The BTS13 Sale is here!

Well almost..and I can't wait!  I have been adding things to my wishlist like crazy so I could snag them during the sale.  Here's a look at some of the items I plan to purchase tomorrow...

1. Interactive Reading Notebook and Language Notebook  by. Nicole Shelby @ teachingwithblondeambition.blogspot.com

I think these two journals will be a great tool for my students to use during their reading and  language arts block. Plus I love how organized they are.

2.  Sticky Note Reading Skills and Sticky Note Reading strategies by. Leanne Prince @ http://www.mrsprinceandco.com/

I used tons of sticky notes during my reading block last year with the kids and never thought about incorporating them into their own graphic organizers! Loving these two!

Well those are some of the things that I will be shopping for tomorrow.  

make sure you guys check out my 3 most wish listed items in my store for a chance to snag them pretty cheap!

1. Most wish listed item! Math Interactive Journal Kit

2. Accomplishment Badges 

3. Back to School Math Centers

Well I'm off to check out some more products for tomorrow.  I can't wait to see what all you guys get!

Meet the teacher linky

Let's get this party started!

1.  If you've been following my blog then you know that my husband is currently deployed in Afghanistan right now.  This is our 2nd deployment together the first was 4 years ago while I was pregnant with my daughter.  He was scheduled to come home for 2 weeks around my due date but my daughter had other plans and decided to surprise us by coming  2 weeks early so my husband coached me threw the delivery on the phone and was able to come home 3 days later.  This time he is working straight threw so no visits until the end of his deployment :(

2.  I have 2 amazing kiddos!  My daughter who is 4 and my 11 month old son.  These two keep me on my toes!  

3.  I love music!  I'm currently rocking Bruno Mars (which is awesome) and Maroon 5 (love me some Adam).  If you were to open my cd case you would be surprised at how much I love country music! Some of my favorite artist are Lady A, Luke Bryan, and  Carrie Underwood.

4.  This will be my 4th year teaching.  I've taught 1st grade 1 year and 2nd grade for 3.  I also teach in the same district that I went to as a kid.  My assistant principal was my 7th grade ELA teacher!

5.  I was a assistant Child Care Director for 5 years before I started teaching in the school district that I work for.

6.  I hate change! I really do!  That's why I don't think I could ever transfer campuses or districts (too stressful).

7.  I can't stand sliced cheese on sandwiches but love cheeseburgers (weird)!  My husband thinks it's a brain thing.  We even tried melting the cheese on a sandwich and it was a no go.  Which is why I tend to stay away from subway.  No fun ordering a sandwich with only meat and bread:(

8.  I have a dog named Izzy that my husband surprised me with when we were dating 6 years ago.  Love this girl!  

9.  I have the tendency to look mad when I'm perfectly happy.  I think I got this from my mom because people say the same thing about her.  So I usually get the "are you ok"? speech sometime during the day because people think I'm upset.  I promise you I smile and laugh all the time!

10.  The last and final tidbit about me is that I have the worst sleeping schedule ever!  I usually don't go to sleep until 3 in the morning.  For some reason I get all of my ideas in a.m.  One year I was so out of sync that I slept during the day and was awake all night.  

Well I hope you have learned a little more about me!  I report back to work on Thursday for inservice so I'm off to finish up some cutting.

August Currently

 August Currently

 Listening:   to my daughter splash and sing in the tub while Sprouts is playing in the background.

Loving:   all of the projects me and my husband got done before left on his tour. We replaced the carpet with hard wood floors, tore out the old counters and replaced them with granite and now I'm painting the house before I head back to school.  I could have been done already but I can't decide on a darn color!

Thinking:  As always I'm thinking about my husband until he arrives home safely from serving overseas. 

Wanting:  I hope my husband is reading this ;)  I would really like a housekeeper so that I can take at least one task off my to do list when I go back to work.  This summer has been super stressful trying to take care of everything while my husbands away. I usually don't get to clean clean until the kids are asleep.  I have no clue how I will manage it when I have papers to grade, plans to write and conferences to attend.

Needing:  I really need some new shoes for work!  I finished the year with my pregnancy shoes because my feet had grew a size while pregnant but now all of them are way tooooooo big! 

B2S must haves:  

1.  New wardrobe - I'm a thick girl so I love shopping at lane Bryant, Macys, and Old Navy for cute B2S attire.

2.  Healthy Snack stash - I know all of us are guilty of knowing a teacher that has a stash of candy and grabbing a couple of pieces on a stressful day.  One year I made a dum dum tree and I kid you not I gave out more dum dums to teachers than my students because they were always on the hunt for sugar. This year I promised myself that I would pack healthy snacks that wouldn't tip the scale.  if you guys have any good suggestions I'd love to hear them in the comments below;)

3.  Lastly a water tumbler and coffee mug!  I've been on the hunt for cute and durable ones because I always break them or loose them.  

Well that's it for me.  I'm off to enjoy my limited days of late night Netflix movies before I have that pesky 5 o'clock alarm ringing in my ear again. I don't report back until the 15th what about you?

Head over to Farley's and link up!

BTS 2013

Well it's here BTS 2013 is in full swing and the teacher and mother side of me are going crazy!  My daughter is starting Pre-K this year!  I swear it was just yesterday that my husband and I brought her home from the hospital.  I was so surprised to get the call a few days ago that a spot became open in the dual language program in our district and my daughter was first on the list.  So that means that my daughter will somewhat be bilingual when she graduates from high school!  Is that cool or what?  Does your district offer dual language? I will be teaching 2nd grade dual language this year and I'm eager to get started.  Anyway with that being said the mother in me went crazy and bought my girly tons of school clothes.  Here's a look at some of her goodies.

On another note I told you the teacher side of me is acting just as crazy.  Here are some of the steals I scored during BTS2013.

I got tons of baskets, markers, post-its, glue etc alot of which aren't pictured.  To top that I finally broke down and got the rolling cart you see in most teachers rooms only because it was 70% off at Michaels last week! Finally I think every teacher needs these two little bottles from BBW somewhere in their room for those days that nothing seems to be going right or when you need a energy boost.

On another note I finally finished my BTS2013 math centers.

 I plan to use them to assess my students math abilities and to help

 me group them for guided math rotations the first few weeks of school. The unit features place value, problem solving, measurement, addition/subtraction facts up to 20 and more!

 In honor of BTS2013 this unit is on sale until midnight est!  

I'll even give out a free copy to the first 2 people to leave a comment on my blog!

** As always remember to follow me on

Bloglovin

and facebook at

www.facebook/mysecondgradejournal

Finally I've made a decision! FLASH FREEBIE

I've finally made up my mind about what I want to do with my room this year!  In the past I've done a garden theme with bees, pirates, and this year I have decided to do a monster theme with of course some chevron mixed in. My inspiration came when  I was buying some clip art to add to my collection on Creative Clips TPT page when I fell in love with her cute primary monster pack and knew I had to use them in my room this year. So of course I thought I would share it with some of my blog buddies who haven't decided on what to do with their rooms.  So for 1 hour only I will email the unit to anyone who follows my blog thru bloglovin, my TPT store and like my new Facebook page which you can get to here! This pack is 129 pages of total cuteness and is regularly sold for 8 bucks in my TPT store!  When you've completed everything just leave a comment with your email and I will send the unit to you.

Here's a preview of some of the goodies in the unit.

       

Monday Made It

I'm linking up with 4th Grade Frolics to present you with my Monday Made it!  Since I finished my accomplishment badges at 12 something this morning I decided that this project was enough for today.  

I made a total of 25 different badges and plan for the students to display them in my classroom on a accomplishment board so the students can reflect on all of their accomplishments throughout the year. If your interested in the set just click on the picture and it will take you to my TPT store. Now I'm off to Hobby Lobby to buy the bead chains for these babies.  

  

Accomplishment Badges!!!

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far! This post is going to be super quick because I just finished uploading my accomplishment badges to my TPT store and I wanted to share some pics with you guys.  Plus  I plan to give 2 copies of these babies away to two lucky bloggers who are still up blogging with me!  First let me say that I saw these badges start popping up and just had to make some of my own specifically for my students next year.  This unit contains 25 different badges for students to wear proudly to show off their accomplishments.  Click here to head over to my TPT store to grab a copy!

Ok!  So before I go to bed I want to give away 2 copies to the first 2 people to leave a comment explaining how they can incorporate these into their classroom.  Let's see who's up past midnight.  Make sure you leave your email address.

July Currently

Oh my wow!  I actually can't believe it's already July.  The other day I was going to get my bubba (9 month old son) a walking toy from Toys R Us because he's standing and walking around everything when I spotted a wall of Back to School Supplies!!!!!!!! EEEEEKKK!  I am so not ready to go back!

Any who I've been super busy changing and creating things in my house.  Here's a pic of my latest project.

I bought some paint canvases and fabric from Hobby Lobby and stapled the fabric to the canvases and paired them up with this super cute art piece also found at Hobby Lobby.  I think once I paint the house the pieces will really POP!  

I'm so off the subject so let's check out my July Currently courtesy of Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade.

Listening and Loving:

So today it was so nice outside!  I mean living in Texas we can see temps up to 105 so when I stepped outside to a cool 87 degrees I grabbed the kids, some snacks, and bathing suits and headed straight to the water park. Bubba didn't want anything to do with the water so he stayed on the side with gma eating cheerios.  But my daughter went crazy so crazy that she passed out the minute we got in the car until about 30 minutes ago.  Which explains why I'm listening to Sponge Bob and her laughing hysterically!

Thinking:

With all the fun we've had today i think we might just have to make a trip to the Zoo or Aquarium tomorrow or at least before we have to go back to school.

Wanting:

I sooooo want this one coffee table and end tables that I found at Ashley's yesterday.  My husband and I got married on the 4th of July and as an anniversary gift I asked him for a new kitchen table and a garmin fitness watch for my present but I'm trying to add a certain pair of tables to my list ;)

Needing:

I seriously need to finish all of my DIY projects before I have to report back to work which includes painting the entire house, moving furniture, hanging pictures, and checking out flee markets for some house flare.

Tips, tricks, or hints

With this section I was unsure of what to write but I leave with this......

Remember why you started blogging in the first place!

Monday Made It and bloglovin!

As you can see I'm linking up with 4th grade frolics to bring you my Monday Made it projects.  If you guys have been following my summer to do then you have seen that I want to do as much as I can with my kids especially my daughter during the time that my husband is overseas in Afghanistan.  Our first family project was the hopscotch pavers for the backyard.  I was really surprised at how inexpensive the cost was. I spent a total of $34.00 and 24 of that was on spay paint alone!  

I think they turned out great!

Our next project were sponge bombs that I found on pinterest.  I bought a large bag of sponges from the dollar store and cut them into strips.  Once cut I stacked two rows of 4 sponges on top of each other and placed a rubber band around them and voila! Sponge bombs!  

They were so much fun to play with and once again super inexpensive.  I filled a swimming pool full of water and bought these 3 dollar prayers from TRU and let the bombs fly in the back yard.  If everything goes as planned I will have a huge Monday Made it next week for you guys.

***Make sure you guys follow me on Bloglovin***

*just hit the follow button on the left side of my blog*

Building Mathematical Comprehension - Freebie!

Chapter 2 Recognizing and Understanding mathematical Vocabulary

 I'm late but I have a freebie for you guys! This book has got to be one of the best school related books that I have read so far. Laney Sammons lays it all out for you when she talks about the ways we should integrate vocabulary into our lessons. One point that she made was that as teachers we always want to start out with vocabulary when we're unwrapping a unit to our kids. Instead of starting with the vocabulary we should focus on the timing of the vocabulary. Basically don't unwrap it until you've covered it! For example if I were to introduce place value to my kids I wouldn't start spilling out all the vocabulary words associated with place value. Instead I would teach and when the vocabulary word comes up that's when I would focus on it with my students. This way your students have some experience to pull from to help them understand the vocabulary even better.

 She also talks about using graphic organizers such as the frayer model so that students can describe, explain and provide examples and non examples of the vocabulary in their own words. She provides tons of examples of student work, games and questions stems that can assist you with your vocabulary instruction. After reading this chapter I have a better understanding of how much time a student needs to work with vocabulary in order to retain it. It's not enough for the teacher to just verbally say or write the word and definition down on the board. Sammons suggest students write it, say it, use it at home, and see it on content boards in order for them to truly understand it.

 After reading this chapter I looked at my TEKS for the first unit next year and pulled out the important vocabulary terms and created this mini unit on place value. I will use this unit after my students have worked with these terms to help reinforce the meaning of the words. You can grab your copy here!

I also created these place value question stem cards that I plan to hang on my content board with the vocabulary words used in my mini unit.

My mini unit can be found in my TPT store.  If you download please follow me on TPT or become a follower of my blog.  I'm making my larger unit of vocabulary activities for all TEKS so be on the lookout!

June Currently

Hi all,
I hope everyone that's on vacation is enjoying it and those of us who are close are hanging in there.  I only have 2 days of school left and I will be FREE!!!!!!  PTL  Anyway I'm linking up with Farley to bring you my June currently.

My daughter is so excited about splash day tomorrow that she couldn't stop talking about it in the car home today.  If you know 4 year olds then you know that was a lot of talking!

I'm loving the fact that I will be done with school in 2 days!  Yea!!!!  We have our science final in the morning and then it's memory book time followed by reading outside and ice cream in a bag!  

In the summer I usually take some kind of course at the local Michaels or Hobby Lobby to learn how to make things.  In the past I've taken classes on how to make bows, headbands, and decorating cakes.  This year I would really like to learn how to sew.  Especially since I keep seeing tons of pins on how to make your own curtains and pillows for your home.  

Wanting:  I am really wanting all this EOY paperwork to magically disappear.  That has to be the worst part of it all.  

Needing:  I been on a dress craze for a couple of weeks now and it seems that the more dresses I buy the more matching shoes I need to go with them.  I guess this summer I'll just have to go shopping for shoes :) don't tell the mister!

My 3 vacay essentials would have to be my phone, an adult beverage preferably one that is icy and fruity and some good music.  

Sonya

Summer Bucket List

Sonya here with my Summer Bucket List!  I'm so excited about my summer break I can't stand it!  I'm not sure if I ever mentioned it but my husband is currently deployed right now and I will have to entertain both kids by my lonesome this summer :( So this summer is strictly dedicated to kids with a little DIY rolled in.

1.  I plan to take my kids to visit these babies here at Sea World!  My daughter has no idea so I can't wait to surprise her in 2 weeks!

2.  I know you guys have probably seen this pin on pinterest from ReMarkablehome.net .  I follow her blog and she has some great ideas for summer reading and some awesome recipes.  Any who I plan to follow this schedule with the kids. 

Our first Make Something Monday Project will be this hopscotch paver game I pined a while back from momscraftyspace.com.  My daughter loves the colors and it will be a great addition to our backyard.  

3.  I've been pinning tons of DIY projects for the house and have been waiting for that final bell of school to get started.  The first project that I want to tackle is this tile mirror I found on http://www.diyncrafts.com. 

4. Finally when all of the field trips and diy projects are done I plan on tackling these babies for my 40+ kids next year.

  I will be teaching 2nd grade Dual Language with my partner in crime Mrs. Ganillo next year.  She will focus on Science,SS and Reading and I will teach Math, Writing and Reading. So I have to get my interactive math journals in order for my students to have for the first week of school.

9 days left !!!!!!!!!

Spark Student Motivation

I'm linking up with Head Over heals for teaching to show how I am sparking up my students motivation these last couple of day of school.  First let me say that if it weren't for this baby here I don't know what I 

 would do with my little ones because they were bouncing off the walls once we entered May. Then I created this magical chain of incentives for great behavior and voila!  Behavior issues fixed because they don't want to miss out on the surprise inside the link.  If your interested in this chain or making them into balloons to pop you can grab my Countdown to Summer Behavior Incentive Pack which is located on my TPT store.

Sonya

It's Done! My Interactive Math Journal Is Done!

Hi guys I'm so excited to say that I finally finished my journal!  I had tons of you guys send me personal emails about making my journal ideas into a unit and so I did.  If your interested in how I create my math journals head on over to my TPT store and grab a copy.  Here's a preview.

Sonya

Tornadoes, capacity, and 16 days left of school!!!

Let me start this post by stating that we've been taking cover in the closet for the past 30 minutes due to tornadoes in our area that won't seem to die down. It's crazy how scary things occur when the hubs is out of town!  I will say that my daughter who is 4 handled it like a champ once she had her unicorn pillow pet with her.  I did have a moment while the sirens were going off and the wind was howling where I thought about how prepared I am in class during drills but how frantic I was at home.  I will definitely be working on having a plan in place next time.

Anyway today we were continuing our study of capacity by identifying appropriate tools to measure the capacity of certain objects.  I had different capacity stations set up for students to identify whether or not a certain tool was appropriate to measure the capacity of a selected object.  My students got to use rice to measure the capacity of the objects.  They were really excited when they came in and saw all of the stations.

 Here they are using a baby food jar to measure the capacity of the cylinder.  Notice the other two tools in blue, after they tested each tool they had to decide as a group which tool was the best tool to test the capacity and explain why in their math journals.

After we cleaned up all of the rice we learned about the Gallon Man and students had the opportunity to create one with a buddy.

After a long day with my 2nd graders they were pleased and excited to see that they earned a treat for their behavior.  So the quietest student had the honor of removing the 17th  chain off our countdown links revealing that we will have a popsicle day tomorrow!  Which is ok with me since it's FIELD DAY!!!!  

The warning has been lifted so off I go!  

16 days and counting!!!!

Sonya

Hi guys! Sonya here and I'm linking up with

with my May Currently!  

make sure you guys head on over and link up to join the fun!

All of the kids are asleep and I have music videos playing in the living room while I'm typing and dancing away.

Loving Zumba , Zumba, Zumba!  I can't rave enough about this but I was one of those that would never go in just because I could just imagine how crazy I looked to everybody.  As a teacher you know you have to find something that allows you to unplug yourself for a while especially in the last months of the school year. I can't tell you how relaxing it is just to get on the dance floor and get loose.  LOVE ME ZUMBA!

Seriously if you follow me on pinterest you will see that I have tons of DIY projects I want to attempt this summer.  My plan is to try and do some kind of project every week.  

The wanting part of my currently is geared towards my husband.  I am so into gadgets it's unreal and I've just found the Nike ID bracelet and have to have it!  This baby tracks your activity, heart rate, calories etc. and gives you a screen shot of your day every time you hook it to your computer.  

I so need some  running shoes.  (neon) please

Summer to do list consist of a vacation with family anywhere just away from here.  DIYing so plenty of trips to Hobby Lobby and flee markets.  Getting fit so far I've lost around 12 pounds and would like to go back to school in the fall around 30 pounds lighter. MOTIVATION!!! Of course some ME TIME!!!

I guess that's enough babbling for tonight if your on INSTAGRAM you can follow me at mysecondgradejournal 

March Currently

I'm jumping on board to link up with Mrs. Farley at Oh' boy 4th grade for her March currently list.



 


I'm off to enjoy my last day of Spring Break!