Fairy Tale Plays and Chicago Teacher Bloggers

I know these two things have nothing to do with each other, but I thought it might be annoying to post two separate posts in one day :)

Ok...first...I totally forgot to post my kids' fairy tale plays. If you remember, I did a fairy tale unit in December that included group projects and plays (to incorporate some storytelling and drama). I finally got to grading the fairy tale projects last night (they were due the day before break) and was pleased with some aspects of the project, but not so pleased with others. Some Most of my kids are really having trouble writing paragraphs correctly, some of them are struggling with summarizing stories (including too many details or filling up their graphic organizer but not getting to the ending of the story). Is anyone else having that issue? Maybe it's still early in the year? I am going to try to be patient and do some extra modeling. It is definitely a mental note for next year to do more modeling and reminding for this project - maybe I need to even start the project a week earlier to make sure there is enough time for all that modeling haha!

Anyway...the plays my students performed we absolutely amazing. I had no idea what to expect because we hadn't done anything like it so far this year. I was so impressed! We had four plays: The Three Little Pigs, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Little Red Riding Hood, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I have scripts that were sort of like fill in the blanks so they got to write a lot of their lines but the basic story structure was there for them. Here they are for your viewing pleasure ;)

Chicago/ Near Chicago Teacher Bloggers!!!! Are there any of you out there? I keep reading about these blogger meet ups going on around the country and I thought it might be fun if we had one of our own. Would anyone be interested?

I've Been Blog Stalking!

Recently I've found an amazing blog: Third Grade Thinkers...I'm sure you've seen it...don't know where I've been...but I've been seriously stalking it. And best of all, Doris is so sweet! I found a couple activities I loved and re-created them to work better for me. (I emailed Doris first to make sure she was ok with it.)

This is a lab I plan to do during our upcoming matter unit. The lab helps students observe physical changes made to gummy candy after it has been in a cup of water overnight. Doris teaches 3rd grade so I changed a few things to match my 2nd graders needs a little better. Here is the link to download it.

The other cute activity she came up with is a new way for kids to practice the 5 finger retell. I am soooo excited to use this activity during Read to Someone. On Doris's blog she showed a picture of a glove with little circles Velcroed to each finger of the glove (see below). The circles were labeled: characters, setting, events, problem, conclusion. Here labels were cute and colorful, but since my school doesn't have a color copier, I created my own black and white ones. You can download them here. I am going to print these out, laminate them and then Velcro them to each finger of the 4 gloves so multiple partners can use them during Daily 5.

This is from Third Grade Thinkers!

Sorry I don't have any pictures of my own yet, but if you stop by Third Grade Thinkers, you'll see what I'm talking about and you'll love it!!! I also am obsessed with her idea of using scrabble during Word Work as an independent activity to make words with the most points! (I picked up a Scrabble game at Target today).

Snow Themed Read Alouds!

I have soooo enjoyed this winter break - sleeping in, laying on the beach, avoiding grading and lesson planning...but I am also a little excited to get back into the swing of things.

Like many of you, I am going to do a snow theme during reading this month. I'll teach comprehension and decoding strategies through books about winter and snow. I'm thinking I'll teach prediction, sequencing, and story elements with the different versions of The Mitten, and then use many other winter read alouds to teach how to ask questions (thick and thin) before, during, and after reading. Here are some of the read alouds I plan to use:

If you're looking for more suggestions, check out Learning with Mrs. Parker - she has some really cute book ideas and is having an incredible giveaway for reaching 1000 followers...$50 to teacher's notebook...WOW!

How I Spent My Winter Vacation

I'm linking up with Clutter Free Classroom to share my winter vacation :) It's been fun reading what everyone has been up to!

I have been loving this break! Normally, I can be a tad bit "obsessed" with work, but so far this break has been so relaxing and I have hardly thought about work at all! On Christmas day my family (my parents and my two sisters) flew to Naples, Florida, where my parents have a condo on the beach. We have been coming down here since I was a baby, and my mom has been coming here since she was a baby. We just love it here! Basically our routine is: sleep in, go for a walk on the beach or a jog, lay on the beach and read /sleep for hours, shower, go out to dinner, watch a movie or play games. We change it up a bit by playing golf or going shopping. It's by far the most relaxing week of the year. I love feeling like I'm not responsible for anything or to anyone. I can completely disconnect. That said, I will be excited to get back to Chicago in a few days and get back in the swing of things.

This is my sisters and me (I'm on the right- nice hair, I know) on the beach. You can kind of see the condo complex in the background.

This is a pic of the sunset from inside the porch.  Sometimes Every winter I wonder why I don't live here. 

New Year Resolutions

A Teacher's Treasure is having a linky party for new year's resolutions. Let me start by saying, I never make resolutions because I rarely keep them and I kind of think it's silly to only make goals for yourself once a year. But, I will eat my words because I do have a few goals that I'd like to try to achieve/ be better at. So here it goes:

Personal:
1. I'd like to be more consistent with going to church and getting more involved in the church community.
2. I want to incorporate dance and/or yoga into my workout routine. Has anyone heard of the Bar Method? I'm thinking of trying it.
3. Since I'm completely single and not getting any younger, I need to be better at putting myself out there :)

Professional:
1. I want to become a more effective math teacher by really making sure my kids have a strong understanding of math knowledge and number sense through more practical investigations. I'll be posting more about this soon (if I keep this resolution).

2. I am on the instructional leadership team at my school and have been very frustrated by our lack of progress/ decision making. We have been talking a lot about common core and it seems like all our district (and maybe admin) wants to do is fit what we already do into the common core. I believe we have to change the way we teach (not re-invent the wheel, but be open to new and better ideas) and the way we think about education and what our students should know in order to adopt the common core "correctly" and to help our students be where they need to be in a very competitive world. Soooo with that said, I want to have a more patient and positive attitude and I want to be able to discern when it is my place to speak out and when I should shut up and get on board with what my admin/teachers at my school believe is right even if I disagree. Whew, that was a long one!

3. I want to get more organized - I saw a binder someone in blogland made and I really want to copy that idea for myself. I think it included everything from daily lesson plans to year long scopes and sequences, standards, and guided reading schedules. I'd love to make one for myself to use year after year - and just make the necessary changes as they come.

Cheers to a great 2012! I think it's going to be a great year!!

Font Help!

I just bought a couple new fonts at lettering delights, which I am super excited about, but I can't figure out how to install them so they show up in Power Point or Word. Does anyone know what I am missing?? I have a mac by the way. Any help would be very appreciated!  Happy New Years everyone!

December Class Photos!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! I am in Florida right now, which is amazing to be in such warm weather compared to chilly Chicago.

Wow the past few weeks flew by! December was busy with Christmas Around the World, Fairy Tales in reading and writing, and an assortment of Christmas activities! Here are a few pics...

Students had to find their match to make a compound word, then they wrote a sentence using their compound word. Here are all of our compound cookies!

Thanks to Christina Bainbridge and all of her cute ideas, we made a bulletin board of Christmas traditions - both our own and from around the world!

We made stockings for kids to bring in small gifts for each other. It was fun to see them so excited to give rather than receive!

 Here are a few pictures of kids working on their fairy tale projects -- these were so cute -- I'll do another post dedicated to just this next week. 

We made gingerbread houses as a tie-in to Christmas around the world and the Gingerbread Man stories. Never have I seen the effect of sugar on children the way I did that day...but it was fun!

 A couple more Christmas Around the World shots...working on our scrapbooks (from Christina Bainbridge). The brown construction paper with the maps are their suitcases where we labeled where we traveled and kept our souvenirs, passports, and scrapbooks.

Enjoy the rest of your well-deserved breaks!!!!