Thankful Linky

I'm joining other TpT authors to share what I'm thankful for. I write things I'm grateful for each morning in my journal and they range from the big stuff like family & health, to the small things like a cup of coffee or a beautiful sunrise. Today I'm sharing what I'm thankful for most, including how TpT has changed my life.

 First off, I'm so thankful for my job! I am so fortunate to work in a great school with amazing kids, families, colleagues and admin. I love working with kids and know what a difference I'm making. The kids are the #1 reason I do what I do. They are so funny and sweet and even on the worst days, I have the best job!

 TpT has really changed my life. I'm not rolling in the big $$ or anything, but it has made it easier to do things for my kids that used to be a struggle. Now I don't worry about buying them new cleats or if we can afford their out of state tournaments. It has also provided me with resources that have made me a much better teacher. I also cherish the friendships I've made and the opportunities to meet amazing educators from across the globe.

I've also been blessed to be able to travel, which is one of my favorite things to do! We've been able to take amazing family vacations to some really great places. These are the memories that I will always cherish.

Last, but not least, I'm so grateful to my family. These people support me, listen to me talk incessantly about my job, encourage me to follow my dreams and celebrate my accomplishments (no matter how small). These people have shaped me and I love them all!

November (already??) Currently

My oh my! November is here and that means holidays. Holidays mean family. Family means cooking, eating, shopping, hugging, arguing, playing games, enjoying each other, and time together.
Before all the crazy begins and I start the countdown, I'm joining Farley for her November Currently linky.

 Listening: the house is empty except me and my little old dog, Scruffy. I think he's napping in the sunshine. That darn dryer has been running all day and kinda all weekend as I get caught up on laundry. Many people hate doing laundry but I don't mind. It makes everything all cozy and clean smelling.

Loving: I was inspired to create some new task cards for our school's Star Wars themed math night and since I put so much work into them, I might as well put them on TpT. I've uploaded one set so far (click the pic to get it):

The rest will probably be uploaded tonight or tomorrow. I made double and triple digit addition and subtraction, time, money, base ten blocks, and expanded form. Judging by their Halloween costumes this year, I think the kids are going to love them!
Thinking: My hubs has an amazing opportunity within his current job to do some traveling to Denver. He leaves tomorrow for 4 days and I think I'm going to miss the heck out of him. 
Wanting: I talked to my daughter today, who is away at college and she has her first bad cold away from home. To top it all off, she's traveling this weekend with her soccer team. It must be the pits being away from all the comforts of home and being sick on top of it all.
Needing: I seriously need to leave like any minute now....hoping I score another goal like last weekend! It's my turn to bring the after game beer so who even cares how we play???
Yummy: I am seriously in love with Starbuck's Salted Caramel Mocha (easy mocha, extra salt) and I'm sad that it will be going away shortly. I need to figure out how to make it!!! 
Thanks for stopping by my blog today! I hope you have a fantastic November and that your holiday season is full of love, food, happiness, and fun.

Global Glitter Tribe October Linky

Trying to find time to blog during soccer season is like trying to nail Jello to a tree! Needless to say, it's almost the end of October and I'm finally getting around to linking up with the Glitterati on the Global Glitter Tribe's blog. Get on over there and link up too! Keep reading for lots of goodies and even a FREEBIE!

It's easy to link up, just grab the template, add in your answers and then plop it into your blog. Don't forget to link back to the Global Glitter Tribe Blog.

Here's mine:

Totally Inspirational:

I've started learning more about Growth Mindset and I'm totally intrigued by what it can do for students. The other day during our Number of the Day discussion, a student made a mistake in the equation she was presenting. She felt a little embarrassed but I made sure to heap on the praise because she was able to recognize her mistake and correct it. I told the class how I just saw her brain grow double and she just beamed! Immediately I saw more students take risks in their mathematical thinking with just that one comment I made. I found this awesome bulletin board (sorry about pic quality) on Pinterest that makes so much sense! I'm thinking about how to adapt it for my 2nd graders.

Responsiveness:
Normally I've always led the Number of the Day discussions in my class. This year I decided to shake things up a bit after the first two months. I let students come up and write their work on the board and lead a discussion about their thinking. I have discussion question prompts on the wall they can use if needed, but I really love when they challenge each other. My favorite is when they say, "Prove it!" and the leader can actually explain their thinking to the class. They also started asking the other students who agrees with the leader. The kids started having the most amazing discussions! It was painful and awkward at first, but their discussions have really started blossoming. Here are the questions I have posted on my wall. I got them from Guided Math in Action and made them into posters. Read more about the questions from this post and click the pic to download them for free.

Igniting Passionate Readers:
Even though I just teach math, I still have a substantial classroom library. Fast finishers can always grab a book to read for a few minutes. Plus, my homeroom students get to go book "shopping" each week for books to keep in their book bags to take to literacy class.

This is the fiction side, which makes up half the library.

What really gets kids excited about reading is when I unveil my new monthly theme bookshelf. Each month is a different theme such as holidays, science topics they're studying with their science teacher or special authors. These books are always the most popular because they're only around for a limited time. It creates a hype about reading that is contagious! Here's my October selection:

Bridging the Gap:
Since I teach math all day, I get to really hone in on the math skills my students are struggling with or doing well with. One way to bridge the gap is to meet with my students in a small group each day. Meanwhile, the other students are engaged in math stations. I like to differentiate my stations by having different levels for students. An easy way to do that is to assign certain tasks to certain students. They are just as fun as the other stations, and often look almost the same, but may have smaller numbers to work with or more basic skills (or review). One example is my Batty for Telling Time leveled task cards, which include three levels. You can also mix these cards up for a fun Scoot Activity or Quiz Quiz Trade. It's a bargain at only $3!

Enjoying My Time:
Who doesn't love binge-watching your favorite shows on Netflix? I've recently finished watching Orange is the New Black and Sons of Anarchy and stumbled across Bones, an old show I never got into until now. What I love about Netflix is that I don't have to watch commercials or even fast forward them. I watch while I iron and fold laundry on Sundays and it makes the task much more enjoyable!

Dried Up Glue Stick Solution: So Simple!

I love using interactive notebooks BUT I hate the whole glue situation! Bottle glue is just not something the kids can use neatly. I don't even want it in my classroom! I usually confiscate it and use it for glue sponges later in the year (when we run out of glue sticks).

That means we're using glue sticks at the moment. Last year I got so aggravated when I'd find a perfectly good (or used to be) glue stick without a cap! Somehow that cap could not be found no matter how big of a hissy fit I'd have. 

Eventually I smartened up and started this little beauty with two items I already had in my room: zip top baggie and a magnet.

The first several times I threw away a glue stick that was used up, I simply kept the cap in the bag. Now I have a stash for those moments when those little darlings "lose" their caps. It sure has kept me from losing my mind! 

October Currently

I am so beyond glad it's Friday people! This week was crazy! The kids were great but my mountain of tasks avalanched right around Tuesday and I've been digging out ever since. Anyway, this morning I realized I forgot all about my favorite linky!!! I jumped out of bed (not really) and tied up my hair in a messy bun, threw on jeans and a school t-shirt and ran (again, not really) to my laptop to get on board with Farley and her fab Currently linky.

Listening: I just love listening to the Bobby Bones show every morning. It is just so full of happy/goodness/positivity and life affirming awesomeness. Plus I love country music.

Loving: Like I said above...

Thinking: This week was the kind of week that I just couldn't catch up. I decided to put each task on a mini sticky note with the due date and arrange them on my usual hand written weekly to do list. It worked great because I got to triumphantly throw away the stickies of items I finished and move stickies around as other, more pressing, tasks came up.

Wanting: My baby is a college girl now and I got to talk with her on the phone last night while her team was traveling to Denver on the bus. She sounds so great but it made me want to drive to Denver just to get a big ol' hug from her. I miss her like crazy...

Needing: Fall break is next Thursday and Friday and I seriously CAN NOT WAIT!! Thursday I have a lasik consultation and Friday I get to do whatever I want!! I've got some great ideas for new products swirling around in my head. The inspiration is there, just not the time.

Boo-tiful: Of course the most boo-tiful things in my world are my girls. Can you tell I'm a proud mama?

Take a Second to Peek into 2nd

A bunch of us 2nd grade teachers are teaming up to feature different 2nd grade teacher bloggers each month. It's our way of expanding our 2nd grade tribe! Check it out!

 Meet Lisa! She's our featured 2nd grade blogger this month. She is the blogger behind Second Grade Stories (a treasure trove of great information) and is also a seller on TpT. You should definitely visit her store also called Second Grade Stories, which is full of amazing nonfiction mini units, holiday and literacy activities.

Lisa's adorable Squirrel-Nonfiction Mini Unit is on sale right now for $1 off!  It's over 60 pages of great resources and materials that will keep your students engaged for sure! The price is NUTS (sorry, I couldn't resist) for what you'll be getting! 

Global Glitter Tribe Monthly Linky

Oh. My. Goodness. It has been a week from I don't know where, but I'm glad its O-V-E-R! Even though I'm exhausted, I am also bubbling with excitement inside because I have been asked to be on the Global Glitter Tribe Blog!!!

ALSO, we are doing a monthly linky, which I'm excited about because I haven't blogged in a little while. Ok, a looooong while. But I'm BACK! Want to join up? You know you do! It's easy!

To Participate:

1. Save the image below

2. Open it in PPT or some other image editing software and type or add pictures of your responses

3. Blog about it on your blog

4. Share the Global Glitter Logo and link back to the original post from us

5. Add your link to the InLinkz linkup at the end of the post!

Here's what I did:

Lesson I loved: I had so much fun teaching even and odd numbers this week. On the first day, I made a few kids stand up, we counted them and then I asked them to partner up with someone also standing. We made a big deal about how sometimes someone doesn't have a dance partner, so that is an odd number. After doing this with several numbers, one kid said, "Mrs. Palmer, why don't you be his partner so he doesn't have to dance alone?", and of course I said I would be his partner and started to go towards him dancing. He ran back to his seat and said, "It's ok, I don't need a dance partner!". I always love to read in math class too, so I read Even Steven and Odd Todd.

One issue I'm passionate about: The teacher evaluation system in my state is a joke. It's only 2 years old and already our union is suing our Public Ed Dept because there were so many mistakes in data that impacted teachers' ratings. It was as if our Governor looked at all the failing systems in the country and picked the worst one to implement with us. I could go on and on, but basically 50% of our eval is based on this crazy mathematical equation that not a single person understands that takes test scores (from the previous year) and somehow makes them into a rating. Also, we get penalized for using more than 4 of our 10 sick days a year. Not cool.

Back to School Must Have: obviously

Activity to Share: Since the 2nd week of school I have been doing Number Talks/Number of the Day with my students and I am amazed at the rise in level of mathematical thinking coming out of their brains! After doing a little modeling, they really have been challenging themselves to come up with ways to impress me. Of course, it helps that when someone does impress me, I write a note home to their parents! Since then, I have kids decomposing numbers like pros, counting on and back, doing multi-step equations, and even using multiplication concepts AND being able to prove that their ways to show the number of the day work. They're using vocabulary, demonstrating with confidence, having discussions and fixing their mistakes. These are 2nd graders!!!! They blow my mind daily! They love number talks so much, that they BEG to do more! I use a simple bubble map that I laminated for reuse. 

Little Known Fact: Yes, I have met President Obama! It was before he became President and had come to New Mexico for a rally. My hubs knew a secret service agent, who got me in the front row! After his speech, he came down and shook our hands. I was too nervous to remember to take a picture, but I have a witness!  

Click on the button to take you back to the link up!