Welcome!

I am so excited to finally begin my journey in the blogging world! I absolutely adore the school and staff I work with...my teammates are amazing!!! I currently teach second grade, most kiddos I had last year in my combo room. With April already here it is becoming more clear that I will only have these precious kiddos in my room for a couple more weeks. MAJOR sad face.

Below I have included a few snapshots of my classroom. I am the only second grade classroom that has tables. I LOVE my tables. We use cooperative groups and hands-on activities throughout the day so my tables provide that smooth, flat surface we need. Also, my perfectionism and minor OCD would really kick in if I had to see 20 dirty desks around my room! (I am technically not OCD, but I am one who can notice if something has been moved by just walking in the classroom door.)

      My Comprehension Strategy Wall

      I use the Beanie Babies to help support the concept. It also is a great tool for my visually impaired student to "hold on" to understand what the animals characteristics are.

My Classroom Library

I am obsessed with books. I have hundreds of them that I have gotten at garage sales or Goodwill's 50% off sales. Each one is labeled with the books theme and AR level. I spend a lot of time at the beginning of the year teaching my kiddos how to match their book to the right book bin. It seriously looks that clean all year with a little training!

CAFE Menu Wall and Cubbies

This is my CAFE wall at the beginning of the year. Now it is full of all of the strategies we have learned and used. I switched the CAFE letters around to spell FACE. My header above the wall states, "Do you have a reader's FACE?" It makes more sense for my kiddos to understand.

We use the Daily 5 in second grade at my school. To make sure each kiddo is receiving literacy instruction for the skills and concepts that they need we also adopted a program called Walk to Read. We use student data and progress monitoring to determine what classroom kiddos will "walk" to receive their literacy instruction. We have an advanced, benchmark, strategic, and intensive room. I am so lucky to be working with our kiddos that need the most support in the intensive room. For 90 minutes, in three 30 minute rotations, we work on phonics, comprehension, fluency, and work work activities. One rotation kiddos will work with me using F.A.S.T. Literacy. If you have never heard of F.A.S.T. Literacy you need to visit their website. Students get to use magnetic boards to work on specific phonics skills through building words, reading, and spelling. Then, my kiddos get to work with my "fairy para" (she is so magical and I don't know what I would do without her) on work work activities on Monday and Fridays, fluency drills on Tuesday and Thursdays, and comprehension on Wednesdays. Our last rotation students receive guided reading with our Title teacher. It requires a lot of planning on my part, but it is so rewarding to see all the growth these intensive kiddos have made.

Thanks again for joining me on my blogging journey!