The 2nd Grade Chick

I bought the thirty-one beach bag for the....well, beach.  Last week was my first week as a mom of 2 girls in dance.  This means that on Tuesdays from 5-7 we are at dance.  We eat there, and each girl has an hour of downtime there while they take turns.  This means we have 2 dance bags, 2 lunch boxes, and 2 toy bags.  Last week they each carried all their bags there but in the hurry to clean up camp and get out of there we had a lot of coordination and fussiness.  I was thinking to myself I really need another thirty-one bag, then it dawned on me!  I don't need ANOTHER one.  I need to clean out the beach bag and use it for dance!!  So I was able to fit a blanket (for a supper picnic, 2 dance bags, 2 lunch boxes, 2 toy bags, my wallet, camera and a I have a place for dance notes too!!!!!  I simply cannot live without this bag.  Here are some photos or our dance night.

I have incredibly mommy guilt for this one.  I don't pack lunches for my girls--ever.  M longed for a cute lunch box her kinder year.  I told her it was pointless because I wouldn't be putting anything any there and yes she was destined to eat school lunch for her whole school career.  Last year she did approach me again.  She packed her lunch, presented it to me and said, "Can I take this to school?"  How could I argue with that?  So there it began, she started feeding herself.  This carried over into the evenings when pleas for snacks or something else for supper  was usually met with a "no" from me.  The girl could survive on her own with an apartment and a full fridge.   Then there is J.  My parents were here last week while the daycare provider went to Vegas.  My mom says, that kid eats all day long!!  But she feeds herself.  She didn't need me.   Here is my response to my friend's FB post about h...

I'll never forget when M was in Kindergarten and starting checking out library books for the first time!  It was such a task to remember to bring that library book back every other day in order to check out a new one.  I reminded her the first three times to make sure it was in her backpack the night before, but as every parent does that first year, I forgot once.  M discovered it 5 minutes after walking across the street to our school (yes we live that close), she was still in my classroom before school had started when she discovered it and begged me to run home and get it for her.  I said no gently, that the library book must be her responsibility.  She cried, I was heartbroken, I toyed with the idea of getting it at lunch and it bothered me all day.  Every time I saw her in the hallway she gave me a puppy dog sad face.  It was one of the hardest things I ever did BUT fast forward to third grade and she RARELY forgets her library book and if she doe...

Confession--I did not teach M to tie her shoes until 2nd grade. Defense-  I also did not buy her shoes that tie until then.  Why bother?  To me it was too frustrating and I knew that even if she COULD do it she would still take the lazy way out and ask other people to do it for her, therefore I decided to save everyone the trouble and just not deal with it AT ALL! Does it bother me when kids come to school and their shoes are untied?  No, not at all, but you won't see me tying them either.  I do however teach them to tuck them in in a nice and safe way, they can also opt to ask a friend.

I am honored to be a guest poster at Check out my post  here. Thanks Jenae for the opportunity!!

I just read two great posts about letting children solve their own problems.  I have actually seen a picture of a brain scan showing a child who had a parent do everything for them.  It showed little brain activity in the frontal lobe (your problem solver).  Do you want your 16 year old to have little brain activity in their frontal lobe?  Read this great blog post at Aunt Annie's childcare and this post at The Corner on Character .

Hi!  Due to all my new followers brought to me from I decided to blog about my quest to a more student-centered approach to classroom management.  I started a Master's program in curriculum and instruction two years ago.  I had three amazing facilitators, one whose name is Kerry Curtiss Williams, author of  She was a great inspiration when it came to building a community where the learner feels safe, making them do the thinking and being intrinsically motivated.  I also happened to have one of "those" classes recently.  The kind that makes first year teachers cry and veteran teachers go hmmmmmmmm.  I started out with my green, yellow, red system and got so frustrated I ripped it up in the middle of the year because I was tired of flipping cards and it obviously wasn't working.  I didn't really replace it with anything but caring, compassion and community building.  At one point we had a 45 minute air it out session where we li...

Math centers link here thanks to Alisha at the bubbly blond e  

Successful with M at Justice! It was crowded (Iowa State Fair) and full of whiny pre-teens whose mothers had had it with them. I took one look at the crowd and wondered what I had gotten myself into. Morgan behaved beautifully, left with 2 outfits no trinkets. I heard one tiny girl tell her mom she didn't want anything and her mom grabbed a handful of clothes and said we'll try these at home then. OMG! What about you? Justice--LOVE or HATE?

I love my new class.  I was very nervous to have 20 kids but they are good! :)    I had to be so on the ball last year and my new skills are making things a breeze with this easy class.  We do however have a lot of work to do but I'm happy with that. I'm also loving  Kelly's Kindergarten .  Here are a few pictures of a name activity I found there.

As I was reading Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business I was reminded about this great article   What Kindergarten Teachers wish parents would know .  The only thing I would add to this article is that reading once a day is better than not reading at all and also watching PBS is better than all day meaningless TV.  My kids were only read to once a day and watched PBS, just sayin.....:)  Oh and the youngest watches Sponge Bob *gasp*

I am determined to keep up the household chores while WOTH!  This is the new checklist I'm trying out that I found here on this blog  life as a mom .  I am also encouraging hubby to initial the things he did on the checklist.  He does a lot around the house.  It is not keeping score but rather seeing what needs to be done yet.

Amanda at plumdoodle is having a Pinterst Linky party-click to join! These are 2 classroom projects I am working on 5 min ideas in a classroom jar so far I have:  class graph (I have a ton ready to be used in a pocket chart) read a book sing a song watch one of my you tube learning videos Play doggie, doggie where's your bone flashcards What do you do for a 5 minute time filler? Clock wall

Well the meat and potatoes that is the curriculum is done ready and printed.  What is not ready are my walls.  School starts tomorrow and everything is still not up in my huge classroom!!  It is possible that I have done too much collecting of ideas, blogging,  and not enough physical labor.  I am however ready to get this year going.  21 students bring it on!!! (tomorrow BTW)  You will never see my teacher desk this clean again.    Big books galore  Word wall, I went ahead and put the names up, usually we do this as a class but with 21 students I can't see doing this for 21 days.  That would take me all the way to the first conference in September.  Tomorrow we will explore names in the room and they will find theirs, count how many times they see their name and talk about the difference between their name and others. :)  Tech station missing the laptops and ipods.  I am hoping to get some soon!!  Reading area,...

To make cooking easier and to stay away from fast food I make a monthly menu to make meal planning easy.  I shop for the week's ingredients on Sunday and I am good to go for the week.  The same food is cooked August 1, Septemember 1, October 1 etc.  Get my  monthly menu here!

A goodie transferred over from my old blog... Tomorrow I get the key to my classroom so I don't expect to be around much.  So I wanted to get this thought down. The real motivation for starting this blog was to hopefully show parents that it doesn't take much to raise a reader (I know most of you wonderful friends/followers already know this but still.)  You see my oldest reader M (age 8) floored me when she picked up at new book Grandma's at age 4.5 and read it cover to cover.  Then when she went to K I learned that she knew 520+ words.  I never  knew that she knew so much OR how she learned it.  I thought it may be a fluke.  Good genes.  Lucky.  I'm still not sure but I'm pretty sure that I am going to do the very same things with T girl #2, J (age 3).  Here are the things I believe you need in your home to raise a reader.  Hold on to your seats because it is really VERY simple. 1.  Have a bedtime reading routi...

This year my students carpet spots will be assigned by letters and they will keep the same spot for a month.  Their assigned letter can be found on their table name and they will match it up to the letter I have taped on the carpet.  This will teach them alphabetical order and matching. After Christmas they are able to find their ABC spots without the tape on the floor!

Enter a teacher give away here and here and here