What do you remember?

      My memory isn't great - I admit that. It is funny how there are certain things in life you can remember every detail about - where you were, who you were with, how you felt, what was said. I remember the day that JFK was shot - I was sitting in the car with my mom at my sister's school waiting for her to get out of school - my mom was crying - I was pretty little so I didn't totally understand. I remember watching the sad coverage of Martin Luther King's assassination and Nixon's resignation. I remember when Princess Diana died, we had just gotten back from a Gator game and we were all glued to the TV. I remember 9/11 - I was at school when we heard about it and then we watched in horror as the second plane went into the tower. We were all pretty scared.

   I was thinking about the kids today and what they will remember. They will never forget going home from school for Spring Break in 2020 and then not coming back that year, or maybe the next. The masks...the quarantine ... a global pandemic.

   Thinking about the good things that we remember, I also remember watching the Apollo missions. We all sat around the TV in the living room watching as Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. It was so exciting! That's why I am excited about the Artemis Program. It will be the first mission to the moon in 50 years. I hope that the students get excited about it and follow it. We might even get to Mars in their lifetime. I hope that there are a lot more good things for them in their lifetimes. I hope that they find a cure for cancer, I hope that there is world peace, an end to hatred, hunger, poverty, and prejudice - is that too much to ask?

   Anyway, we can start with the Artemis Program. The Artemis I goes up next Monday, August 29th at 8:33 A.M. - don't miss it! 

The Artemis Missions

   

To retire or not to retire ... That is the question!

Everyone always told me that when you are ready to retire - "You will just know". After 30 years of teaching, I kept waiting (for 10 more years) for that moment to come. Each year I wondered if it was the right time. Every year I would wait for that "you will just know" feeling, but it never came. My students needed me. I love my team. I still feel great and have so much more to do. 

So do you leave when things are bad and you are feeling burnt out? I really didn't want to get to that point! Do you leave when your health gets bad and you can't do it anymore? I sure didn't want to get to that point! Do you leave when your students no longer need you? That will never happen.

So, I had to go with a different theory than the "You will just know" theory. I decided to go with the "Just Do it" theory. Put in your years, and just do it while you can leave on a happy note, healthy and able to enjoy life. The kids will ALWAYS need you and there will always be so much more you can do. 

Thankful for Learning

This Thanksgiving season has me thinking about how very thankful I am for the many blessings that I have in my life. I have a wonderful, healthy family. I have many great friends. All of my students are adorable and wonderful people. I work in a great school.
I am able to work hard and play hard. On top of all that, even though I am getting "older", I am very thankful for the drive that I have to still learn every day. I am learning how to create good teaching materials, to blog (kind of), to share good thoughts on social media, who knows what will come next. I guess that all teachers think this and that is probably why we are teachers ... but it is so important to keep learning. 
On that note, here's a freebie that I made for my class that I wanted to share with anyone who is teaching cause and effect. I've never tried to put a link on here before so I hope it works. (learning - haha) Happy Thanksgiving!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Thanksgiving-Cause-and-Effect-Cards-1560673

The Candy Corn Contest

I just discovered this book this year - The Candy Corn Contest - by Patricia Reilly Giff. The most awesome thing about it is that it motivated my students to read. In the book, a teacher has a jar of candy corn and has a contest to see who can guess the number of candy corn in it. Every time that one of the students reads a page in a book, they can make a guess. I had a contest in my class too after we read the book. I decided that after each chapter of a book they could make a guess. It was amazing to see my little hard workers trying to get their work done so that they could read. Pretty awesome teacher moment. We counted the candy corn and announced the winner on Halloween. Next year I will probably do it the week before Thanksgiving. That is when the book takes place. The students loved it.

Worm Week - blah

I wasn't really planning on ever having a week revolving around worms. I pretty much think that worms are totally yucky and I am not the type of person who doesn't mind touching them. Put them on a fish hook? Never. So, it was one of those things in the classroom that just happened.
First of all, we are studying rocks and soil in science. We did an experiment on comparing different kinds of soil. We are so lucky to have a wonderful retired couple who love science and provide a lot of our science stuff that we need. So, each student had three different soil samples to compare.

Yes,a few of the samples contained some worm friends. Don't get me wrong - this was an awesome experiment and the students loved it. I was just avoiding the worms samples like the plague!

We read a chapter book during our read aloud time each week. I try to choose one that is related to what we are doing in science or social studies. It seemed like a perfect book - Chocolate Covered Worms. This is a perfect book for second graders!

At the end of the week, what would you do if you were me? Yes of course, make some chocolate covered worms!

They are easy to make. Melt chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and a little bit of butter in the microwave. Stir. Toss in some Chinese noodles and stir. Put in the refrigerator. They are delicious.

Some of the students loved them, and others weren't so trusting.

All in all, worm week turned out to be pretty fun.

The Tiny Seed

This week we had a fun time studying Eric Carle books. Our main story was The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. It is a great story to learn about seeds, plants and the seasons.

We read the story together every day. We completed a story study too.

The students had so much fun making Tiny Seed collages - just like Eric Carle. It is amazing!
The first day ... they chose which illustration that they were going to try and make so that they knew what colors to paint their paper. You have to paint the whole paper.

The next day they cut and glued their illustrations together. We used some bird seed to represent the seeds.

The pictures came out pretty cute - and Eric Carle-ish!

At the end of the week, we did a Literature Scoot as an informal assessment. I placed the cards on tables all around the room and students moved from one to the next. It is so much better than sitting in your seat taking a test. The students love doing these and they have no idea that they are being assessed. 

Yes ... tricky!

It sure was a fun week. Eric Carle books are the best!!!

Slim the Lizard Science Experiment

Science fun!!!  The first story in our reading series is called David's New Friend - it is about David and his first day at school. There is a pet lizard in his new class named Slim. One of our first science standards is to learn about science and the scientific method - so we decided that it would be fun to do an experiment with Slim. We purchased lizards that you can put into the water and they grow. (You can just google "growing lizard" and find the different places to purchase the lizard). I got mine at Steve Spangler. The students loved it. This is Slim on our first day. On day one we did the Purpose, Hypothesis, Procedure and Day One observations. We observed him for the next five days.

 

We looked at Slim, weighed him, measured him, and passed him around to record how he felt. Then, we recorded our observations and drew a picture.

Here is Slim on Day 5. My how he's grown!

This is a fun experiment to teach students about the steps in the scientific method. Here's the booklet I made to record each day. It's a freebie - have fun!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Scientific-Method-Slim-the-Lizard-Experiment-1434500