Saturday, May 31, 2014

2nd grade Blogs I read!

Hello,

As I plan for next year, which will be different again, I have been looking at some of my favorite 2nd grade blogs. I thought it might be something interesting to post on here. There are so many that I am sure we don't all look at the same ones.  So, I thought I would "review" for a lack of a better word some of my favorites.

So, I thought I would start with Stepping into Second Grade with Mrs. Lemons.  She has a great blog and really keeps it up-to-date. She also has a TPT Store. One thing I like are all her neat craftivities. I think that students like to create something that gets displayed that also helps them learn content. I already have several of her craftivities and I have put several more on my wish list for next year. I am putting many on the wish list and then will decide which ones fit best and purchase them before school starts.

Mrs. Lemons also shares about her family on her blog. She and her husband have adopted a little girl from Africa, she is just beautiful. As an adoptive mother myself, I love to see this multiracial family created from love, just like mine!  She's doing a great job parenting and looks to be an excellent teacher as well. I would love to go observe her teaching.

You should definitely go check out Mrs. Lemons' blog and her store on TPT. You will not be disappointed. If you have used her materials and have photos or something and want me to include them on my blog that would be great. I plan to have some to share soon. I hope you will comment on your thoughts about this post, more posts like it, Mrs. Lemons' blog and sharing and whatever else you'd like to share.

In case you wondered, the "different" next year will be that I am teaching all subjects for 2nd grade and I will have my students all day. I won't be departmentalized like last year and I will not "switch" with another teacher. At least that's what it is at this point. We all know that things are always subject to change even up to the last week of summer like last year. At least in my building that's how things go.....oh the life of a teacher.

Thanks for reading,

Dina

Friday, May 30, 2014

Blogging Adventures in 2nd grade!

Hello All,

There are many great blogs on the web so why am I starting one? Well, I really like the connectedness amongst the bloggers. I like the sharing with teachers, parents and students. I just might have a thing or two of interest to someone at sometime. So, today I embark on this blogging adventure. I hope it will be active and I can keep up with it.

This summer, I am attending a few professional developments. Next week I am attending two on science. One is about our district's new curriculum for Science and the other is presented by Lakeshore Learning. You get to keep the materials you use in the workshop and I am very excited to attend that one for sure.

In July, I am attending two on Math; one on numeration and the other on fluency. I am also attending a workshop on our new Reading Series, Journeys 2014 that we are adopting this year in our District. I have already begun looking for supplemental teacher materials and trying to plan some. I have to wait for the new curriculum maps for Reading to come out. I hope they are out soon so I can begin looking at them. Yes, I am one of those teachers. It's time to go get some ink for the computer and more lamination film and get those good pair of scissors out. I also want to get some centers ready for reading on the trifolds. My colleagues used those this year and they looked like they worked well and kept things organized.

I am also doing this book study with Heidi at http://swampfrogfirstgraders.blogspot.com/ on Debbie Diller's book, Making the Most of Small Groups. I got my book this week and have already started reading it. I am looking forward to discussing this with the others in the book club. If you're intested in joining go to the link and scroll down a couple posts and you'll find the information.  I plan to post about my readings and the book study on here so stay tuned.


#SBS14

Click the book cover or the photo below to take you to Heidi's blog to learn more about the book study. In addition to the book study she has some great information for 1st and 2nd grade teachers.

 #SBS14



I might also dabble in making some items to use in my class. For now I am just going to give them away on my blog. If I ever feel they are susbtantial then I might open a TPT store. We'll see. Join me here for the adventures of My Second Grade Smarties and you'll find out.

Have a great day!

Dina