Happy, Happy New Year!

Hi sweet friends! I am back and ready to hit the ground running in 2013!! I go back to school Monday... Yikes! Thank goodness Monday is a teacher workday and this teacher has A LOT of work to do! 

I thought I would share a couple professional New Year's Resolutions with y'all...

- BLOG more! Y'all I've been seriously slacking and have neglected this poor little blog! I am going to try really, really hard to keep on top of blogging! Thanks to Dream Like Magic I have this awesome new blog design and I'm loving it!! I love all the bright colors, plaid, polka dots, and bunting!! To help me with my blogging resolution I am also going to try and join more linky parties. Man, I LOVE reading through them and I wanna join in the fun too!

- Don't sweat the small stuff (also a personal resolution)! I let myself get too stressed out. Sound familiar? I know most teachers feel the same way, but dang life is just way.too.short. to sweat the small stuff! My type A personality tends to get the best of me sometimes all the time.

- Keep on track to graduate with my Master's Degree this coming summer. Yep, I gotta keep reminding myself that it will all be worth it in the end and to keep with it! 

- Read more...for fun... reading really helps me to de-stress and I need to give myself more "me time". I think this will help me professionally too! Happy teacher = happy classroom!

I also created a new unit over the break! 

This unit is made specifically for second grade, but could be used for remediation in third or extension in first. I have included 6 winter themed math centers. Each center is directly aligned to Common Core standards! Please stop by my little TPT shop to check it out! 

Here's a little peek...

If you're still on break... enjoy the rest of your time off! If your back at school TGIF!

Silence for Sandy Hook

Cyber Monday!!

Hello friends! I will be having a 20% off Cyber Monday sale at my TPT shop. TPT will also offer an additional 10% off items purchased using the code below. Click here to be directed to my little shop! Happy shopping! 

Just In Time

Hello friends! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays of the year! This is our first Halloween in our house and I am so excited to see all the little trick or treaters in their costumes tomorrow night. I also cannot wait to use Abby's Candy Corn Bandit unit tomorrow. My second graders are going to love it!

I created this little freebie to add to my Halloween fun!

Stop by my TPT store to pick it up! I am also putting my Bats! Nonfiction and Fiction Mini Unit on sale through tomorrow! 

This week is also Red Ribbon Week at my school. My sweet room moms decorated my classroom door for me.

How cute is that!! 

My kiddos wrote their pledges on their hand prints.

Happy Halloween to all!

It's My Birthday!

Well actually yesterday was my birthday. I was so super busy yesterday after I left school that I totally forgot to get on here to share my little surprise. :(

But... I'm throwing a sale in my TPT store! This is my first sale and I have put everything up for 20% off.

Please drop by and check it out by clicking on the link below! 

Happy Belated Birthday Sale to me!

Going Batty!!

These past two weeks we have been working on informational and literary text. We started off by reviewing what we already know about informational and literary text and made a venn diagram anchor chart to compare and contrast the two.

Then I introduced the kiddos to our new unit, an informational and literary investigation on bats! They were so excited to share everything they already knew about bats! I did more informational and literary text comparisons by using what we know about nonfiction text features to sort a stack of books (On bats of course!) into an informational book pile and a literary book pile. Then we discussed what good readers do before reading an informational text and made this bats pictograph to show our classes' feelings about bats. Hands down the majority of my class thinks bats are cool! I also took a little time to give a brief introduction on pictographs and how we use them to display data.

 Next we made an anchor chart listing all the questions we have about bats that we want to find out during our study. They were able to come up with so many questions! I loved how they were using the 5Ws and How words to develop their questions!

 Now for my new unit! I'm so excited to share this bat nonfiction and fiction mini unit! My kiddos loved using this to enhance their understanding of literary and informational text! This unit goes along with Stellaluna by Janell Cannon and Bats by Gail Gibbons! Don't you just love those books! You can check out my new unit at my little store here! Here is a little preview.

 We also completed this bat craftivity (pattern and response sheet available in my bats unit) to show our understanding of determining main idea and key details in a multi-paragraph text.

Please stop back by tomorrow for a little surprise!! Happy TGI almost F!

Quick Update and Freebie

Next week in spelling we are reviewing long vowels a, e, i, o, and u. As part of my literacy station rotation my students always work on a phonics related word sort or cut and paste activity. This week I created a simple read and write the room chart for my kiddos to complete as part of their phonics station. This will give my kids the opportunity to apply what they have learned about long vowels during these past 7 weeks of word study. If you would like a quick activity to be placed in your literacy station, word work station, or to have everyone complete at the same time you can click here for a copy.

We are also finishing up our bats informational and literary text study this week. I'm making finishing touches on my unit and will put it up on TPT soon! I'm so excited about this unit! It has truly been a labor of love and my kiddos have had a blast completing it!!

In the meantime... I hope y'all enjoy the rest of your weekend!!