Reading at Home - Parent Handout

This handout lists ways parents can help their child become a better reader at home.  It would be a great communication tool to send home with a weekly newsletter or to give out at conferences or parent nights!

Click Below To Download:

Math Skills at Home - Parent Handout

Here is a handout listing simple ways parents can work on their child's math skills at home.  You could send this handout home to parents or give it out at conferences or parent nights. 

 

Click Below to Download:

Make your own dividers!

Two lovely ladies have asked how I made my own dividers for my many teacher binders. I wanted to clarify. I know it is super easy to go to the store and buy dividers, but I had time and was feeling crafty. That led me to open up PowerPoint and try to make my own dividers.

I love these dividers. They are circles and you can see more at a glance.

Hop on over to my blog to see how I made my own dividers and for a short tutorial!

Simply 2nd Resources

School Days!

Come on over and check out my Back to School centers!

The Everything Tool Kit

I like to have plenty of tools available for my students to help the learning along.  I've spent hours making tools and charts for every subject.  My plan for Back to School is to have the children keep a folder in their desk for every subject, and they'll be decorating each folder with the tools.  I have a sample freebie that you can see in this image that includes some math, some reading, and some Science tools.  Come on over to Elementary Matters to download your freebie and see more of the Everything Tool Kit.

Celebrate Johnny Appleseed!

September might be a couple months away, but I can't stop planning ahead!!

I just LOVE autumn!  Nice weather, colorful leaves, my birthday, and apple/pumpkin picking!!

I've been working on a new unit that will be perfect for the fall.  Take a look:

Johnny Appleseed!  This unit includes three super fun and super cute craftivities:  Johnny Appleseed himself, holding a fun writing prompt; an apple tree full of apples; and a Johnny Appleseed cooking pot hat for our little ones to wear!

Also included in the pack are four writing prompts with options, plus seven worksheets like the ones below:

If you're interested in this pack, please visit my blog or my TpT shop!!

Get to Know Me Back to School Freebie

Here in Australia we are just starting our new school year (we go from the end of January to the beginning of December). I've made up this quick get to know me activity for my students. It comes in both Aussie and American spellings - you can pick it up and save it for next year!

~Kylie

Happy Labor Day!

I head back to school tomorrow and am really excited! I went in for a few hours this morning just to make sure everything was in place... of course I found about 50 more things to do while I was there! ;)

Head over to my blog to check out THE last picture before the kiddos arrive and check out my giveaway for some cute little plush key-chains! Here's a pic of the giveaway items!


:)
Christina

Our Week in Pictures

 My Groovy Back to School board! Love it!

I wanted to share a few activities we did as get to know yous, intro to Daily 5 and Café strategies, etc. We also used lots of activities from Babbling Abby’s Super in Second Grade

and Lesson Plan SOS’s Back to School Bash {wonderful resource} I LOVE these girls! I am doing the kids of smarts next week and cannot wait!
Day one we covered lots of things about Mrs. Lamb and my many stories, but we also used Christina’s Back to School flippy to reflect on the day!
Here are a student-colored rules displayed over the front board. They are from Whole Brain Teaching. Read my post about how we started it last week here.

We also reviewed the rules with a great foldable from Amy over at Step into 2nd with Mrs. Lemons!

 

On Day 2 we read Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon {so sweet}. They LOVED it. I used this book for check for understanding, and ended up using back up and reread because I messed up a little felt they could handle 2 mini-lessons! haha!

After reading this we discussed how Molly Lou beat the bully with smarts and humor. She always kept her head up! I then read a poem shared by Amy Lemons from Scholastic. I typed up 4 on a page so we could make it our first poetry journal entry of the year. We also made sunflowers out of construction paper {they really resembled Black Eyed Susans…} and wrote all about ourselves on the petals

But what really got them was this! a Sunflower! Yep, that’s me with the seeds! It weighed over 6 pounds! This was a great lesson in schema-we live in a very rural area with lots of farms so we could see how the small stem {like Molly Lou} could really stand up to the petals and fruit.

 
We also launched Read to Self this week. I am truly not sure if they were ready-did I mention previously they are extremely talkative and lack self-control!? Well, our first 3 rounds over 2 days lasted a minute or so. But the second round on Day 2 {after I had introduced them to the online stopwatch on the big screen} we actually read for over 9 minutes. It made my heart smile…
For this past week {and next} I am still having them choose books from the baskets I fill at their tables every other morning. We haven’t had library orientation to check out books, and I won’t teach about my classroom library til this week {thanks to the wonderful lessons for the Lesson Plan SOS ladies}. They are actually sneaking books out of my baskets…hilarious! The caution tape it going up for this week though!
 

our I-chart and J reading to Wicket, our mini lop rabbit!

 

great job picking a spot boys!

And here are a few pictures form around the room. They are terrible. The lighting is less than perfect in our room for taking pics! There are still so many areas I would be ashamed to show! Eek!

behind the Guided Reading table-Reading Street leveled readers

Attendance board that will start after Day 10-right now teachers do not take attendance at our school. We do a daily head count for 10 days…Students will move their apple to the graphing question on the white board next to this

My nonfiction area of the library. I split the library into three areas this year to cut down on traffic Monday mornings when we go book shopping. Harriet the tarantula is keeping watch. Though I just found out it’s a boy---Aragog, maybe?

My leveled books still waiting for their bins from IKEA…free shelf someone threw out spray-painted and backed with scrapbook paper. And good ole Einstein watching over us

Our Spotlighted book-signage courtesy of Amanda from One Extra Degree, Target lamp, and Dollar Tree placemat!

Our Word Collector still waiting for it’s border that on backorder…and the sign I haven’t printed! But we did add this word on Friday…hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia! I have a little darling obsessed with this word! I think it’s from Wizards of Waverly Place. Guess what it means..click the link to find out!

Back to School

Check out my Prezi presentation for discussing our classroom expectations!

I Love My Classroom!

Come check out why at Simply 2nd Resources!

Fun in the Classroom

Jump on over to Simply 2nd Resources to see a little more!