Final May Currently/Teacher Appreciation Sale!

I am sad to say that this is the final Currently with Farley from Oh Boy! It's Farley!  Thank you for such a fun linky party.  It gets me thinking and reflecting each month, and I have enjoyed being a part of it.  With that, here is my last Currently.

A fun bit of news, however, is that this is Teacher Appreciation Week!  I am excited to tell you that TeachersPayTeachers is going to have a Teacher Appreciation Sitewide sale May 3rd and May 4th.  

I don't know about you, but my wish list has SO many items waiting that I can't wait to purchase when they are on sale in a couple of days.  What is sitting in YOUR wish list on TPT?  Here are the top three items in my store on teachers' wish lists.

1.  NO PREP! Telling Time - this was featured in the TeachersPayTeachers Newsletter and is the most popular item in my store. This packet is 56 pages and takes telling time one step at a time!  It begins with telling time by the hour and half-hour, then moves to telling time by 5 minute increments, and ends with telling time by the minute.

This item is full of fun, engaging activities for students.  It works great for whole group, small group, and math centers.  It's also a GREAT tool for older kids during intervention.  Click on the picture to see more about it!

This item is actually part of a line of NO PREP! items.  I also have NO PREP! Adding up to 4 two-digit numbers, NO PREP! Multiplication, NO PREP! Division, and NO PREP! Graphing.

    

    

I also have all 5 of them bundled together so you can save even more!!

2. The second most wished for item in my store is my Guided Reading Template.  It has been recommended by reading specialists! I recently added to this product, so if you already own it, go back to My Purchases and re-download it for free!

If you don't have it yet, it is a system that is quick, easy and VERY handy to help you plan and keep documentation of your Guided Reading Groups, as well as give your students immediate feedback and goals.   I also added a running record sheet that has a fluency calculation formula at the bottom. Click on the picture to grab this awesome item.

3. The third most wish-listed item in my store is my Year-Long, Daily Math Spiral Review for 2nd Grade.  This NO PREP packet includes 36 Monday-Thursday review sheets and 36 Friday Assessments.  The standards are listed for each individual question on each day.  There are index pages of the standards reviewed broken down by week, and links to 2 FREEBIES for posters that compliment these reviews.  Check it out!

Thanks for reading my currently!  You can follow my blog by using the follow me on the right side of the page.  Have fun shopping this week!  Maybe some of these fun items will end up on YOUR wish list!

Make Your Masterpiece! Math Spiral Review

Last year, I began creating my OWN math spiral review each week for my grade level.  I wanted something that aligned with our standards in a rigorous way, and I wanted something quick and simple that I could use daily, as well assess somehow at the end of the week.  Thus, my spiral review was born!  I worked on it ALL year last year.  We had used spiral reviews previously and they were never really what we needed.  Our campus even purchased one last year for us - I looked at it and immediately found several instances where it wasn't actually aligned to our standards.
This summer, I have gone back to the reviews I created during the year and completed the ones I managed not to save somehow, and then over-hauled it to make it as user-friendly as possible.  I made some changes to it, completed it, and have it ready for YOU!

You can use this in a few ways with your students.  I used it as morning work.  So the kids came in and worked on it independently, and then during the first few minutes of my math block, we would quickly go over it.

It can also be used as homework, as small group work, or put in a daily math center. 

For each week of the year, there are two sheets.  The first one is a Monday through Thursday practice sheet with 4 questions for each day.  The second sheet is an assessment over the skills covered throughout the week.  The questions are similar the ones asked during the week.

 As you can see, the questions asked during the week match the types of questions asked on Friday.  This will give you good data on which skills students have mastered and which skills still need more work.  It can very easily be good information for you to use to drive your small group instruction.

If you are interested in this, I have a 3 week FREEBIE of this product that you are welcome to download and try out by clicking HERE!  If you like it, please purchase the full school year by clicking HERE!

 

Five for Friday!

Hello!  Happy Good Friday to you!  My twins had their Easter egg hunt at school today and learned the Bible verse, "He is risen!" Matthew 28:6.  There is something so sweet and wonderful knowing that they are learning early about Jesus and the love He has for them.

Unfortunately, we don't get today off because we have to make up a snow day, but hopefully, we will make it to the service this evening. 

Well, it's that time of the week again.  What have we been up to?  I love that Kacey over at Doodlebugs links us all up at the end of our weeks to find out!

We continued our study on poetry this week in ELA by focusing on alliteration, similes and onomatopoeia.  We had the most FUN craftivities to use from a unit called Poetry Pizzazz from the Teacher's Clubhouse!  We used the Simile Sandwiches, Alliterainbows and Poetry Pops craftivities.  I also used "My Spectacular Onomatopoeia Book" from Mrs. Mabe.  

Five For Friday!

Wow, friends!  One more week is behind us!  One more week closer to summer!  One more week that we spent time learning some amazing things in 2nd grade!  My kids are one week smarter and getting dangerously close to becoming 3rd graders!

One quick note - my WHOLE store is on SALE today and tomorrow! Click the picture below to head to my store!

I have had such a good time linking up each week with Kacey over at Doodle Bugs that I'm going to do it again!  I had a lot going on this week, so I'm going to narrow it down to my Top 5 in no particular order.

We spent our week in Math learning all about graphs.  In 2nd grade we collect data, organize the data into tally charts, bar graphs and pictographs, explain the length of bars in bar graphs and number of pictures in pictographs, answer one step questions about our graphs and make predictions about graphs.  We used several actives from my new NO PREP Graphs! Click the picture below to see this in my TPT store.

We began the week by creating an anchor chart.  Each student voted for their favorite type of pizza out of four choices and wrote it on a sticky note.  Then, each student put a tally on our chart for their vote.  We organized the tallies and created our bar graph.  We answered questions about our graph and then the students worked in groups to create their own questions about our pizza graph. 

Here are their sticky notes:

(I just compiled them to hang it in the hall so others can see how we got our data).

Here is what our completed bar graph looks like:

Here are some examples of the questions they came up with to answer about our graphs!

At my small group table, we graphed m&ms.

We sorted them, made a tally chart,

organized our data in the graph,

then answered questions based on our graph.

You KNOW we had to eat the m&m's eventually, so we finally colored in our graphs. :)

I am part of our Sunshine Committee.  We try to do little things that will bring sunshine to our teachers and staff throughout the year in a variety of ways.  One of the favorite things we do on campus is called a Crash Cart!  Just like in a hospital when someone is in danger and they call for a crash cart, sometime teachers are in need of a fast boost!  So, we have our OWN version of a crash cart.  It's a cart we push around to each teacher's classroom and give them a little snack to brighten their day.  

Here are the ingredients for a really healthy snack.  :)

 

I made some DELICIOUS popcorn and then covered it in white almond bark, sprinkles and m&m's. If you've never had it before, do yourself a favor and look it up on Pinterest!  It's uh-mazing.

I had two little helpers that made my work SO much easier….or something.  :)

This is a picture of orneriness.  

I also bought some cute Easter themed shortbread and sprinkles cookies and m&m cookies, arranged them cutely on my Texas Tech serving tray and, voila! Crash Cart success.  

How would you feel if someone opened your classroom door and offered YOU this kind of treat! Yup. Day brightener, for sure.

We learned about what creates imagery in poetry this week.  We talked about rhythm, repetition and rhyme.  We read several poems to listen and look for these three things, and spent time listening to poetry with our eyes closed to try and create images in our heads from the words in the poems.  We created this poem tree to remind us of the three things used to help create imagery in poetry.  

The topic: What creates IMAGERY in poetry?

The leaves served as a web - the topic in the middle, and the three things about that topic attached around it. 

(If you are a CAFÉ lover, don't look TOO closely at this picture.  At this point in the year, my walls are FULL and I have temporarily covered my CAFÉ board to hang our tree!!)

Each part of the tree had examples for them to refer to to help them remember what the words rhythm, repetition and rhyme mean.

Light it Up Blue

Just want to give everyone a quick reminder that this coming Thursday, April 2nd, is Autism Awareness Day!  Show your support by wearing blue!

Here are some fun facts according to AutismSpeaks.org

Did you know ...

• Autism now affects 1 in 68 children and 1 in 42 boys
• Autism prevalence figures are growing
• Autism is the fastest-growing developmental disorder in the U.S.
• Autism costs a family $60,000 a year on average
• Boys are nearly five times more likely than girls to have autism
• There is no medical detection or cure for autism

Here's a video about Light It Up Blue:

I wanted to let you guys know that I have been working on several NO PREP! topics and have several up and ready in my TPT store.  You can click each picture below to check them out!

My whole store is on sale today and Saturday, so if you want to purchase one, now is the time!

That is my Five for Friday!  I hope the week treated you well and that you get recharged over the weekend with friends, family, church, sleep, Netflix-binging, whatever floats your boat!