Who Am I? Freebie and Giveaway winners!

Tonight was Open House...

Sorry, I didn't take pictures of the room - crazy since I was simultaneously getting ready for my sub tomorrow...

they're sending me to training...

fun fun!

Normally, I do this BIG presentation where I have parents come in at a certain time and I talk about everything at once.

But since "what I'm doing" is kind of on a stand-by and  I couldn't be at Open House during the actual time, I opted for something different this year.

We did a bubble map and wrote clues - things we like, things we do, and what we look like, etc...

Then, they wrote their sloppy copy - and I conferenced with each of them and then they wrote their neat copy.

I had them randomly on desks, and had parents walk around and put post - it notes on the one that they think is their child's paper.

But what's even better about this activity, is the next day.

The students come to the floor and I read all the papers and see if the students can guess who the paper belongs to - it's so fun!!

If you want this paper, click HERE to grab it.

Leave me some lovin' if you grab it :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WINNER WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER!

The THREE winners for my giveaway are....

#17 - Sarah

#118 - aclark

and

#38 - Grace

CONGRATS ladies!!

Let me know which item you would like from my TPT store!

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All things Gingerbread, inspirations and freebies!

I LOVE Gingerbread theme week!! Especially since I've entered the blogging world and have seen so many of your wonderful ideas to inspire!!


We have been reading LOTS of Gingerbread books, but the ones I am focusing for whole group are...

And we are doing this "graphic organizer" idea that I got from Babbling Abby!  This is her example...and I had my intern make me a version, and I must say...it looks pretty darn close! :) But I laminated mine, that way I can write right on it and I don't have to make a new one next year :)

And my kiddos are doing great pointing out the differences even before I ask them!

And today we finished our LOST Gingerbread Man writing activity! They are so stinkin' cute, aren't they?? To see where I got the inspiration for these cute little guys and to get the writing activity, check out this {POST}

  

 This is how they planned for this writing....we did a Bubble Map, because that's the Thinking map that describes something...then we numbered them according to which ones "go together" in a sentence. We are working on commas this week in our Reading Series, so I incorporated it into our writing. I don't do a lot of the activities from our reading series, but I do stick with the skills that are each week's lessons. 

Then, we took the planning and turned it into our rough draft. I always do each sentence in a different color so they can see that there are actual sentences...lol. You know, so they can use periods and capital letters?? lol. I give the Grabber and Conclusion, but I take their ideas that they give me and put into a coherent sentences. lol. They had to change the body to match what their Gingerbread Man looked like. 

We also did our math activity that I got out of Tales of a Teacherista's All About Ginger TpT unit! My kids are always excited when food is involved - and let's face, I am too!! Food is always involved in my room - ha! And no...it's not just because I'm pregnant. They are getting really good at transferring from tally charts to bar graphs - we do A LOT of them in my class...and most of them can interpret the data on their own too!



I mean, look at their faces - so excited to have SODA at school!! Say what??!! hehe



And I even made some math centers that they have been doing - I already posted the Gingerbread Shopping activity (you can check that out HERE). I also had them do a fact family activity....they used their random number generator (aka - deck of cards) to pick their two "parts" and then they figured out their 3rd number. You can download this activity {HERE}.

I also had them do some activities from Live, Laugh, and Love to Learn's Christmas Cookie Math Unit from TpT - I am LOVING this unit..just wish I had time to do it all!

And I'm excited to do some activities from Made for 1st's Gingerbread Man Lit Unit too! So much to do - and not NEARLY enough allotted copies time!!

Ok, I'm off to bake Gingerbread Cookies to go along with our science activity - that was also inspired by Abby! (oh wait...is that the sound of Mr. Spouse in the kitchen starting to bake?!! hmmm...better go check up on that -haha!)

Happy Teaching! And remember, I {SUPER PUFFY} heart comments - especially if there's something to snag :)

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A little bit of Verbs....and a lot of Thanksgiving!

I have to start off by saying, THANK YOU to all of you for all your inspirations for my lessons this week! My kids and I are having so much fun!! Though I must say, we seriously do NOT have enough time in the day! Where does all the time go????

First. we've been hitting up verbs this week - I bought Lindsey's Action Verb Unit on TpT, and my kids LOVE IT! Just look at these action heros....aren't they super cute?! And we did a section in her unit as a Scoot Game...the kids had SO MUCH fun with that! We didn't even get to do all of it, but it was so much fun!

And we've also been in high gear with our Thanksgiving lessons....I have borrowed ideas from a lot of you out there to make our own!

We started with our book for the week... 

Then we did a "Somebody wanted, but..." activity. 

Click {HERE} to snag a copy.

Then, they turned that into their summary writing....can I just tell you how much easier this is for them to use to summarize something!?!? OH -EM- GOSH!!! Summarizing is sooooo hard!  Like, pull your hair out hard, but I really didn't have high blood pressure when doing this activity. I have just recently come across this type of form - and I L-O-V-E it!

Here are some of their examples....the one on the left is one of my cutie ESOL students...see??? It even helps my ESOL kiddos!

  

We also did a bubble map to describe Mini, her character...which is really hard! lol

Click {HERE} to get a copy

This next idea, I was inspired by Chalk Talk's activity. (First Grade Parade also has something similar) She has some great printables she shared for this activities that she used with her Kinders, but I wanted my 2nd graders to come up with their own....we're later going to be using these ideas to complete our activity that was inspired by another blog (see....I told you I borrowed from a lot of you out there!)

 In our Computer class this week, our teacher in there did a wordle with them....if you haven't heard of Wordles, I URGE you to check it out at wordle.com

And our Mayflower activity was inspired by First Grade Parade.... LOVE her Thanksgiving week ideas!

 See? I'm trying to get better about using anchor charts...ll

 They had two fact pages they had to write, using our "Circle Map"...

And then they did a brace map and graph that Mrs. Carroll provided printables for.

My turkeys were inspired by Fun in First. I did change what she had to fit our students' (supposed) level. Three-digit numbers, and the feathers were

-expanded form

-word form

-Place value blocks

-money (eek!!)

-2 addition facts

-1 subtraction fact

 To go with our Mayflower Voyage, we talked about what they would bring if they migrated from Europe to the United States...and they were NOT allowed to even mention technology type items...lol. But, surprisingly, I only had 1 or 2 kids that had only t.v. and video games as their only thoughts. The First Grade Parade had such a CUTE suitcase activity....My kids LOVE it!
My intern actually came up with the subtitle...think "brown bear, brown bear..."

And I leave you with our Family turkeys that they have been turning in. Arent' they cute!?

If you visit any of these blogs, tell 'em I sent ya!!

Next week, we are finishing up our pilgrims to go with our Double Bubble, and making our Rice Turkeys! I'm excited to share those with you....that'll be Monday's post! 

And I'm super excited about starting up my Christmas weeks...I was thinking a regular Christmas week, then a Gingerbread week, and then a Grinch....what are you all doing?!?! Any ideas??? I've bought a few units on TpT I'm excited to print up, laminate, and use. 

Happy Teaching!

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We're SINGING in the Rain!!

Ok, seriously, we were singing today!! And I have the video to prove it!

Click {HERE} for the words. 

We also finished our "tree map" of the types of precipitation....Well, it's the same affect, right? lol

 The raindrops were different types of precipitation, and they wrote the definition on the back.

  And our book this wee to discuss facts and myths about weather as well as doing cause and effect was Franklin and the Thunderstorm. Can I just tell you that in my MASSIVE classroom library, I don't have ONE Franklin book....isn't that SOOOO weird???

7

Up in the clouds

.We started our weather and water cycle unit for the week....fyi, the 2nd grade standards for weather and water cycle in FL are LAME-OH!!! And the space and planet standards??? NON-EXSISTENT! I'm annoyed....but anyway, making the best of it.

A LONG time ago, I found a pin on pinterest on cloud dough - no I didn't repin it, so I don't remember where it came from, but I saved the "recipe" in my files (my 5th grade teacher/friend/science guru reminded me of it!)
...we made it today!

The recipe is SIMPLE! 8 cups of flour and 1 cup of baby oil...mix and enjoy! lol

I told my kids - ok wait, you have to know that a) we DO have a skydiving place in the next town over that I actually have gone skydiving and b) I'm over 7 months pregnant... - ok, back to the story -  I told my kids that Mrs. Ross REALLY wanted y'all to find out what cloud felt like, so I went skydiving and grabbed some clouds on the way down...lol. I'm tellin' ya - most of them either believed me or weren't quite sure so they decided to believe me. lol! It was cute!

They did a little sensory exploring - all the senses (except for smell, because, well, clouds smell differently in their bowl than when they are in the sky - it's because it smells like baby powder! lol)

 Then, they did a little bubble map using adjectives to describe! Click {HERE} to get it.

We also did Fact and Opinion using weather sentences. Each student got their own sentence strip to sort. Let me tell ya, sometimes they get it, and sometimes they don't.

But we did a little circle map of all the words we could find (or did find in that activity) that would make the statement an opinion, and I think they got it a little better...here's hoping??

Then we started in our water cycle...ok. So I've been seeing a lot of anchor charts out there in blog land, and coming from 3rd grade, we didn't do that a lot - so, I'm trying to get better at it...here's my attempt at the water cycle. lol

In addition to the Cloud dough, we also did a Cotton ball demo - the cotton ball is nice and fluffy.....

and then as it soaks up more and more water (the condensation part), it gets heavier and heavier until....it just can't take it anymore! (ok - I just started singing a Jimmy Buffet song - anyone? anyone?!?) and it HAS to release it...which is the precipitation part. 

Do you KNOW how many pics it took me to get one with a drop coming out of the "cloud"?! lol!

And....we started our experiment - which jar will allow the water to evaporate the quickest - the one with a lid, or with out a lid? (yes, that is actually a standard - and let me tell you, even my low ones who are ESOL could already explain this to me in their prediction. lol. Good...well, hopefully with this lack of sunshine we've been having lately won't deter any evaporation).

We have some centers that revolve around weather too, but I'll get to those another day :)

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