Hello, friends!
Happy three day weekend!!!
Unfortunately, though, this will only be useful if...
1) you use Storytown as a resource in your Reading instruction AND
2) you teach second grade.
I thought I'd share with you anyway, because I think my products are only getting better with age... my age, of course... I mean experience. Anyway, I'm proud of it... reading response sheets focusing on the character standard RL.2.3. Check it out, if you are interested!
Also, so that this is not just a shameless post promoting myself, I wanted to share a couple of really neat posts that distracted me on the way to writing this post.
Laura, from A Grace-Filled Classroom, shared some great ideas for developing positive relationships with parents. This is SO critical to a great year, especially with those tough kiddos. (She even posted a temporary freebie that I know you will LOVE. I did!) This is something that I can always work to improve on in my classroom. I think I'm even going to put kids names on their "postcards" in advance so I make sure I'm not always sending them home with the same kiddos.
Marcy, from Saddle Up for Second Grade, wrote a great post about preparing for new students. I have learned over my 8 years that sometimes they just show up before you've had a moment to prepare for them. I love Marcy's idea. In my classroom, I have an extra cubby where I have a couple of book boxes with everything a new student will need: textbooks, journals, communication folder, etc. I also have a little Sterilite drawer dedicated to new students. It's filled with extra clips for the clip chart and extra labels I've used on folders and journals. Being prepared helps me not feel like a chicken with her head cut off, buzzing around the room to get this or that.
Thanks for reading, and you should definitely pop over to
those wonderful blogs to read what they had to say.
Enjoy the rest of your long weekend!
Hope it's not completely filled by school,
