K5 Learning Invitation

So a week ago I got an email from a website called K5 Learning to check out their website for FREE for 6 weeks with one of my students and write a review of the site.

I was pretty psyched to do it. I see bloggers sharing the things they get asked to review all the time and so this made me feel like a "real" blogger.

I am starting it today with one of peanuts and before I start it I needed to put this little blurb on my blog.

K5 Learning has an online reading and math program for kindergarten to grade 5 students.  I've been given a 6 week free trial to test and write a review of their program.  If you are a blogger, you may want to check out their  open invitation to write an online learning review of their program. - See more at: http://www.k5learning.com/review-k5?sid=20520#sthash.9iY93nx5.dpuf

I am excited to see how it works out.

Enjoy your Wednesday friends. I think I may ACTUALLY have a 5 for Friday post in the works! Craziness I know!

~Jean~

November Currently

Ok, all. I thank you for sticking around here at Diving Into 2nd Grade. I have been a horrible blogger and I thank you for sticking with me. :)

Today I am actually linking up with Farley over at O Boy 4th Grade for her November Currently.

So, this is what is currently going on with me...

I thought this yummy pin would be perfect to share for this time of year.

 

The recipe looks pretty easy and only 500 calories for the WHOLE loaf! I am IN!

Seriously, this class NEEDS to end. All of my free time seems to go towards that class and I don't feel as if I have learned anything that is really beneficial to my class. :(  But on a positive note, you know I love me some Christmas season and it is ALMOST here! )

*Fingers crossed* I am hoping to have a post for you tomorrow or Wednesday about our 2nd Grade Market Day.

~Jean~

Classroom Quick Tips Linky ( A Few Days Late)

Oh my goodness!

Do not faint from shock, I am ACTUALLY blogging.

You know how when you haven't blogged for awhile its hard to get back in to the routine, that is how I have been for the past month... Or maybe you are a WAY better blogger than me and you never take a break. :)

So back to the Quick Tips Linky.

(I have felt especially bad about not blogging more often because I help to HOST this linky! But here I am, FINALLY, sharing and hopefully getting back into my bloggy routine because I have really missed it.)

THE RULES

Link up with a quick tip that makes life in your classroom easier. There are no weekly themes or topics. The only real "rule" is that you may not link up with a paid product or unit. Our goal is to share the small nuggets of greatness that are happening every day in our classrooms! If you missed the backstory about how this party got started, click here! Angela and I would also appreciate it if you linked back to our blogs and included our button in your post :)

My Tip

So I loved the kiddo's having book bins in my room last year and I know many of you have them in your room. But I just did NOT have the space for them this year due to the new math curriculum that we adopted. ( It came with 12 binders! 12!!!!!) I needed the bookshelves that housed the book bins last year for something else.

In the past I used green file folders in a crate as book "bins", but I didn't really like how long it would take the kids to find theirs. So I thought about what made the book bins so easy to use and how I could transfer some of that over to the crate.  

I decided that adding a photo to the top of their green folder would make it easier for them to see right away which one was theirs. (Plus, even though it seemed pretty obvious to me which way the folders were supposed to go, I always had kids who were trying to put them in sideways or upside down and it just became a mess. This way they know for sure which way it is supposed to be. ) I also staggered them so that they could also be more easily seen.

I purposefully made this photo blurry so you could see the photos attached, but not see the peanuts faces.

 

Link up with us and share your classroom quick tip!

 

~Jean~



Classroom Quick Tips Linky! We're Back!

Happy Thursday Friends!

This is my first week back at school and so life is crazy and busy as I get used to being back into the swing of things. I am loving my new peanuts. They are doing an awesome job of getting used to 2nd grade rules and expectations.

Today I am here to bring back my favorite linky party of all time!

 

I am so excited to bring this linky back. I love everything about it. I love that it is teachers helping teachers. I love that we aren't linking up with paid items ( freebies are totally cool). Most of all I love doing it with my BBB Angela at Hippo Hooray for 2nd Grade.



Today, I don't a picture to share with you because , well, it's against the law.... How's that for an intro!

I thought this would be a good tip, especially for those teachers like me who have just started school. I don't know about you but our end of the day time is CRAZY! I started this two years ago and I am SO happy I did. Gone are the " oh my goodness did so and so leave" feeling in my stomach.

What I do is take a list of my students names out at the end of the day for pick up. When kids leave me I cross their name off. That way I know for sure that I did say goodbye to my student.

It is also handy because so many times parents will say something to me that I need to remember but by the time I get back to my room it has slipped my mind. Jotting a note down on the bottom of the list has helped me to be WAY more organized.

So there you have it.
My Quick Tip for the week.
I hope you will link up with us and share yours! Hang in there friends!

Tomorrow is Friday!

~Jean~

Currently: It's My Last Day of Summer

Well, I apologize for being so MIA lately. These past two weeks have been consumed with back to school. I have posted a few things on my Facebook page ,but my blog has been seriously neglected!

And I know, all of you who have been back in school since August are really crying for me right now. But just keep in mind that while you were living it up in June I was still teaching last years peanuts. :)

I am giving you the disclaimer now that I am not sure how much blogging will actually get done over the next couple of months. On top of all the regular teaching duties we all have, I have to take a class to renew my teaching certificate, and I have another pre-student teacher. SO, I will be a busy, busy, girl.

So anyways, thought I would jump back in with Farley's Currently. I know I say this every month but how KEY-UTE is this months currently. Seriously lovin' it!

( Font is Rowdy Fonts by Rowdy in Room 300)

I am seriously jazzed about my new peanuts and going back to school....BUT, I love summer time with my OWN peanut. It is always sad when that comes to a close.

The last spot is the Love Yourself Spot. And I *love* that idea. We definitely have to take care of ourselves too!

So here is how I plan to do just that...

The hubs just recently got a new bike ,and after getting a bike cart for Peanut, we are ready to rock n' roll with the family bike rides. We went for one the other night and it was SO much fun. We used to go on bike rides as a family all the time when I was little, so going on one the other night with my own child made me feel SUPER old. :) I love to walk, but the Hubs...mmmm, not so much. This is something active that he WILL do with me so I am pumped about that.

My peanut LOVES her nails painted. And I do too. So I can take care of me, take care of her, AND start a fun tradition with her.

Finally, I lovey-love-LOVE TV. I am so excited for my shows to come back on this month...Scandal, Greys Anatomy, Glee, ( Although I am devastated about Cory Monteith! SO, SO sad), DWTS, Chicago Fire, The Voice...I could go on and on.

Well, that's all from me! To those of you like me who go back tomorrow, enjoy your last day of summer. And to those of you already in school I say enjoy your Monday off!

~Jean~

Five For Friday and The BEST Sale of the Year!

Happy Five for Friday Friends!
                  

#1. ( This is a linky within a linky!)
I am taking a break from working on my classroom to share about my week AND THE SALE OF THE YEAR?! What might that be you ask? Oh, just a little thing called.....

                                  

I will be participating in this awesome sale as both a seller....everything in my store 20% off....and as a buyer! You know I cant pass up those awesome deals!

So first off I wanted to link up with WHERE THE WILD THINGS LEARN for her TPT sale linky.

                                  

                                  
My number one wish listed item and one of my best sellers is my Shopping at the School Store: Finding and Estimating the Sums of 2 and 3 Digit Numbers pack. ( Geesh! That's a LONG title!)



                         

It comes with 6 different instruction and recording sheets so you can level your students independent practice based on the skills they need more work on. Here is an example of one of the instruction pages and recording sheets.

 

                            

These are some pictures of it " in action" in my classroom.

 

 

 

 

 

 My second most wish listed item is also my newest. It is my Making Text Connections packet.

 

                        

 

 I don't have any classroom photos of it in use...yet. But I will DEFINITELY be using it this year.

                                        

OH SO MUCH to choose from. I will not even tell you the amount on my wish list because it is A-LOT!

 

But one of the things I have moved from said wish list to my shopping cart is

 

 

                                  

This is by That's So Second Grade and I am IN LOVE with it! You can get it here.

 

 

#2

 

Moving on from the Linky Party...

 

Thursday nights are my girls night. My best friend and I hang out and watch bad TV and eat junk. And usually I put her to work. Tonight's project was cutting out the labels for my FISH ( Friday Information Sent Home) folders and gluing them on.

 

 

 We also watched one of my FAVORITE bad movies. Grease 2.

 My favorite part: Cool Rider! Seriously if you have never seen this movie at least watch this clip. It's great!

 #3
Peanut and I spent most of our day today working in my room. I am LOVING how this area looks.

 

 

 

 #4 This is another area that is really coming together well.

But I have a question.

 

See the brown nightstand in the picture. I am wondering if I should paint it? And if so what color? I have kind of reached that point in summer where my creativity and my brain are starting to go. Thoughts?????



 

#5

 

I hit over 1,000 Facebook likes the other night and I am PSYCHED! I am working on a fan freebie currently and hope to have it up tomorrow. :)

 

Well, that is all from me. Link up with Doodlebugs Teaching and share about your week.

 

~Jean~

Teacher Week: Day 3: Organization

Happy Wednesday Friends!

Well on Monday I said I was hoping to link up with Blog Hoppin all week...what I forgot about was the Tuesday post about showing off your room. And mine is simply not ready. It is not NEARLY as bad as when it was HERE, but its not anything to be showing off.

            

Today's topic is organization, which I LOVE! Things sorted and labeled and facing the same way make my heart super happy.

I thought I would share a few of the ways I have things organized. I find that especially in my " space challenged" room being organized is so important to my sanity and sets a good example for the students.

 We do AR at my school. I am not the biggest fan of it, but it is what it is. I have all of my books labeled for AR. If you click on the picture you can see that each of my books has a sticker. The sticker on the book corresponds to the level in AR.

I used to have ALL of my books organized into AR levels and just sitting on the shelf. Well, I can keep them organized and beautiful that way, but 7 year olds cannot. :)

So a couple of years ago I got a ton of plastic tubs at the Dollar Store and sorted my books down a little more. I do still have some books that are just arranged by AR level. But now I also have them grouped by series, genre, and author.

When they are first introduced to the library in my room we go book shelf by book shelf. I take all of the books out and walk around our room dropping the books as I go. Then I divide the kids up unto teams. They have to take a tub and find the books they think belong in the tub. The first team done is the winner. It is a fun way for them to be introduced to the organization of our library.

This baby is one of my proudest accomplishments. Picture this: Me, 6 months pregnant, on my way to school and running a little behind when suddenly I spy this set of bins by the side of the road. The people who are getting rid of it have a FREE sign on it! So what do I do? Call one of my teaching partners to tell them I may be a little late and haul it into my car of course....while 6 months pregnant!

I love this to organize my math manipulatives for two reasons. One reason is each thing has its own tub so everything isn't thrown together. The other reason is its out in the open for the kiddos to use. And because everything is labeled they know exactly where it needs to go!

 

 

I love holidays and seasonal items. I wish I had the space in my room to have my seasonal items stored neatly in tubs with a super cute label on the outside. But I don't.

 

However, I have always thought it was important to keep seasonal items together. I have a filing cabinet in my room where I store all of my seasonal stuff.  I have a large manila file folder where I house black line masters for activities and crafts that is labeled with each month. I use that as the dividing line between each of the months. I also store any books that go along with that month and any station activities in there as well.

 



 

Now, while I do love a good label I don't love taking time to re-label things year after year. This cabinet stores a lot of art and crafting supplies. So while I do think it is important to label things in your classroom, especially things used by your peanuts, I don't think everything needs to be labeled. If you use clear boxes, like I do, then you can save yourself from having to label and re-label if you consolidate or change things around because you can see in the box. Just keeping things neat and tidy is a form of organization in and of itself. :)

Well, that is all for me. I hope I helped give you a new tip or idea for organizing your classroom.

Do you have something fun to share about organization? Go link up!

~Jean~