Week One: Check!

Well, Week One is officially in the books. And it was a great first week!

I made a promise to myself that this year I would not rush into curriculum, but rather, I would spend more time setting up routines, procedures, expectations, and I would build our classroom community.

We did just that! 

We talked a lot about our school rules (SEARCH Guidelines... we are the Explorers)

Safety for all

Eager to Learn

Accountable for actions

Respectful to all

Cooperative with others

Have a Bully Free School

Mostly we talked about what this looked like when we are in the classroom, hallway, lunch (gym), and at recess.

We talked a lot about my behavior management system. 

I have never had so many students end their day on pink!!! I loved signing the "Outstanding" notes each day, too!

I loved getting to know my students this week. Each day I had a "get to know you" activity planned. 

We talked about our First Day Feelings with the help of Nemo

We shared interesting information about ourselves with M&Ms :) thank you She's Crafty for this great idea!

We practiced being Bucket Fillers! Thank you Alisha {Bubbly Blonde Teacher} for the freebie!!!

My 2nd graders are awesome bucket-fillers so far! They totally get it!! Tomorrow we are making our Bucket-filler book, I can't wait to hear their ideas!

We also made our All About Me pennants :) They turned out great!

Click {here} for the freebie!

Whelp! I am ready for this coming week. Plans are made and I am ready to take on our first full week!

But I'm not going to lie... I am ready for next weekend, too :) 

I love having so much time with my husband... love it!

Year Long Plan + Grammar Posters

Happy Friday! Our weather is swiftly changing back to typical Washington summer weather with rain and thunderstorms expected this weekend. Oh well, my plants will love it :)

I am trying my best not to think about it too much, but my summer is quickly coming to an end. I have started going to bed on time, getting up before 7, and planning out my year. 

Since I am working toward my National Boards Certification I have a few extra things to get ready before school begins. One is an updated yearlong curriculum map. 

So I have been working on that for the past week and I am actually VERY excited about it! I am meeting with my 2nd grade teammate next Thursday to share it with her and make any necessary changes. I somehow managed to fit in EVERY SINGLE 2nd grade standard! Even Science and Social Studies! This may seem silly, but we always find ourselves struggling to fit it all in...holidays, days off, conferences, sick days, Professional Development, mandated assessments...

But this year is going to be different! I am so hopeful that if we have a plan, work hard, stick to it, and have fun then we really can get through every single standard in a meaningful and engaging way. I will share my yearlong plan with you all next week after I meet with my teammate :)

One part of the plan includes the phonics and grammar skills we will teach each trimester. Our reading curriculum includes wonderful Phonics posters, but nothing for grammar. This leaves us creating posters throughout the year. Although I love creating these posters with my students and they love recreating them in their ELA journals as a work on writing activity, I felt like having colorful, engaging, student friendly posters was something we would all benefit from!  

Plus, I love the thought of grabbing a poster to use as my visual for students as we learn about and review these sometimes difficult grammar skills. My ultimate hope is that my 2nd graders will see these posters over and over and will use them as references...and maybe, just maybe, remember what a possessive noun is, or present tense, past tense, compound words... We expect a lot from our young little kiddos, why not give them visual reminders to help support their thinking and learning!

So I got to work!! I even woke up early this morning, when my husband left for work, to finish them! I was that excited! Here they are!! Click the pictures to go to my TPT store for some additional information and preview pictures!

What do you think? Do you see some grammar skills in their that you teach?!

Jo-Anne's Teacher Appreciation

Ok teacher-bloggers out there! If you live close to a Jo-Anne's then you need to know about this great offer! And if you are like me, you have some last minute projects you need to get out of the way before you head back to work.

Easy, right?! I plan to go in and search for some washi-tape, colorful card stock, organization stuff for my teacher desk area, and anything chevron :)

I would really like to figure out how to make these

They look pretty easy, yet so cute, too!

And don't forget to enroll or re-enroll in the Teacher Rewards program and ALWAYS save 15%!!

Learning Targets + Daily Schedules

Two huge goals of mine for this school year are posting daily Learning Targets and a Daily Schedule.

So far I am loving this! Every morning right after announcements from our Principal I go over the Learning Targets and our Daily Schedule with my students. I created the I can ___ statements for the Learning Targets (working on the ELA cards still...there are LOTS of them!) and I also write Learning Targets that are not so academic yet still very important. 

For example, last week we worked on 

1. I know the 3 Personal Standards.

and

2. I can line up safely after recess.

I do not plan on typing a Learning Target for everything we work on throughout the year, but taking time to type Math and ELA Learning Targets feels like a good use of time since we will constantly be revisiting those CCSS throughout the year. I think I will create science and SS Learning Targets as the year goes...

Something that came to me at the end of the first day of school was to "grade" ourselves on how well we feel we met each Learning Target. So at the end of each day, just before we pack up, we go over the Learning Targets one more time. We "grade" ourselves by giving a thumbs up for "Yep! I can do that!" Thumbs sideways for "I'm still working on that..." or thumbs down for "I really need to work on that one... or... I totally forgot about that one!"  This grading helps me see where my students feel they are and helps me know whether I should keep the Target up there tomorrow or if we can move on. Each day I use a different color marker to add Learning Targets to help differentiate between new and "old" targets.

As for the daily schedule... I found myself writing, erasing, adding, taking away...from my daily schedule and I quickly realized I needed to do two things. 

1. Make the Daily Schedule much simpler (this was taking WAYYYY too much time!)

and

2. Type something up! (this was taking WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too much time!)

Whelp! Here they are!

I created the schedule cards in four colors: pink, teal, orange/gold and white (not shown...obviously, lol). I also created them with clip art and with clocks.  Finally, I created them in two sizes: two cards per page and four cards per page. I prefer the four cards per page but I thought younger grades may appreciate larger cards. Find them at my TPT store :)

These cards are so cute and SUCH a time saver! I have mine printed and just need to laminate them in the morning. I bought some of that self-stick magnet strip stuff that I will then add to the back of each card making them easy to put up on the board, move around, and take down as needed.

How do you post your Learning Targets and Daily Schedule??

Week one: Check!

This week was wonderful! I love my new class, I love the changes I have made to my teaching style after being GLAD trained, and I am just plain excited for this school year! The first page of my Parent Handbook included a page about me which explained that I will be getting married this year, that my last name will change at Spring Break, and why we have a pirate theme in our classroom. My students are so excited for all of the upcoming changes and to be pirates! They ask me questions about my fiancé and wedding daily! Yesterday one of my students asked me if I could bring him in for show and tell :) 

Would you like to see some before and after pictures. I got a new phone between my befores and afters so the lighting looks so much better in the afters...which makes the after pictures look that much better I guess :)

Before: as you enter my classroom

After

Before: looking toward the back of my classroom

 After

 Before: Looking toward the from of my room from the back of my room

After: these black bins will soon be labeled and will hold Welcome Work with task cards and manipulatives. I am working on these this weekend. I will be posting them each month on my TPT store.

After

After: teacher space behind my desk

After

After: our gathering space and where I do most of my direct instruction this year

After: Calendar Math--I am doing all of my Calendar Math on the SmartBoard this year, partly because if you notice in my pictures we have VERY little wall space! I like to put up student work on the walls so taking up that space with a lot of calendar stuff really made my room look, I dunno, not student-centered. So I have the main calendar stuff up (calendar, money and time) the rest of the stuff my students will see when we do calendar math on the SmartBoard. They also have a Calendar Math Workbook that we will start next week. 

After: This was taken just before Open House

After: Parents received a Parent Handbook, a checklist, Transportation form, Classroom Volunteer Form, and Student information form. All except the Parent Handbook were included in my TPT Open House Packet

Students received my First day of School Poem and the goodie back to match!

These were a HIT! Students were wearing the stickers the next day, they brought back the erasers, one student even kept the life saver in his pocket for the first day of school :) So cute!

Birthday Surprise! About 30 minutes before Open House started my wonderful mom showed up to surprise me with balloons and cake! A complete surprise! And what a thoughtful, yummy surprise it was! I forgot to take a picture of the cake before we quickly began cutting and putting cake on plates, but it was very cute (Tinkerbell chocolate cake) and very yummy! My students from last year who came to visit me got to take a piece for not forgetting me :) 

My mom even found a super cool pirate balloon!!! I need to carefully deflate it and hang it up in my room somewhere special.

When I finished my room and was taking pictures I was in love with it, but now looking at the pictures I feel like it is so boring! I need to do an art project this week and bring some excitement to my room! I also need to bring more pirate to my room!

This will eventually have pictures of my students on the ship looking eager to be in 2nd grade and excited to be on a pirate ship :) I found a pirate ship image in google images I liked, projected it onto my white board, taped up some white butcher paper, and traced :) I learned that little trick at my GLAD training this year! What a great tip!!!! Makes me look like a real artist, huh?!

So, we are off to a great start! 

Any pirate themed art project ideas???

My New Look :)

What a great way to start a new school year...with a new blog look!  I am just in LOVE with how it turned out. I worked with the AMAZING Barb over at Ruby Slippers for a little over a week and this is the final product :) I never thought making over a blog could be so fun!

What do you think??

As I have been preparing to meet my students tomorrow, I have been feverishly finishing up two big projects, too!  First, getting the 2nd grade CCSS Math I can ___ Statements finished. I finally finished the pirate themed set! 

This set included a teacher checklist organized by Domain in addition to all standards turned into I can ___ statements (or student friendly language!).  Interested? Like pirates? Head over to my TPT store to check them out!

I am working on the insect themed set next! 

My second big project is my Calendar Math Yearlong Student Workbook + Monthly Templates. I spent almost two weeks creating and editing and changing and perfecting this document...and I think you will love it as much as I do! I am seriously so proud of this workbook. This is going to help me stay organized all year long with my calendar math routine. 

I created this workbook with second graders in mind however it can EASILY be used in a third grade classroom or even a first grade classroom!  There are 10 different monthly templates to pick and choose from. I created put them in the order that I will use them, along with tips and ideas (posters to create and post in the classroom to support your struggling learners and ELL students).

Head to my TPT store and check it out! I hope other teachers can find this helpful and useful!

Tomorrow I am going to make the books for my students and I will share a picture! But my plan is to comb-bind the pages together and to have students work out of the books 2 - 3 times a week. We do calendar math every day, and this is a very important part of the math curriculum and learning in my classroom, but giving students the opportunity to use prove their skills in their workbook, and to keep track of their learning throughout the year in one neat book.... my head is racing! I am just so excited about this!!!!

Tomorrow I will have my before and after pictures for my classroom :) I have loved looking at everyone's blogs these last few weeks for inspiration! Enjoy the rest of this holiday weekend!

Reading Interest Interview

Quick freebie!

As I started planning for the first week of school I began listing beginning of the year assessments I wanted to be sure and give my students. 

Math: CCSS and mixed Fact Fluency

Writing: Lucy Caulkins 2nd grade baseline writing assessment--Three blank sheets of paper folded and stapled into a book. Directions to students: "What do you know a lot about? Make a book that will teach someone else all about what you know!"

Reading: Read Naturally 1.8 Chocolate Chip Cookies fluency timing (expectation 55-65wpm), MAP assessment at the end of September.

I needed something more for reading so I created a Reading Interest Interview that includes important reading-related questions that will give me oodles of information about my students as readers. 

Head over to my TPT store and download this interview for FREE!

What beginning of the year assessments give you the most information about your students?

I've fallen in LOVE with the insects :)

If I weren't about to be Mrs. Helm, and therefore a Pirate and Ships theme is perfect for my classroom, I would TOTALLY have an insects, bugs, and flowers theme!

I have been creating a bunch of pirate stuff, but my love for cute insect clip art has forced me to create some insect themed stuff too!

Visit my TPT store to see my thumbnails and download the preview!  Let me know what you think!

CUUUUUUTTTTEEEEEEE!!!  :) I can't stop staring at the super cute insects!!

What do you think?! Am I the only insect-crazy person out there? 

Coming soon:
*Beginning of 1st Grade Math Assessment + Rubrics
*2nd grade Math I can statement card (pirate theme and insect theme)
*2nd grade Math Teacher Checklist

2nd Grade Beginning of the Year CCSS Math Assessment

For the past five years I have been doing the same boring beginning of the year assessments... fill in a blank 100's chart, some patterning activities, fact fluency assessments...and really, I do not learn a whole lot about my students from these assessments. 

I thought now would be the perfect time to create a new assessment to go along with the new CCSS for math!

I took the I can statements (in previous post) and turned each statement into an assessment question. So my beginning of 2nd grade assessment has all 1st grade standards being assessed. This way I will know what they learned and maybe did not learn in first grade.

I also included a rubric similar to the Teacher Checklist (in previous post). This rubric is also organized with I can statements and has a 4, 3, 2, 1 grading scale. 

I like to use colors to help me quickly see where a student is, so I color:
blue for 4 (exceeding standard), 
green for 3 (meeting standard), 
yellow for 2 (approaching standard), and 
red for 1 (below standard).

So here it is!!!

I have it on SALE now for 50% off until Sept. 1st!  Get it now at the discounted price!

As always, comments + feedback are greatly appreciated!

Did you know that you earn TPT credits for giving feedback on TPT purchases??!  I just learned this today!!

Back To School Jitters Link Up

I do not meet my students until September 4th (which happens to be my birthday) but I am already all jittery inside!  Check out the poem/student gift idea I wrote all about it...it's free!!!

While I am waiting to meet my new kiddos, let's talk about some things that are making us all jittery. It's more fun to be all jittery together, right?!  Thanks to A Turn To Learn for hosting!

Link up!!

Whew! Feels good to get that out there and off of my chest! Good luck to all of the teachers who have met their students already, and to those of us still jittery in anticipation!

Ahoy, Matey!

My students this year are in for a real treat! From September - April 5th they will call me Ms. O'Brien...then we will go on Spring Break...I will get married, go on my honeymoon...and when we return I will be Mrs. Helm!

YAY!!!

My finance thinks I should wait until next year to change my name in the classroom, but I am just so excited to be Mrs. Helm...I just can't wait! And I think my kiddos can handle the change!

When I think of "Helm" I think of the big steering wheel on a ship...and when I think of big ships, I think of pirates! Sooooooo, I have decided to make a classroom theme change to Pirates and Ships! I am soooooo excited!

Recently, I was at a Summer Street Fair in my hometown when I ran across this SUPER cute night light in a baby boutique (shopping for my new nephew, Nolan)

Then there was this book...

And this book...

I spent A LOT of time creating a Pirates and Ships Classroom Theme Set. It includes name tags, Word Wall labels (print and cursive), Calendar printables (day, month, weather graph...), supply labels, hall passes, teacher binder cover pages, table group tags, and banner flags for a classroom welcome banner or teacher name banner. All Pirate and Ship theme in red, white, blue, and black!

143 slides of Pirate and Ships themed classroom documents for just $5.50!!!

Visit my TPT store for more information.

Shiver me timbers!!!  I am in full pirate-mode these days! Thankfully my finace still thinks it is cute that I am changing my classroom theme to match his last name (my soon-to-be-new last name...eeeekkkk!!!! I can hardly wait!)!

So maybe you don't need an entire Pirate and Ships themed classroom set, but you are looking for some super cute, fun, AND educational beginning of the year activities??  Here you go!!!

Download this FREEBIE here

Maybe you need a pirate book...have your heard of Tumblebooks??

Click on Tumblebook Library

Then the Red button (Story Books)

Then search for a story by title

Then click the green and orange button that says View!

Enjoy!

You can find, watch, and listen to Pirates Don't Change Diapers with your students on Tumblebooks. Woooo! And technology integration, too! I hope you find Tumblebooks useful. 

I don't get to Tumblebooks as often as I would like to, but when I do my students LOVE them!  There is a great non-fiction book section, too. Be sure to check this site out!

I can hardly wait to get this year started! I welcome any and all classroom pirate ideas! 

Stay tuned for photos of my pirate classroom :)

What's the opposite of Ahoy, Matey?!  

Hmmm... I need to freshen up on my pirate vocabulary asap!