"Summer Camp"

Okay I admit I've been M.I.A quite a bit. A lot has happened though, on June 8th was my class' promotion ceremony. They did a wonderful job when they presented their key to 1st grade advice tips. It was kind of a different experience for me though because it's not a have a good summer or I'll see you around the school next year at the end. Since our school is year round most of my students attend "summer camp." During the summer we get to choose the curriculum. So I have been creating a unit on Washington's National Parks and in math we focus on one particular topic each week that we covered in the 1st/2nd grade curriculum throughout the year. For example, this week we are focusing on addition and subtraction without regrouping and next week we will do regrouping. It's set up as centers some days and other days I have created different group and differentiated the worksheets for specific skill levels. I seem to like how this is working and am excited to try it next school year. In science we have been experimenting with plants and next week we will begin to learn about dinosaurs. We planted our beans after they sprouted inside their Ziploc baggies. We also have started a Diary of a plant where the students get to be a little creative and funny. One book we read this week was Plantzilla . It was my first time reading the book and boy did the students love it. I also just discovered there's a sequel so I will have to get my hands on that. On Monday, we went to see our pen pals at Kirkland's Merrill Gardens and boy were both parties excited to see each other. The activity coordinator there even gave my kiddos some Huckleberry ice cream. YUM! I admit to be a bit jealous of my other teacher friends who are on summer vacation at the moment. But I am happy none of my students will get the summer learning loss other students get. I've been working like crazy to make and find games for each math topic every week. The students seem to love them though so it makes the work worthwhile. On a personal note, I've decided to attend to start jogging. It's not going so well but I've never been able to run so I don't expect it will be easy. I'm starting with a couch to 5k program. I'm currently on week 1. My ultimate goal is hopefully to be able to run the Alki Beach 5K in August... since it's like 10 minutes from my apartment. This would also help me get back on track with my weight loss.

Official school year is wrapping up

I officially have about 98 days of school left in our school year. We just had our 180th day of school last week. Seattle has had gorgeous weather this week, with plenty of sunshine and temperatures in the mid to high 70's. My classroom got quite toasty today with our giant 2 story window.... 82 degrees Fahrenheit! So I moved my writing lesson to a hallway downstairs. The kids of course love going on "field trips" around the building so this didn't bother them at all. So with their spelling dictionaries, pencils, erasers and clipboards they were ready to write. Today I read the book Meanwhile to discuss transition words further. The kids loved the story. It is set up like a comic book so it was very appealing to my boys.

I actually got a bit of a sunburn yesterday out at recess. We now have to make sure to stop teaching about 10 minutes early to apply sunscreen before both recesses. I forgot how much time the rub-in kind takes to apply. Previously, we were using a spray on sunscreen which worked amazing.

The "school year" is ending in my classroom as we wrap up all of our mandatory curriculum. This Friday will be promotion day for my kiddos. I made cute Promotion Day certificates using a handy Microsoft made template since some of my students will not be enrolling for the new second grade next  year. I will be sad for them and their families to go, but I know they will do amazing in any public school second grade. I had to completely change the wording though. The black rectangles are my school's name. If you want the template just comment with your email address and I  can email it to you.

Next Monday we start the summer camp portion of the school year. For those of you who don't know. I teach at a year-round school. So like other schools we finish up our curriculum in the beginning one June and then can sort of teach what we want to an extent. Manetta made up this summer's science curriculum. About every two weeks we are talking about a different subject. Subjects include: sharks, plants, dinosaurs and nutrition. I will also be coordinating writing to go with it. Math will be a focused review of topics from the curriculum we just finished up. Next week I will start my review of time. I found a great I have, who has for telling time at http://shenanigansinsecond.blogspot.com/search/label/Time 

My newest favorite blogcenter><a href="http://www.shenanigansinsecond.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/1782/blogbuttonii.png" width="125"/></a></ center>