Prep School

I'm just an ol' fashion prep girl, what can I say.  I've been through many "style periods" in my life : Victorian,  Classic,  Preppy to name a few.  I would have to say that I've bounced and landed for the most part of my life into two categories: Classic and Preppy.   It just works for me!  Find the style that works for you, the one that makes you feel good and stick with it.  Have you ever heard anyone say "oh, she can pull of that look but I can't"?  Honestly, a lot has to do with your self-confidence.  Even if you are wearing something a little "out there" if you have the confidence to pull it off, it SO works!
When you are feeling good about yourself, you walk a little taller and hold your head up a little higher and people can sense your confidence.  Find that inner beauty that we all have and hold your head up high, ladies!  You are beautifully and wonderfully created!

When I found this super cute blue check long sleeve at JCrew in the clearance section, I just had to get it.   You can buy it here!  And you're welcome!  :D   It's "boy style" and does not have a tailored fit like most of their button-downs, but tucked into slim or skinny jeans and a snug jacket, it works great.

I'm basically obsessed with my linen navy jacket I got years ago at Target, of all places.  It's an extra small and fits a bit snug when buttoned up but I just love how tailored it is and the cute silver hook latch detail.  I always wear the sleeves rolled up just a bit to hide the fact that the sleeves are too short for me!  Tricks of the trade, my friend!  I wanted to add a pop of color so wore my Ann Taylor skinny neon yellow belt.  I'm not thrilled with my Michael Kors cropped jeans.  I got them for a STEAL but they are a bit bunchy in the front area.  I saw a friend with some cute white Old Navy skinny jeans on that I think would work much better but I went with what was in my closet!  :D  

My poor ol' shoes have been with me for many a year and I just love them.  They are the perfect heel height for teaching in the classroom.  They were from Saks Fifth Avenue and I just can't part with them.  They've been recapped many times.  I also have on my beautiful Tiffany's beaded bracelet and Skagen two-toned watch.    

Oh, and I can't forget one of my new favorites, one of my sweet parents got me for Christmas: my new Kendra Scott white necklace.  Love it!  (Lord, the mirror.  Sorry people.  You know how splashy the kids are when they wash their little hands!)

Earth Day

Why does everything seem to sneak up on me?!?  Earth Day was no exception.  Luckily, I found this beautiful FREE art project here and had my kidos go to work.  My suggestion is to do the glue early in the morning or the day before so it has a chance to dry throughly.  The first step is the trickiest.  They have to draw lines with their white glue.  Not too thick, not too thin.  It's hard for young children to know how much is too much or too little.  If you make your glue lines to thin, it won't resist the paint.  Too thick and it will puddle out.  That was basically what happened with most of my babies!  BUT one of the beauties of art is that sometimes mistakes can add character or even make your piece better!  Love that.  

We had been studying all about the desert this same week and so one of my kidos said, "Look, Ms. Cameron, I'm painting the deserts of the Earth too!"  So, of course, being student directed, we followed this smart little guy's advice!  :D

Since April is Poetry Month I wanted to incorporate a poem as well.  My little poets have just soared when it came to poetry, so I just told them they could pick whatever form of poetry that they wanted, be it, Haiku, Cinquain,  Diamante, Acrostic, Free Verse.  It was their choice.  Here are some of their masterpieces!  Love them so, so much!

I wanted it to be a special Art Project, so I decided to type of their poems for them.  And of course, I let them pick their favorite font to complete the project!

This little one used TOO much glue to glue down her poem.  You can't tell, can you?!?  ;D

Now that I'm thinking about it, I should have mounted the poem and the earth on the same side of the black construction paper instead of gluing the poem to the back.  Well, there's always next year...

Happy Weekend Friends!  :D

Easter

Easter has snuck up on us this year!  I guess having just been off for Spring Break the week before we weren't ready!  Moving up to 2nd grade, I wasn't sure what to do about Easter.  In Kindergarten and 1st grade it is a BIG deal to say the least.  Lots of planning ahead, decorating, egg collecting, parent helpers, Easter Bunny sightings, etc.  Luckily for me, my teammie had planned a Math Easter Egg Hunt for her afterschool tutoring kids on Wednesday.  As I walked by, I asked what they were doing. I knew it would be perfect for my class the next day.

 30 eggs were filled with spiraling math problems and hidden outside.  One math problem in each egg.  Each student got an answer sheet to right down their responses.  For every 5 questions they answered correctly, they got 1 piece of candy.  We gave them 30 minutes.  They had a blast racing around trying to solve the problems as quickly as they could!

As a rule I never give candy to the children but Holidays are always an exception.  I even broke my no candy rule for myself and had a very delicious Blow-Pop for the first time in I can't even count how many years.  I told the students this was the first candy I had eaten in a month and one little girl exclaimed "Mrs. Cameron, how can you live like that?!?"  :D :D :D  hahaha  Made me laugh so hard!

We also managed to throw in a little Easter art project in the afternoon.  I love me some guided drawing.  The students are always so amazed at how their work turns out.  And honestly, often times, I am too!  :D  I knew time might be an issue so I chose something I knew they could do fairly quickly.    I found the guided drawing idea from here.  As I drew each part of the bunny using the overhead projector the children watched and copied what I did.  Don't ever worry about them all looking identical because they never do!  

Each child receives the instruction as they hear it and draws accordingly.  They all look so different.  They always ask "like this, Ms. Cameron?" and I always tell them it's their artwork and it's fine! Drawing is always the hard part, painting the easiest.

I just love how they all turned out!  A fun way to brighten our classroom as they are hung on our art display board.  :D

And I also had to share what the teacher wore!  I scored my super-cute Tee for $5 at Tarjay!  It's from the kids section.  Extra-grande!  haha  :D  

Hoppy Easter Friends!

Harper Avery

I usually don't blog about my family (you can check me out on facebook and instagram for all the goings-on in my life outside of school!), but I just couldn't resist bragging on my 4-legged grandpup, Harper Avery.  My daughter got Harper for Christmas and she is such a sweet, although at times naughty doggy!  Haha  She actually fits so perfectly with our family and has surprisingly been just what we needed!
Well, Ms. Harper Avery graduated from Puppy Obedience School.  She made a B-.  She is going to doggy tutoring and should be on level very soon!  :P #obessedwithgreys

Goal Setting

I just love this quote and this picture (maybe because I'm ready for summer and it's still cold here!)  But, don't you love times like these when you are SO excited about your day that you jump out of bed!  I have had those moments and am praying for more.  Some days, it's just hard to get out of my warm, uber-cozy, beautiful bed!  But on other occasions, I am excited to see what God has for me that day OR how God is going to fulfill a dream that he has placed in my heart.  Either way, it's a great way to wake up.  :D 

Seuss-tastic!

We love Dr. Seuss week at our school!  We have lots of special readers come in throughout the day.

I love what our librarian made as a thank you for each reader!  Cute-Cute!

 We had a door decorating contest as well.  I took pictures of all my kidos reading and printed them in black and white.

We also had dress-up days and if you're lucky enough you get "Seussed" (you receive an anonymous bag filled with treats at your door in the morning.  You then go and "seuss" someone else the next day and so on and so on.)  I got Seussed twice!  Feelin' the LOVE!  :P

Fun times at Seele!  :D

For the LOVE of Reading

To say that we love reading in our classroom would be a very large understatement.  Please insert multiple heart eyes emojis!  :D  I am often asked how I get my kids to love reading.  My goal is to write a series of blog posts on the various different components of a successful, passionate, and engaging reading program!

This first blog will be about student choice.  I can't stress enough the importance of allowing students to read what they love.  If you all have not read the life changing, inspiring book: The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller, please RUN over to Amazon and get yourself a copy!  

Donalyn teaches 6th grade and while I was reading the book I kept thinking how can I take all of these gems and make it work for lower elementary??  

One of the many things that the book inspired me to do was implement more student choice.  A way to do that is through student reading surveys.  I found several on-line but none were just perfect for my class so as any good teacher would do, I cut and pasted several surveys to make one that fit the needs of my class. :D   I then had my students fill them out.  The survey asked questions about their favorite books, series, authors, genres and why they liked them.  It was very telling.  So now if I am at Half Priced Books or Goodwill or about to place another Scholastic book order, I think about those surveys and it guides what I buy for my classroom library.  And here's one more thing.  Kids are amazed that you would care enough to ask them what they think AND respond to something that they want or like!  Isn't it always the other way around, teacher-led, teacher-directed??  That is not how I want to run my classroom and my kids know it!  Their voice matters.  Period. 

Here's an example of that in action.

I have a little one that at the beginning of school would only read the Mo Willems Piggie and Gerald books.  I overheard him the first week of school tell a classmate he didn't like reading.  This little guy is below level in his reading, not a ton, but enough where it's difficult for him to keep up with most of his peers.  So,  I instantly got to work thinking of turning this little guy not just into a successful 2nd grade reader but one that would LOVE reading by the end of the year!  

One of the things I did instead of fighting, coercising and cajoling him about his one and only book series choice, was I applauded it.  I created a basket in our classroom library of every Mo Willems book I could find and whispered to my friend that he inspired me to add that basket to our already overflowing classroom library.  His face just beamed.  

Now, instead of reading just Piggie and Gerald, he has broadened out and has read everything else that Mo Willems has written.  The next Scholastic book order that rolled around, I ordered Mo's latest and told my friend that I am always thinking about my readers and wanting to get books that they like for our classroom library.  You should have seen how proud he looked as I said this in front of all of his classmates.  

Now many of you may think, gosh is he only going to read Piggie and Gerald books?  The answer is no.  As I continued to get to know him as a reader, I found out that he loved sports, particularly baseball.  Sure enough if on the next book order I found a simple biography on Jackie Robinson.  It was the next book that I saw in his hands. 

A more overall example of student choice is our 100 book challenge. Our school no longer uses Accelerated Reader (AR). Insert happy dance emojis right here folks. I'm sorry if you are a huge fan but AR is not something I was looking forward to as I moved up to 2nd grade this year. This post is not about bashing AR so I'm not going to camp out on that subject. All I'm going to say is that I was not going to buy into the whole penalizing students for not meeting their "AR goal" fiasco that often happens at schools. Talk about a way to make struggling readers hate reading. Talk about a way to not make reading meaningful to the reader! I will NEVER make reading have negative consequences. Ever. Reading is fun. Engaging. Inspiring. Takes you on a journey without ever leaving your seat. It's magical. Not to mention that the latest research shows that 90 percentage of the comprehension questions on the AR tests are on the two lowest levels of Bloom's Taxonomy : Remember and Understand. Where are the higher levels of critical thinking: Analyzing, Synesthizing, Evaluating and Creating??? Aagghh. Someone help me off the edge!!   Getting off track here. Sorry. That is another post for another day! 

Back to our 100 book challenge. One way to inspire students to read was through the 100 book Challenge. It's all student choice, which I love, but it needed a few parameters. So what I did was put a few "guidelines" in place. With each page of 25, they have to read chapter books and non fiction books . It looks something like this:

First 25: 1 chapter book , 2 non-fiction

Second 25: 2 chapter books, 4 non-fiction

Third 25: 3 chapter books, 6 non-fiction

Fourth 25: 4 chapter books, 8 non-fiction

Students still have choice throughout but I want to make sure they are reading longer texts and different genres. Now here's the problem that I encountered early on, how to check comprehension. Are they just skimming through the books and logging them in or are they really understanding the text? Up front, I'm going to say that I have not figured all this out but what I have done is working (ish) for now! :D I've started to do readers response in their interactive readers notebook. I write to my students and we dialogue back and forth. It's s great way, albeit time-consuming way, to check comprehension.

As they complete each sheet of 25, I pick one or two books from that sheet and ask them comprehension questions. They absolutely LOVE this authentic, personalized correspondence between the two of us. Connecting reading and writing.  Love it, so much. I wish I could spend all day just writing back and forth but to make it meaningful it just takes time, which as busy, busy teachers we don't have.

So these are just a few ways that I focus on student choice to engage readers. What do you do in your classroom? I'd love to hear!