Versatile Blogger Award!

Wow!  This has been a great week in Blog Land (and at school too)!  Mrs. S at Stapler's Strategies for Sizzlin' Second Graders! has awarded me the Versatile Blogger Award!

I feel like I just went to a double feature!  Thanks Mrs. S!!!  Here's what happens when you receive this award: thank the person who gave you the award, tell seven things about yourself, and pass this award on to fifteen other blogs that you think deserve it.

Seven things about me:  

1.  I love my family!  My Husband and my daughter are my life!  I often blog about Keira here!

2.  I LOVE to exercise!!

  

3.  I have over 100 exercise DVD's that I workout to in our home gym. 

4.  I was featured in Collage Video's magazine, "Get Ready for Swimsuit edition 2007."  I never thought I'd be on the back cover of a catalog in a bikini!!!    

5.  Dark Chocolate is my FAVORITE!!  I especially like Dove Dark Chocolate, but will gladly accept any kind of chocolate.

6.  I love to shop!  Whether it's online or the real deal, I'm always looking for a great bargain!

7.  My family tells me I'm on the computer too much!  Sometimes I just need to walk away from Technology.  Although being our buildings Tech Lead makes it kind of hard for me.

Now here are 15 more blogs that I really think deserve this award!

1.    Second the Best with Mrs. Duarte

2.    A Day in the Life of a 2nd Grade Teacher

3.    A Journey Through 2nd Grade

4.    Busy Bees

5.    Notes From Miss Dennis

6.    First Grade School Box

7.    Learning with Mrs. Parker

8.    The First Grade Parade

9.    The Inspired Apple

10.  Thriving Third Graders

11.  Stay and Play

12.  Ucreate with Kids

13.  Miss Kindergarten

14.  Keeping Up With Class

15.  Queen of the First Grade Jungle

I ♥ Your Blog Award

I am so excited to receive my first blogging award!  A big thanks goes out to Pitner's Potpourri who gave me the I ♥ Your Blog Award!

Now here are my Top 10 Blogs!

Rules:

1. Give the "I Heart Your Blog "Award to your favorite Top 10 Blogs that have touched your heart and inspired your teaching by listing them on your blog.

2. Contact that person and let them know of their heartfelt award.

3. When you receive the award,

copy and paste the graphic onto your

blog and give a shout out to the person who nominated you. 

4. Spread the LOVE by passing the "Heart Your Blog" Award on your Top 10.  

Abraham Lincoln - Contractions Game

This weekend we are having the annual Whole Enchilada Fiesta.  I decided to make our gameboard for next week's story; Abraham Lincoln with this Fiesta in mind.  Enjoy!

Pig Math

Wow!  What a day!  We had our school's annual Jog-a-Thon today.  It was a huge success!  I ran 30 laps and am beat!  

My 2nd graders use Lory Evan's Pig Math to practice our facts daily.  They are loving it!  I recently saw that Lory had created a form to send home each week that included math and reading.  I decided that I needed to make my own to go in our Data Binders.  I wanted to share the form that I created which my 2nd graders will use to keep track of our timed math facts in our data binders.  The kids will highlight each level that they successfully complete.  

     

Homeworkopoly for the Mimio

I am pretty excited to try out Homeworkopoly on the Mimio!  I downloaded the file from here.  Then I changed it a little to meet my needs.  Now I have it all ready to try out this Friday!  I can't wait until my class sees this!  I know they will love Homeworkopoly even more!

Here's the game board!

Here's the page that they can spin and choose a card from Chance or Community Lunchbox.

I am loving the idea of having so many great things and not taking up a lot of space!

Station Rotations

Do you ever have one of those Ah Ha moments where you think, "Why didn't I do this in the first place?"  Lately I have been pondering my Station Rotations.  I have it set up in a pocket chart and it works okay, but if I get another student I won't have any more rows of pockets to add to my stations.  Plus, in October my class restroom is getting remodeled and some areas of the room will be off limits until the construction is complete.  So all weekend I kept thinking how nice it would be to make a rotation board to use with my Mimio.  I played around with a few things, then it hit me.  I could simply make a table in Word and each day I will change it by moving everyone down and copying the last two names at the bottom back up to the top.  It took me about 20 minutes, once I finally got my thoughts together and created a table for Reading and Math.  I will simply put it up with my InFocus Projector from my laptop so that everyone will be able to see the rotations clearly.

 On a side note, this weekend I also found a template for Homeworkopoly on the Mimio Website.  I will also have to move my current board for that during the construction and am seriously thinking of doing this game on my Mimio too.

Tara & Tiree Game Board

Here is the Tara and Tiree Game Board that created to go with the phonics patterns I will use with Reading Street.  I hope you find it useful!

Tara & Tiree Game Board

Scholastic Sale

Here is a deal that was just too good to pass up!

Scholastic Teacher Editions are on sale for $1, this is an E-book download (PDF file). Books usually range from $3.95-$16.95. These books are an excellent reference or idea resource for teachers or for parents who want to supplement their child's educational content. 

Click here to go to their site!

The sale is good until 9/20, so ENJOY!!!

Use 10THANKS to receive $10 off your order.

If only selecting $10 worth of e-books you do not need to enter payment details.  Once your order is placed you can download directly from the site under your account page and "My Downloadable Products."  You get 3 downloads per book.  Their site is slow so be patient!

Positive Posters

So the other day I was reading a post by The Vintage Teacher about another blogger called Technology Rocks.  Seriously.  I decided to head on over to her blog and was very  inspired to see all of the positive quote posters she has made.  I printed out a few and got frames for them at the Dollar Store.  I really played up the messages with my class!  I have hung them in my room for everyone when we need a little reminder.  

THANKS FOR INSPIRING US SHANNON!

Patriotic Week!

My Team and I have decided to call this week Patriotic Week!  We plan on starting off the week remembering 9/11.  We will talk about who are the heroes in their lives and the community.  Here are some presentations that we will use.



This one is from Mrs. Adcock

The next one is a WTC Memorial video

Finally towards the end of the week we will talk about Constitution Day.  We will play some of the interactive games found here.

The Strongest One

Next week our 2nd Graders will be reading the story The Strongest One from our Reading Street Series.  Here is another one page game that I created to go over the phonics pattern for the story.

Click Here to Download:  {ConsonantDigraphsGameBoardChThShTch}

My First Game Board

So I am finally back!  We have been very busy establishing routines and procedures, not to mention a lot of testing too!  Our year has gotten off to a very good start.  I have been really thinking about how I could make some games to go with Reading Street.  I finally came up with a game that goes along with A Walk in the Desert.  It covers our spelling pattern: Inflected Endings ed and ing.  After so many wonderful teachers have shared so many great activities, I hope that some of you will be able to use this one too!