Well, it's only been a year and a half, so I figure it's probably time for an update.
This semester has been fantastic. I'm loving my class this year! I really needed such a good class after last year.
Let's start with summer school! Our district offers summer school for students entering kindergarten through third grade. It's not remedial school; instead, it's supposed to act like an extended school year. So, students begin working on the skills and standards for the grade they are going into. Summer school lasts 5 full weeks. This was my first year teaching summer school, and I loved it! I had 23 students on my roster, but only ever had 16 in one day. I usually averaged about 12 students.
Despite getting strep throat (for the first time in my life) on the second day of summer school, we had a great time. We did subject rotations for the 3 second grade classes that we had. One teacher taught math, and myself and another teacher team-taught reading. Some fun activities we did: Read in a full-size tent, made S'mores, played a fun sight word game that involved water, grew bean plants, made fossils, explored incline and friction with Hot Wheels and tracks, put on a play, met Smokey the Bear, had a 4th of July sing-a-long, and went to see the new Minions movie.
I managed to create some things this summer, too. I used
Appilicious Teacher's Interactive Anchor Charts. There wasn't a fact and opinion one included in her first set, but I needed one. So I created my own! I had a lot of poster board in my classroom, so I glued everything on the black posters and laminated them. I love the way they turned out! And they have come in really handy this year.
When I began teaching author's purpose this year, I realized I needed a chart for that, too! So, using inspiration from Pinterest, I created my own.
I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to Anchor Charts now.
Check it out here!
Now let's go on a tour of my classroom!
Here's the door to my classroom. I
love how it turned out! You probably won't be surprised to hear that my door still looks like this. (Also, the class doorman is the best thing ever! It allows students to easily come and go from the classroom, but is also easy to remove for lockdowns.
I bought mine from Teacheropolis on TPT, but it seems as though she only sells them on Etsy now.)
I can't believe it, but my desks are still in groups of 4 and 5! I've never kept the same setup for this long before. I've moved the students' desks around, but kept the same configuration.
This was in in-progress picture; it only says "our" above the students' work displays.
On top of my bookshelf are the students' masks from the play they did in summer school. I saved them for when we did the story again during the school year.
These adorable objectives are from
Inspired Owl's Corner on TPT. I looked high and low for the perfect objectives, and these were it! Two of my three grade-level team bought additional licenses so that they could use these cute objectives posters in their classrooms, too! (I created the labels for the objectives myself.) And the book boxes are from
Really Good Stuff! They were an investment, but I love them.
I took a photo of every student in front of this on the first day of school. I'm going to cross out "first" and the date and take pictures of them at the end of the year, too. Then I'll send home a cute project with these.
My coworker had a chart that she used with her students that showed the letter grades next to a boat. As, Bs, and Cs were "floating grades", while Ds and Fs were sinking grades. I took that concept and made it my own. I have this poster in my classroom, and I created student data tracking pages to reflect their understanding of this concept. I have to say, that I think the poster really helps my second graders understand their grades.
In their data folders (for reading and math tests), students record the date, their numerical grade, whether the grade was a pass or fail, and how they feel about their grade (happy, neutral, or sad faces).
You can also see on the student's desk a sign I created that students use when they are working independently. The sign says "I'm Working", "I'm Done", and "I Need Help!". The help side stands straight up so that it is easy to see which students need help. The idea was to cut down on student wait time. Students don't raise their hands and wait for help. They turn their sign, skip the question, and keep working. We aren't using them as much these days because the students are doing great working independently. However, they really would have helped me out last year!
I created labels like this for everything! (I collect the students' school supplies...not all of them-the crayons and scissors labels are for extras. And I pass them out as needed.) This is also what the labels on the objectives board look like.
I made this flip book to give to parents at the beginning of the year. I printed them on bright paper. It is 3 pages. Each page is double sided and folds at a different point. I love how they turned out!
We had a lot of fun learning about arrays this year. We started off finding arrays in the classroom. Then we went around the school taking photos of arrays we noticed around the school. I think the students' favorite activity was creating the city arrays.
Students completed their first research project in November. The students worked in groups to complete a research paper frame and create a poster for their country. We chose the US and Mexico because students have lots of family here/there. We chose Cameroon because we have a new student at our school from there!
Students also disguised turkeys this year! They completed their turkeys at home and brought them to school to write about. I think they all turned out so cute! We used graphic organizers to plan out our 3 paragraph stories about our turkeys. I am so proud of how far the kids have come in their writing this year!
I created my first Donor's Choose project, and it was fully-funded after Thanksgiving! Our items arrived very quickly. We got some furniture for students to use as alternative seating. Right now, the furniture is staying at the kidney table as the students get used to the idea of moving in their seats and working at the same time. After Christmas break, I will begin to let the students request to use the furniture to help them while they are working.
(Please excuse my very messy kidney table! Also, the dry erase dots I put on the table are already peeling up. :-( And my students don't pick at them.) The most popular seats are the exercise balls and the black and chrome stools. While the wobble stool and balance cushion are recommended as alternative seating options, I'm glad I followed my teacher's intuition and requested the spinning stools, too.
Finally, we studied the gingerbread man stories. Students created gingerbread man traps and then presented them to the class.
One of my students latched onto the saying I posted on the wall and began telling all of the students that they were spicy. The other students' responses to him were just as funny as listening to him tell everyone "You're spicy!" He even visited another second grade classroom to tell those students that they were spicy, too. Haha
And this is how I feel today!
Lastly, I've decided to become a TPT seller. (Hence the new blog name and icon: Astonishing Seconds. I'm branding myself. ) I don't anticipate a lot of sales, but I'm excited to share my creations with the world.
