Winter bulletin board!

Things have been crazy busy in 2nd grade! Here's a quick picture of our winter bulletin board.... I'm obsessed with chevron! Notice that yellow pennant thing? Best purchase ever. I've used it on every bulletin board so far but just switching the letters on it. Keeps it trendy along with the double border!

Parent Teacher Conference Check List

With Parent-Teacher Conferences right around the corner, I thought I'd share a checklist I made that has been extremely helpful when conducting a meeting with a parent. I included strengths, concerns, and suggestions for parents to work on with their children. This checklist has been a lifesaver for those times when I've gotten nervous while talking with a parent (who hasn't!?), it's kept me on topic, and has helped me so that I never have those "drawing a blank/blonde moments"! I think it's very important to provide the parents with some strengths their child has so that a conference doesn't come across as  totally negative. It is also important to have a course of action for what we can do, as parents and teachers to help the child get where he/she needs to be. If you're interested, check it out here: click here to go to teacherspayteachers.com

Online Parent Newsletter

So I decided to set up a parent newsletter (blog) online. I'm feeling a little more confident in my blogging capabilities so I figured why not?!

At least I'd be saving a tree by doing my newsletter  electronically. :-)

So here's the link: Www.whatsnewgrade2.blogspot.com


Check it out. See how I keep my parents informed. I added the "subscribe" button and sent home a flyer asking  parents to subscribe. That way they can get email alerts when I've posted & they can stay informed!

Speaking of keeping informed have you heard of the remind me app? All I had to do was go to the website, set up an account & add a class. Then I sent home a flyer with my class information so parents could subscribe with their email or phone (text). Then every day my teaching partner and I send home a reminder email/text. Our alerts can be general like "Don't forget to read 20 minutes tonight" or "spirit day tomorrow--wear blue!" Etc. We've gotten a lot of positive  feedback so far. Best part? Parents will never know your phone number/personal email and they can't reply back. If they have questions they'll have to contact you another way--in person, phone, or work email. That is a plus because you don't want to be texting back and forth! That could become very time consuming!

But anways, it's pretty neat &  very easy to use! Go to www.remind.com

You're welcome ;-)

In other news, we've done some pretty neat art projects recently. One involving cool and warm colors... go check it out here: click here!

Until next time.... keep calm and teach on!

On my mind...

My life is crazy. I have a 3 year old and an 11 month old. I'm planning birthday parties and trying to stay in touch with friends, packing lunches, giving baths, making dinner, cleaning the house...waking up at 2 a.m. with a screaming/teething baby. We're selling our house as well... so that's always fun getting a call the night before a morning showing (even more delightful  after putting in a 12 hour day) My mind is constantly on overdrive and I'm always on the go (and I'm always very tired). Now let's add my responsibilities of being an educator into the mix. Absolute chaos.

Beautiful, wonderful, wouldn't-trade-it-for-anything chaos.

As I'm sitting here reflecting upon my day listening to my baby boy giggling in bed with his dad, I have come to one conclusion. I am so blessed that I have the two most rewarding (and most tiring) jobs on this planet. My jobs as a mother and teacher are very demanding but endlessly rewarding.

Im so very proud. Proud of my students' achievements,  proud of my dedication to being the best teacher I can be, and proud of my endless & unconditional loving heart for my kids at home (and the ones at school, too).

It truly takes a special person to be a teacher. I'm not going to say I don't have my moments when I lose my patience  or get stressed out. (Because I definitely do--I'm only human.) But at the end of the day I can honestly 100% with all my heart say I chose the right profession. I always thought that if I could make a difference  in just ONE kid's  life,  then that'd  make it all worth it. But as I sit here and reflect I think of all the students I have taught & how they've impacted me--how they've made me more compassionate  than I ever thought I could be. I've  realize that while I'm teaching my students how to read and how to measure in inches, they're teaching me what life is all about. Both Hudson, Nora and school teach me how to stop and enjoy the little things in life...because as you get older you realize the little things are really the big things-- & the most important  things in life aren't things.

And that's all she wrote (for tonight anyways)

I'll leave you with my latest bulletin board.

#makeadifference
#feelinginspirational

Making students accountable for their learning!

 New to Mrs. Mueller's Room this year... our "I can!" Bulletin Board. The plan for this board is to have our "I can" Statements posted for whatever standards we are working on. The "I can" statements will change from story to story (lesson to lesson). I created "I can" statements for all the informational text and literature standards. The Big Idea and theme objectives will also be listed (to be changed when the unit/theme is changed) (Our first theme is Perseverance--a picture of what it looks like is posted below!)

Here's our 2nd theme! "The World Around Me"

 

Work in progress!! Need to cut and laminate and label the standards still. If you want to purchase the 2nd grade Common Core I can Statements click here!

Update!!!!

I'm sure you're wondering... what about data tracking? Each student has a data tracking folder inside of their Daily 5 binder. The students can track their progress by rating themselves and tracking their assessment scores.  This is what it looks like:

Students struggling with their sight words? Here are our sight word folders. 

Inside are two envelopes-- one envelope for words they've mastered. One for words they are still practicing and learning. I only assign 5 words at a time. The words are based on a sight word test we gave them at the beginning of the year (dolch words). I chose the first 5 words they missed on the assessment and I test them two times a week. If they can read a word, they get a smiley face on the word card and it gets placed in the "Words I Know" envelope. Every week, I make a point to pull out the "words I know" cards and review them with the student. If they "forget" a word they already learned then it gets placed back in the "words to learn" envelope. For every word learned, they are given a new word they missed from their sight word assessment. This continues until they've mastered all of their sight words. This is one of our RTI Tier 2 interventions.

At home, they are supposed to do an activity a night from the activity envelope. Every few weeks we switch out the activities with new ones so that it makes it more exciting!

Science Plant Experiment

Lima Bean Seed to Plant experiment-- This experiment is about learning how seeds grow. We made predictions, observations and recorded our results. The kids were shocked at the results. Many of them thought that the seeds would not sprout because they did not have real soil.

What you need:

• lima bean
• baggy
• wet paper towel
• window/direct sunlight
• spot in the dark

Students will make observations every other day. Each day, the plant will sprout a little more. The students will draw a picture documenting their observation each day. That way they can see that the plant is really changing and that it is a living thing! 

At the end of 3 weeks, the students will compare how the seed in the sun grew to how the seed in the dark grew. They will also be able to draw conclusions based on the results. 

Update! 3 weeks later...

This is the one from inside of the bathroom. Notice it is growing, but the stem is white. The plants growing by the windows have green stems! What can the students infer from this!?!

Love Teachers Pay Teachers?

I love TPT! Tons of great resources on there :) If you're looking for some of my handouts, organizers, projects & cute classroom stuff check out my TPT Store: Click here!

Let's talk Common Core

Either you hate it or you love it.

Common Core.


Well, I love it. However, I have to say though that my school is pretty awesome and gives you freedom to teach how and what you want as long as you are meeting the standards (& as long as it's appropriate and challenging of course!).

So... if I don't feel our basal is meeting the needs of the students, I don't need to use it--and often, I don't! I enjoy the freedom and casualness of opening up a library book, doing a read aloud and really digesting the theme, characters, moral, etc. with my students. Getting away from the basal makes for informal instruction that is genuine and hands-on. I love pulling books from the library or news articles from online for us to read. This way of teaching (in my opinion) helps my students become independent learners. What we are doing in class is relate-able to what they might do at home.  By teaching them in the manner that I do, it shows them how they can apply what they learn in school to their real life experiences.

Anyways, we've been working HARD on characters the last few weeks.
RL 2.3 to be specific says-- Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.

We first read Arthur's Reading Race by Marc Brown. We compared/contrasted Arthur and D.W. using a Venn Diagram. My students told me they had never used a Venn Diagram before (I'm thinking they just didn't remember using one because 1st grade was OH SO LONG AGO! HA!) so we had a little fun and we compared Elsa & Anna first. If you aren't familiar with Elsa and Anna, get out from under the rock! :) They were super excited to use the Venn Diagram with their favorite Frozen characters. They were begging to compare TMNT characters and other Disney Princesses. I let them work with a neighbor to compare their favorite characters on their workmats. Real learning was taking place and I was EXCITED! These kids were pumped about comparing characters with their peers ON THEIR OWN!!! A teacher's dream---I was so very proud of how quickly they caught on! We did a few more activities with Arthur and D.W. & it was time to move on. This is a story from our basil and while it was a nice story, it wasn't really deep enough to REALLLLLLLY get into the characters. So, my teaching partner and I chose a story called Stellaluna to read. 

Stellaluna is a super cute story about a young fruit bat who gets separated from her mother and ends up with some birds. For a children's story, the characters are dynamic. They have many feelings, the characters change throughout the story and the story has emotion. (There's also the science aspect I love as well :) of course we did a mini lesson about nocturnal animals, mammals & compared fruit bats and birds on our newly discovered, handy dandy Venn Diagram!) 

My teaching partner and I wanted to do a character analysis on Stellaluna. We knew what we wanted-- and needed to meet the Common Core Standard RL 2.3 so of course we turned to teachers pay teachers to see if anyone else had come up with something. No need to reinvent the wheel! Here's where we got our Stellaluna Common Core Character study-- Click here!

It included everything we were looking for:

• Common Core standards alignment page
• 8-10 day lesson plan
• Class anchor chart examples with student pages for How Does Stellaluna Change?
• A Character's Point of View
• Teacher's Notes and Student Task Cards for each activity
• Large story vocabulary cards for a word wall or pocket chart
• Vocabulary word/definition match cards activity 
• Working with vocabulary in context student pages
• Book Talk story elements spinner and discussion starter cards
• Fluency Sticks
• Summarizing the Story color anchor chart to print or project with black and white student version
• Two Sounds of C sort with student page
• Foldable project booklet with templates and assembly directions

We're still working on completing our Stellaluna Character Analysis but the kids are having a great time with it. On Friday they made their character sticks and were practicing acting out the story using different voices for different characters. Super cute and authentic!!! (and FUN!) To end our Stellaluna lesson we are going to watch the Stellaluna movie-- it's about 30 minutes long and includes a sing-a-long. The kids always get a kick out of that!!! 

Here are some photos of our completed project (from last year):

Stay tuned for what's going on in 2nd grade Science! 

I'm new to the new Science Standards  (Next Generation) but having a great time teaching in a more hands-on, student based, think & explore first type of a way! 

Open House

Some pictures from Open House! 

When parent's walk in, they are asked to sign in (to track attendance) and then they're given the *Check this out* sheet. It's a handout that acts as a directory for what's what in my classroom. It lists our Calendar area, classroom library, Star Student Board, etc. That way the parents can know what to be on the look out for while they are walking around the classroom

Something new this year-- a present for the parents! My awesome teaching partner and I created these! It says "Thanks for popping in" and it's popcorn! SO CUTE! Here's the link for the printable: Click here :)

 SO SO SO happy with how it turned out and the parents loved it too. Just a little something to show how appreciative we were that they took the time to come and visit.

 My sign in sheet & student information folder.

Inside my information folder (made of construction paper folded in half) I include a packet that has our classroom rules and procedures, 2nd grade curriculum, information on our classroom Reading incentive and a little handout about Common Core Reading (and why it rocks). I'll post links all those hand outs soon!

 The students this year made a place setting--

What's on our 2nd grade plate?
They labeled different parts of their pizza with the subjects they'll be learning about this year.
The napkin is labeled "Tools for success" and each utensil is labeled differently-- "me" "parents" "teachers" because let's face it-- you need all 3 to be successful! Each one goes hand in hand for a successful school year.
On the cup it says "The glass is always full in 2nd grade!"

Fun, quick, meaningful project and I'm super happy with how it turned out. The parents had a lot of positive things to say as well. All in all Open House went great-- especially considering it was my 29th birthday and all (eek!)

Team Building

My teaching partner and I were asked to lead the staff in a team-building activity at our teacher institute day. Back in April we did an Egg Drop that was a huge hit and we were excited for an opportunity to plan another one!  We came up with the red solo cup stack! This was super fun and easy to put together!

Groups were given this handout (available on teacher's pay teachers-- Click here ---> Free Download! <3

Here are the supplies:

• Red Solo Cups (or any kind of plastic large cups) We used 20. You can make it as easy (less cups) or as hard (more cups) as you want.
• String (we included 6 pieces about the length of your arm)
• One rubberband
• Handout with simple instructions
• Throw all the supplies in a big gallon size bag and you're ready to go! 

TECHNICALLY you're supposed to take each string and tie it on the rubberband. Then each team member takes a string and they work together to pull apart the rubberband put it around the cup, pick up the cup and place it where it is supposed to go. However, some of our staff members got very creative-- which is great! It's always a great idea to encourage your learners to think outside the box. As long as they are working together appropriately, respectfully & having fun that's all that counts! The whole point is to promote working cooperatively as a team. Below are some pictures of the staff members completing their assignment! 

ENJOY!