End of Summer Giveaway!

I'm so excited to announce that School Daisies in having the first ever giveaway!

In celebration of the start of the new school year, I'm giving away a sheet of Jamberry nail wraps.  There are certain times of year that I like my nails to look "polished." Back to School is one of them.  Coming out of the summer and not even trying to compete with the sand, ocean water, pool water, gardening, etc my nails always look like they could use a little attention. 

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Good Luck!!  The winner will be chosen and contacted at the end of the giveaway.

Conversation Task Cards

I have ten days left before I meet my new group of kids.  I'm soaking in every last minute of summer while keeping a part of my mind on planning out those first few days of school.  In years past I've done various ice breaker activities but this year I thought I would do something a little different and get the kids talking to each other.  I want them to have meaningful getting to know you conversations. I plan on using these Conversation Task Cards to get the conversations flowing.

My students are seated in groups of 4 so I will put a stack in the center of their group.  After modeling a few times, they can take turns (such an important concept for them) speaking, listening, and asking each other questions.   These conversation cards can then be used at a later time as a writing center activity.  I will put them on a binder ring and students who visit the writing center can choose a question and respond. 

A little planning ahead

It is not like me to plan so far ahead but today's post is about Mother's Day.  ???  Let me explain... Every year our grade level does a beautiful and memorable Mother's Day Tea.  You can read my post about last year's tea here.  I won't get into the specifics of it again but this year I created Monthly Themed Journal Pages to use for my Mother's Day Gift.  This requires some planning ahead because each month (starting in September) I take the student's picture and put it in the book.  The students also write each month about things they did with mom.  This month I took a picture of the students on the first day of school to put into the frame and tomorrow I will have them write about some memories they shared with mom in September.  I love seeing the mom's faces when they see how much their child is grown in the monthly pictures.  Even more shocking is to see how much the students grow in their writing. I don't edit or help them with the writing in any way so to see them go from a couple of words or a few misspelled sentences to one or more well constructed paragraphs is satisfying.

As I was making these themed Journal Pages, I decided not to limit the journal pages to only the school year but included all the months of the year.  You can find these in my Teachers Pay Teachers store or by clicking the image below. 

How would you use these in your classroom? I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments below. 

Should we make something new for Back To School Night?

Every year it seems I tend to do similar things for back to school night to spruce up the classroom. This year, Back To School Night is less than a week after school begins so time is not plentiful for large, elaborate (yet beautiful) crafts.
No problem! I came up with this little three dimensional writing craft that will add a little liveliness to the student's desks for when the parents make their visit. Instead of having the students draw a picture of themselves I am going to glue down a photo of them. This will also be helpful to the parents when they walk in to find their child's desk.  All they have to do is look for his/her picture.

It is a perfect start of the school year activity as well because it helps kids focus on a goal they have and some of their favorite things about being in school.  Plus, 3D anything is a bonus!!

I know that sometimes at the beginning of the school year, students are on all different levels of learning so I also included unlined schoolhouses for students to draw pictures instead of writing.  

Whenever we do any writing projects in the beginning of the year, I always brainstorm words we might need and write them on the board. To help out the little writers a bit, I included a "words you might need" list right on the page.  

You can visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store and download one to use in your classroom. 

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Loved That Lesson

Loved That Lesson!

Today I'm linking up with Meg from The Teacher Studio to share one of my all time favorite lessons. It's a great "Getting To Know You" lesson that works well at Back-To-School time.

To teach this lesson you only need two things, a copy of Kevin Henkes book, Chester's Way and some green construction paper.

If you haven't read this story yet, Chester's Way is about a little mouse named Chester and his very close friend Wilbur.  Both Chester and Wilbur enjoy the same types of games and have the same "play it safe" personalities.  They do everything together and refer to themselves as "two peas in a pod."  However, when a third little mouse, Lilly moves into the neighborhood they are presented with a very different type of character. Lilly is creative and spontaneous.  Chester and Wilson are uncomfortable with her unconventional ways but soon learn to love them and they become "three peas in a pod?"

The students love this story and it sparks a great discussion on friendship.  Students think of a friend that they would consider the "other pea to their pod" and we brainstorm a list of things we do together with our friend.  

The students then create a "pea in a pod" craft to showcase two things they do with their best friend.

(we do gymnastics together, we play four square)  

These make a great bulletin board and the kids have a great time sharing and getting to know one another.  

I absolutely love teaching this lesson!! 

What is your favorite lesson?

  

Let's Have Some Fun

Just because summer is coming to an end and the school year preparation is about to begin, does not mean that the fun has to stop.  I'm linking up with Sally from Elementary Matters to tell a fun school story and remind everyone that LOTS of laughs do happen during the school year.

 Thinking of a single funny school story was a little bit of a challenge because there are so many. The one I'm about to share happened several years ago. I was pregnant with my second daughter, Ellie.  I was about 8 months pregnant and looked somewhat like a "globe."  As I was standing in the doorway a little second grader said to me, "Mrs. Schneider did you have the baby yet?"  "No, no she's still in there," I reply ( a little surprised by this question because I would imagine this was obvious to many). Then, little Jack said, "Yes, I thought she was still in there because I can see the baby's nose!!!"  What little Jack actually was seeing was my belly button. Even with my "loose" fitting maternity clothes, my belly button still made a bump under any and everything I wore.  I still chuckle when I think of this story.

I'm also going to share a fun little Back To School activity that I do with my class each year.  I call it, "Chrysanthemum's Crumpled Heart." It goes along with Kevin Henke's book, Chrysanthemum. For those of you who haven't read Chrysanthemum, she is an adorable mouse with a very large name. The little mice in her class tease her for having such a "strange and long name." It is a clear depiction of bullying that the students can relate to. To accompany the story we do several activities that you can download here from my TpT store.

Just a little reminder that TpT is having a big Back to School Sale on August 4th and 5th.  I know I am filling up my shopping cart with all kinds of goodies to start the school year.  

Let the fun begin!!!!

Get ready for Back To School

Hi Everyone,
My Teachers Pay Teachers Store will be on sale on August 4th-5th. All my products will be marked at 20% off.

Happy Shopping!

Livening up the Classroom Library

Ten years ago when I was just starting my third year of teaching I decided to take on the daunting task of organizing my classroom library. I will never forget the endless hours I spent buried in piles of books.  First, I should mention that my classroom library collection was huge for a fairly new teacher. Second, this had little to do with me and a lot to do with the fact that I "inherited" a classroom full of books when I was first hired in my school. I was very excited about this but with no organization system it was IMPOSSIBLE to even use my library. Needless to say it was 100 percent necessary that I sorted them out.
Fast forward 10 years.. My classroom library is a fully organized and functional system.  I spend a few lessons at the start of the school year teaching the students all about the classroom library, how to borrow books, return books, etc in an effort to keep it together.  This year I am going to assign two or three students to be "Librarians."  Their classroom job will be to help any students with the borrowing/returning process. I'm hoping that if they are watching each other they will be less likely to "stick" a book where ever they please. Fingers crossed...

This year I decided I am going to liven up my classroom library a bit.  First, I stopped in the dollar tree and was excited when I found 30 perfectly sized bins all in the SAME COLOR!! That is so rare especially at this time of the year when teachers are raiding all the local Dollar Spots for storage and organization purposes.  I guess this was my lucky day.  I'm using the white bins for my library and I haven't decided yet on the other colored bins but they seemed like they were the perfect size for something??

This year I am transforming my space into a Polka Dot Themed Classroom. To go along with that I have made Polka Dot themed Classroom Library Labels.  In my room I level the books by Guided Reading Levels A-Z and then into genres and categories as well.  Here is a preview of my Classroom Library Labels. You can download them from my TpT store.  I included 55 category/genre labels. I really racked my brain to think of as many as I could but in case I missed something that you have in your classroom, I included a blank page as well for you to fill in yourself.  

And here are my book bins ready and waiting to be filled with books. I haven't been into my classroom yet to begin setting up. We have a full month left of summer vacation and I don't want to rush it away too quickly.

Organizing Student Information

This year I'm determined to get more organized. Starting the year off in an organized way will hopefully give me the momentum I need to keep it up.  Usually somewhere around October/November I start to lose it a little bit but not this year.  My motto will be, "Everything has a place and a place for everything."
The first thing I thought would be useful is a questionnaire to collect student information.  I put together a form of questions for the parents to fill out with some information I think would be beneficial to know at the start of the school year.
My plan is to keep these triple hole punched in a slim binder near my desk.  Maybe I will take it a step further and scan them into a file to store on my computer?? Not sure yet about that one but I have high hopes for my organization this year.

Here is a free download of the Student Information Sheet I am handing out.  I am happy to share if you can please follow me on TPT and leave me some feedback :)

Have a great weekend!

Thinking Ahead of Schedule

Today I am thinking ahead of schedule.  I think it was my stroll down the school supply aisle (which is already showcased in all the stores) that got me thinking about September and Back To School.  I couldn't resist picking up some classroom supplies when I came across a 24 box of crayons for 25 cents or 77 cents for a box of markers!! Whether I will hand them out the first day or keep them as a back up supply for mid year when the students are scribbling with broken crayons, I'm not sure?? I also don't know how many of these fresh boxes of markers, crayons, and pencils will make it past my two little girlies who LOVE to color????

Today I created a little "My First Day" booklet for the students to work on.  It's a good way to assess writing/reading skills.  I'm sure I will have students breeze through it no problem as well as students who will struggle with the first page.  I will use this as my first unofficial tool of "figuring out" who is who.

Here is a preview of my Back To School Booklet.  You can download it from my TPT Store. 

There is still a lot of summer left to enjoy but I'm all about baby steps toward getting myself ready for the new year. 

Reading Response Journal for Non-Fiction Books

Many of our guided reading texts are exposing children to non-fiction texts.  Luckily our reading program provides us with all of the nonfiction books we need to expose the students because my classroom library is in need of a little nonfiction boost. I put together a collection of Journal Prompts to be used with non-fiction stories to compliment my fiction prompts.

Here is a freebie you can download for use in your classroom.

Reading Response Journals for Fiction Books

There are definitely some areas of my classroom and teaching that I need to "revamp" this year. One of them is to make the most of my guided reading lessons.  In the past I've always used a Reading Response Journal. Which I love because it is a place they can write in no matter what time of the day it is.  They can use it for homework to respond to an assigned read, center or independent reading time, and guided reading group. However, the problem I've always had is that the students spend much of the short time we have together preparing their page to write an answer.  This involves copying the question off of the white board, erasing, rewriting, erasing, rewriting...

So, I thought of a more organized solution.  I created these Reading Response Journal Prompts that the students can glue right into their journals.  The other great thing is that I can have these copied ahead of time and pull from them as I need.

My guided reading groups are typically divided into 4 different reading levels.  Therefore, the journal prompts I came up with are differentiated into 4 different levels to meet the needs of all of my students.

I also fit 3 to a page because I don't know anyone who doesn't want the opportunity to cut back on time spent at the copier.

Here is a little preview...

The prompts are broken down into 7 different categories or narrative elements. For example, characters, setting, plot, text connections, problem/solution, genre, and author's purpose.  I can assign the questions depending on what narrative element I'd like to focus on. 

For fun, I included an extra page with prompts inviting the students to go on a noun hunt/verb hunt/adjective hunt in their books.  This would be a great homework or center assignment.

I can't wait to get reading! How about you? 

One of My Favorite Lessons

Another great book by the author Kevin Henkes is “Chester’s Way.”  This is a story of a friendly duo who refer to themselves as "Peas in a Pod."  The duo is challenged when a third character moves to town.  Do they become a trio?  Well, you have to read to find out... :)

This is one of my favorites to read to the class because it sparks a great discussion about friendship and the kids loved sharing stories of who they consider the other “Pea in Their Pod.”  I did a great little craftivity with the class where we made our own Pea Pods. On each of the peas the students drew a picture and wrote a sentence of an activity that they like to do with their best friend.  

The finished products look like this…

So cute!

Chrysanthemum's Crumpled Heart

  This week we read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. I love this book because of the wonderful character ed lesson it teaches the students.  For those of you haven’t read Chrysanthemum, she is an adorable little mouse with a very large name.  The little mice in her class tease her for having such a “strange and long name.”  It is a clear depiction of bullying that the students can really relate to.

A coworker let me in on a great little activity that she has done with this book and I was more than excited to try it with my class.  You start with a medium sized heart (any color) cut out from construction paper.  Tell the students that this is Chrysanthemum’s Heart.  It is perfect and smooth and full of happiness.  Discuss how our heart can fell “crushed or crumpled” when someone says something mean to you.  Students love sharing stories about a time they felt hurt or crushed by someone’s mean words.  As you read the story have the students sit in a circle and pass the heart around the classroom. Each time that a character in the story teases Chrysanthemum by saying something mean, the student holding her heart crumples it up into a ball.  There are characters in the story who say nice things to help cheer Chrysanthemum up, such as her parents and teacher. During those moments, uncrumple the heart and smooth it out.  By the end of the book, the heart is ripped and torn and full of creases.  The children love seeing how kind words can repair her heart (we even put some band aids over the rips).  They can also see how the wrinkles (caused by mean words) will never go away fully.

When the story was finished we hung the heart in our classroom to always remind us of how important it is to be kind to others.  When someone is critical or mean to another student all I have to do is say, “remember Chrysanthemum’s heart” and the kids instantly stop in their tracks and rethink what they will say to make it kind.

Here is a photo of our heart after reading the story.

Johnny Appleseed Writing Project

Second grade is off to a great start!  September has been a super busy month with getting classroom routines set into place, back to school night, benchmark testing, and the list goes on…

September has also been full of one of my favorite themes, apples!!! This includes a little tribute to Johnny Appleseed.  This year I did a little writing project with my class that incorporated a lesson on Tall Tales. The kids love exploring the crazy, wild creativity that goes along with Tall Tales.

We started by reading Johnny Appleseed by Steven Kellogg.  I like this version because it has the best illustrations and details to demonstrate Tall Tales.  I also like the opening of the story and have the students model the opening of their writing pieces after this book.

Once we read the story we created an anchor chart of all the tall tales we found in the story.  The kids LOVED pointing out all the ridiculous tales in the book and they were mesmerized by the wonder of all of his adventures.

Here is a picture of the anchor chart we made. Not the prettiest but it helped the students organize what they read.  At the top I wrote a suggested opening for their stories which is modeled after the first line of the actual story retold by Steven Kellogg.  The students insert their name in place of Johnny Appleseed and their birthday as well.  Being that it is so early in the year I haven’t taught Openings and Closings so modeling after the author was an appropriate transition into their stories.

The next thing I had the class do was to make a list of their own tall tales in their “Writer’s Notebooks.”  I think they enjoyed this part of the lesson the most.  I gave them time to share some of their favorites and I heard everything from “being chased by a giant blue whale to taking my dog for a walk to the moon and back.”  Boy those second graders can really think of some creative stuff

I gave the students a guideline that they needed to include at least 3 tall tale adventures in their own stories.

After the students published a final copy of their writing on cute apple tree stationary, I took their pictures for the final touch. I took a picture of each kid wearing a pot on his/her head (just like yours truly-Johnny Appleseed) and holding an apple.

Here are some finished examples.

To celebrate the completion of our tall tales, we munched on our apples. :)