what we've been doing

I'm not one to complain about having a Monday off because I love me some down time!  BUT, short weeks always end up stressing me out.  I feel like I have 1,938 things to do and zero time to do it all!  These next couple of weeks are going to be one HUGE whirlwind... I have to complete reading levels, reading and math assessments, 2 trainings to attend, get tons of grades, AND my appraisal window opens next week!  -Just typing all of it out makes me even more stressed, Ha!

On a lighter note, here's a little peek at some of the things we accomplished today.

The past 2 weeks we have really been focusing on "Read to Self" and "Buddy Reading."  I cannot do the Daily Five {tear} because I have Bilingual Learning Centers that have to be implemented.  BUT, since I've done the Daily 5 in the past, I do incorporate the strategies and some aspects into my program.  Today, we made a little chart to remember the important parts of reading to self and buddy reading.  Then, I let the kids chose which one they wanted to do for the day (all of 10 minutes!)

After we recapped what we learned last week, I started to introduce the writing center with Cara's "What Do Writer's Write" chart.  

Here's the ideas my little ones came up with:

We worked on creating a list after we finished our chart.  I'm going to pick a different idea from our list each day this week for the kids to practice.

This list cracks me right up!

During my conference, I hung up their adorable personal narratives!

Here's a few other things we've finished...

My kiddos made their student-generated alphabets!  

We made these adorable backpacks from Abby's 2nd grade unit!

And, I found these super cute color words in a "giveaway" pile from another teacher!  I don't normally have the color words up in 2nd grade, but noticed that my littles were having a difficult time spelling some of them (especially my English Language Learners), plus they were so stinkin cute that I couldn't resist.  I probably won't have them up all year, but oh well!

(I didn't make these, BUT, I think she just had a crayon template that she ran onto colored construction paper and then hot-glued a coordinating ribbon to each one.