Instagram (Teacher Talk Tuesday)

Hi friends! I'm so excited to share in this fun linky about Teacher Talk Tuesday on Instagram! Teach Dream Inspire is new on Instagram!! My Instagram will have both personal pictures and teaching pictures. If you'd like to follow me, click on the button below or search for teachdreaminspire!

You wanna join in the fun?! First, go link up with What the Teacher Wants and Apples and ABC's. Then, each Tuesday use the hashtag #teachertalktuesday to find all the amazing teachers out there sharing on Instagram!

Here are some screen shots from my Instagram...

Can't wait to add more!!

Five For Friday

It's that time of week again... time to link up with Doodle Bugs for another Five For Friday! 

1. A couple days ago I blogged about our life cycle study... today... look at this little guy...

He's our first caterpillar to hang upside down! So excited! Before I left school today I saw two other friends climbing to the top to join him!

2. This week we have been learning about adjectives and adverbs. I decided to incorporate the life cycle theme into our writing. After a little School House Rock (my fav!), I had my kiddos brainstorm as many adjectives as they could to describe a butterfly and a caterpillar. I wrote each adjective on a Post-it and stuck it on our anchor charts.

Then we talked about adverbs that could be used to describe how butterflies fly and how caterpillars crawl. After giving my kiddos A LOT of examples of adverbs, they wrote a creative story using a butterfly and a caterpillar as their main characters. They were to include as many adjectives and adverbs into their story to make it as detailed and interesting as possible. They turned out too.darn.cute! 

I used Amy Lemons' butterfly template and writing paper from her life cycle unit. It's fabulous! You can grab your copy here!

3. Speaking of Amy Lemons... I also used a couple of her patterns to make our butterfly life cycle model.

4. My sweet hubby helped me to put the final touches on my new earring holder.

5. My pile of stuff to do this weekend...

My two final projects for my Master's classes this semester are due Tuesday. I'm so dreading this!!  At least the weather here is gonna be yucky and I won't feel bad for staying indoors for two days. Ha!

Happy Friday! 19 days!!

Plants, Butterflies, and Frogs Oh My! and a Freebie

So we are all kinds of deep into our life cycle unit!! I looked around my classroom today and I thought I just had to share...

I have beans growing...

caterpillars....

and frogs... This little bit came today... in the mail ... crazy!

If you can only image how excited my sweeties are with all the live animals in our classroom right now and not to mention there are less than 20 days left until summer! 

We are also working on arrays in math. We spent the first half of the week practicing our repeated addition number sentences to match an array and today I had the kiddos create their own array.

I got the idea for this chart from Reagan over at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits. Her ideas are always super cute!! I just tweaked her chart a little to match what we're learning.

Here is my example of what I had my kiddos do today...

First, they created their own repeated addition number sentences. Then, they drew their arrays to match.  I saw these napkins at Dollar Tree and knew I had to incorporate them into math somehow. 

If you would like a copy of the Picnic Arrays recording sheet you can find that here.


Have a fabulous rest of the week!

Be a Fly on My Wall

I'm so excited to be linking up with Jodi Southard over at Fun in First for her Fly on My Wall linky party! I always love taking a peek into other teacher's classrooms! 

Lemme start off by saying this was all kinds of hard! Ha! Going back through my pictures, I feel like I missed about a gazillion things that happen during my CRAzy day! 

First up...

The kiddos start arriving at 7:15... yes... at the break.of.dawn. After they unpack, they get started on morning work. My morning work comes from Second Story Window. I love it because it reinforces what we're learning, and my kiddos can complete it independently! I also have designated days that my kids can "shop for books" from the classroom library and use the computer in the morning (Once their done with morning work of course!). Morning announcements come on at 7:50. After that we check morning work. 

At 8:00 we jump right into reading. I usually start with a quick mini-lesson, followed by some type of independent practice assignment, and then I choose two kids to share their reader's responses from the day. Depending on the concept I'm teaching that day, this block of time can last anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour. If time allows before writing, we do a quick round of Daily Five.

Next up is writer's workshop from 9:00-9:30. I usually start off with a quick 6+1 Traits lesson. I copy our trait practice on a half sheet of paper. I get my 6+1 Traits' lessons from Evan-Moor. My kiddos have some time to work on their writing pieces, then I choose two students for share chair. While my kids are writing, I conduct writing conferences.

My math workshop block is actually broken into two chunks (9:30-10:00 and 10:30-11:05) because I have two kids push in from another class right in the middle of this block of time for Social Studies/Science. Did I mention my schedule is kind of crazy?! I have kids coming and going all.day.long! I have about six different alarms set on my phone just to keep track! I digress... back to math. I model, model, model concepts for about fifteen minutes, then my kids work on an independent assignment. I usually try and check over their work right then so I can pull any kiddos that are struggling during Guided Math time. While I'm working with kids in smaller groups or individually, my other kids are working on their math tubs for the week. I have six tubs. Five have center type activities and one is a math journal prompt.

I alternate between Social Studies and Science from 10:00-10:30. This week we've been working on plant life cycles. I like to use the workbooks that are provided for us because I think it keeps me focused on the most important concepts my students to know.

We have recess from 11:05-11:20, specials from 11:20-12:00, and lunch from 12:08-12:38.

After lunch, I have a little block of time set aside for language. During this time we work on spelling, grammar, etc... This week we have been focusing on prefixes and suffixes. I read Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse and I had my kiddos come up with adjectives to describe Lilly. Then we went through our adjectives and found words that had prefixes or suffixes. 

After my language block, we do Daily Five and Guided Reading. I have three Guided Reading groups and I keep all the materials I need for Guided Reading in the drawers pictures above. The drawers are right behind my small group table. My kiddos choose their Daily Five rotation and place their "tickets", courtesy of Ladybug Teacher Files, next to their number in the pocket chart. Language and D5/Guided Reading lasts from 12:40-1:45ish.

At 1:45 we pack and stack. I sign behavior calendars and my kids do their afternoon jobs. We start dismissal at 2:00. My team rotates afternoon duties each week.

and.... That is it! My day in a nut shell. Thank you so much for joining me! I wanna be a fly on the wall in your classroom too! Link up with Jodi and be sure to check out her day too!

Clip art and fonts from Cara Carroll, The Enlightened Elephant, and Sonya Dehart.

Five For Friday

Hello friends! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs for her Five For Friday linky party. This week, I'm doing a Five For Friday spring break style! Here is five random things from my spring break...

1. I decided to join a gym! I really wanted to find a gym that was reasonably priced and had group fitness classes. Hello Zumba and Sha'bam! 

2. One of my sweet teamies introduced us to this new snack last week and I've been munching on it all week! LOVE! The best thing is... it's not bad for you either! It's called Sheila G's Brownie Brittle. You can buy it at Publix in the deli section.

 

 3. This week I've been working on a couple of projects around the house. One project was to organize and decorate our home office. I made these bulletin boards to hang up along one of the walls. I also made three of these for my classroom back at the beginning of the school year.

I bought a sheet of foam core board from Home Depot and had them cut the sheet into thirds.

Then, using hot glue I covered the board with fabric and glued a ribbon to the top of the board so I could hang it.

Here's what it looks like from the front...

and on the wall...

4. I also finished up my newest unit and posted it on TPT. 

This unit comes with activities for 8 math tubs that cover a variety of math concepts. Students can complete these activities with partners or independently as part of your daily math station rotation. Setting up these tubs is super easy! Each activity comes with directions and a recording sheet. All you need to add are dice! You can find the unit here! I also put it on sale until Sunday!

5. Last, but not least, I've spent some quality time with my two fur babies! They've loved having mommie home!

Hope you've had a wonderful week!

New Unit!

I've been looking for a way to incorporate most of the concepts we have been focusing on this year into one set of math tubs...

I think these activities do just that and what's even better is that they are practically no prep! All that is needed are the directions for each activity, copies of the recording sheets, and dice (you can find an 8 pack of dice at The Dollar Tree). 

Here's a closer look...

If you wanna check it out, I'll have it in my little shop on sale until Sunday! Yes, until Sunday! After all, I'm on Spring Break and I'm lovin' life!!

Classroom Makeover (Kind Of)

I wanted to share my mini classroom makeover with y'all. As you know, I got rid of my teacher desk a couple of weeks ago. This week I worked on organizing my new "desk", small group area, and revamping my supply storage and math tub storage.

Here is my new "desk"...

I still needed an area to connect my laptop to my SmartBoard and for my Doc-U-Cam, so one of my amazing teamies had this arrangement in her room, and I thought I'd give it a try. I love it! My clutter is a work in progress, but it's not too bad for my first week without a desk!

I bought one of these toolboxes at Home Depot last weekend and it's already filled up with all my little odds and ends. It's not as pretty as other teacher toolboxes I've seen on Pinterest, but it serves its' purpose for now. Maybe a summer project!?.

I was also able to move my small group table to where my old desk use to be. I'm loving the placement of this too!

I'd thought I'd share how I organize my guided reading materials...

I have three groups. Everything I need to have for each group is in the group's drawer. Nothing groundbreaking... just works for me! Ha!

Inside the drawer, I have a folder that contains my handouts for the day, copies of the book, and the plans that go along with the book. We use the Good Habits, Great Readers reading program. 

Since I was giving my classroom a mini makeover, I decided to reorganize my math tubs and extra supplies too. Hey, why not right! It was only the week before report cards were due, I still needed to work on plans, grading, copying etc..., but you know how it is... one thing leads to another... before I knew it I was wanting to change EVERYTHING... well almost.

First, I had two out of the three tables that were lining my back wall removed. I put wire cubbies in their place. These red buckets (from The Dollar Tree) house my Math Tubs for the week. Last week we were reviewing money, so I had five money tub activities and one journal writing activity.

My money activities are from Jamie Rector. You can check out her pack here. I love it! These were great activities for my second grade friends! 

My math journal prompts come from Yvonne Dixon. You can find her March ones here. All her journal prompts are awesome!

The numbered buckets on top of my wire cubbies are my early finisher tubs. These are from IKEA. Three are math activities and three are for Language Arts. I allow my kids to choose which bucket they pull an early finisher activity from. The one means "I need help with this". This bucket has previously introduced skills that my kids may need extra reinforcement on. The two means "I'm working on this". This bucket has additional activities that support what we are currently learning. The three means "Challenge me!". This bucket has more challenging activities for either a skill we are currently learning about, or a previously taught skill. My kids love the freedom of being able to choose which tub they feel best suits their needs. I pull the activities for these early finisher tubs from many different places.

On the other side of my word work table...

This is where I store my extra supplies. My kids know where to find them, and they just go back and get what they need. The Pop Corn buckets are from The Dollar Tree.

I heart organizing! How do you organize materials for your classroom?