Growth Mindset Unit

So, this was my first year of really focusing on Growth Mindset, as a unit of study... I just kind of pieced things together for my unit. Here are a few things I did through the 2 weeks....

These are the books I used for that week...

We always make a folder for our "unit" study. I usually have a cute picture they color or create to put under the title card, but I forgot to take a picture after that...

We started with Giraffes Can't Dance. I love that book!

Then we made a list of things we can't do YET as a class... They wrote about what they LOVE to do, but what they can't do yet...

I found this cute idea HERE  and the cute giraffe parts HERE. 

We also read the books Ish and Dot... and talked about how there's no such thing as perfect!! And sometimes mistakes can turn into great things.

We made super cute ISH paintings and hung them in our "Ish Gallery."  (great vocabulary practice!)

I just love them! I never want to take them down. lol 

Somewhere in there, I had them decorate their "can" word any way they wanted, and pick a color to have as the background. 

We read "The Girl Who Never Makes Mistakes" ...and I did this cute activity from Cara. 

We made our T-Chart comparing Fixed Mindset to Growth Mindset dialogue.

We made these flap posters, where they colored their brain and then wrote 1 or 2 examples of dialogue for each side. 

Then, to wind up the unit, we did a fun little dialogue activity.

 

They picked their favorite quite from the Growth Mindset column to put in the speech bubble, then we practiced writing with quotation marks.  They always love getting their picture taken, and when I make them pose all silly for the activity, they are highly amused. haha

Since this was my first year doing it, there was a lot of note taking of on things I want to change or add next year... but I'm really glad I added this into my beginning of year plans. It took longer than I thought it would (2 weeks, actually), but hopefully that just means it'll stick longer, right?!

You can download some of these activities on this post HERE.

This post contains affiliate links for Amazon. By purchasing an item on the Amazon site using these links, I will receive a small commission on your purchase.

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First 2 Days of 2nd Grade

Well, I'm back in 2nd grade...and it feels so good!!  I'm not going to lie, I have missed it so. 

This year, we only had 2 days for back to school type of stuff. I wish we would have had at least 3, but I still got some fun stuff in there!

Here are some of the books I read this week...

I'll show you some of the activities I did for these books. 

We started our first day with a SUPER cute book You're Finally Here. 

(this book is SUPER expensive on Amazon right now, but try Amazon Canada!)

I love doing this activity from Linda Kamp's pack - it was so cute!

Bucket Filler for Kids

I found this poster on Pinterest, but there was no source, so I don't know whose idea this was originally, but it's super cute. I just remade it on chart paper and laminated it for future use. 

Then we did the Bucket Filler from Amy Lemons and Erica Boher. (the strips come from Erica)

We also read The Invisible Boy (this book is SO CUTE) and David Goes to School.

This is one of my favorite activities to do for David Goes to School.

We did a few activities from Rooted in Reading for The Invisible Boy, but the only one I took a picture of was our Class Pledge...which is actually different from what is in the packet, but instead we just used it for our "Rules for the Class."

We read Listen, Buddy and did this anchor chart together.  Then we did some fun activities from Angela (freebie in her TPT store). 

Also, within the first week, I like to take their pictures. I do a few different pictures... one with a first week sign, one with just a regular smile, and one with them doing whatever pose -this goes on the wall around our welcome board outside our room.

 (I always do a first week one, instead of a first day one... because, like this year, I didn't take the pictures on the first day. lol)

I take these pictures and I put them in their Memory Books.  I forgot to take pictures of them working on them this week, but I'll be sure to show you how we're storing them for the year next week. 

With only 2 days, we didn't get to do a lot, more will come next week!

You can see what I've also done in my first few days of 1st Grade HERE. 

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Classroom Reveal 2017-18

It's the LAST one in my Motivation Monday series!! I'm a week late on it, but that's because my room wasn't quite set up yet AND I was getting ready for Meet the Teacher....

Here are the other posts you can check out from this series...

Week 1: Classroom Library

Week 2: Managing Centers

Week 3: Word Walls

Week 4: Daily Schedules

Week 5: Morning Routine

Week 6 - EEK! I don't have!?

Week 7: Homework

So here is my classroom reveal for this year....

I actually haven't done one in a few years, for various reasons, but you can see my last one HERE. 

I'm going to be honest with you here, my friends.

This is nothing special. There might be a few new things for you to see, but it's just a plain ole room.  I am a mom of 3. I have a social life (the beach, mainly - ha!)... and I'm really not that creative when it comes to decorating... might be why my house still isn't finished, 6 years later. ha!!

Also - I have a lot of areas that I'm just not sure of yet. It's so hard to complete a room that you haven't used to know if you'll be able to "carry out" your plan of usage, right? 

***update...after the FIRST day, I already rearranged and made some changes. haha. The spacial aspect was just not working for me!***

BUT, that being said... here's my favorite part of my "creativity" I was able to conjure for my room. 

MY PALM TREE!!

That's my "pretty small" welcome board outside of my door.

When you walk in, here's what you see....

I really should wait to hang those puffs from the ceiling. I KNOW I'll be moving desks around before the end of the week... depending on how many students show up or get added.

Here's my teacher area.

I really like having my desk against the wall and my guided reading table up to it.... and my computer and doc cam are there too. 

I'm never sitting at my desk during the day, and it's never enough room to spread out when AM working at my desk, so this way, I have the best of everything I need!

Also - see all those monthly bins up top there?? That's one of my goals this year.. to seriously purge as I got through the year. You wouldn't believe how much I have already purged for August. I am on a purging mission this year. I am tired of cramming and storing all this stuff... it's time to be a minimalist, my friends...

wait. does that even make sense?? I minimalist teacher. hmmm...

Just on the side of my desk is the listening center...

You can see in the picture, I don't use headphones for my listening center. It has never been a problem, honestly. but it's really close to my teacher table right now, so we'll have to try it out. I might have to move it...the problem is (if any of you have an 800 building, you know what I mean), there are barely ANY plugs. It's pretty frustrating. 

On the other end of the rainbow rug is where I sit for read alouds and using the rolly cart... I don't really know what you call this area???

That bulletin board will change, I'm sure.... I'll be using it to house our Spelling, sight, and vocabulary words...reading strategy posters, class made posters, and what not. I'm not really sure what I'll really be putting up there. lol. 

behind that is this bookshelf...

We used to have big TVs on there (like the tube TV kind), but they took them all out. I was at a loss of what to do up there. It looks silly with nothing and I can't just STORE stuff up there...it wold look unkempt - eek!  So I opted to make it an eye-pleasing spot... got some plants, put my framed pictures up there...and our pet rocks. hehe

and here's what's behind the curtain...just storing things.

Next to that is my library (most of it)....again, I will be purging a lot of these books this year... a lot were for my 1st graders. I know my 2nd graders would/could read them, but I just wouldn't use them for book/author studies or read alouds for 2nd grade. 

On the other side of my library is my other library... again. I have SO MANY BOOKS. Not a bad problem to have, really. ha! But, as the months go on, I'll be purging these books too. 

That bulletin board?? My plan is to print up a few covers each week of our favorite books we read that week... We shall see how it goes.. I might just do our main book from that week, but sometimes I really like other books that we "just read." You know??

So this area right here....

the 2 fake bulletin boards?? I might actually take those down. I can't really think of what I would want to put up there, and I'm not going to be doing much "interacting" with the wall...since it's a pain to staple into it and climb up on the counters. We'll see... this room will change 1,000 times before Christmas. lol

These are the chapter books, not anywhere near my other books... because this room lacks space, and I have too much stuff. haha

The back wall... This board will be my "theme" board. I will change it each season, to kind of match what is hanging up there...probably. haha.

Those 3-drawer rolly carts under the table?? Those are currently all my centers for each month... I'm seriously purging right now...and I've gotten through fall. So, once December comes around, I'll be purging even more. All my 1st grade stuff is GOING... and I'm even purging a ton of my 2nd grade stuff. It's time. It's been 4 years since I last used it. I'm sure it needs an update. lol

Here's where I house all my centers each week...

And their sight word sticks stay in the bucket in the bottom. 

Next to that is the shelf where their morning buckets are. Right now there is a bunch of PlayDoh for everyone. That's because I haven't introduced morning buckets yet...so they will all just get to play with PlayDoh these first 2 days!

(clearly, I staged these buckets properly for these pictures. ha!)

These are the kids' desks. Each group has 2 bins in the middle (one is the recycle bin and one is the supply bin). The supply bin will house their expo markers, erasers, post it notes, and in the big area, that's where I'll put their tracers, paper, and other supplies for the crafts we do. 

(and no, I haven't taped down their Kagan "cards" yet because this group is my group that may or may not be staying together, or getting pushed out to other groups).

Each desk has a pencil hopper that will hold 2 pencils and an eraser... that's ALL they're allowed to have in that hopper, aside from their name tag, of course.

Check out other classroom reveals...and feel free to link up below!!

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