Five For Friday- Spiders, Cabbage Soup, and San Diego

Hey everyone, I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. October is here, and assessments are coming up in a few weeks. I am excited to see the progress that my students have made so far this year!

Now, on to my Five for Friday...

                                                 

I am soooo bummed that I don't have a picture for this one, but I completely forgot to take one. We started reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this week. To celebrate beginning this book, we made cabbage soup together as a class. It was really easy. One head of cabbage, four potatoes cut and peeled, one half of an onion chopped, six chicken bouillon cubes, and 10 cups of water in a slow cooker. We made it in the morning, and by the afternoon, it was ready to go. I had maybe two students who didn't like it. Everyone else LOVED it. They were asking for seconds and commenting about how it was the best soup they ever had. I think that they just really like cooking at school.

                                                  

This week we made Spider Poems, which were made by Amy Lemons. They are free, and you can check them out at her store here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Spider-Craft-and-Poem-350370. They turned out soooo cute! We began the lesson by brainstorming verbs and adjectives that could be used with spiders.

Then the students created their own little sandwich poems with the adjectives and verbs that we had brainstormed.

                                                   

With the common core standards, there is a greater need to emphasize academic vocabulary. I decided that it was especially necessary for me to display academic vocabulary because over half of my class consists of ELs. I made this math and science vocabulary board. We have been discussing different types of addition and subtraction word problems in math, and we have been learning about balance in science.

                                                  

I spent today in the sun at the beach. I am so blessed to live in San Diego, and I couldn't believe what a beautiful day it was today. I was watching my husband and my friends play beach volleyball. I tried it out for a few minutes, but let's just say that volleyball isn't one of my strengths.

We played "Base Tents" Scoot by Hope King. I love giving students a chance to move around the room while they are practicing a skill that they need to know. This was their first scoot activity of the year, and I think it is safe to say that they loved it.

Well, I hope that all of you are having a restful weekend, you deserve it! Happy teaching!

Five For Friday

                  

Today I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching with my "Five for Friday". Here are five random things that I have done this week.

1. My wonderful husband took me out over the weekend to a beautiful restaurant in San Diego called C-Level. We got to watch a seal swim and play in the bay.

2. Back to School Night!

Back to School night was a success. I was met some of the parents for the first time, I was able to get parents to sign up for volunteering, and I presented our classroom procedures and routines. Here is a picture of my PowerPoint presentation:

This next pic is what I had laid out on the desks for the parents. I can't figure out where I got the "Thank you for popping in" signs, but they were a freebie from Teachers Pay Teachers, and I love them!

3. We did an adorable art project. I get to teach an art lesson to my class every other week. This week, we learned about lines. After practicing various types of lines on our whiteboards, we set to making our own line monsters.

This next one is my line monster. I am pretty proud of it :)

4. We practiced naming numbers on our whiteboards. I LOVE our math curriculum. It is called Everyday Mathematics, and it is so amazing that I very seldom need to add to it on my own. Today we came up with other names for numbers. Students could use tally marks, base-10 blocks, money, addition problems, subtraction problems, etc. Here are a few examples

5. I have been doing a TON of work on the smart board. We use the Open Court curriculum for language arts, so my job is to make Smart Board activities to go along with our units. Hopefully once I am done, I will be able to start making more items for Teachers Pay Teachers.

Happy Friday!

Five For Friday

                                     

Thanks to my last post, I received a comment from Kelly over at Sliding into Second Grade about this linky party. I still feel like I am just getting the hang of this blogging thing, and I am learning a ton through it. Anyways, I am excited to announce that this is my first linky ever (you gotta start somewhere!) 

This linky is one day late, but better late than never. I will now share five random things from my week:

#1 Celebrated three years with my husband

August 20th technically marks three years since we met and two years since we got engaged. We celebrated with a yummy dinner at Donovan's Steakhouse (my first time going!) Then we took a walk through the lovely little park where we got engaged.

#2 Spent some time with my doggy!

This is Radley. I adopted him from an animal shelter four years ago, and I love him! Isn't he so cute? I don't get to spend as much time with him during the school year, so I have been cuddling with him a lot!

#3 Starting to make a school bag

I have been falling in love with all of the different Vera Bradley bags, and decided to get one for school. When I showed my mom, she decided that we should make one instead. She is much more talented than I am at sewing, so I will mostly be there for support and pinning. This is a picture of the fabric; I will post a picture of the finished product once it is done.

#4 Met with my second grade team

Our second grade team has a few new members this year, and we met as a team for the first time this week. There are so many great ideas going around for how we can better our practice this year. One idea from our new team lead that I loved was a new behavior management system. It involves using a "Look Book" for positive reinforcement and a "Reminder Binder" if they need to get back on track. I will be letting you guys know how it works throughout the year. Click here to get more information.

#5 Baked some honey bran muffins 

I love baking, but I don't do it that often since it isn't that healthy for me. Lately though, I have been on a kick of making these honey bran muffins that do not involve any butter or oil. I use applesauce and bananas to keep them moist. They are so delicious! I just made some on Wednesday, and I am already out.... maybe I need to make more!

That is it for my first linky post ever! I start training on Monday, and I even get to partner with one of my teammates to do a training on using Teachers Pay Teachers and Blogs for great teaching ideas. I will let you know how that goes!