Let the Researching Begin.....

This has been such a busy couple of weeks. The 2nd graders are starting a unit about researching. I spent my entire spring break "blog stalking" as I like to call it, to get some ideas of how I wanted to spend my time. I happen to come across The Inspired Apple and her informational writing. I used this as a jumping off point with my students. We are currently working on a group research project and will begin looking at how to ask those questions we want to answer. Next week they will be working on writing down those questions and organizing them into categories. I am pretty excited about this unit because I am so looking forward to our end product. So here is the plan!

1. We are working on a research assignment together.

2. We are going to research our own topic of choice.

3. We are going to learn and use power point.

4. We are going to take our power point and place it into Animoto. (If you don't know about it, then learn because I am SOOOOOOO excited about.)

5. We are going to turn our Animoto presentation into a QR code. Oh, yes you read that right! We are going to end the year Tech savvy. 

This is a lot to do with only 5 1/2 weeks left but I am determined to go out with a bang. 

I am uploading some pictures of some of my students as they are researching the class paper. I will keep informed on how did it. I will even try and upload to my TPT store some of the organizers we used in this process. It will be a product that will be FREE!  

Oh, one more thing before I go! Please take some time and like my facebook page and my TPT page. I would really appreciate it! 

A New Product and SPRING BREAK

What a whirlwind of the last few weeks I have had! There has been so much going on. For those that may not know or maybe I forgot to share, I am a K, 1, 2 Writing Teacher. I miss teaching all the subjects and I sometimes get a little jealous of all the blogs I follow that do. Anyway, I teach writing and sometimes its hard to make the kids want to love it. The Title 1 school I teach in has children who come to school with not even a concept of an alphabet. I spend a large portion of the first half of the year really pushing kindergarteners to know the letters so that they can even recognize them in their name. ( I still have students that don't know them.) As you can see, I am a very hard working teacher.

Well,  my awesome district sent me to this training in February and just this past Friday. It was called Closing the Gap in Writing. The first day was so much information that I couldn't get my mind around it. We spent the day discussing informational writing. So it made me think about my 2nd graders and how they are not where I want them to be. So, I went back and worked my hardest on an opinion paper with my 2nd graders for their Winter assessment. (I know, not informational writing that I just went to a training on. LOL) As I was doing this writing, I started noticing how my students struggled with writing a simple paragraph. I was just stunned that I had seemed to miss this fact. With day and era of data, data, data, I had missed an important thing about my kids. This is where I found this inspiration for my new product. I went back and worked on those paragraphs. I wrote a unit on paragraph writing. I have provided a link to my TPT store. In this unit I have put "The Claw" method for teaching paragraph writing, a Hand graphic organizer, 4 square writing, a success criteria, and other neat ideas. I really hope that you will enjoy it.

Just click on the link to purchase.

Now, I am finally on spring break and I plan to love on my 2 and 3 year olds. I am going to be mommy for a week. I am working on some other products and hope to get those completed and uploaded as well. You know a teachers job is never done. Please fill free to follow me on Facebook, twitter (melindaking69 or SassyTeacher75), the blog, pinterest, and as well as bloglovin. I am so excited to meet new followers and I hope to grow this blog so that I can have a nice giveaway.

Thanks for letting me rattle. I will be back with some more amazing tidbits. I hope to see ya soon!

ONE HAPPY TEACHER!!!!!!!

Oh, how happy is this teacher?  VERY!!!!! I have so much to get caught up on. So let's dive in. First of all, I have had 2 snow days and about to have a 3rd in a row. That is absolutely unheard of in my City School District. Sunday we got this horrible ice storm and snow on top. It is awful on my side of the street. Anyway, I have gotten the chance to love on my sweet preschoolers ( my kids) and be mommy. I love that job a lot.

Second, I wanted to let you know about some awesome things that I have been doing in my classroom over the last couple of months. You better hold on to seats because I'm going to upload as many pictures as I can.

Okay, I just love when you can't go outside and you find Just Dance on Youtube. These pictures are of some of my kiddos getting their dance on. It is so funny to watch them. I love these kiddos a LOT!!!!

These pictures are of my sweet little man and his first day of preschool. He wasn't so sure about eating breakfast, but they said he did well. 2 months later, he loves it and tells me that he loves his teacher Mrs. Brandy. #mommysheartsmiles

When we returned from Christmas break, I worked on a Polar Animal unit. This is a picture of my interactive notebook all about penguins. The 2nd graders had to do a Penguin Research report. I haven't uploaded it my TPT store only because I used these kiddos as the guinea pigs so I have had to make some correction. Gotta love free labor! LOL!

This is from the Martin Luther King unit that I did thanks to Lyndey Kuster from A Many Years of First. I was so proud of this work that my kids did. They learned so much about MLK. I had one student who use to live in ATL and he was a wealth of knowledge. I think I spent a week asking everyone to look at their wonderful work. Now the last picture of the I dream paper is so cute. It was one that I just had to take a picture of. I had asked the kiddos to take the crayons and match it to their skin. I just want to say that I have NO child that dark in my class. I just smiled and hugged this sweet girl. Gotta love their interpretation of the directions.

Then came the 100th day of school. The first picture is of my pitiful door banner. I absolutely forgot the day was coming. I had to quick plan for the day. Of course with 3 classes, it was easy to choose an activity. The rest of the pictures are of  my hallway's banners. The last picture is of the hall banner that the cluster across the way from us did. It turned out really cute and BIG!!!

The top is of our Valentine boxes. I kept saving milk gallons and cut an opening in the front. I gave the kiddos all the art supplies I had and told them to be creative. You can see what I got. It was such a fun day. They had the best time working on them. We had a very low key party. I don't know about any of you but I can't stand parties. It just drains me. I would rather just teach. I know silly. I just struggle with getting excited about it. LOL! The bottom picture is from Babbling Abby's Poppin Adjective unit. I had had this file for a while but had not used it. I started noticing that my kiddos were struggling with the describing so I thought its time for POPCORN!!!!

Okay, I promise this is the last of pictures. Since it is Read Across America Week, my wonderful friend and partner in crime had a "Shower Moment" and thought that we should make a banner for our hallway entrance. This banner would have different book covers and authors because as much as we love Dr. Seuss, we were wanting to do something different. Anyway, The chains are the of the books that our 2nd graders read for AR and passed. It was a lot of chains. We spent Thursday making chains after chains but the face of those kiddos walking through that banner was priceless. It made all that stapling worth it. The bottom picture is of my door for the  door contest that was suppose to happen Monday but of course if you remember we are on a SNOW DAY!!!! 

Now the 3rd and finally thing for the night. The reason that this is one Happy TEACHER!!! My husband and I got our taxes in and fixed both of our cars and bought this lovely computer that I am typing my post on right now. My old computer was needing to go to the pasture. I am so excited I cant stand it. I hope it will motivate me to finish some TPT projects and to start a book that I want to write about my journey in having a Gastric Sleeve surgery. Well, I have written enough and I hope you will return. I hope to get better at this blogging because I really do enjoy it. LOVES!!!!

What another Snow day and an AWESOME give way!!

So with this bitter cold weather that just came in, my district decided to call school off. Thank goodness because my car is trapped in my garage. LOL! Hopefully I will be able to get it unstuck by lunch time. Anyway, I wanted to share some things that I have been working on and hoping to get finished in the next few weeks. It seems I never have time with my little ones needing me. So, I am currently working on and interactive notebook focusing on rhyming. I have a do list of other projects.
1. Volume 2 of my Read it, Trace It, Draw It pack
2. Sight word Study
3. Interactive Grammar notebook
4. Arctic Animals unit
This is just a few of the ideas that Im trying to make come to life. Now onto the giveaway.
Just recently I discovered an awesome blog. It is call Mrs. Olson's Lucky Little Learners. If you have not gone and checked it out then, YOU NEED TOO! It is amazing. She is having a great giveaway. It is all about making a better community in your classroom with Rusty May and SchoolToolstv.com This the last chance to get in on the action but I would hurry. I am sending you a link to get there. HURRY! Oh, wait I already said that. LOL!

SNOW DAY (No Snow!) and Other Fun Stuff

So for the last few days the news has been talking about this horrible storm that was coming most our the countries way. Well, I live in Bowling Green and we have a force field bubble that keeps us from getting real weather. I woke up this morning to a text that our school system had closed as a preventive measure. Well, guess what? It rained all day. I was glad to be home but I really dont want to make up a snow day.
     Today I have played with my kids and cleaned the kitchen. Oh, and been potty training. AWE, the glamorous life of a teacher. LOL! While playing with them, I kept thinking about my classroom and what my students needed when we returned on Monday. I have noticed that my kids are struggling with the simple of task. I have a few students that NEVER try in my classroom. What do you with those kids? I have taught for 13 years but they sure do stump me.
     I am currently working on a my sight word study unity. It will be big. I did do volume 1 of my sentence builders. I hope that you guys will love it.
    OK, one for thing and I will go! I have an elf on the shelf in my classroom. I love this concept. I have a 5th grader in my building who comes in in the morning and moves the elf around. Its been so fun because the kids keep telling me that I have touched him. I just joke that I have not touched him. (which is true). At home, we have Percy the penguin. I'll share that later.

Everyone have a great weekend. I get to do some much needed scrapbooking. I am so excited. I won't be excited for the mess my house will be in but I will be excited to get some Christmas presents finished. Ok, I will holla later.

Mel

CYBER MONDAY AND MY VISUAL PLANS

What at week!!!! I only had to work 2 days last week and it seemed like the longest week of my life. I need this break because I needed to regroup when it comes to my kindergarten writing class. They are progress like I need them to progress. This common core is so much more intense and I am just trying to teach to the best of my ability. Anyway, enough of that! I'm so excited because Monday and Tuesday is a big sale on TPT. I am throwing my store on sale with a 20% and with TPT giving close to another 10%. You can get 28% off. You can't beat that.

Also, I thought I would go ahead and link up with Deedee Wills and post my visual lesson plans. I spent the first day of my break in my classroom working and doing my plans. I also decorated my classroom for Christmas. The kids will come in to find Chris our Elf hanging in the lights. I will be fun to play with this group of kids. I hope those students who have a little behave troubles will have a great 15 days.

Sorry it looks crazy! Im learning this google drive format. Its a work in progress. Okay, I am off to fill my cart on TPT and get ready for tomorrow.

My Visual Plans

So I decided to link up with one of my favorite bloggers Deedee Wills. She has inspired me to do visual plans. With my district doing CIITS, I can upload these plans to that system as well. This week my 2nd graders will be writing scary stories(funny that it falls after Halloween), 1st grade will be writing about their family, and my sweet kinders will be starting sentence school. It is a fun way to help them to understand how to put words together to make sentences. The first 12-14 days will be a daily activity and then after that we go into 3 days a week with word work activities after that. Well, I am off to get ready for the next week. Can't wait to hear from you about your week.