Hi Friends!  I can't express how much I am loving Spring Break!!  I have been busy today,  but the best part is that it was all accomplished on my couch! I finally finished my 2nd Grade Math Problem of the Day pack for the 4th nine weeks.  I also updated the 1st and 2nd quarter to include 45 problems each (if you already own them, be sure to download the new pack) then I put all 4 packs into one mega bundle! The bundle pack has all 190 problems for a whole YEAR of problem of the day! The problems are aligned to the 2nd grade CCSS and the bundle pack covers ALL the standards. You can check both the 4th nine week and the Bundle pack below. The 4th nine weeks focuses on time, money, even/odd and arrays! The bundle pack has all four packs included.  If you already own one of the other packs, please be aware that the same pack is in the bundle.  If you don't own any of them, you can save $2.00 by buying the bundle! I'm also joining up with several other sellers...
The winner of the Hippity Hop pack was Amber!  Congratulations, an e-mail is waiting for you!  I want to pop in really quick tonight to post an update to one of my older packs.  Word Wall Task Cards has been transformed into Word Wall Work .  I added a ton of Dolch word cards and recording sheets!  Plus it got a little makeover.  If you already own it, be sure to go back and download the new, updated pack for FREE!  We have 4 hours tomorrow before spring break and I am so looking forward to sleeping in for 10 whole days!!!   ...
WARNING: This room is ah-mazing!  I know how lucky we are to have it, I talk more about how we can afford it near the bottom of this SUPER long post.  I can only take about 1% credit for its existence.  I was in charge of gathering, organizing and labeling the leveled readers.  I also put in my two cents about the unit theme boxes and was on the literacy committee that helped organize the Big Books.  The real credit goes to our two AWESOME instructional coaches that made this room look how it does today.  You may see some extra piles/boxes in some pictures, this is because we are constantly finding MORE books to put into this room.  Okay, so let's get acquainted! For the last 6 years my school has used a Houghton Mifflin basal series (which we'll call HM from here on out).  My county purchased a large kit of HM so each teacher had a full pack of leveled readers. When we found out we were no long allowed to use HM and had to switch in to Common Core mode we didn't want...
THANK YOU to everyone who participated in Pin it to Win it!  The winner was Julie!  Julie, an e-mail is coming your way! I saw in the comments a few days ago someone had asked about how my grade level and I planned for ELA.  Well this was our first year without a basal and our county made an ELA unit analysis document that tells us what common core standards they want us to teach, in a 6 week period, with a certain theme.  Every grade level has their own.  We took these and choose a different text for each week to focus on. We had a list of exemplar/recommended texts to pick from that our state and county had developed.   Once we chose our books based on the themes, our school bought six copies of each book we picked for the whole year.  (This is stored in an AMAZING common core book room, more on that tomorrow!) This isn't the only text we read but it is usually the one we start our week with and use for most of the activities.  We then took all the standards and broke th...
The winner of Taking Care of Ourselves: Part One is Alex!  Congratulations! An e-mail is coming your way! Just wanted to post real quick to announce yesterdays giveaway winner and share what I have been up to since yesterday. If you follow Primary Punch on Facebook then you know I have had a busy weekend.  I put together a new spring Math Movers and updated my Sentence Types unit!   I thought we would try something new to win a free copy.  When you hover over the images, do you see the Pinterest "P" in the bottom corner?  To win a free copy, pin one (or both), comment by pasting the link of the pin and your e-mail so I know where to send it.  : )  I will use the random number generator to pick a winner for each pack by tomorrow night! Also, someone mentioned that they'd like to know more about how my 2nd grade team plans our ELA units.  I am working on cleaning up our "units at a glance" and will hopefully have them ready to share soon!  Not that...
The winner of the Out of this World Informational Text pack is Colleen!  Congratulations, an e-mail is coming your way! Before you check out some of our work this week, I want to say that I took the pictures with my iPhone, so I apologize for the fuzziness! First up is writing, in writing we are kind of in an in-between stage right now.  We are getting ready to enter an informational/expository couple of weeks after spring break so we're trying to wrap up paragraph writing and editing.  We made a few charts this week to review some important writing skills that my little ones needed to review. This chart is our take on "said is dead",  my kiddos took out their writing folders and went back to edit their "saids" into something fantastic!   This chart is only halfway done.  This is a list of words that we came up with which are "unforgivable" if they are spelled incorrectly.  We started with kindergarten words (CVC and sight words) and then m...
I am so sorry I haven't posted much this week, I have been super busy with school and I am SO ready for spring break.  My kiddos are too, but sadly we still have another week.  I have been working on this  pack for too long and I am excited to finally post it!  If you're looking for a way to integrate ELA and Science this pack is perfect!  It focuses on teaching informational text features while learning about the solar system. It is aligned to the 2nd and 3rd grade CCSS. It has a set of my informational text features but these are all with a solar system theme! It also has planet articles, written by me and several centers/independent activities. You can click on either image to see a list of all the contents! For a chance to win a FREE copy, comment below and I'll pick a lucky winner tomorrow night : )   ...
UPDATE: The winner of the Arrr-Blends pack was Maria!  Congratulations, an e-mail is on the way!! Thanks for all your kind support and words below!! I really appreciate it! Some of you may or may not know but I am in my third year of graduate school for speech-language pathology.  Which means that if all goes as planned I will graduate in the summer of 2014 and the 2012-2013 school year will be my last teaching : (  This was an extremely difficult decision for me since I truly love teaching elementary school and I still question if it was the right move.  But, I am committed to finishing school and trying it before I make any quick decisions.   So, this school year I have been teaching 2nd grade and also working two part-time internships in the school setting for my SLP program.  As I continue with my internships I make several games and materials to use with my speech kiddos that can also be used in the general education classroom, particularly in a small group or center setting.  ...
We are on day two of subtraction with regrouping in math and I was ready to pull out my hair today.  Normally I don't mind teaching math (don't tell math but literacy is my favorite) and adding with regrouping wasn't bad but now that we are trying to subtract and regroup it's torture.  I have a group of kiddos that just don't get it and are having a hard time.  So I was trying to think of what was causing the biggest confusion and I noticed that they are all lacking fluency with basic math facts.  This is slowing them up to begin with before they can even figure out how to regroup. They just aren't seeing the "more on the floor" and when we do get ready to subtract I am getting a lot of blank stares. So, I made two springy math fact card games for extra practice (I also sent home some subtraction flash cards since subtraction seems to be harder than addition).  The games aren't anything fancy but I think the more they are exposed to solving simple...
The winner of the Nutrition pack was Teacher and Life Long Learner!  Congratulations, an e-mail is coming your way.  We have a professional development day tomorrow so today was our "Friday" and boy did it feel like Friday.  My kids are always a little crazy on Fridays.  Here's a glimpse of our "Friday". To become a member of the bubble gum club they need to score a 100% on any of their end of the week assessments which we take quite a bit of.  My county is a little data crazy and they like us to assess frequently.  Usually every Friday we take a comprehension test, vocabulary test, spelling test and math test which means I also have a lot to grade! Sometimes, we don't do all four.  But, I try as hard as I can to have it all graded and returned while they're finishing up their center work during the day.  Homework is due every Friday.  I use the fabulous homework from Second Story Window this year, as well as their fluency homework.  They are ...