The past fews weeks in science, we have begun learning about matter! Matter is one of my favorite units… okay, let’s be honest, everything about science is my favorite! We are learning about solids, liquids, and gases, properties of matter, and how you can build different objects from the same pieces! We worked with Legos and blocks last week to create tools (objects with purposes) using the same materials and plans. My favorite lesson coming up with when we make Oobleck (or 3 Little Pig Houses, which we got lots of school compliments on last year)!

Here’s the bundles we use for our science unit on matter:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/2nd-Grade-NGSS-Bundle-of-all-standards-1259654

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/All-About-Matter-Aligns-with-NGSS-2-PS1-1234-and-K-2-ETS1-1-2-science-799909

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/2-PS1-Matter-and-Its-Interactions-Its-a-Matter-of-Investigation-1343231

Also, I hope all my fellow teachers enjoyed their breaks! If you celebrate the holidays, here’s a picture from my trip to Harbor Springs. 4 more weeks! We can make it!

I believe having little “rules” lends itself to creativity in the classroom. In our classroom, the rules that do exist, the students helped create. It’s important the students are involved in the process so that they understand the rules and have accountability. Besides the three school rules of being safe, respectful, and responsible, our classroom rules include not being allowed to say “I Can’t” without a yet on the end of it, being kind to one another (we have a total positivity classroom), and to pick smart spots for seating. We also have lots of routines and procedures, and a lot of them are student run! I have a student help at the mailboxes to make sure one person goes at a time, I have a line leader, I have pet feeders, I have door holders, lunch bin and library bin managers, electricity managers, paper passers, secretaries, mail monitors who put mail in mailboxes, and equipment managers who move the lunch clips and align the desk at the end of the day. The jobs rotate every 1-2 weeks and students cannot pick the same job twice until everyone has had a chance to do all the jobs. Without students, our classroom wouldn’t function. During SFA, I have students give chips for homework and 100 point answers, and students are in charge of organizing their bins.

I’ve gotten quite a few questions about how my new seating works and how students use the teepee. My students run our classroom.  It’s not my classroom, it’s our classroom, and I just facilitate their learning and step in when an adult is needed to solve a conflict. My students helped create our system with seating. They told the class their ideas, and I helped combine ideas. For seating, they have the seats for at least a week. Within that time frame though, if there is someone who needs to move because it’s not a “Smart Spot”, as we call it in our room, they come to me, and I help switch students. At the beginning or end of the week (still working on when would be the best time), we evaluate how seating is going, and switch. Our first switch will be at the beginning of this week. Stay tuned for how it goes! The teepee right now is being used for a calm down spot for students who need space. During silent reading time, students rotate (I think I will be creating a schedule for it-although there have been no issues yet with them sharing). Schedules rock! I’ve used schedules for book shopping and reading to the class in the past. They are very good at asking each other to share and if they’ve had it before, not to go in the teepee again. They are also very respectful when someone is in the teepee or sad with helping them, asking them if they need anything, and leaving them alone. From the beginning of the year, they have brought each other tissue. They have hugged each other. They have listened to each other, and we have created a very caring environment this year.

I am presenting at a conference in the spring about practicing affection in a culture of slow violence. I’m excited to present, and let me know if you have any ways to bring affection back into the classroom, especially with scripted programs or things that are out of our control that don’t necessarily lend themselves to creating caring environments! As you know we do affirmations, compliment bags, and a kindness catcher, but I’d love to hear other ideas you may have for me to try out in my classroom!

We have also just completed our “We Are Thankful” book for publishing! I haven’t come up with a great title yet, and I am illustrating the cover this weekend to mail out on Monday, but here are a few examples of things we are thankful for:

 

A lot of us were thankful for our family, friends, pets,

homes, and, of course, our school and books! I will be

mailing our manuscript to Student Treasures this week

for publishing!

Today was the day. I worked before PD, during lunch, and after school with my little work elves ( shout out to my loving boyfriend and mom!) to put our classroom together! It’s not completely done. My mom and I went to Ikea after to get 4 mushroom stools and two more tall stools we are putting together tonight, but take a look:

My favorite parts are the hanging picture lights (10ft 20 LED Clip String Lights Christmas Lights for Bedroom Warm White) and the teepee (EasyGo Products Indoor Tee Pee Tent – 6 Foot Tall Classic Indian Play Tent for Kids with Five Wood Poles and Carry Bag – Five-Sided Walls with Door, Window and Floor)! See below for other links. I also got rid of my teacher desk. I replaced it with my rainbow table, which opened up the front of my room. I moved my anchor chart easel to the front of the room and it’s paired with my wooden chair. My best advice for if you’d like to redo your room: Use as much as you can of what you already have. I already owned the white tables, one coffee table, stools, rainbow table, rugs and other things you see in the picture not listed below. Then what you don’t own, shop around for the cheapest/best quality you can find. My bins on tables are from the dollar store, along with my book bins. Add a touch of nature (I have two vases with fake flowers ($5 total for vase and plant from Walmart), nature smelling potpourri (Walmart again), and a fake plant from Ikea. Then make it your own! My classroom now matches my bedroom at home, except the splashes of color and, of course, paint, but that’s work for another day!

List of Materials Used From Amazon 

Ling’s moment 3 Sets 6ft LED Bedroom Fairy Starry String Lights Battery Operated Warm

Gaiam Kids Stay-N-Play Children’s Inflatable Balance Ball Desk Chair With Stability Legs – Flexible Classroom Seating, Lime Green, 45cm

White for Wedding Party Centerpieces Waterproof Decorative Lights Kids Teepee

Zinus Espresso Wood Dining Table / Table Only

DHP Parsons Modern Coffee Table, Dark Espresso

Winsome Wood Toby Coffee Table

Bedside Table Lamp, Aooshine Minimalist Solid Wood Table Lamp Bedside Desk Lamp With Square Flaxen Fabric Shade for Bedroom, Dresser, Living Room, Kids Room, College Dorm, Coffee Table, Bookcase

Ikea (Previously owned/being used in my classroom before the project)

Rugs (back and front), Stools, White Tables, and Coffee Table in Top Picture on the Left, Tent looking thing above my rocking chair (Fun story: That rocker is from when Josh was a baby!)

Target (Previously owned/being used in my classroom before the project)

Crates

One look in my room and you’d see kids up, moving, dancing, and acting, mainly because children are supposed to get 1 hour of unstructured and 1 hour of structured play a day, and some days, without movement in my own room, they would get only 20 minutes total, and we wonder why we have to remind kids to focus a gazillion times a day! One step in my room and you’d hear loud discussions and students learning from mistakes. Learning isn’t all supposed to be boring and mundane. It’s supposed to be fun, especially in second grade! If we want to create life-long learners, then we need to teach them to enjoy learning, not dislike it. This week we are doing a lot of fun things in my classroom. We will be doing pirate treasure hunts, adding movements to stories, and creating posters to save the apes. Soon in science, we will be doing oobleck! (If you don’t know what oobleck is, go and google it RIGHT NOW!) It’s messy, fun, and a solid and a liquid! As a teacher in a decade where we have entire classes of students who all want to be YouTubers (Spoiler Alert: you ALL can’t be YouTubers), I fight daily with getting students attention in new ways or creating engaging lessons for students to make learning fun. My best advice if you struggle with creativity: Practice! The more you create fun lessons, the easier it gets. It takes time. When I create a fun science, math, insert subject here lesson, the thinking part usually starts in the shower, on my way to work, or while I’m straightening my hair getting ready in the morning, which is pretty much the same for every teacher. Take that little glimpse of an idea and work on it. Work on it for a day or two until you have it planned out and then write it down, so you don’t lose it. Then once it’s written down, bounce the idea off another teacher. I have plenty around me that I bounce off daily. It improves my own teaching, and finally, don’t give up! It won’t be perfect the first time. It won’t even be perfect the second time. It may never be perfect, and that’s okay because sometimes it’s better to be a messy, creative human being,  instead of being a perfect one. I struggle with making it fun when students are still refusing to do work, still refusing to enter my classroom, and still not getting along together, after teaching an entire two months worth of lessons from a curriculum called “Getting Along Together”. Some days are rough when multiple of my students try to tell me “No” a million times a day, although I usually just need to give them that “What did you just say to me?” look and they turn it around. Some days that look doesn’t work though. Some days nothing seems to work-specific praise for behaviors the student does right, praising others who are doing the right thing, rewards, clip flips, behavior plans, talking strictly, talking nicely, talking in private, breaks, loss of privileges, phone calls home…you name it, I’ve tried it on those days. My goal is to remember that even if students are challenging me, I can still make it fun for them, because what is it going to hurt? Making it strict and boring and not fun isn’t going to fix anything. It’s going to make it worse. My hope is the more fun I make it, the more upset they’ll be when students are talking about class at lunch or recess, and they weren’t there to enjoy it with us. My hope is then they choose that they want to be in my room and need to learn to be safe and respectful in order to be there. We will see! What are your goals and hopes in your own teaching?

Lastly, my orders are trickling in! My teepee, lights, lamps, 2 tables, and green balls to sit on have come in! I also have plants, stools getting cushions sewn by my talented mom, another table on the way, and pictures developed ready to go! Once my furniture is in (hopefully tomorrow it will mostly be done), my room will be ready for new paint!! Look for my pictures at #tourmystarbucksroom or #flexible seating.

We all know we are preparing children for jobs that don’t even exist yet. We are preparing problem solvers, leaders, and critical thinkers, not doctors, teachers, or mechanics. Yes, those things probably will be around in 20 years, and we will probably still need doctors, teachers, and mechanics, but being a doctor, teacher, or mechanic may look a lot different in the future than it does today. How do we do this? I’d love to hear your ideas below, but I can tell you how we do this in my classroom. We work in teams (not groups, but teams) to learn how to work well with others, we use technology like Google Expedition or Flip Grid to peak curiosity and learn how to create questions and explore, and we persevere with growth mindsets because we will always need to grow, change, and adapt to new challenges throughout our lives. For growth mindsets, we read The Dot on Dot Day (next year it’s on September 15, so mark your calendars) and do the activities found at https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Growth-Mindset-The-Dot-Activity-Packet-2499170. For team work, we have roles and questions to answer while earning team points. I did not create the four corners talk map. I’m not sure who did. It was given to me a conference from a friend. If you know who created it, I’d love to give them credit! We also wear crowns sometimes (checkout the picture below) because not only should we be learning how to have growth mindsets and be leaders, but we should be doing it in a fun way!

This week we were also leaders. We put on our leader crowns because in other countries leaders wear crowns and completed our work. We also called them our thinking caps to help us on our quarterly testing.