I'm Not a Turkey

With Thanksgiving coming up, I am reminded of all the things that I am thankful for. I am thankful for my wonderful family and friends. I am also thankful for such a sweet bunch of second graders this year. I want to keep this post short and sweet so I will leave you with one of my favorite writing activities, I'm not a turkey. I'm sure there are many variations of this activity, but I just love it so much.

 I love the creativity that comes out during this assignment.

One of my favorites...
I'm not a turkey. A turkey has feathers. I have hands. Can I ask you a question? Do turkeys go to school? No they do not. I am a student. I talk a lot. If you eat me, I can talk in your stomach. If you eat a student, you go to jail.

Ohhh so creative!!

2012 Election

Happy Election Day!!

I love voting day. Ever since I was a little girl and they did kids vote in our area. Do they still do that anywhere else? Allow kids to vote for president at a voting location. They get their own little ballot and everything. I loved doing that. I started talking about the election on Monday and I started with Cara Carrol's unit.

We started off by reading Grace for President. Yes, I am aware that I spelled Gracie on my anchor chart... ooops! :-) I modified one of the graphic organizers in the unit and turned it into an anchor chart. I teach an ELD class so we color coded our nouns and verbs.

Then we read Duck for President and made a similar anchor chart. After reading both stories we had an election to see who would win. Grace: 10 votes, Duck: 11 votes DUCK WINS!!!

Then we read the book My Teacher for President. We made a chart explaining why our teacher (me) would make a good president. Then we took another vote. Grace: 1 vote, Duck: 5 votes, Mrs. Ruiz: 15 votes. MRS. RUIZ WINS!!!

Today we started to talk about the candidates that are running for office. First, we made a chart. Then we talked about why we vote. Next, my students were able to make their own voter registration cards (found in Cara Carrol's unit). Finally, they cast their votes. I even made little voting stickers for my students to wear after they voted. They had a blast! After the votes were tallied, we turned the data into a bar graph and answered questions that went with our standards. All-in-all it was a great election day in our second grade classroom!!!

James and the Giant Peach

Every month I like to read a chapter book to my students. Most of my students are reading below grade level and even though they can't read chapter books, I still want to expse them to great literature. Even though there are great picture books out there, I also like to incorporate chapter books. September is James and the Giant Peach and my students LOVE that story. I really wanted to make a unit to go along with the book, but I haven't gotten around to making it yet. I did make an art project or craftivity to go along with it. You can really use it any way you choose.

You can visit my TPT store and get this file for only $1.50. Click HERE.

Monday Made It

I am so excited that Monday Made It is back. I loved being able to link up every Monday over the summer, but now that school has started, I'm glad it's gone to once a month. Today for my monday Made It I created...

Last week on my Show and Tell Wednesday I shared my math assessments that included addition, subtraction, and multiplication. I went ahead and made an additional 3 files. They are separate files for addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Each individual file is only $2.50 and if you would like all three together, only $5.00 So head on over to my TPT store to pick up a copy of your own.

Stress-Free Morning

Do you ever have those morning with your students where it seems like they are all asking you what to do? Every morning we have a routine. My students come in, take out their homework folders, put their back packs away, start their morning work, and when they are finished they can either read a book or work on their math facts. It's been the same since the first day of school, but I still have students who ask me what to do when they are finished, or even worse... they just sit there and do NOTHING! I have created a morning checklist that will have all of those answers for, "What do I do next?" and that will leave you time to get morning routines done like lunch count and attendance.

I have made a checklist that follows my morning routine, but I have also created a blank checklist that you can customize in your classroom. You can get the file HERE for free.

Show and Tell Wednesday & Ocean Math

Welcome to another Show and Tell Wednesday. I was so excited to see that people were linking up last week and also entering the giveaway. I want to thank everyone that decided to follow my blog as well as like my Facebook page. I am fairly new at blogging and hosting my own link up and I feel like the first one was a success. I know that it can only get better from here. Make sure to visit my last post to see who one. If you are the winner, please send me an email at darlinglittlelearners@gmail.com

Now onto my Show and Tell.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about my Bikini Bottom Math, or Ocean Math. It's a math fluency program that I made in order to have my students master their math facts. It's been a slow and steady process, but I can tell that it's working. My students know their math facts really well and now they are just working on fluency and speed. If you want to read more about my program, you can see the blog post HERE.

I decided to make a video explaining my program and how I use it in my class so you can watch that video right now! :-)


You can buy the program from my TPT store for only $5. You will receive 72 pages of addition, subtraction, and multiplication fact assessments, homework, flash cards, and certificates. If you act fast, for two days only, you can get this file 20% off.

Now it wouldn't be Show and Tell if you all didn't link up and show us what you are doing in your classroom. Don't forget to add the button on your blog post.

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Show and Tell Wednesday

I'm excited to announce that I am starting a new link up. It is called Show and Tell Wednesday. Every Wednesday I will be hosting a linky party. This is a place where you can share anything you would like. All you have to do is write a blog post about something you would like to share and tell us about it. It can be something from your TPT store, an activity that you did in your class, or anything else school/teaching related. I always love learning new things from fellow teachers and I'm always searching for new ideas.

Here are a few rules for the link up.

• Become a follower of my blog. This is not necessary, but occasionally I will be doing giveaways and in order to be considered for the giveaway, you must be a follower. Also, you don't want to miss anything in the future! :-)
• Add the Show and Tell button on your blog post that you link up.
• Visit the person before your link and leave them some thoughtful feedback.
• Have fun!!!!

 Here is my show and tell for the week.

School is in full swing and we are having a lot of fun in my class. I love my kids and I couldn't ask for a better class. We are starting our camping unit and this is by far one of my favorite units all year. We started out by writing directions for making s'mores.

We started with an anchor chart, but unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it. After that the students worked on creating their directions on their own. I found an amazing and FREE file HERE. That was so generous of her to offer that amazing file for free. All of the activities you will see in this post are from her file.

Here's the final product, along with a bulletin board. I was going to create a title for it on my Cricut, but I have yet to do that.

I'm going to be surprising my students on Friday. Friday will be our camping themed day. I let my students bring in flashlights and instead of doing free time for Fun Friday they get to read in the dark with their flashlights. We will also be making s'mores that they can eat. I will take pictures and I might share them on my blog this weekend.

This week on Show and Tell Wednesday is exciting because I am having a giveaway. Scholastic Teacher Express is an amazing place to get some really great teaching resources. I am giving away my favorite two resources to one lucky winner. Since Show and Tell Wednesday is a new link up, I am asking you to help me spread the word.

a Rafflecopter giveaway Now it's your time to link up. Show us what you're doing and tell us about it! Don't forget to add the button to your post.

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