Five for Saturday!

[update]
Well apparently I forgot to publish this when I wrote this yesterday. Guess it has now become a Five for Sunday???

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Oops, did I miss Five for Friday? Well, you see, I decided to go out to dinner with a colleague on Friday so by the time I got home from work (around 5:30pm), I had an hour to write and email out our class weekly newsletter before getting picked up for dinner. Of course, after dinner, we spent an hour or so in the car just chatting and I didn't get back home until 10:30pm. Took a shower and went straight to bed. So I guess it will have to be Five for Saturday this time! :)

Partner reading of various bat books.

Addition with regrouping Scoot.

A visit from a nearby wildlife museum with a presentation on bats.

Using nylons to create wing membranes, which in turn, make us into bats!

A live bat!

Science investigation on balance. Trying to balance a tagboard crayfish on our finger with the help of clothespins. 

Creating q-tip skeletons!

Short and sweet! Happy weekend!

Teachers Are Fun. I Don't Know.

Another tiring day. But I just had to share this video that popped up on my newsfeed. Fellow teachers and teacher bloggers, this one is for you all! :)

Five for Friday

I really wish I could blog more often, but I simply just don't have the energy! I barely have the energy for Five for Friday but I'm trying to at least commit to this! This week was conference week so we had three minimum days. These conferences are only on an "as-needed" basis so I only had six conferences but boy am I still exhausted! I can't imagine what it will be like when December comes and I meet with all 27 children's parents! @@

Finally mailed our thank you letters for our first DonorsChoose project. The main donor for that project was one of my college friends. Of course, I told my students that so these thank you letters are much more personalized. :)

My last post shared some inventive spelling. Love this one too! :)

Learning about bats this week. The kids came up with some great questions!

Reader's workshop reading strategy...chunking words! We looked for familiar words or parts in these words to help us with reading them.

While looking for things to do with bats online, I stumbled upon a webquest made just for 2nd grade! First, we watched Stellaluna on Storyline Online. Then they completed the webquest in the computer lab. It was great to see the kids so engaged and focused doing RESEARCH on the computer (and not playing games!). They learned so much and were so excited to do it! I am definitely going to have to find some more webquests to do in the future. 

Second grade math finally started! Learned about regrouping starting with adding a one-digit number to a two-digit number. 

Then moved on to adding two two-digit numbers. 

Sorry for the quality. I was too lazy to go turn on the lights for this picture.

My kids were having so much difficulty remembering to show their work properly (carry that ten!) so I spent a night searching the internet for some ideas. Finally, I stumbled upon this poem on regrouping

Found on Pitner's Potpourri

Unfortunately, this came out blurry when I printed it out, so I made my own version. Up to grabs! :) 

Click on the image above to download it!

Okay, all done for today/the week! :)

Five for Friday

My second DonorsChoose project for an iPad for the classroom was funded thanks to my awesome family and friends! I got to surprise the kiddos when the secret package arrived. They had no idea! I asked them what they thought their teacher tried to get them before I opened the package. Some of the guesses were: erasers, books, pencils, stuffed owl (for Outstanding Owls!), and stuffed penguin (we're reading Mr. Popper's Penguins. None of the guesses were correct, of course. But they definitely weren't disappointed when they saw what it was!

Alright everyone. I have never had an iPad for myself, let alone for the classroom. I've already created a teacher apple account and can't wait to get started. However, I have no idea where to start! Teachers with classroom iPads, suggestions for apps to download? :)

We did apple tasting with our kindergarten buddies. To introduce this activity, I read "The Little Red House with the Star Inside". Can you guess what that little red house is? 

We read the story "The Paper Crane" and naturally had to make some origami! Paper cranes are way beyond 2nd grade (and difficult for adults too!) so we started off with a dog! :)

Forgot to take pictures of the other creations but some of the kids made origami pheasants (our paper cranes), cats, organs, and houses. They had a lot of fun!

Finally wore my teacher shirt that I got over the summer! Too bad only one student actually noticed the writing on my shirt. Ha. Next time!

PD day on Friday. We had two trainings, one on Writer's Workshop (new writing program this year) and Common Core Math. Got a student sample for Writer's workshop to look at. 

A fyou? Ha. Love inventive spelling. 

Let me end with a photo I found online and used in my facebook cover photo.

My motto for the school year. :)