Favorite First Week Read Alouds!

My Camp Classroom!

WOW!  It has been WAY too long!  Last year was crazy.  I loved my kids, but together they were a little bit of a rough group.  It's interesting how that can happen some years.  Between the struggles of my class and getting married in the middle of the year...the teaching blog took the back burner.  I have though about things I've wanted to post this year, but haven't yet had the time.  Now is the time!  I may just break one of the cardinal rules of blogging (if those are even a thing) and post multiple times tonight so that I can catch up!

I have had a travel themed classroom for the past four years!  This year I am still in second grade for the fifth year in a row!  I am about the only thing that has stayed the same.  I have had new teams and new interns every year.  I decided that I needed some form of change, so I decided to undertake changing my class theme.  I knew it would be a lot of work, but I needed a fresh start and I figured that would be fun.  With my married name being Graham (like the graham cracker), I thought a camp theme would be fun!

Here are some pics of the classroom. 

 

I let kids sit in the camp chairs and in the tent for read to self during daily five.  They love it, and I love the bear that I traced onto black cardboard and stuck on the wall!

 

 

My camp sign which includes different things we will be learning or doing in second grade.

 

Decorations and the "bathroom bear", the students have to put him on their desk when they leave for the bathroom.  This way only one student is ever out at a time and I can easily see who is gone.

 

My owls that are above my cabinets.  Thank you to my co-worker Lindsay for the great idea!

 

 

A close up of the tree over the tent.  This was a "must" when designing the new classroom.

 

My clip chart. 

 

Carpet, calendar, word wall.  I decided to start with all the words up this year so that the students can use the word wall as a resource throughout the year.  They have been looking at it since the first day to help with spelling. 

 

I love my "new" classroom this year!  Hopefully these ideas will come in handy for someone else as well!

 

Bucket Filling Display

It has been WAY too long since I have blogged!  Planning a wedding and teaching has proved to keep me rather busy, much more busy than I would like to be.  I'm so excited to be marrying my best friend in December though!

This year our school theme is "bucket filling".  We love that it focuses so much on the positive!  Kids are trying to be bucket fillers instead of bucket dippers.  We have little pieces of paper that we give them with drops on them that they earn when they are being a bucket filler.  There are then bucket fillers from each class recognized weekly. 

We have our class bucket (courtesy of the principal) hanging on the wall in our classroom.  This is where they put all the drops they earn.  At the beginning on the year when I introduced the theme I had the students write on their own bucket what they would do to be a bucket filler this year and then sign it.  I hung those up around the bucket that they put their drops in.  It makes for a cute display. 

Back to School

Well, it was back to work today!  We had our opening institute this morning and the keynote speaker was great!  He shared this quote from Rudyard Kipling:

No printed word, nor spoken plea can teach young minds what they should be.
Not all the books on all the shelves – but what the teachers are themselves.

I absolutely love this!  It is definitely good food for thought at the beginning of another year. 
After a great summer it feels good to be back, now I just can't wait for the kids to get here!

As promised here are some pictures of my classroom:

 

 

The board is all ready for our Open House on Wednesday:

(description of what is on the desks, what to take home and what to sign and leave)

 

(Sign ups for helping with class parties and volunteering during centers)

 

On each desk there is a packet of information about myself, my management plan, rules, procedures etc.  There is also a letter to the parents about the importance of reading with their child at home.  Attached to it is the first reading calendar along with some information on how to help students with reading at home, questions to ask students during reading, and a bingo board for some extra motivation.

 

 I can't wait to meet my students!

 

 

 

Mailbox Makeover

It has been WAY too long since I have blogged!  Summer has been busy, but great!  I am enjoying what there is left of it : )

I have had a mailbox in my room for the past couple of years, but it wasn't cute.  It was silver and just the way my brother found it at D.I. I decided that this summer I would give it a makeover (sorry, I forgot to take "before" pictures)!  My kids will love putting letters, thank you cards, and postcards that they write to each other during "work on writing" in this mailbox to be delivered!

As of late...

Here are of a few f the things that I have been working on as of late...

Postcards inviting my students to our Open House which is the day before schools starts.  I could have typed them but I like how writing them out makes them more personal. I wrote them while I was watching a show on t.v. so it wasn't too bad.

Made a "today's number" chart. Here is a link to the picture that I found on pinterest.  I think I am going to use this as morning work : )

I made this pencil to track the progress of my students during Writer's Workshop.  Thank you to Julie for the idea. I'm sorry, I don't know who the originator of the idea was.

Next to it I did the "What do writer's write?" thing.  I looked at a lot of peoples different lists and came

up with this one.  We will put examples up during the year.  This will help give students ideas of what to write when they are practicing writing during centers.

I got my Mountain Language up on my bulletin board and my centers schedule.  A few things still need to go up there.

My desks are set up and the students books are on them.  I like to do desks like this just for the first couple of weeks while I get to know the kids.  After a couple of weeks we move to smaller table groups : )

Classroom!

I have been out of town for a lot of the summer but I am back in town and have been working on my room a lot the past few days!  

I've got a long way to go but here are some pictures of what I've got so far:

Welcome to Miss Paul's room!

When you walk in towards the back of the room there is the "second grade road".  Next to it is a sign with a bunch of things we will be learning this year!  This little display may just be one of my favorite things in the whole room!  I saw the idea written about somewhere, expect for the signs were all along the road.  I changed mine up a little :)  The stick that the signs are on is a bolt from fabric.

This is my carpet area!  Calendar, morning meeting, read aloud, story sharing, lessons, etc, it's all going to go down right here : )

On the stand next to my chair I have my compliments and concern jars.  Students can write compliments and or concerns that are distributed or discussed at our weekly class meetings.

Mountain Language will go up on this bulletin board.  Above the bulletin board is my birthday train!  It says "All aboard the Birthday Express".  I put the kids names along with the day that they were born on strips above the car with the month in which they were born.

I decorated above some of the cabinets with things from around the world.  I've got a travel theme going on if you haven't picked up on that yet.

Bookshelf. Still need to do a little organizing.

This is my wolf.  He is from Mexico.  I have the students put him on their desk when they go to the bathroom.  This way only one person is out at a time and I can always see who is out. 

This is a combo of two quotes that I found on Pinterest of course.  I painted it.  A little inspiration for my kiddos!

Rules, consequences, rewards.

My bookshelf.  Done Jars and Warm Fuzzy jar are both there!

"Paul Airlines - were learning takes flight"  I found the tag line somewhere and painted it on the airplane that I found at Hobby Lobby.  I just couldn't pass that plane up!

George!  Actually, I don't know what his name will be this year.  I let the kids brainstorm names and then vote on the first day of school.  He goes home with one student each weekend.  They take him home, play with him to their hearts content, write about it all, and then bring him back in his suitcase on Tuesday and share about their weeked with the class.  

 

No Name, No Grade!  This is where no name papers are going this year.  I am going to attach a pen to it with a string so that students can write their name on their paper and turn it back in if their paper does happen to end up here.  Students will be responsible for checking for no name papers.

That's all for now folks!  It's coming along slowly but surely!