your babies. Thank you for sharing them with me! I hope everyones has a GREAT summer!

I got one picture with this sweet girl and the flowers she brought me!

Field Day Fun!

Summer is almost here!! We are so ready :) We had our field day this week. Our PE coaches planned all the games and the theme. They did an ocean theme this year. Each class was an ocean animal. My class were clown fish. They were very excited seeing how Nemo is a clown fish! It was beautiful weather and such a fun day. We were all very tired when it was all over though. Here are some pictures from field day: