Field Trip to AYAM

We had a great field trip to our district's art museum. 

We looked at artifacts from all over the world. We even were able to play some different instruments from the different cultures. 

We created our own "clay pots". We used black paper to create symmetrical 2 dimensional pots. The designs represent each individual's interests. 

We had a great first field trip. 

Destiny Quest Lesson

Today we learned about Destiny Quest. 

Steps: open browser-->SBISD home page-->"library resources page" --> destiny quest-->our school

Then log in using your standard computer log in. 

Once logged in, students can see the books that they have checked out and search for books. Make sure they are clicked into our schools catalog. 

In the Destiny Quest app students can see the top 10 books checked out in our library, search for books, make recommendations to friends, and much more! 

Next time we will learn about ebooks-how to use at school AND home. If your child is allowed to bring his/her device they may bring it to class. A parent class will be at the PTA meeting tomorrow. I will email details to parents. 

Welcome Back to School

What a wonderful first week of school!
I am so excited about such a wonderful group of kids. This week I found out that I have a big group of avid readers. We learned 3 of the 5 rounds of Daily 5. I have never had a group take to our stamina practice and so eager before. I'm so excited about what this means for our Language Arts time: more reading and writing, more time for small groups and individual instruction. This week I will begin my beginning of the year Reading Assessment/Records.
We also began our Flipped learning in Math. We set up our math journals and began watching some of the videos that were made by Mrs. Trevino, another RCE 2nd grade teacher. We learned how to take notes while the video was playing, that we could pause and rewind the video when needed, and how to record our questions. We will continue this learning over the next couple of weeks before we begin the videos for homework.
I'm looking forward to a fabulous year!
Don't forget about the parent coffee on Wednesday, Sept 4th 8:15-9:30

Flipped Learning

I've had a fabulous summer! It is surprising to me that there are only 3 more weeks left!
This next school year has already been on my mind as to where I want to go as a teacher this year.  A teaching colleague of mine suggested I read the book Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day, by Jonathan Bergmann & Aaron Sams since she knew I was interested in flipping my classroom.

Last year I had all intentions of starting this endeavor during the second semester with my math curriculum. I quickly felt overwhelmed and not sure where to go.
Fortunately, the same colleague that suggested the book is also a teammate. Armed with our own desire to improve our teaching and the classroom for our students, assistance from an expert mathematician (a.k.a. Ricky Mikelman), and a flip camera and tripod we set to work.
Our beginning seemed slow--not sure which videos to record first, being camera shy, technical difficulty, etc, but quickly we began to gain confidence with each video. (Huh, it's good for a teacher to suddenly remember what it is like for a student when presented with something that is new and possibly intimidating.)

We now have a great start to our videos for this year that will be starting in a only a short month away! This will be a learning process for me as a flipped teacher this year, but I already know it will be well worth the days of summer I've spent video taping. Here is a little glimpse into some of the fun that we had while video taping this week.

Thank you to Theresa for the snapping the pictures for us! Go visit her blog!

Thank You Chevron!

We have been chosen to have a grant funded by Chevron through Donor Choose.
We are so excited about our new river tank system, plants, fish, magnifying glasses and safety goggles.

Thank You Chevron!! 

I am...

Today Mrs. Harrell lead us in a fun writing assignment. First we brainstormed and wrote down our thoughts on a shared poster.
Then we wrote our own poems. We have a very talented group of writers!

A New Year!

Welcome back to a new school year! The 2012-2013 school year is going to be great!
This blog will be used to post updates for our classroom, links to extra resources--math, science, language arts, show case work from the classroom, and much more! I look forward to sharing our classroom with you!