Well I am about off to bed but I keep forgetting to share about the topic of Coach B from last Monday's live webcast. He talked about when a student is making the wrong choice thank them instead of getting on to them!!! Brilliant and I realized I had done that the previous two weeks just to keep my sanity ;)!!! It works like a charm!! You are not irritated; they quickly fix the problem a DOUBLE WIN!! I always make is seem my fault... "OH thank you___ for showing us how NOT to___. I forgot to mention that!!" Could you please show us how to do ____. And a freebie DRA listing for your kiddos... I am 6 away from being done!!! I created this based on the information from The Next Step in Guided Reading by Jan Richardson. This will be my BIBLE this year for GR!! If you have not read it GO NOW!!! POWER TO THE TEACHERS!!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nwihzvr6axyjio0/DRA%20_Blank%20copy.pdf

No Mondays.... Who is with me???

So I have decided to eliminate Mondays.  As you may know this is my first year in 2nd.  Last year I was in Kinder.  I swear every Monday I feel like I am sinking and in a stress panic.  Then comes Tuesday and it seems that my kids as well as my "load" is better!  So NO MORE MONDAYS!!  Today was a great day!  We got SO much done!!  I got to do my "I Pick" lesson.  I had had been worried because I felt like I had waited too long.... But just could not get it in.  It was great!  We got to do a rotation of Daily 5- we are up to 20 min. of Read to Self so half did that and 1/2 did our "rainbow word work" drawers (activities are from Lory's Page: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Literacy-Centers-SEPTEMBER-730888)   and Spelling work (also, from Lory's page...Man have I told you I LOVE her stuff!!  :)    I am excited about this because the activities will be consistent all year AND skills I am sure they will need lots of review.  AND we even got to our ELA lesson focus of folk tales!!!    Last week I have started changing out our table buckets into our regular math stations:  ( also from Lory's page: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/MATH-STATION-Common-Core-Grade-2-SEPTEMBER-242920--again LOVE these because they are going to be the same basic concepts all year!!  So today we did our 2nd rotation.  Still a work in progress... not as tight as I would like but not bad.  Sorry no pics... I can not ever remember my camera.  But I will take a pic next time and share my lables I made for my "rainbow word work" drawers.

Freebie to add to the Rise and Shine Binder

I saw the post from Reagan Tunstall on her Rise and Shine binder and knew I HAD to have it!!  So ofcourse when the bts sale at TPT happened this was first in my cart.  My 2nd graders are loving it!!  I introduced it the first week and it has been amazing!!  I cant wait till we add more games.  My goal (of many!! ) this week is to add the words component.     http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Rise-and-Shine-Binder-762792

I wanted my kids to also be able to work with abbreviations so I created this page to add to our binders:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/azl4fzznzrd76gy/MY_R%26S_Abbreviations.pdf

D 5 Freebie!!

I am excited to do Daily 5 this year.  I wanted to last year but with a new curriculum and just getting started in K it just was not a go... We did work stations so I tried to get elements of Daily 5 in.  Well I created a freebie to help with management of my kiddos (mostly who goes to computer and iPad!  :)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ef3si1h2prdo3c/D5_CheckList_Freebie.pdf

Claiming my blog... Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Hello!!

Hello!

This is my blog to track and share my journey with Whole Brain Teaching.  I came across this crazy video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaweXw03kQI  and was VERY intrigued to say the least!   How did she do that!!??!  How were the kids SO engaged!?!?  I was in Kinder and I wanted that in my room to say the least!  I had a great group of kids just a few that were driving me crazy!!  This WBT thing seemed the ticket!!  So I searched and searched and found Farrah Shipley right here in Texas!!  @   http://mrsshipleywholebrainteaching.blogspot.com and THE website: www.wholebrainteaching.com.  So I used the Scoreboard and Class/Yes and It made a Huge difference with my group!  

SO... Now I find myself in 2nd grade and feeling at a wall.  My goal is to share my struggles and celebrations and hopefully connect with others!