A New Year of Old Resolutions

Happy New Year!  

I really can't believe that's it's a new year.  I honestly feel like we just did this whole December holiday-thing last month.  Oh.my.word does it go fast. 

I must say, 2012 was a wonderful year.  I started my 3rd year teaching and can truly say that it's getting a little  bit easier (which gives me hope for the coming years, haha).  My beautiful sister recently got engaged to her prince charming and we can't wait for the wedding this coming November.  Rob & I are doing wonderful and couldn't be happier with our 3 little love-bugs (Clockwise) Wrigley, Luca & our newest addition to the family, Bruno.  

And most importantly, my amazing family is healthy and happy!  

Needless to say, I'm really looking forward to 2013.   

And here I am again, making another resolution to keep up with my blog.  I guess last years whole "making more time for myself" thing wasn't as successful as I'd hoped.  I found myself spending a huge chunk of my time at school and when not, doing school at home.  Like I said, it has gotten a little  bit easier this year but boy is it still busy.  I don't know how you all do it with kiddos of your own.  I'd probably go cray-cray!

So let's get the year started off right... I'm linking up with Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade for her January currently.  

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday break and for those of you who have already gone back (bless your hearts)  I hope it was a smooth transition!  Guess I'd better get back to prepping myself for next Monday ;)

What are your New Year Resolutions?? 

Martin Luther King

Talk about a crazy draining 2 weeks.  Between visiting my closest cousin in ICU & spending time with family in town from CO, 28 wound-up littles and getting sick it's pretty safe to say that this girl is B-E-A-T.  I couldn't be happier that tomorrow is Friday.  Boy do I need a couple days of relaxation.

I wanted to stop by and share a few things our class did for MLK and give a few FREEBIES that I created.  We were fortunate to have the day off on MLK Day so we spent a good chunk of time Tuesday and Wednesday of last week focusing on his great accomplishments and coming up with some dreams of our own.

We started by reading a couple fabulous MLK stories and watched a video of "Martin's Big Words" on YouTube. 

If you know me, you know that I can't pass up a good writing craftivity.  My kiddos just LOVE the word craftivity and can't get enough of them!  We did a little TLC craft... click HERE to get the directions.  They had a blast cutting our their own 'Martin's' and they couldn't have tuurned out any more adorable!!

So adorable... this weet boy wrote "My dream is to pray for people that die.  I pray for the people that don't have a family."  Made my heart melt!

We also completed this MLK Anchor Chart and they elaborateed on their own dreams on this "I Can Dream Like Dr. King" writing paper.

                

Click here to get the MLK Anchor Chart & Writing Paper Template

What did you do with your kiddos to celebrate Martin Luther King?



Brain Builders

A big focus of mine over the past few weeks has been to come up with a little something special for my "high" kids to do once they've completed zoomed through their work.  It amazes me how quickly they can finish their things!  I feel like I need to be assigning these firsties a research project!  **Which isn't a bad idea for our penguin unit!! 

I found this brilliant idea on Pinterest (where else!)  and got straight to work on my Brain Builders bulletin board.  **The blog the post comes from is Sunny Days in Second Grade.  Here you'll find a good explanation of what Brain Builder is all about.

 I got my Brain Builder board up and running in a weeks time.  I spent long hours at home and at school creating, printing, laminating, and cutting these fun little cards out. 

Here's what my new and improved bulletin board looks like:

**I only have 4 sets of cards up in this picture but I keep 8 up at one time.

With the task cards there is a quiz sheet that the students take once they've studied the cards enough and feel like they're ready for a quiz. You could run this as a buddy test or with an aide.   At this point in the year my littles are independent enough to work with a partner.   Upon completion and a score of 100%, the students will earn a "Brain Bead."  ** You can find a picture of the Brain Bead Braclets at Sunny Day's in Second Grade.  In my room, since space is an issue, I give students a Brain Bead Braclet & their first bead once they've completed their first test.

Although everyone is welcome to participate, this is geared towards my high kids.  I include task cards that are geared for both first grade and second grade. 

Here are a few of the task cards that I've created:

Click here to download Word Wizzard's -- Suffixes

Click here to download Math Magician's -- Clocks

Click here to download Sentence Sleuth's -- Sentence Types

I spent quite a long time "Google-ing" various sites to find pre-created task cards.  I found quite a few useful resources.  I'm type-A and recreate my my own versions of them and tweak them for my own liking but it would definitely be a time saver to use them as is!  Here are a few sites that I've found useful:

Cape 2nd Grade

Mrs. Ziruolo's Second Grade Class

Cape.k12.mo.us

Lastly, here's the answer sheet and directions found at Sunny Days in Second Grade. 

What do you do to challenge your advanced kiddos?