Today was a short day but we still managed to get a lot accomplished. As it was a half day, there was only time for language arts and math.

SPELLING CENTERS: We began the day with spelling centers.

GROUP READING: We continued our day by reading "The Surprise" from Frog and Toad All Year. The children read this in groups.…

I'm posting a little late because my personal life has been very exciting. My sister just had a new baby. Her name is Ione. (I-own-E). We are so excited!

What a day! I feel like I barely had a minute to catch my breath! It was a rewarding day, too. After spelling centers, we began with a reading of the story "Ice Cream" form Frog and Toad All Year.…

What a long day! I feel like I spent most of the day playing "catch-up". It was a fairly productive day, in spite of all of this. Today was my last day of parent conferences. They all went well. It felt great to meet with parents and even better when I was finished and could focus on my students once again.

While I was out, the children read "The Corner" from Frog and Toad All Year. They completed some activities based on it as well.…

Today was a day of extremes. I began my day meeting with parents to discuss their children. I love taking the time to tell parents how unique and special I find their children to be. I gave parents their children's science projects about frogs with pride. I was proud of the environment that I had created in my classroom to allow this authentic learning experience to occur. I was proud of the children and all of their hard work. It was a great feeling. Although many teachers would rather not…

It felt good to be "back in the saddle" today for reading. We began our nonfiction guided reading program. On Fridays we focus on non-fiction pieces to help second graders move from "learning to read" to "reading-to-learn". Today, all three groups read pieces about the Statue of Liberty (a social studies tie-in). After reading, all groups met together and we all discussed what we learned from our reading today. This was so instrumental in creating a community of readers who can discuss and…

Today was another good day. I was out of the classroom continuing my reading assessments. I managed to finish up early and this bought me a little time to meet with the resource coordinator at my school to discuss a plan of action for my at-risk students. We developed a great plan for using our resource teacher in an intregral function to my reading program. Mrs. Schuler, our resource teacher, will teach a small group guided reading and reading fluency on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Fridays…

Another great day. We are doing a much better job managing our time and finishing our work. Mrs. Filemyr was substitute teaching for me this morning as I worked on reading assessments with children in a one-on-one setting. It was nice to have a personal time with each student and I know they all left with a good feeling. After they finished their reading assessment, I had them complete a complete math skills inventory as well. I haven't graded them yet, but I look forward to seeing how they…

Here I sit, on the anniversary of one of America's most terrible tragedies, thinking of the students in my classroom. Although this date brings so many terrible and awful feelings to the forefront, I am uplifted by the hope that lies within young children. They see the world as mere extension of self, not a seperate entity. I seek to encourage and nurture this "world as an extension of self" view in my classroom each day. It would be the saddest occurence for these children to lose the…

Today was a very busy day. It felt like there wasn't quite enough time to fit everything in.

We began our day with spelling centers and a new spelling list of long A words. Based on Friday's pretest, some children are doing List A and some are doing List B. I was surprised at the children's ease with this new concept. Download sept 14 test spelling…

Looking back at this week, I feel good about the learning that has happened in my classroom, even in the first week. I was pleasantly surprised by the children's reactions to project time. This week, they worked on a science project about frogs. We read and highlighted important sections of our reader and then used that information to create the first draft of a frog scrapbook which included writing and drawing. This constructivist approach makes me feel that I am achieving my true goal of…

So, I write this about our fourth day. We've already accomplished so much.

Spelling: Centers, Test and next week's pretest. Download spelling pretest master.doc Download spelling test master.doc.

Writing: Finsish up personal writing interest…

Wow! It's almost Friday... my school has an abbreviated day on Friday so we're in the home stretch.

Spelling: Today we began with spelling centers which the children thoroughly enjoyed. This month the four choices were: spelling rainbows on whiteboards, typing lists on computers, letter cards to arrange and rearrange, and letter stencils.

Grammar: We continued with sentence structure and went to…

Today, we had a busy day of beginning lessons. It was like "Second Grade Boot Camp". I had to be on my toes the whole time. I'd forgotten about the endless paper shuffling and the routine of teaching. The children were great - I'm a little rusty, though. Here's what we accomplished:

Spelling: Introduction to Spelling Centers

Reading: We read "A Bee Tree" by Patricia Polacco and discussed how books can expand our minds and take us on adventures. We also sang the organization…

Today was a good day. I felt a little stressed and was barely able to get supplies away. I will rethink having homework on the first day ever again. It took way too much time to explain. The children just needed me to read stories and establish a relationship.

On a positive note, my partner teacher, Sharon Rippen created some little…

My First Blog Post

So, here I am writing in my first blog. I'm not sure how it'll turn out, but I'm ready. I will be using this space to record my teaching plans and my reflections to them. My hope is to replace my planbook with a reflective medium allowing me to comment on my successes and failures.

Download Day 1…