Funny Money

We actually had our first 2-hour delay Monday, so I have stretched out Presidential fun throughout the week.
Monday when the kids came in, they had huge funny money bills on their desks. {Dollar Tree!!}I had actually bought them to use for the 100th Day, but time was not on my side.
Needless to say they were ecstatic

Our strategy/skill lesson for the day was an adaptation of Amanda Nickerson’s Outside/Inside Character Traits pack.
After I gave them examples of each about myself-short, spunky, stubborn, shy, and pale…they decided which were inner traits and which were outer traits-and they added bossy and best teacher ever to the list…those go hand-in-hand!

Next, I read What Presidents are Made of…oh my! What a great on the whim purchase this was! The illustrations are amazing. I love that the do-dads used represent something about the person. Ah-Ma-zing!

Then we made a circle map of presidential character traits we thought were important to have

and the kids chose one {some did 2} traits they possessed and wrote why that was important. They turned out a-dorable. Here are some favs.

If you want to do the same-here are the signs and writing papers!
Just click below {they are 2 separate files}

We also made Amy Lemons’ little Lincoln craftivity today! Oh, precious! We read Abe Lincoln’s Hat then the kids wrote what they would keep in their hat.

Here they are! You gotta read the one below. A child of my own heart.

Cardis, Converse, and hot guys in wigs {and leggings}?

these are a few of my favorite things!

Finally feeling a little like autumn here in southern NC. The high was 58 Friday! It’s been in the upper 80s-90s all week! It was wonderful. So good in fact, I wore my Uggs! Too early, maybe…but my feet sure felt good! I’ve been sporting cardigans and Converse tennies all week and it’s been nice.

I have come to the conclusion I won’t be posting more than weekly these days. I don’t know how I thought I could still post everyday. I really need to write posts and set dates for later…but…oh well! My class is still working out the expectations kinks and I’m feeling like a big ole meanie everyday, but we are getting there. I try to keep in mind that I am remembering my kiddos at the END of 2nd grade, not the BEGINNING!

What We’ve Been Up To:

I’ll start with 9/11. My kiddos had never even heard about the tragedy and I teetered on not even getting in to it for fear they’d have nightmares, but it is a huge part of our national history and completely changed how our country operates. I am SOOOOO glad I did. I have not had a better day yet with these dears. I started by just asking for a show of hands who had ever heard the term “9-11” and when only 1 kid had, I read a news article aloud. It really led to a wonderful discussion. I told them exactly where I was, what I was doing, how there was nothing televised but NYC for at least a week, and how American flags flew everywhere and everyone had a flag magnet on their car. I felt so proud to be an American. Then, my friend across the hall brought her kids over, told them her story, and we all watched the Brain Pop video. {I love those things…}. We also checked out the interactive timeline and the time lapse video of the memorial going up. You must use this site, it is ah-maz-ing

Bookmark these for next year!

http://www.911memorial.org/ - great lessons and videos, etc.

http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/ushistory/september11th/ - free Brain Pop video

Natalie and Rachelle with some good resources - http://whattheteacherwants.blogspot.com/

Next we made a mosaic of the Twin Towers and added the questions from What the Teacher Wants blog to it. It really turned out beautiful and created a wonderful atmosphere of teamwork in my room {really the first I’ve seen of it}. Like I said, I am so glad I shared this time with them… 

We read some wonderful books too: 

 

Nonfiction Writing

Have you seen this news story? http://news.yahoo.com/filipinos-hunt-2nd-killer-croc-1-ton-catch-052749439.html INSANE! I though sharing this story would be a great intro to writing workshop this year and capture their attention for sure. I am admittedly very weak in this area. I have still not figured out the plan for writing to fit my teaching style yet, but we are simply starting with sentence writing. I modeled a sentence about myself capturing a croc roaming our school’s track, then sketched a little doodle. The kiddos thought it was hilarious-the sketch too! I asked them to imagine what they’d want to capture {humanely of course} and sketch a picture and write a sentence that matched. It was a good indication of what they could already do. We have been working from here writing lots of sentences and using complete sentences to answer questions orally and written.

A great strategy I learned from a teammie is called “Flip the Question”. I ask the students what the question words are, then we cross those off and use what’s left to start the answer. I pretty genius if you ask me! I will be posting more about our sentence writing skills soon!

Q: How much does the average croc weigh?

A: The average croc weighs 500 pounds.

Constitution Day…how did it slip by me!? I swear we were still in single digit dates! And I guess the daily emails about being required to teach it slipped by me too?? So, since I had not seen the wonderful posts by Amanda, Rachelle and Natalie, and the SOS ladies yet…Sooo, I slipped over to my teammie’s room and we watched The Preamble from School House Rock {this DVD is probably the best money I’ve spent!}. My teammie really cracks me up! Her kids had been writing a PROBE {more about these gems later} about the Constitution and she kept referencing the hotties in wigs! I did have to remind them they wore leggings too-wow-za! Next week we will be working on Family Constitutions home projects. Cannot wait to see these and share!