Pre-Halloween Fun!

Halloween is in in full swing around here! Our classrooms are looking spooky and the kids are acting even stranger. Please don't tell us it's just our kids that have Halloween Fever!?!

This morning one of my little cuties brought me this adorable bracelet! Can you believe his mom made it?!?

Today the Candy Corn Bandit paid us a visit. Gotta love Babbling Abby! The Candy Corn Bandit took our treat but left us with some clues. After he made us trek around the whole school we ended up back in our classroom where the treat was waiting for us. This lesson on making preditions is absolutely adorable! You have to check it out.

Today we also had our annual pumpkin fun! Sister 2 and I had a full house of parent volunteers, poor Sister 1 didn't get any. She made it work tho! We weighed, measured, and counted our pumpkins. Then we carved them... this year they got pretty fancy! Grab our pumpkin fun worksheet here!

Now, this momma-to-be is ready for bed! Too bad it's only 3pm...

Have fun tomorrow at all your Halloween festivities!
-Sister 3-

Five for Friday on Sunday

It's Friday again.... or Sunday?, when I'm actually able to finish this post! Better late than never!

#1. Halloween is seriously right around the corner!! I mean, really... where is this year going? It's def been a whirlwind, for me at least! Our Halloween projects and activities official started this week. Our classrooms are really starting to look "spook"tacular. 

We started our week with some scary stories. Each child picked to write a spooky story about either a witch, vampire, or Frankenstien. We had them work through the writing process and turn their stories into final copies. We used our writing toppers from our Halloween unit to jazz them up a bit! They turned out adorable super scary.

We also did some opinion writing this week with some inspiration from Amy Lemons' spiders. We are just amazed by her! We read a ton of informational spider books throughout the week. The students then had to use their new information to answer: Do you think spiders are creepy or cool? Some just couldn't decide because the creepy things about spiders makes them so cool! lol, second graders are so insightful sometimes. Check out some of our finished products...

#2. This past week we also started telling time. Our cuties got o'clock and thirty without a problem but were really struggling with the five minute intervals. Sister 2 whipped up this cute Halloween inspired I-Spy. Grab it from our TPT store here... free!

I also pulled out our brand new telling time floor mat for some additional practice. I had my students go out into our pod with a parent volunteer to practice telling time.

#3. This week we were also working on making visualizations. We have two poems that we just love for this strategy. One is about a pencil and the other is about an unusual pet. Grab them both here. Our students were so surprised to find out what the poems were actually about!

#4. My wonderful room mom knows just what this mom-to-be craves and popped by this week with my FAVORITES. Kind of random but my baby loves soup and McDonald's breakfast sandwiches.

#5. Remember how last week Big Boy swung by school with ice cream sundaes?? This week Olive Garden came to my classroom with salad, breadsticks, and pasta! They brought chef hats and name tags... the kids (and their very hungry teacher) were in heaven! MMM thank you Olive Garden!

Now I just need to get Sister 2 to give Chili's a call back! I'm hoping they want to bring their famous (and our favorite) chips and salsa!

The Lions are on so I'm off to relax before our weekly Soup and Sandwich Sunday dinner tradition!
-Sister 3- 

Time to Catch Up

Where has the time gone?!? About a week and a half ago we said we had another major announcment... sorry to leave you hanging!

I'm having a baby!!! Lots of big news on my end this year.  My students are beyond excited! Every day I find sticky notes on my desk with potential baby names.

In the mist of wedding and baby planning I am managing to get some teaching in! hehe... Thanks to my two lovely sisters, of course.

We have our bat unit under way. We have to say we are very excited about this unit because it was our launch into TPT. It's our first Sister Secrets "baby" if you will! Check it out if you're interested in studying bats this year. Here's a writing craftivity from the unit.

We are also starting our Halloween inspired activities and lessons. Today our cuties began rough drafts of scary stories... look for pictures of the finished projects soon! We also have been enjoying Halloween Bump! in our Math Menu rotations. You can grab a year of bump here, for free!

This week we've been doing all sorts of visualizing. It's one of my favorite strategies! Yesterday, I read See the Ocean.. it's such a sweet story. I stopped about half way through and had the kiddies go back to their desk and draw what they saw when they heard the words on the page, in their Daily 5 Notebooks.  Then we did a gallery walk. Here are a few of their visualizations!

And finally the highlight of last week was a visit from Big Boy! Our students had written resturant letters a few weeks ago and Big Boy wrote back saying they wanted to bring an ice cream sundae treat to ALL of us! 90 ice cream sundaes!! Such sticky fun. :)

I'm off to meet a contractor... we're wanting to renovate the bathroom. Wish me luck!
-Sister 3-

It's Hump Day!

Today we started Math Menu! I know it's only been one day but I'm LOVING it. And more importantly... the kids LOVE it! Today we explained the structure and went over the expectations. We had our first successful day of rotations!

You can grab our free BUMP games from this post! To learn more about how we run Math Menu visit this past post!

Today we also practiced our sentence writing! First we read Dogs Don't Wear Sneakers. It's such a cute story. Around the room we placed animal cards.  We set the timer for 15 minutes and the students had to walk around the room (silently!). When they came to a card they had to stop and write a silly animal sentence. Once the timer went off everyone returned to their seat, reread their sentences, and picked their favorite. Their favorite was then turned into a "final copy." Since they got such a kick out of these sentences we decided to make them into a class book!

 

See you back here Friday for some Five for Friday! 

Is this real?!?

Now that I've had some time for it to sink in I wanted to share my engagement love story with you! My boyfriend fiancé and I have know each other for 8 years but have been dating for the last 3. Last Wednesday, he told me we were going to go to a local park to meet his friend, who is an up and coming photographer build her portfolio and get our dog Jack's pictures taken. We looked adorable because he warned me that we might be in a few of the pictures. We were posing and next thing I knew he was down on one knee holding the most beautiful ring I had ever seen! I of course said, "Yes!"

I knew this moment was coming, we had been looking at rings since last MAY! But he really took me by surprise. I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful proposal and the best part is we have picture of the whole thing!

The day after I came to school excited to show off my bling and tell everyone about our wonderful engagement story! My work family was so excited. But the best reaction I got was from my 27 students. They had so many questions (some of my little cuties were a bit confused about what a proposal ment) starting with, "So what's your new last name?" "Did you get married last night?" "Can we be invited to the wedding?" Here's a little picture one of them drew for us...

It really is a dream come true to finally be engaged to my best friend and soul mate.  Days later I still find myself looking down at my ring in aww.

- Sister 3 -

Five for Friday!

Ohh how we've missed Five for Friday! It's so fun to recap our week and look back on all the excitement of second grade. So let's jump right in...

Johnny Appleseed Day! One of our favorite beginning of the year celebrations is Johnny Appleseed Day! We call it his "birthday party." We spend the week leading up to our Friday celebration learning about fall. (Even though it's been in the high 70s low 80s around here lately!... But we aren't complaining.)  On Johnny Appleseed Day we enlist the help of a few parent volunteers to run the centers. We had 4 centers this year and the best one by far was the apple pancake station! We also did an apple glyph, apple science with weighing and measuring, and apple math. All of these activities and more can be found in our Apples [A Thematic Unit] on TpT. Here's a copy of our apple pancake recipe...

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2! Today we went on our first field trip of the year to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. We spent this week learning about weather... you know, trying to "connect" our learning. We also did a literature study of the book, which by the way the movie is NOTHING like.  We made a Weather Dictionary and by far one of the cutest activities we did was our precipitation umbrellas! You can find everything you need for the umbrellas in our Water Works unit.

Michigan Products Taste Test!  In social studies we've been focusing on communities: rural, suburban, and urban. Our communities unit is the biggest social studies unit of the year so we really get into it. You can find a ton of communities activities here.  Last week we talked about Michigan made products and you can't talk about Bettermade chips without eating a bag few.  We got 4 Michigan products and did a taste test.  Anything having to do with food and you've got the kids attention!

Here's an even and odd freebie!

We saved the BEST for last! Sister 3 got ENGAGED.

Check back next Friday for another BIG announcement!

And we're back!!! Halloween, Happiness, and Headaches!!

First...let us start by apologizing to all of you!!  We have been MIA for the last few weeks with SO much school stuff.  You get it right?  SOOOO much school stuff!  The beginning of the year is just plain exhausting.  We love the excitement of back to school but we must forget how tiring it is.  Have we mentioned the SOOOO much school stuff?  Anyway...boo hoo enough about us!  You are all in the same boat and so we can sympathize with each other!

So forgive us for being absent for so long!  But we are back!!  Things are finally settling into a routine and we can get back to what we love....blogging, our teacher friends, and TPT! :) All three make the three of us very happy ladies!

We've worked on a few products in the last few months to prep for the fall season. Somehow working on TPT is like therapy that relaxes us...yes, we need help! :)

Check out Apples, Fall Writing, and Halloween!  All three are packed with fun for this season!

 

We have a new math series this year.  It is the absolute DEATH of us so far.  We know that new things come along and we always adjust what we do as the years change...however, sometimes we are forced to use things we don't think are the best materials for our students.  We are trying to stay positive that the farther we get into it, the more it will all make sense but....eeekk.  Right now all three of us worry about our math instruction.  We've decided to try to find a happy medium of the program we have to use and supplemental materials...for the kids and for maintaining our sanity.  We don't want to give out the name (to protect the innocent...lol) but out of curiosity...what math program do you use at your school?  More importantly tell us what you think of it!

Hope you are all having a wonderful beginning of the year and settling into your routines!  Halloween will be here before you know it!