Top 10 Things I've Learned as an INB Newbie!

The creators of some INB (I’m saying some not all because obviously I’m only using a few) packs do not necessarily care about saving paper…which results in you feeling guilty, which results in you spending lots of time shrinking, cutting, and taping to create new paper-friendly originals. Seriously.

Up Side: All my originals are ready for next year...unless I change packs or something crazy like that.

Also, INB activities can be created for both spiral bound and composition notebooks. If it doesn’t tell you which in the description, ask and if the answer isn’t what you’re looking for CLICK AWAY from that page immediately before you fall in love with it! Or you could be spending a ton of time reducing originals to fit in your composition notebooks.

Up Side: All my originals are ready for next year...unless I change packs or something crazy like that.

The cutesy covers that come in the packs will not stick to the cover and you will spend time taping them on with packaging tape. Besides some kids will be sad you’re covering up their cutesy composition book anyway.

Solution: Next year I plan to just write Math, Reading, and Science/Social Studies in sharpie. Forget the covers.

Composition books are not all the same. Pictures are from the K-2 Science Bundled INB Set from Primary Graffiti—which is not the ones I am talking about above with wasting paper and not fitting my composition notebooks. Hers have truly been print and go! THANK YOU!

WORST--flimsy and not as many pages!

BETTER - Sturdy, but still not as many pages. Notice the cutesy cover we covered up. :-(

BEST (and cheapest I believe)--sturdy and the most pages!

Solution: Use some of my classroom budget and buy them. Not sure I will do this, but it would help with a couple of things. I could get the ones I wanted AND I could do some prep work in them before they kiddos actually show up to school.

Too many INB activities in the first weeks of school result in a lot of cutting and gluing and not a lot of interacting.

Solution: SLOW DOWN next year and not plan as many INB activities for the first of the year.

Second graders writing in the Table of Contents is just something I don’t have time for.

Solution: My para suggested I just type it up, print it, and glue it in. Problem solved.

With no incentive to be quick, the cutting and gluing can take FOREVER.

Solution: Team points! My kids are seated in color teams. When I make it a competition with points at stake, suddenly everyone gets faster. Imagine!

Coloring should be last after all directions have been followed to encourage being speedy.

Up Side: Lesson learned for next year!

Storing the notebooks presents a challenge of its own.

Solution: Add a tub to my team shelves and each team can put all their notebooks in it for easy access. Not quite there yet because I need to go buy the tubs, but that is the plan.

All numbers from Graphics from the Pond.

Interactive notebooks truly are engaging and the students absolutely love them!

As I look around the room when they are doing an activity, all students are engaged--even if it is a facts page in the math notebook. There is just something about it that makes it much more exciting than a worksheet. 

And that makes all my work and time worth it! :-)

Daily 5 Progress and Math Rotations - Five for Friday!

Happy Friday! 

I tell you with Labor Day off this week, I had my days all messed up and strangely it seemed like a longer week than normal. Short weeks are always like that for me though!

So here's what we've been up to in 2nd grade:

We went over Check for Understanding again before we started practicing Read to Someone. We only have one thing left for next week - Listen to Reading. 

These kids are rocking out the Daily 5! Don't hate me, but we were doing 15 minutes of Read to Self the 2nd day!!! Thank you, dear first grade teacher! :-)

Today I even tried some math rotations...

This is group is playing our I Have...Who Has...? Time to the Hour and Half-Hour game. It is our all-time best seller and I can understand why--great for 1st grade and the beginning of 2nd grade! :-) Also available in our Telling Time Mega Pack. 

This group is working in their Interactive Notebooks. They are loving these things and so am I! The students are so engaged--all of them and all the time. These pages come from the math INB pack I'm working on, but I'm kid-testing (and teacher-testing) it before I list it. :-)

This group is working with pattern blocks. First they had to cover some shapes on a paper from Saxon and then I let them explore (play) the rest of the time.

These two are practicing one of the card games from Dealing with Math Homework. I have had a great response on what I'm calling STAR Homework (idea from Amanda Madden). I've adapted it a bit for me, but the kids and their parents are loving playing these math games and the new style of homework in general.

Don't forget to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

Have a restful weekend!

A Triple Scoop of Second Grade (with freebies)!

Who doesn't love ice cream? Especially a triple scoop! Hee hee...

Some of my second grade bloggy friends and I have a "treat" for you today, and it is going to be "sweet!" 

Each blogger is highlighting three of their favorite activities they use in their classrooms.

My first scoop is a FREEBIE! You will definitely want to snatch it up if you use math timed tests or a similar fact practice in your room. 

Last year was my first year using sticker charts to let the kids track their progress, and they loved it! I made these this summer so I could see at a glance which facts the kids were working on (without having to check my records). There are charts for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division!

You can read more about how I use the sticker charts here.

Click the picture to snag this freebie!

For the next scoop, I'm highlighting our Second Grade Super Sight Words Pack. 

I use my sight word packs (and yes, I use more than second grade--either the lower levels for my lower readers or the third grade pack to challenge my higher readers) in a couple different ways. 

First I use the checklist included and test the kiddos. If they don't know the words in a snap (about 3 seconds or less), the word card goes on a ring in a baggie with their name. Students practice these words with me or a para every few days (ideally!).

The checklists are then placed in what I call fluency folders. You can read more about those here.

The words they struggled with are then checked each week to see if they are mastered. If so, they come out of the baggie.

The word work pages make great handwriting practice! 

We also like to play the games included in the pack--I Have...Who Has...? and Bang! :-)

While I think these packs are a steal at $5.00 (our I Have...Who Has...? games are $2.00 each by themselves), I decided to give you an even better deal on them during the blog hop. 

All our sight word packs will be marked down to $3.00 for this weekend only!

And if you decide to purchase a pack AND leave feedback, I'll send you a freebie from our store.

To get your freebie, you will need to:

1. Purchase a sight word pack.

2. Leave feedback.

3. Come back over here e-mail me (use the icon in the upper right corner) with your TPT user name.

4. Wait for your surprise freebie! :-)

The third scoop comes from Bex at Reading and Writing Redhead. I was so excited when I found this product, let me tell you! I've mentioned that I (okay, my son and daughter) have been hard at work on making samples of the Interactive Notebooks that I had purchased. I really wanted a 'complete' notebook for reading and language arts. The one I purchased was just for reading, so I was scrambling to find some things for grammar. Then I saw this from Bex...yes, please!

Click the picture to check it out in her store!

I got this thinking it would be exactly what I needed for the grammar part of my notebook--and it was. But I didn't realize the writing lessons/pages would be my favorite part of the pack! They are amazing! 

Check out a few pages I've already done in my notebook:

The pack starts with Lesson One: Nouns, but you can see I jumped right into sentences (because that is where I start in my reading series). I just know my kiddos are going to love this!

Here's a couple pictures of more pages (including some of the awesome writing ones):

If you're in the market for a complete language arts notebook, you will not be disappointed with this one from Bex!

Thanks for stopping by for a triple scoop! Don't forget to check out all the other bloggers to see more great activities geared toward 2nd grade!

An InLinkz Link-up

Five for Friday - Again? Say what?

Okay, folks, the countdown is really on for me.

Two weeks of summer vacation left!

I have been busy working on the music room (ugh), sprucing up our TPT and TN stores, getting my kiddos to work on sample interactive notebooks, finishing my math interactive notebook, and writing about the armour of God (my latest chapter in the devotion book I'm working on).

Whew! I'm getting tired just reading all that...

Anyway, because of all that craziness, I actually do have Five for Friday pictures again!

These scrappy numbers are actually a freebie from Graphics from the Pond that I stumbled on yesterday. Be sure to check them out!

The dreadful music room. Take a look at what I'm up against:

Now see my progress:

My wonderful mom made the zebra curtains for me. As of right now, all the primary colored shelving has been painted black. You can't see it in this picture, but there is a wall of cabinets (with doors). I'm painting the doors with black chalkboard paint! Should be fun and cute to decorate. As for the pile in the middle of the floor...ugh!

 I know I brag on them a lot, but I really do have the best kids in the world (okay, in my world?)! Anyway, here they are helping put together my reading and science interactive notebooks.

So maybe he is eating kiwi, but he really has been hard at work on the science notebook!

In case you're wondering, here's the notebooks I'm using:

Bundled Interactive Science Journals by Primary Graffiti

(LOVE THESE!)

Reading Interactive Notebook by Nicole Selby

(Love it, but I am adding things to it so it will be more like a complete ELA notebook if that makes sense.)

The math one I am actually making and I'm not done yet! Ack!

I'll admit, I wasn't really sold when I was reading so many of the tips for your TPT and TN store about attractive cover pages. Why? Because I'm not a "cutesy" person. I want functional. I'm all for simple. However, as I started working on updating some of our products, I can whole-heartedly admit that the updated products are definitely more eye-catching. I've also added two new products:

We've had people asking us to bundle games for awhile. Here's my first one--finally!

This is more of a time-saver, sanity-saver for me. People were loving this idea on my focus wall and would e-mail me about an editable file. I would e-mail it to them (after they purchased the other one) so I finally decided I should just list the thing! Woohoo!

I won't bore you with the details, but I got a problem with our Facebook fan page fixed (thanks Angela!).

Speaking of that fan page? Have you liked it yet? We are at 1,848 likes. Sure would like to hit 2,000! Click here to visit our page.

And finally, a food picture. Yes, I truly took this picture and posted it to facebook the night I made it! I don't think I am going to be a food photographer or anything, but this was so good!

Cauliflour used as "rice." Oh, the possibilities!

In this case, I substituted it for spaghetti noodles. I made both for the family. My son picked the cauliflour over the noodles right away. Hubby and daughter each tried it and liked it (after already having their noodles).

I saw it on Food Network Star...we usually follow the show, but missed most of it this year so I don't even know the guy who made it. Sorry!

Head on over to Doodle Bugs and link up.

Oh, and come back on Sunday for chapter eight of Guided Math in Action! It's about centers...my least favorite thing. ;-)