Jennuine Teaching

I love doing art projects with my class. It reminds me of what excited me when I was a young student. Last week we studied homophones and my ELL 2nd graders were a little confused. We're going to have to keep working on them, but they did enjoy making their little deer and writing them letters. I got this idea from Cara over at The First Grade Parade . I purchased her TPT file on camping last year and I never got around to doing it. We read Henry and Mudge later on in the year and it would go perfectly with that theme, but I was too excited to get those precious little deer up already!!

Now on to what I made this weekend. I saw this pin and I thought it was a good idea. Then my coworker actually made on in her classroom. It looked so cute. I've always had a compliment chain, but it always took too long to reach the floor and it just wasn't that cute. I knew I wanted sometime cute, but I didn't want to use the jar. At first I was going to make Brownie Points and when students earn all of their "brownies" I would make them brownies. Very cute idea, but I went ahead and made a gumball machine instead. That way the students will be able to vote on their reward, that is half the fun and surprise!! The gumball machine starts blank and whenever the class receives a compliment for making smart choices, or for having a nice line, they will get a gumball added to their machine. When the whole machine is filled up, they will be able to vote on a reward (extra recess, movie, free time, etc.)

I have yet another activity that I picked up from Teacher Tipster . It is called I Spy Time. Last week introduced time to my 2nd graders. They were pretty good at telling time to the hour so I decided to teach them I Spy Time. I paired up the students and they went around the classroom looking for the letters for each problem.   They were both equipped with a clip board and answer sheet (available on Teacher Tipster). Since this was the first time they played, I wanted them to be able to work with a partner. Once they found the letter that matched the answer sheet, they worked together to answer each question. I'll have my students play this a few more times before using it as a math center. I love this game because I used it as an assessment and my students had a lot of fun with it. I would suggest only having 2-3 pairs of students going around the room at a time. That would be 4-6 students walking around total, while the other students are working on another activity. Ultimately,

Don't we all just love Pinterest? I know I do! I have been wanting to implement math centers into my routine this year and I slowly want to teach my students games that can one day be part of their math centers. I am currently working on a math fluency "program" (future post) and I knew that I wanted math facts to be a big part of my math centers. I saw this flip chute on pinterest and I thought it was perfect. I went ahead and made one of my own. It was actually pretty easy. There is a video on Classroom DIY, but I decided to do a more step-by-step video. You can see that video here. I also  made a template in word that you can go ahead and type your questions and answers into. Click the photo to visit my TPT where you can download the template for free.

It is Friday of the first week of school. I dont' think I've ever been so excited to say that it's Friday! I had a fun week though. All of my students on my roster showed up on the first day and I haven't had any new students yet. It's nice getting to know my students and practicing routines and procedures with a consistant class. Here are some highlights of the week... starting whole brain teching (post later) staying on top of planning and copies sticking to my resolution schedule my "wiggly" student sitting in his seat the whole 40 minutes of writing learning all of my students' names on the first day of school having a "straight" line basically all week getting a compliment from the assistance principal working together with my grade level team I have Self Control UPDATE If you guys remember, I made a post about Teacher Tipster . I found him through Pinterest and I knew I wanted to try out some of his ideas. The first one I wanted to try

Tomorrow is the first day back to school. I spent last week in meetings and getting my classroom all set up. I even went in on Friday when we had the day off to lesson plan. I am glad that I did though because I am so ready. I always get nervous/excited to start a new school year. This will be my 5th year and I've never been so ready. In my last post, I had a video of my classroom tour and I promised pictures. So here they are!   This is the wall right next to the door. The door is on the left (out of frame). I love having this wall set up with class lists, bus routes, supply lists, and lunch forms. It makes it easy to catch every parent/student walking in and just make sure that all of the information I have is correct. After the first week I will turn this into a bulletin board featuring the students and eventually it will be our data wall. The chart underneath the bathroom sign is my behavior management clip chart. You can see a separate post on that here . Then of course we hav

I love the idea of making school year resolutions. I am always making goals and writing them down and now that I have a blog dedicated to teaching, it will be so much easier to keep up with them. Use my time wisely - I have made a schedule for myself this year that I need to keep up with. I am working on my master's degree and I don't want to fall behind in any aspects of my life. In case you were wondering what my schedule looks like and also so I can document it somewhere, here it is... Mondays-  Leave work on time (2:45) Exercise (3:00-4:00) Masters Homework (4:00-6:00) Tuesdays- Late day at work (4:00) Lesson Planning Cleaning/Organizing Copying Exercise (4:15-5:00)  Masters Homework (5:00-6:00)  Wednesdays-  Leave work on time (2:45) Exercise (3:00-4:00) Masters Homework (4:00-6:00) Thursdays-  Late day at work (4:00) Lesson Planning Cleaning/Organizing Copying   Exercise (4:15-5:00)  Masters Homework (5:00-6:00) Fridays- Leave work on time (2:45) Exercise (3:00-4:00) Mast