It's Been a Busy Week

This has been my first week back to school.  Needless to say it's been a busy week.  It's 11:00 central time on a Sunday night and I'm now just starting to plan for my week and getting ready for Curriculum Night this Wed.

Speaking of Curriculum Night I have a free download of "An Apple for the Teacher" poem that I always use for Curriculum Night.  It is always important to let parents know that their involvement with their child is very important and that both parents and teachers need to work together. 
I have this in a baggie on each of the students' desk when the parents arrive. 

I see that I'm just 15 followers shy of 200.  So if you are not a follower yet; please be sure to do so.  When I reach 200 followers.  I will have another giveaway from the Teaching Oasis. 

Within the next week I will upload pictures of my classroom.

For my clip chart fans

This summler while creating the themed clip charts I had several requests for notes for good/bad behavior.  So I created clip chart notes available at The Teaching Oasis.  The notes are for Outstanding Behavior and an Oops note if a note is to go home to the parents.

For the Outstanding Behavior I write what the student did that day to move their clip up.  So many times at our school-  students go home and say that they made it to the top of the chart, but they don't always know/remember what they did.

For the Oops note I have the student write what it is they did that resulted in their clip moving down.  The student also writes what they will do next time to make a better choice.  Having students write in their own words/handwriting makes it harder for parents to say their child did nothing wrong.  (We all have a couple of those parents I'm sure.)

Currently I only made the clip chart notes for the themes I made the clip charts for.(If I forgot one please let me know.)  Since the clip charts have been so popular I will do my best to create clip charts for the rest of themes sometime during the school year.  Here's the sample of the Hollywood clip chart notes.

Tomorrow I will be back with an idea for a year long reading incentive for your classroom.

Problem Solving2

Just realized I forgot a problem solving strategy.  Write an Equation.  So add this to the others.

I will be adding more Problem Solving ideas this school year.  So check back often. 

Problem Solving

So as a kid I hated problem solving (word problems).  I dreaded working on those problems.  As a teacher I don't want my students dreading word problems as much as I did.  With the common core standards problem solving activities is going to be a must do.  So I've been trying to come up with activities to help students with this.  I created these problem solving posters.  So many times students don't know why they do what they do.  This year I want to emphasize thinking/think alouds in math. 

This is a good visual to start students with the math extended reponses.  Be sure to check out the Teaching Oasis for more Problem Solving ideas and for extended response ideas check out the Show and Tell Math.

Pinterest Linky Party

Usually don't post twice in a day, but when I saw this Linky Party I just couldn't resist. So head on over to Michele's Math in the Middle.  Pinterest is a great place to organize all the great ideas you find when searching blogs.  I will warn you in advance if you haven't checked out Pinterest- it is quite addicting, but it's well worth it because you will come away with many great ideas.

 This past weekend I started my own Pinterest page. You can find this by clicking on the red button on the top of my side bar.

Open House

This past school year I stalked many of blogs and received so many great ideas.  The problem was you would see these wonderful ideas being posted after a holiday/season.  So I just had to file away that idea for next year. 

Hope to plan and share some ideas ahead of time so that followers of my blog can use seasonal ideas this year.  We usually have our Open House in Sept. so I was going through some of my Open House ideas.  I have shared this scavenger Open House doc. on my classroom website for years and have gotten many requests to make that a fillable doc.  So here it is.  Just remember it is fillable not editable doc.  I created the boxes so you have room to type out two lines of text in each box.

So if you like this document and like to see more Open House Ideas be sure to let me know by leaving a comment below.  So I know what you would like to see more of when I blog. 

Be sure to also check out my classroom website for more ideas on Open House. (The same file of above is on there, but that one is not fillable.)

http://secondgradelockerroom.com/open_house_ideas.html



Everyday Games for Math Centers

This past weekend one of my neighbors were having a moving sale.  They were selling many of the games their children had when they were kids.  Well I found three games and I thought would make great games for math centers. No papers to check and would keep students busy for a quite awhile when I'm working with small groups.

Number Sense

A game for 2-4 players.  Object of the game:  Get your rack of cards in order from least to greatest first. 

I would start off by having kids order 4 cards from least to greatest and then increase the number.

Adding 3 Digit Numbers

Add up your points as you match up the Tri-ominos.  For younger students you can have them just match up the numbers for recognition.  2^nd graders and up and add up the three numbers as they discard the Tri-ominos.  Students can play according to the directions or you can adapt it to fit the needs of your class.

Students use skill and strategy to create sequential stacks of cards.  The winner is the first player to use all their cards in their stack pile.

Here’s another game that I have in my classroom that I purchased from Learning Resource.

I ran out of score sheets so I created a new sheet of my own.  You can also have students just write the math equations on dry erase boards to save paper.  (I know our district is always on our case about making too many copies.)