Jennuine Teaching

This week started with a lot of craziness, but was a lot of fun.  1. Monday was a rainy day, and by rainy I mean it was pouring BUCKETS. Here is Arizona, we don't get much rain, but when we do it POURS. The poor kids had no clue what was coming. Only a few had jackets and even fewer had umbrellas. Let's just say that by the end of lunch, they were soaked from head to toe. Luckily, they went home dry and the sun was shining by the time the bell rang. My kids were so amazing even through out the rain, I was extremely proud of them. 2. That brings me to number 2. My class finally filled up their compliment (gumball jar).  We earned our last compliment on Monday and by Tuesday it was time to celebrate. I wasn't too sure how I wanted to celebrate. Eventually I would like to create different incentive charts and the reward will match the chart. (ex. gumball chart= bubblegum themed reward) That takes advanced planning and I obviously didn't plan for that. :-) Since I didn'...

I love crafting and I love teaching. I love the fact that I am able to bring both together into the classroom. I always try to bring crafting into my classroom to add a little extra interest into the content we are learning. This year I decided to create more display areas to showcase my students' work. The first is with these DIY Display Clips. Video Tutorial A second display option is by displaying work on the whiteboard. I am able to share amazing pieces of work with other students, just by hanging up these adorable little glitter magnets. Video Tutorial Finally, I wanted a nice way to make their work stand out so i created custom borders to go along with my decor.   Video Tutorial Here is the final product... My students love being able to share their work with everyone that visits our classroom. It creates a personal touch to that the students can be proud of. I hope you enjoyed my most recent classroom crafts. Definitely check back often to see what new things I have to share...

We learned about the seven continents.  After we learned about the continents we read the book Me on the Map. Afterwards, we created this activity...  We started out by identifying the planet that we live on. Then we talked about our continent, country, state, and city. They enjoyed seeing how big our planet really is and where they live.

Another week has come and gone. Last week was the second week of school. We started by taking our district benchmark tests for reading and math. All of the students worked very hard and they were excited to see all of the fun and exciting things we will be learning in second grade.   I love using manipulatives to allow the students to be hands-on during math time. Last week we worked with pattern blocks. We talked about the names and attributes of the shapes (how many sides, colors, etc.) Then the students got to discover the pattern blocks on their own. Here the students are working together to create designs. Here are some of the designs that they came up with on their own. I was very happy with how creative the students got. One student even gave his pattern block person a mustache.   On Friday we talked about repeating patterns. Students then worked together again to create as many repeating patterns as they could think of. I need to get in the routine of ta...

I successfully completed the first week of school. I have 28 second graders. This is the largest class I have ever had in my whole six years of teaching. It's definitely more management at the beginning then normal, but I know it will be worth it. I have a pretty good class and I am looking forward to a new exciting year.  Week in Review Nouns This week we have been working on nouns. The class has been pretty successful with knowing what a noun is and being able to sort them into a person, place, or thing. The first activity that we did was a noun search. After teaching and reviewing nouns on Monday and Tuesday, by Wednesday we were then able to work with a partner and find different nouns around the room. The students had to then decide whether the noun they found was a person, place, or thing and then put it in the correct column. On Thursday they got to complete a noun sort. The students had a lot of fun. At first they we using the picture sides of the cards to sort and then got...

Today is the first day of school and I am surprisingly pretty calm. Normally I can't sleep the night before and I get super nervous. I feel prepared this year and even though I am already at 28 students, and probably will hit 30 by the end of the day, I feel like it's going to be a good year. I wanted to get more done this weekend for Monday Made It, but my new motto is, "It can get done tomorrow". Normally I would have just stayed up all night making things and then go in super early to set it all up. Then I realized, it can all be done tomorrow. So I will show you what I made today and show you the rest... tomorrow. ;-) 1. Chalkboard Name Plate I bought these supplies earlier on in the summer because I wanted to get a head start on these name plates. Unfortunately for me, I waited until the last second. I filmed a quick tutorial, but I will be editing it late. Make sure to check back later to see how I made this name plate. 2. Teacher Binder I also put together my t...

Tomorrow is the first day of school and after a week and a half of redoing my room, I am ready to share what it looks like. First a quick story on my room. My first year of teaching I had a huge red wall and it drove me crazy by the end of the year. After that I ripped it all down and wallpapered my room in black. It stayed like that for 4 years. This summer I decided to redo one wall with purple fabric after talking to my teaching buddy/BFF. Once that wall was done everything else just seemed out of place. That's when I slowly created a purple theme. I didn't think anything was going to match, but somehow it all came together.  View from the door  My desk is to the right as soon as you walk into the classroom  Right side of the classroom  Front of the classroom  Where I display student work  Back of the classroom  Left side of the classroom  Bathroom  Word Wall  Anchor Chart Wall  Writing Wall Library I love my classroom this year ...

Tomorrow is the first day back for teachers. Student come next week so I guess I still have a little bit of "vacation" left. Today I want to share with you something that I came up with a couple weeks ago and that is DIY Borders!! I was at home one day I just decided to run a strip of cardstock through my crimper and the rest is history. You can make any color imaginable (as long as you can find the paper. You could also print out a pattern and use the same technique). I also wanted to share one more thing with you. I created these amazing stamps over at Vista Print. I caved and made a 2nd Grade Quality one. Maria from Kinder Craze had such a great tutorial on it that I decided to make one of my own. I have a few more things coming in the mail from Vista Print today including a signature stamp and some magnets. I'm very excited!!!

I go back to work in exactly one week. Next week is just for teachers and I don't actually see kids until two weeks from now, but the time is approaching very quickly. I wanted to start thinking of the goals I want to set for myself, both professionally as well as personally. It's very easy to get caught up in "teacher  mode". You all know how it goes, come in to work early and stay late. Take work home and stay up until midnight getting ready for the next day. My main goal is to STAY BALANCED . This will be my reminder every day to balance out everything that goes on in my daily life. Of course I have broken my larger goal into smaller, more manageable goals. Goal #1: Make a schedule and stick to it. This goal can be used for everything. Mainly, it's for my time that I spend at school. I start at 7:00 and end at 3:00. That's it!! If I don't finish something, there's always tomorrow. I can always spend 5 more minutes on cleaning my room or make one mor...

Today's Monday Made it is just a small share of the few things I made this week. I go back in a little over a week. My summer is sadly coming to an end. I enjoyed relaxing and making things for my classroom. I know the school year will bring so many great things. Summer is not over and I will be back next week to share what I make for my classroom. But onto this week... Item #1- Bathroom Sign I am lucky to have a bathroom in my classroom that I share with the classroom next door. My lovely teaching partner came up with the idea of using magnets on the back of sticks for monitoring bathroom usage. At the beginning of the year students love going to the bathroom whenever they feel like it. You would think that having a bathroom in your room would provide very little disruptions. Well it seems to be the opposite. I think since the kids see the bathroom in the room, they want to visit it more. I also use the bathroom sticks, but they would always fall off the door frame if someone wal...