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Throwback Thursday

Yikes y'all, it has been a hot minute since I've blogged! My poor little blog needs some love! What better way to get back into the swing of things than to link up with one of my FAVORITE blogs The First Grade Parade!

In case you didn't know, before I moved into second grade I was teaching special education in grades 3-5. So, I decided to link up with pictures from this year of my second grade classroom since it was my first year teaching gen. ed. I love looking back at these pictures because I can already think of a million things that I want to change next year! Teaching is a learning experience right?!

Five for Friday

{A little Five for Friday catch up}

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs to share five random things from my week... ok... two weeks because I was too dang exhausted to link up last week. Ha! 

1. My prayers and thoughts are with those in Oklahoma. May He bring you the strength that you need to overcome this terrible tragedy.

2. It's SUMMER!! 

Can I get an amen!

3. We spent the last week and a half enjoying some theme day celebrations. We had a Lazy Day at the Beach Day, Cool Camp Out Day, Friendship Day, Game Day, and Movie Day. What.a.blast. Theme days were the perfect way to end the school year! Here are some pictures...

Lazy Day at the Beach

Craftivity fun!

Froot Loop graphing

Find a Friend game

Beachy Snacks

Cool Campout Day

4. For each of our theme days, we had to have theme snacks too of course! Thank goodness I had some amazing parents willing to donate food for our class! To coordinate everything I used Signup Genius. It is super easy and makes planning for ANYTHING a breeze! My school also used this website for parent/teacher conference signups. I simply created an account at the beginning of the year and inputted  parent email addresses. Signup Genius notified parents to signup and done! Each time I added a new event, Signup Genius sent an email to my parents notifying them. You can create one time events or reoccurring events. This site is perfect for coordinating classroom volunteers also! My teammate, who introduced my school to Signup Genius, used it to coordinate everything when she was the head wrestling mom. 

Seriously this site made planning for our theme days a piece.of.cake.

5. The activities you see above from our Lazy Day at the Beach theme day are from my Lazy Day at the Beach packet. If you're still looking for end of the year ideas... head on over to my little TPT shop and check it out!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend sweet friends! Thank you to all who have served our great country! God bless America and our troops!

Daily Five

I've had a couple people ask how I organize Daily Five in my classroom. I thought I would do a little post to explain. It always help to have pictures! :)

First off, I have four pocket charts that I picked up at Target last summer hanging on the doors of my large black cabinet. Gotta use every stinkin' space available! Ha! I use these pocket charts to display Daily Five choices.

Each student is given a number at the beginning of the year. They use their numbers for EVERYTHING, including Daily Five. Next to their number they place their "ticket" to show their Daily Five choice for the day.  The "tickets" are from Ladybug's Teacher Files.

The "tickets" are hanging in small containers, also from Target last summer, on the side of my black cabinet. Each choice has a different container. Before Daily Five begins I pull popsicle sticks to call on students to choose their Daily Five station for the day. I limit how many students can go to Work on Writing, Word Work, computer, and Listen to Reading due to space constraints at each of these stations. One station I don't have a "ticket" for is computer. When students visit the computer station they can go to Education City or Tumble Books. I write down their choice on a Daily Five tracker chart I got off of TPT for free. I usually can only get to one round of Daily Five each day. I would like to do more, but I can't find the time. 

Listen to Reading and computers

Work on Writing (writing board from A Cupcake for the Teacher)

I have a separate table for Word Work, but I can't find the picture... boo! Word Work is the only station, besides computer, that I have my kiddos working on a specific assignment. During Word Work my kids work on Mountain Language before they choose a spelling task card. I got my spelling task cards from Amy Lemons. 

My system is by no means perfect and I already know about a bazillion things I want to change next year. Hopefully this gave you some ideas. I would love to hear how you organize/manage your Daily Five time!

Happy Mother's Day

I wanted to share really quick my Mother's Day gift for my sweet momma. 

This is also my first project with my new Cameo! Love!

Hope all the mommas out there had a wonderful day! I'm off to spend the rest of my evening with my two fur babies!

Show Me What You Bought!

Hi friends! I wanted to drop by and give a little love to some of my most favorite purchases from the big sale. I may have gone way slightly overboard, but it was worth.every.penny. I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin' to show off a few of my purchases.

Let's start off with some things I bought to help get me through the rest of the year...

2nd Grade ELA 100 Days to CCSS Success Daily Review from the wonderful Christina Bainbridge

Michelle's Dollar Store Superlatives End of the Year Awards

Super cute!

Next year I'm switching to an apple theme, so of course I had to load up on clip art and digital paper...

Colorful Apples from Krista Wallden

Harvest Apples from Zip-a-Dee Doo-Dah

Keeping with my chevon and apple theme... I just had to have a new word wall...

Darlin' in First

Link up and show off some of your stuff!

Five For Friday

It's Friday!!! Can I get an amen! This has been the longest.week.ever. I'm also excited that it's Friday because that means another edition of Five for Friday! 

Disclaimer!!! I did not bring my camera to school this week, so please excuse the fuzzy I-Phone pics. Sorry :(

1. First up... Happy Teacher Appreciation Week friends! I hope everyone felt super appreciated by their kiddos this week! I know I sure did! 

I just love fresh flowers! They make me smile!

 Speaking of Teacher Appreciation Week... did you hit up the BIG sale?! I can't wait to share my awesome finds with y'all tomorrow!

2. Look at my new toy!

So excited to finally join the Cameo world! I will be working on a little Mother's Day project for my sweet momma tomorrow! Check back Sunday for a little peek!

3. We've been busy learning about the life cycle of a chicken this week. We made this life cycle on a string craft.

They turned out great! 

Speaking of chickens... I had some visitors today...

One of my kiddos and his brother got chicks for Easter. Look at how big they have grown in only a month!

4. We started our all about book this week. I used Sarah Cooley's Sticky Note Research Projects to help my kiddos organize their information. They have been researching information on an animal. My kids chose an animal and completed a KWL graphic organizer before they began their research. After they collected all their information, I modeled the process of how to take their information and create a book.

You can find the book I made in my TPT shop. Just a little freebie to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week! I hope you find it useful!

5. Are any of y'all trying to cram as much last minute information in these last few days of school? That is totally me right now! I've been having those OMG I haven't taught this yet moments. Mostly because our standards based report cards do not assess every standard... at all... during the year. Completely crazy! Anyways... we are cramming learning about plural nouns right now. I used a couple of activities from my Noble Nouns unit to get us started. We did this plural noun endings sort as a class and my kids recorded the plural form of the nouns in their plural noun endings flip book. Monday we will be creating noun crowns from my unit!

Link up with Doodle Bugs with your Five for Friday snapshots! It's so much fun! I promise!