Monday Math Day

Today we spent most of our day in meetings. This morning was spent on School Improvement with a touch of grade-level time. Then, we got to treat ourselves to a fun Mexican lunch with some of our Kindergarten eacher friends. Our school is so big that we often get sucked into our own little 2nd grade world. We have the same lunch and prep by grade level, so it's hard to see everyone else. Anyhoo...after lunch we trekked over to another elementary in the district for some math training. I'm not gonna lie and say that I was super pumped for the training. Especially since the Mr. and my babies were snoozing away when I left this morning and had a pretty fun day planned out without me. But, the training did open my eyes to a few cool ideas. The first is something that I plan on implementing soon. It is called Number Talks. Very simple, yet effective. Basically, you pose a math problem for the kiddos (I plan on doing this as a warm-up), and then many different students how they would solve it. Check back this week for some pics and ideas as I try it! Since math is the theme of the day...the first 3 people to comment on this post with their email address will get our Math Wall unit for free! It is loaded with vocab and CCSS related cards to help you. Peace, Sister 2

Sunday....already?!?

I have to admit this before I even start this post.....I thought today was Saturday.  No joke, the entire day I was thinking it was Saturday.  That was not good when about an hour ago it hit me that it was really Sunday!!  Ugh....talk about not getting your school to-do list done!  Have any of you had those days?  It's been a super busy weekend which again is maybe why it was gone in a blink of an eye!

Sooooo now that we have established that tomorrow is Monday....yes people MONDAY....it means back to work!  Although our kiddos have off for MLK Day, we have professional development.  That means learning so many new things sitting through meetings all day.  We are all at a point where a whole day in our classrooms for planning, prepping, and catching up would be A-mazing but such is life....School Improvement and Math PD it is.  We saved our MLK activities for Tuesday and will share them with you this week! 

Today we were featured in the this week's TPT newsletter! Talk about feeling wonderful about yourself!  We were asked to be in there for a milestone of our store hitting 20k in sales!  It's so great to know that we are helping out other teachers with products they really seem to love.  Check it out here!

 http://blog.teacherspayteachers.com/tpt-milestone-teachers/

As you have read in many posts before this one, two of us are engaged and planning weddings!  This weekend was a big deal for me.  I FINALLY ordered my dress.  I say "finally" because I am a terrible decision maker who has lots of anxiety when I do make one so this was a decision about 2 months in the making.  I ordered the first dress I ever tried on which I knew was the one back then....just had to have some reassurance (which came in the form of 2 more bridal shop visits).  Then today my "husband-to-be" and I started looking at houses. What an overwhelming but fun experience.  Hopefully very soon we will be not only saying "I do" to each other but to a new house to begin our life in as well!

Can't imagine how the last two days got away from me.....

Have a great Monday and for those of you who get the day off...enjoy! 

~Sister 1  

Five For Friday Freebies!

It's FRIDAY!

Today we are linking up with Doodle Bugs. Who doesn't love Five for Fridays? Especially when it's five FREEBIES!?!

Our kiddies have a really hard time with the difference between nouns, verbs, and adjectives. I can't tell you how many times we've gone over them and yet they still get confused. We decided to do a little cooperative learning activity to help their understanding. We put one of these on each table. Groups of four had to work together. They got one minute to write down as many nouns, verbs, and adjectives they could before rotating to the next table.

They did a pretty good job... hopefully this means they are FINALLY catching on. Grab this nouns, verbs, and activities cooperative learning activitiy here!

This week we've also been working on skip counting, specifically by 5s, 10s, and 100s. To make it a bit more challenging we've had different starting points... so when we count by 10s we don't start at 130 but we'll start at 137. Talk about a brain bender! Gotta get these kids thinking. Grab a skip counting sheet here.

Next Tuesday we are going to focus our writing lesson around MLK. We have tons of great informational books to read and share with the students. We are going to use this organizer and final copy paper. It's nothing fancy but will get the job done. Sometimes that's all you really need! Why make everything a production???  Included in that file is also a winter writing organizer and final copy paper. Enjoy!

Evens and odds always need to be reviewed. We have a full evens and odds pack that will take you through the year posted on TpT but you can grab a free snapshot here! 

There you have it, 5 freebies.... just for you! We appreciate you visiting our blog and hope you stop by again to follow our journey in teaching, snatch some free stuff, and learn about us!

- Sister 3 -

Fluency

Happy Wednesday! We're over the hump of the first full week back to school after holiday break.

Before break the sisters and I decided we needed to incorporate an intense fluency routine into our day. Our kids are so choppy I sometimes wonder if robots are reading! We found an awesome fluency pack on TpT made by Courtney Keimer. It includes 35 passages that will take you through the year, with reading levels appropriate to the average second grade student.

So you're probably wondering how we work it... 

First we made bar graphs to match each of the passages. We copied enough passages to take us through the end of the year. Then we copied the graph to the back of the passage.

 

Each student was given a Duotang folder to keep everything organized. Inside the folder is a page protector. Inside the page protector we keep our current passage.  The page protector is wonderful because they can write on it with dry erase markers and they wipe off clean. The old passages will be kept behind the page protector. 

The students were paired by level. We paired high readers with low readers and worked toward the middle. On Monday the students were introduced to our new fluency routine. We have the partners play 'rock, paper, scissors' to see who reads first.  We set a timer on the Smart Board for one minute. While one partner is reading the other partner is tracking the words and marking any errors. When the timer goes off the partner marks the last word read and counts the number of words that were read correctly. Then we switch roles. Once both students have their total numbers calculated they return to their desk and graph. They graph everyday to track improvement. 

I have to admit, day one took us about 40 minutes to go over all the directions and expectations and to do cold timings. Tuesday we cut it in half and it took about about 20-25 minutes. Today we were down to 15 minutes! They are getting the hang out it! We will keep you updated on how this is working and if we are seeing progress in their fluency.

We want to know... how do you get your kids to be fluent readers???   



- Sister 3 -

A Recap

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break! This post is going to start as a back track to a few projects we did the week before we went on vacation. They are just too fun not to share!

We had been working on our landform unit and decided that instead of the old clay model final project that's the standby we'd try something new! First we asked our wonderful parents to send in the things we needed to complete our landform models.

Here's what you need: blue frosting, green frosting, graham crackers, vanilla wafers, Hershey Kisses, chocolate chips, Gold Fish, paper plates, and plastic knives... You are probably wondering why there are so many other goodies on the table?? Those were for "Reindeer Day."

Back to the landform model... Here's what we did!

Each table group got a plate full of the ingredients they would need. Each student got a paper plate with a spoonful of blue frosting on it. Then they started to create their model. Take a look at how great they turned out...

What teacher students don't love a project that involves food!?! This project was a HUGE hit. It's definitely replacing the old outdated clay models!

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I mentioned "Reindeer Day" above. We found a great pack from Hope King and couldn't resist creating a full day of fun around it! We made a reindeer snack and enjoyed Rudolph. We also made reindeer food for the students to sprinkle on Christmas Eve. One of their favorite parts of the day was making a reindeer ornament. It's an oldie but a goodie!

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Fast forward to break. We had tons of great plans... writing lessons and creating units. We did a LITTLE bit of that but mostly we spend our time relaxing and enjoying family and friends. That's what this time of the year is all about, right??

I got a KitchenAid Mixer and had to try it out. I spent a lot of time perfecting the recipe and I think I've finally got it!  I even got fancy, these are milk and white chocolate chip cookies. Next batch, M&M.  

I also registered for my baby shower. We spent so much time researching quality products and finding the cutest things for our little bundle of joy! I never knew how fun it would be to walk around with that little scanner and pick out things we'll need. 

Speaking of babies and preganancy... one of the best things I got for Christmas this year was a preganancy pillow. ALL expecting mothers NEED this pillow!

As you know we are from the Detroit area.  Detroit is a BIG hockey town!  The city hosted the 2014 NHL Bridgestone Winter Classic. Sister 1 took full advanage of the hockey fun, her and her fiance have been looking forward to the festivities for the past 2 years! They went ice skating at Comerica Park downtown on Christmas Eve morning. She even went to a handful of the hockey games at Comerica and "The Big House" at U of M. Poor Sister 1 hates winter and of course all these games are outside! It was beyond cold and snowing like crazy but she is a TRUE hockey fan and realized that both of those things made it a real "Winter" Classic. The worst part of the day was the hour drive home that took over 5 hours due to snow and ice. But she wouldn't have missed it for anyting!

Speaking of snow and ice... the best end to our holiday break is with TWO snow days! Our school district is closed tomorrow and Tuesday! Who doesn't love an extended break?!? It's been snowing here since late Saturday night and it doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon. I think we have over a foot of snow! (Thank goodness for snow blowers!) Hopefully everyone is staying warm.

-Sister 3-     

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

It really is! Here's a little look at the weather we have here. A big snowy mess! But I love it.

This is my favorite time of the year… must why my wedding date is set for December 6, 2014! It's less than a year away, 355 days to be exact. But who's counting??

Last week, the sisters and I went to a wreath making class. Who knew about a million strips of curled paper, pins, and styrofoam would turn out so adorable! Our fingers were hurting but we each have a cute handmade decoration and lots of laughs to look back on.

Our classrooms are also all decked out for the holidays. We've been working hard on cute craftivities. Check them out…

Friday we celebrated Polar Express Day! Everyone wore their pjs. We enjoyed the story while sipping chocolate milk and nibbling on Oreos. Then we made a beginning, middle, and end train. We used a bunch of the activities from our Polar Express pack and ended the day with the movie. Such fun!

We also read, Merry Christmas Splat! We made inferences about what we thought was in that really big present… hmmm.

The Elf on the Shelf is HUGE with our kiddies. It's all they talk about so we wrote about what it takes to be a good elf and found this craft to go with it!

We have also been working on synonyms and antonyms. They make for such a cute hallway display.

Everyone is curious about what is going to be under their Christmas tree so we found this tree craft and wrote what we are hoping for!

I can't believe it's only 4 more days until break! Where is this year going????

Have a great night!
-Sister 3-

Monday Madness

How many of you are crazy like we are and did some Black Friday shopping!?! There's just no way I was about to pass up the deals. I didn't go out Thanksgiving night or even wake up freakishly early but I did make it to the stores and snag ALL the things I set out for (and a FEW others!). These my my best deals…

Do you see a theme? I must be in the nesting phase! I also got some maternity clothes 50% from Gap. I'm pretty proud of my purchases. :) What was your best Black Friday buy?

I'm also into Cyber Monday, who doesn't LOVE shopping in their pjs and slippers? The sad part is I only bought two Christmas presents out of all these purchases! I guess I'll be venturing out to stores to finish the rest.

Speaking of Cyber Monday (and Tuesday) we're hosting a TpT sale! Check out our store for 20% off today and tomorrow. Don't forget to use the code "cyber" for 8% more ;)

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Today I was supposed to be back at school with my kiddies but instead I was at CITW training. Who schedules a workshop the day after Thanksgiving break!?! Don't blame me… it's a three day workshop our principal sent 7 of us too. Because I have "baby brain" (did anyone else suffer from this???) I TOTALLY forgot about this training until yesterday afternoon, thankfully one of my fabulous co-workers texted me! So I was in a sub plan pinch. THANK GOODNESS for our emergency sub packs. I texted the sisters and had them throw one on my desk this morning! What a life saver.

***These are all on sale***

My kids were occupied and I was happy that I didn't have to spend an hour or two writing plans and sneaking into school early this morning to get everything organized. (Everyone knows this sister isn't a morning person!). Successful day with a sub and I learned a lot at my training. Who knew advance organizers, cues, questions, and nonlinguistic representations would be so interesting!? I'm exciting to revamp some of my lessons to include these essential learning tools! 

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This week the sisters and I are also "hosting" conferences. Two LONG days and nights but it's always fun to talk to parents and share the wonderful (and sometimes not so wonderful) things their kids are doing. I have a lot of catching up to do tomorrow… my hall bulletin board needs to get updated and I have to decorate for the holidays. I want the room looking good for all the parents!

We'll check in later this week and share the cutesy Christmas things we're up too! Catch y'all later.

-Sister 3-