Happy International Day of Happiness!

"The pursuit of happiness is serious business." - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
 
I couldn't agree more with you, Ban (can I call you Ban?) and the United Nations, that HAPPINESS is serious bidness.  March 20th, officially deemed International Happiness Day by the United Nations, is a day that recognizes "the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings around the world".  This is a holiday I can really get behind (see also: International Donut Day).  Everyone deserves to be happy!
 
To celebrate International Day of Happiness, or World Happiness Day, you can share a song that makes you happy on "The Worlds Happiest Playlist" by going to www.happysoundslike.com. I'm listening to the stream now and it is GOOD.

I'm very grateful that I have so many things to feel good about. Here's a list of 10 things that make me HAPPY.

1. My dog's tired face
2. The sound of my 3 year-old daughter's voice!
3. Fresh sheets
4. An ice cold can of Coca Cola (extra points if it induces brain freeze!)
5. Having enough things to be happy about to make a list
6. Publix ♥
7. Getting snail mail
8. My son's newborn smile (it may just be gas but who cares) 
9. My husband's special brand of humor
10. fuzzy socks

11. (Because #5 was kinda a freebie) Palm trees with Christmas lights 

It's good, right?

What makes you happy?

The Homework Club {FREEBIE}

I had the greatest group of kids my first year teaching. I will always have super fond memories of them and my first year as a 2nd grade teacher. They were a sweet group and I wanted to reward them whenever I could. Sweet yes. Inclined to return homework? Not so much.  I wanted a system that would motivate them to do it; not because I think homework is the most important thing on earth but I do think it's an important lesson in self-discipline. It's hard to go home after a long day at school and do more school work. Especially for some of my kids that didn't have a support system at home. My dream was for them to take charge of their learning and do their best even without expectations from parents to succeed. I found the idea of the Homework Club on Pinterest and ran with it. My students responded really well to it and homework was actually getting turned in for many more days out of the month than before (more on that later). 

Enjoying our monthly Homework Club Lunch!

If students turned both their math and reading homework in everyday that month they got to be in The Homework Club, which ultimately meant they got to eat lunch on the rug, in the classroom with me, and have doughnuts while we watched free television on YouTube. Obviously awesome.

 

As you can see from the picture above, there were only two homework club members in attendance that month BUT 2 out of 16 kids ain't bad when you look at it in the grand scheme of things: the HW Club motivated my most unmotivated students to complete and return more homework than usual. I was also super strict about completely BOTH math and reading. If they only turned in one, I still booted them. Tough love! 

Last year I used magnets to keep track of my students by their numbers. If they didn't return HW, I simply removed their magnet from the whiteboard. I created a new system for the HW Club that I plan to use next school year (since I'm on maternity leave and can't implement it now!). I've added it as a FREEBIE in my TpT shop. Check it out HERE. 

 

I decided to add a few new elements to my HW Club for next year when I return... homework passes, numbers and a sign to use in a pocket chart (instead of magnets), certificates, and a cute ticket to give students that are in the club at the end of the month. The ticket gives them access to the Homework Club Lunch. I want to laminate those so I can reuse all year!  

 

Do you use incentives for Homework? 

Finding Evidence in Reading Passages

This school year is over for me and it's only February! Being home on maternity leave has given me the opportunity to keep my 3 1/2 year old daughter, who's been in preschool since she was 2, home with me and the newest little one.  Since my leave backs up into summer we will have a good amount of time altogether. Some have called me crazy but so far so good on the newborn/preschooler front. (And I get my teaching fix working with my little girl on her sight words, seasons, handwriting, math, etc, etc.)

I did however make the mistake of sending her to school for one day before deciding to keep her home with us and boom! she (and I) caught a cold. Nothing new to a #teachermom amirite?! Having a newborn and a cold is a new plot twist though. Imsotiredhelpme   

Being on maternity leave has also given me a head start on thinking about what I want my classroom and curriculum to be like next year.  Okay, obsessing over what I want my classroom and curriculum to be like next year. I have created a new word wall (and word wall activities), and homework club printables.

I love my purple ombre word wall!

Something I did find pretty effective this year compared to my first was using more passages for students' independent work instead of a book from their book baggies.  I still made sure they had plenty of access and time to delve into Diary of a Wimpy kid for the 42nd time, but these days, kids really need exposure to articles and passages. They need to search the text, reread, site evidence... and all the other testing buzz words we're sick of hearing. Sad but true, these babies need to be comfortable with the fact that you aren't always reading for enjoyment. You won't always be reading content that you're interested in. Sometimes you're reading just for the straight up knowledge. 

Don't get me wrong. Reading for enjoyment is what I hope all of students are doing at school and at home! I love the idea of Flashlight Friday for reading time, buddy reading in the classroom library, and of kids building memories with books. {I will always remember and love Sideways Stories from Wayside School!} The reality is though, that they also need to be comfortable with printed articles and passages. But hey, finding evidence is passages can be fun too right? Right? ... RIGHT? Anyone? *this is when you desperately bust out the highlighters, glitter pens, colored pencils, and balloon animals for students to underline their answers in the article*

 

At my school, my amazing team and I have created all of our unit tests for reading. This gave me pretty great practice with creating relevant (to common core) and rigorous test questions. The kind a student might see on a standardized test (ew). I wrote ten passages with text-dependent questions to use in my small groups, as assessments for standards, and as test prep in my own classroom. If you're looking to build your students' reading response skills this resource might be helpful for you too. Check out the bundle HERE or by clicking the picture below.  Four FREE passages are available in the preview.

 

Do you use reading passages in your room or mostly books?