Let's Give Em' Something to Talk About

Okay everyone.  My name is Tina and I am terrible blogger.

Ahhh, now that we have that out in the open, I feel like maybe I can do this.  Believe it or not, I went through high school and college as the one who COULD write....and write...and write.  Fast forward to today. Am I busy at school everyday?  Yes.  Am I doing things I would love to share?  Yes.  Am  I finding time to do that?  No.  I blame the clock.  LOL... I'm a terrible "sister."  Thank goodness for Amy- Sister 3- who keeps our little blog going!   Here I am with time today so I have lots to share!

Let's rewind to July.  (Yes y'all it has been THAT long since I have blogged!!)  The absolute most stressful wonderful time of my life!  I married my best friend.  Yesterday was our 7 month anniversary.  It feels like forever ago but I still remember every moment of that day.  I had such nervous butterflies.  Fear, excitement, nerves....I had it all!  But everything turned out amazing and our first newlywed year of marriage is FLYING by.  I remember as a kid, my parents telling me not to rush time because it goes so quickly.  I totally get it now.  Here are two photos (out of 670) of our big day. 

 Pretty amazing day!  We can't wait to celebrate our first married Valentine's Day.....building a closet organizer in our new room.  Oh yeah....on my little "hiatus" from our blog, we also built a house and moved in.  The pages I could write on THAT topic are intense so I will simply say it was supposed to be done in July and we move in November 1st.  Yes...exactly.  Make your own assumptions.  However I LOVE our new house and we are slowly filling every room and making it a home.  Here is a picture of it before we moved in.  It looks the same on the outside minus the piles of snow all around it. :)

See I have been busy?!?

At school things have been pretty busy as well/.  We started a new math series. It has pros and cons.  We are supplementing it with our own units to make sure we meet all of our standards.  Have any of you started a new series you didn't love?  How did you help yourself to adapt?  We love new and inventive ways to teach things and hate the "same old" but this has some very "different" ways of teaching things.

I currently have a student teacher.  She is only here for about 2 more weeks.  My students love her and she is really getting into the groove.  Her being almost done makes me happy (I miss teaching my students) and sad ( I will miss being able to get things done while she teaches).  I guess all good things must come to an end.

We have been studying informational text A LOT over the last few weeks.  We have used informational guided reading books, taught strategies with informational text, and been working hard on text features.  We've done lots of great things with this but I thought I would share the group posters my class made.  After they leaned about all of the informational text features, they got in small groups to make posters for each one.  These are hanging on a wall by our reading area so students remember these in the future through pictures and words.

This week we are quickly approaching the sugariest most lovable party of the year, our Valentine's Day parties.  They are tomorrow and to use the kids excitement in a positive way, we have been doing many Valentine's Day based activities.  Here's a look at a few.....

I am not sure who to give credit to for the above adorable craftivities but we made these to go with the book Love, Splat.  It is a great story for lower elementary.  These crafts included students writing about ways to show love.  They came up with some cute, creative ways.  Think "buy them a fish" and "hand them a Kleenex."  Out of the mouths of babes!! 

Here we also were making a cute little Valentine craft that went with writing.  Our students have been working on "How-to" writing using order words and organizers.  Today we did our final copy of "How to make a Valentine" and made these heart people to go with it.  Everything is better with a craft right?!?  Especially if you are a second grader.  This how-to writing and craft along with many more are included in our new unit found here.  This unit includes "how-to" writing activities that will last you ALL year!

Well I think I have taken enough of your time caught you up on enough for now.

Have a great day!
~Tina