Will I make it through back to School Night?

Well, I did. I made it through back to school night. With the help of my super duper Aide. Yes, I said aide I only have an aide because I have a student who needs a one-one aide. So, sometimes she has down time and she completes tasks for me. Today she saved my buns by helping me pull together my student handbooks.
So here they are. They were a free download from a super duper blogger. I will post her link in a future post only because I am writing this blog on my iPhone post. 

All went well and I am super stoked because parents are using and checking our Class Dojo. I am in love again with Mojo! Here is an example yesterday I dismissed my class and her comes my fast talking twins dad. He said "twin 1 got a disrespectful on her Class Dojo!" What?you should have seen their faces. They said" Dad how did you know it is not Friday, teacher did not give us the reports." Dad" I signed up today at lunch. I guess I will be checking this at least once a week." Same face of fear, not surprisingly the twins had a much better day today. Then last night my friend whose name is a video game character and I often pronounce it as if I we were in the video game. He likes it. Well video game boy likes to leave his homework, stuff it on his desk, walk in circles so he can never find it, or my fav. The air search( you know where you look into the air and look for something that does not fly, you can even look left and right into the air and never find it) well grandma saw he had no homework and messages me on class dojo. Bam! I told her he Actually did do it in class he was clear. For today!

So, definitely check it out if you have not already. Class dojo is adding voice messaging, it is in beta now. I think that would be super cool especially for whole class message blasts. Maybe the student of the day can record the message or I can do it too.(because I really don't like the sound of my voice played back to

me) Very excited about this. So, I made it through back to school night and the week has been sucessful partly because of Class Dojo!

Happy Teaching!

How much do I love my big tpt purchase?

I can not believe how helpful my 2nd grade units of study for reading and writing workshop is, I mean really,really worth the big purchase. 

Here is the link: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Units-of-Study-Bundle-Grade-2-10-Months-of-Reading-Writing-Lessons-w-CCSS-1072004#

It is by Jen Bengal and it is truly a time,no life, no allow me to actually have a life saver. I have been to Teachers College and learned from the amazing Lucy calkins how workshop works. I have kept up by following tcrwp on twitter and being a stenohouse and heinamann addict.

But this big purchase I made during the big tpt 28% sale was so worth it. Today really proved it to me. I was thinking well maybe I should just stop with launching workshop and get into it and prepare these lil people for their first benchmark. Well well well,today we did a writing lesson using the book Tuesday as our mentor text. If you have not read Tuesday it is just a beautifully crafted story that is driven by the amazing illustrations. So, the idea was that my kiddos were going to write the words by using the illustrations as a guide. We began and of course I could not find my copy of Tuesday so I found a youtube video and added it to my teachem account so it was cued and ready to go. 

Dum dum duuuuuuum.....

Here they are frantically writing about the illustrations, giggling with delight as the story progressed, shrieking out please stop it here I want to write about this. I mean really. Loving this, budding little writers being created. They were utterly amazed at how much and with how much detail they were writing. 

So, if your budget will allow and you have a bit of knowledge about reading and writing workshop this is a valuable tool to organize and gain ideas for mini lessons and independent student products.  I am truly impressed and after this lesson I feel confident I am really preparing these lil people to handle the common core.

Well, that's all for now.

Happy Monday!

How do ribbons and robots go together?

Well, I made it through week one of my first week at my new school teaching second grade. 

Thanks to the help of my mother and brother we were able to pull together a decent looking classroom. Here is an old pic I found of my brother. Clearly, he is not this size any more or he would not have been that helpful setting up my room. He is now over 6 feet tall. My classroom library was in place in about 30 min because of my two helpers.

Now back to robots and ribbons.....Here they are.

Greeting my students and other guests at the door is this little robot guy.

My sink area was yucko and I just did not have time to jazz it up so I merged this robot and a really dreamy fairy tale mirror. The robot is from creative teaching press riveting robots collection and the mirror ikea.

Greeting us at the other door is this robot light and a picture frame with a bow. The picture frame has monthly subway art.

That is my idea is seasonal decor. Ladies I just do not have time or energy for too much more seasonal decor. I know I am a stinky grinch and I should find I way but for now this works.

We are they lions here. So,I found this 3- d lion from Darby smart to hang on my door.

Here is a tiny glimpse of the library and my math bulletin board. More robots!!!

Here are two ideas I got from pinterest and bloglovin. 1. Use clothes pins to put up student work the numbers are student numbers. 2. My mini robots are also on clothespins, hot glued to the back the I made one robot for each of the 8 mathematical practices, and turned them into compliments Ex:"Great looking for structure." The plan is to move the robot compliment clips on to the work of a student who is demonstrating that math practice. I also think it will help me figure out which practices we should focus on as a class and which we are showing strength in. 

Math wall and my Sit Spots are very much in the skeleton stage. I do have ribbons on the math wall binder bins and robot icons on the math tool boxes. 

Well, that is how robots and ribbon work together in August I am sure it will evolve as the year continues...

Happy Sunday!!!