How-To Blow a Bubble Writing

I have been sooooo inspired by posts that I have seen on proteacher and the 2^nd grade Teacher’s Club that I just HAD to do this lesson with my kiddos.  They LOVED it!  We just started publishing today and most of them are already done!  I can’t wait to get these up in time for conferences. I will post pictures of the kids trying to blow bubbles and our hallway display later next week when we get them up. For now, here is our Writers Workshop Lessons and printouts that we used for the lesson.  Enjoy!

 

Hooks, Details, and Endings!

My co-teacher was given a document by her mentor that I thought was VERY useful!  Of course, I had to change it up to make sure it had cute clip-art…so, here is the end result.  I hope you can find these documents useful with teaching writing! I know that we are going to include them in our student’s monthly writing journal along with other helpful files, like a monthly calendar full of ideas found at www.busyteacherscafe.com.  My next post will probably include details on what all we include in our writing journals each month!

Enjoy!

Dowloading Google Docs and Embedding your Own Document!

Some of you are new to using google docs in blogs (I know I JUST learned how to embed my files, so I am fairly new myself), so I thought I send you to a GREAT tutorial that a friend of mine posted on her blog:  2ndin1st

As you can see, you just simply have to click on the “box-in-a-box!”  This will take you to the google docs page where you can then download my file!

If you have your own blog and you would like to learn how to embed a document (this means that people will see the picture of your document on your blog!!!), here are the steps:

•  Upload your document onto google docs.
• Click on your document name to open it (you will see your actual document and what it looks like)

• To the right, you will see an option with a url to embed into a webpage or a blog.  COPY this URL

• Open your blog and create a new post
• Type any instructions you would like to type in your message.
• UNDERNEATH where you type your message, there will be an option called “Post Options.”  Click on this!

• Change the Edit HTML line breaks by selecting the following: 
  Use <br /> tags
• Change compose setting to “interpret Typed HTML”
• In your message, paste the url from your document where you want it to appear…IMPORTANT…you might need to skip a line after your message and after your url to have your url be its own “paragraph.”  This made a difference the first time I attempted to embed a document!
• Click “Preview” and you should see you document appear in your blog! 

Let me know in the comments if you are still having trouble downloading my documents or if you were successful in getting your document to show up in your own blog!!!

Paper Plate Clock-revamped!!!

So, we are getting ready to start out “Telling Time” unit in Math.  A while ago, I was browsing my favorite blogs and teacher websites and came across a paper plate clock that Mrs. Madden had her students create.  I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the idea of having the flap for them to look under to seethe minutes!  So, I told myself that I wanted my students to create one of those as well. 

My team teachers and I were talking about making these at our plan session and wanted to make these a little less prep for us teachers, so I was messing around on my computer and designed the following document to match Mrs. Madden’s wonderful idea, but be less prep work for us.  I hope you like them!

By the way, my daughter made a sample clock (so I could see if my dimensions were correct in my document,) so I just had her use a marker to color in her numbers and hands.  Take a peek:

Comments for Confidence!

So, here I am sitting on a snow day in my pajamas finishing up report cards with a hot, steaming glass of hot chocolate with fluffy, miniature marshmallows.  As I am writing my comments, I am keenly aware, as a parent myself, how much these comments impact a child and their parents.  I need to be honest and purposeful with my feedback, but I also need to be very aware of how my words are the ones that stick in my parent’s thoughts and minds.  This is their little baby that I am focusing on and making judgments about.

With that said, I am hoping that the following documents (created solely by information found in various sources on the internet…I DID NOT create these on my own-just formatted them differently to fit my viewing pleasure,) will possibly inspire you to focus future comments in a more positive fashion on your report cards!  Good luck with the next semester of teaching!