Weekly Recap

As I mentioned yesterday, a lot happened this week that I wanted to post about. I figured I would just do a weekly recap of how our week went.

 We started the week of like most teachers did, with penguins. We will be continuing with penguins next week before we move onto Arctic animals.

 

We had fun with some other birds as well, Angry Birds!! My students loved this writing project/craftivity. I had them describe what their Angry Bird looked like, why they were angry, and how to make their Angry Bird happy again. Some of their stories were really cute. You can find a link to the craftivity HERE.

  

My students started working with geoboards this week. Look how well they work together and help one another! I have the sweetest class ever (in my opinion ^_^ )

 We also started reading Scholastic News, another Donors Choose project. The students are enjoying Scholastic News so much. I can't believe I have waited this long to get it for my students.

We ended the week with yet again another Donors Choose project. As you can see on the right we got 9 puzzles as well as some picture books. I wanted a quick and easy way to do Fun Friday because I am not a huge fan of Fun Friday. I love giving my students time to have fun and I like the little down time I'm able to get to clean my room before the weekend. Puzzles were the perfect thing. I already had one box bent, so I'm going to have to find an even easier storage option for these puzzles.

I'm linking up over at a few places this week...

AND...

Bikini Bottom Math (Ocean Math) and Grammar Wall

I love Monday Made It and I'm a little sad that it has gone to only once a month, but I understand why. I guess that means I'll just have to keep going on my own. 

Made-It #1

I have been working on a math assessment program for a couple months now. I created a bulletin board in my classroom that I wanted to post on a Monday Made It, but since my unit wasn't finished, I figured I would wait. I spent most of today (Labor Day) finishing the unit. On a day where we should be relaxing and enjoying our day off, I am working on school work. I love it though!

First, I want to share with you my bulletin board.

I have always had my students coming into 2nd grade, not knowing their basic math facts. It would be wonderful if they could come in knowing their addition facts and all I had to do was teach them their subtraction facts. Unfortunately, I haven't even been that lucky. I knew that I wanted a program to do throughout the school year, but I wasn't sure what I wanted. I decided to make my own program. I call it Bikini Bottom Math or Ocean Math.

This is a math fluency program that will build and strengthen any student's addition, subtraction, and multiplication math facts. This program is designed for students to work at their own pace. The program includes a letter home to parents explaining the program. It also includes flash card, homework practice, math assessments, and completion certificates. 

I wanted this program to be self paced. I have always done Saxon math fact assessments, but if a student doesn't master their facts, the program just keeps going and they never truly learn their facts. This program is completely customizable. I have included three levels; addition, subtraction, and multiplication. My plan is to get my students through addition and subtraction this year and if some kids get to multiplication, hey that's wonderful!!

The way it works is ever student is assigned a number and jellyfish. Pink jellyfish means they are on addition, blue means subtraction, and yellow (gold) means multiplication. As a student passes their test, they get to move on to the next bubble. Once they have master all of their addition facts they move back to 0, but this time they have a blue jelly fish and the same goes for multiplication.

I will make a more detailed video with Bikini Bottom Math in action in my classroom. Also, if you are interested in me creating a file where you can create your own Bikini Bottom Math (Ocean Math) bulletin board, let me know and I can get to work on one.

Today ONLY, this file is 20% off in my TPT store, so hurry while the sale lasts!!

Click on the link to go to my TPT store.

Made-It #2

I teach an ELD class, meaning I teach English language learners. I focus a lot in reading, writing, conversation, and grammar. I created a grammar "wall" for my classroom this year that match the colors of the program that I use. 

I created them on my cricut (which I cannot live without)

I like to get creative with my space, so I created my "wall" on my cabinets.

So that's it for today's September's Monday Made-It. I'm sure I'll be back for some more later on durign September. I have soo many ideas!