My FAVORITE Charting Website

For the past few years, my school has chartered a bus to take teachers to the Columbia (Teachers Reading and Writing College Project) "Reunion." These days consist of countless workshops taught by various staff members at Columbia. One of the best workshops that I have attended at this reunion was run by two women who are experts in classroom charts. They taught us everything from how to draw quick images to include on charts, to the types of information to include on charts. They have an AMAZING website called "Chart Chums" that I always get a ton of ideas from for my own charts. Check them out- you won't be sorry! 

Click Here to access their site!

Animoto for Open House

Animoto took its maiden voyage on Mrs. T's computer today!  The site was simple to use and produced a fast, quality piece for me to share with parents at open house.  I like the simplicity of the site and the lack of options for control.  This meant that I simply uploaded my pictures and music and was on my way--  No debating over tiny details and minor changes that could be made.  I can definitely see myself using this tool in the future.  I even could see my students being able to navigate through the site, upload pictures, and select music.  Very impressed!!

This animoto project came at the perfect time of the year for me- Open House.  Every year I always try to put together some sort of slideshow for parents in order to "show off" our first few days of school.  By using animoto, I was able to create a simple, yet very impressive video to show to parents.  

Does anyone have any idea for how they are going to incorporate this into lessons??

Use the following link to view my first animoto :)  First Animoto

We Love to Read!

The first few days of school were devoted to creating excitement for the work that we will do in reading workshop this year.  As a way for students to take ownership of their reading life, I had them bring in their favorite book to share with the class.  Below are some pictures of the students as they present their books.  These pictures will be combined with writing that students did about their favorite place to read and the reasons that they love the books, to create a bulletin board.  My hope is that this board will showcase the love of reading that I hope to grow throughout the year.

Sensational Start to the New Year

When reflecting on the first few days of the new year, I am astounded at how "ready to roll" all of my new second graders were.  We did a lot of the typical review of rules and routines; however students were already demonstrating an incredible handle on these second grade staples so easily.  In an attempt to sort of let go some of the control, I began my first day of math centers on Friday without ANY discussion of expectations, rules, or procedures.  Instead, I let the students simply show me how they thought they should act during this time.  I was so astonished to see that students were self-directed, hard working, and cooperative throughout the entire math time.  Perhaps with this group of students, I will be more easily able to employ this "backward design" more often and send them off on a task first and discuss positives and rules after.

Writing Workshop Idea

I love the idea of using a pie chart as a visual for the writer's workshop structure.  I am going to try this out this year.  I found this right in time too, as I plan to introduce the routine of writer's workshop in this upcoming week.


This teacher also has some other great writer's workshop ideas that can be found by following her link below:
 http://applesofyoureye.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-basics-of-writers-workshop.html

In need of SMARTboard activities?

A great go-to site that I find myself checking daily is the smartexchange website.  This site has a large variety of lessons built to use with the notebook software on the smartboard.  You are able to search the content based on grade level, subject, standards, and so much more!  The best part about it- it's free!!

You can find anything from exciting math games to "words their way" word sorts.  Never make another smartboard file again without checking smartexchange first!  Happy hunting!