Sentences

Writing sentences is one of those things that second graders can't seem to get enough practice at.  So I threw some activities together for some fun practice.  

I made a scoot in which students can walk around and identify what type of sentence they read.  

These are some of the cards I made for the scoot activity:

This is the front of the recording sheet.

We did the scoot last week.  I have never had a student lose interest when we're doing a scoot.  They love moving around when they can.

I also made a fun foldable - a prism on which students can write each type of sentence.  

I think we'll create the prisms this week.

If you are looking for some extra sentence practice for your students, you can snatch this up at my TPT store.  Just click on the picture below.

Life Cycles

In my class we're learning about life cycles so of course we focus on butterflies.  We always purchase caterpillars from Insect Lore, but this year I realized that I had milkweed growing in my own back yard.  And milkweed = monarchs.  Sweet.

These little guys have now been successfully transferred to my classroom.  That involved a harrowing ride in which I swear one was trying to escape from the open baggie I was using for transport.  

Now they are all chrysalids.  Awesome.  I love monarchs when they become a chrysalis.  Have you ever seen one?  They green with flecks of gold.  So pretty.

And they are just a bonus.  We got our Insect Lore order Friday so we'll have a plethora of butterflies in the York classroom.  :)

Pete the Cat - Reading Theme

Our school is using Pete the Cat as our theme this year to encourage reading.   The kids are loving it.  We even got stuffed Pete's to send home with one student (someone who has read each night) from each class each week, so they can read with him and take pictures with him (a la Flat Stanley).

At my house Pete ate some candy corn.

He read a little of my book:

He rode on my Bella's back.

Naturally a few of us teachers got some pretty sweet Converse shoes.

Easy-Update Bulletin Board

I have seen some cute bulletin boards that are made so that teachers can just switch out student work so they don't have to entirely redo their bulletin board each time.  I am all about saving time.  And when I helped my little sister set up her classroom she had a brilliant idea: burlap.  She got some cute, reasonably-priced burlap and we draped two rows of it across her bulletin board and stuck some paper clips up for student work.  I loved it.

So the logical thing for me to do was run out and purchase some burlap.  My whole classroom is about the Dots on Turquoise theme so I used that with the burlap I bought at Michael's (did you know teachers get a discount there?!).

This is my end product:

I put student names on the stars and intended to leave them up and hang their work behind their stars but the stars blocked too much of their work.  I think I'll use a clothes pin to put the stars back up right next to their work.

I'm stinkin' excited about just slipping work on and off the board this year.

Starting Off Right

Look what I made!  On the left is my teacher plan book.  I freaking love it.  Yes, I said freaking.  Love it.  I freaking love it.  I personalized the plan pages so that they fit my schedule and added calendars and note-taking pages for staff meetings.  On the right is my conference book (pensieve, a la Daily 5).  I have a section for each of my students (plus extras for move-ins) and a section of small group planning pages.

I can't wait until I actually start small groups.  I have been giving F&P tests to my students so I haven't been able to start yet.  Maybe (fingers crossed!) this week I can start small grouping.

On another note, the morning of Meet the Teacher I woke up and it dawned on me that I had no bulletin board plans at all.  Freak out mode set in.  My amazing husband (also a teacher) hadn't started back to work yet so he helped me set up this ah-mazing bulletin board inspired by this a Buzz Feed post.

I'm gonna be real honest.  Those balloons were a hassle.  Not making them or putting them up, but getting them to stay put so my student names were showing.  But I was still proud.  :)

If you like the style of my planner, you might be interested in my plan books that you can find in my TPT store.  You can snatch up my editable purple one by clicking on the picture below:

Or just print and go with this turquoise one (click the picture):

Or this red one (click the pic):

It's that time!

You know, I'm sad that summer is coming to an end because that means less time with family, but it also means that fall is coming and will usher in holiday season and that's my favorite kind of family time, so I guess I'll allow the change of the seasons to occur.  Heh.

So I went in for about ten minutes yesterday just to kind of start setting my desk up (I had them switch my desk out with a prettier one) and look around so I could start a to do list.  

I'm in love with this pen/pencil caddy thing I got a Mardel.  It's so cute and it rotates (bonus!).

Today I headed back to actually get substantial things done.  I have chalk boards still (I know - I think my district is stuck in the stone age in some ways) and I magnetize borders and put them around the chalk boards.  I rarely write on them so I mostly use them as magnetic bulletin boards.  I put back up my word wall and did a few other things around the room.  

One thing that I'm excited about is that I got new, cute file folders for my copies.  I think I got the idea for this type of system from The Organized Classroom Blog a while back but can't find the post.  

Basically I have a little box for hanging files and I put in a hanging file folder for each day of the week, plus one for extras for later.  

Then within each hanging file folder I put a regular file folder for ELA, Math, and Science/S.S.  This helps me keep my copies so I'm not searching forever when it comes time for me to actually use something.  

So each Friday I copy everything I'll need for the following week and sort them out into these so that I'm ready to go for the whole week.  

I also have a file in the back of the box for extra copies or for copies that I have copied further in advance than one week.  

How do you organize your copies?

Radishes to encourage reading

Recently my school bought us all a copy of this book:
 

This is a must-read for teachers, parents, and librarians. Really. Seriously. It's good. Read it.

Anyway, one thing that resonated with me was trying to make books 3-D, so today I brought radishes for my kids to eat. Sounds lame, maybe, especially for a second grader, but I was nerdishly excited about this. 

I've been reading aloud this to my class:

The chapter we read today was called The Radish Cure. It was about a girl who wouldn't take baths so her parents stopped making her bathe, then when she got dirty enough, they sprinkled radish seeds on her and let them grow, which was terrible enough to convince the girl to bathe. 

So I brought a bunch of radishes (88 cents):

I am pretty sure some of my students had never seen radishes before. Several hadn't eaten them. So I made a bag of radishes for each table (plus I threw in carrots) along with a small bowl of dip for each table, discussed food sharing etiquette, and let them eat while I read. 

Not sure why, but I felt like a pretty cool teacher. Because every student wishes their teacher would give them veggies, right?

But seriously, I'm looking forward to trying to make books 3-D for kids again and again. 

P.S. Read that book by Jim Trelease.

Word Work is changing!

After a recent conference inspired me (plus I was sick of how word work had been going) I decided to change up the way we do word work in our classroom. 

So I created task cards and recording sheets for students to choose from and use with our weekly spelling words. For instance, they can create a word search, write the words and circle the vowels, etc. 

I'm switching it all up with my kids after break so I just got everything prepped and I. Am. Stoked!

I put each task card on the front of an envelope with the corresponding recording sheets inside, so hopefully everything runs smoothly after I introduce the choices to my second graders. 

I just put them all in a magazine style box. I might keep them at my desk and be the word work police while I launch this change. I'm kind of a control freak like that. But it works out because this class needs that. Fo sho.

I hope my kids get as excited about this as I am!

 If you are interested in checking this out, you can find it at my TPT store. Just click {HERE}. 

Flapbooks & Foldables

It's been a while since I've posted a new product on TPT and I guess that's why I'm so stoked about what I just posted.  I actually created a ton of flapbook and foldable templates quite a while back but couldn't quite figure out how to package it for other people to use.  Now that I figured it out, I'm so excited to give everyone the opportunity to check this out!  

I like using flapbooks and foldables to get my students more engaged than the standard boring worksheets.  Here are a few examples of ones I've created for my classroom:

If you like this Native American one, you can check out my Native American packet by clicking {HERE} or on the picture above.

If you like this telling time flapbook, you can check out my telling time packet by clicking {HERE} or on the picture above.

Anywho . . . if you want to create your own flapbooks, you can grab a few freebies by clicking {HERE}.  If you want even more templates, click {HERE} or on the picture below to see my 29 templates that I just posted on TPT.  

To celebrate my new product, I'll be putting my entire shop on sale for 20% off through Friday!

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock!

This week we've been practicing telling time.  We started off by making this amazing little cutie:

This is a freebie that I found through Pinterest from Adventures of a Third Grade Teacher.  We practiced telling time for a few days using this craft and it seemed to really make it click that you count by fives to tell time.  I phased it out so they wouldn't be dependent on using this, then we played some fun games that I had whipped up.

We played a little board game I made up using these AH-MAZ-ING board game cliparts from Krista Wallden's store TPT.  Have you seen these?!  You should definitely check these out.  Click on the picture below to head to see these at TPT.

The board game I made basically involved kids reading clocks to tell the time.  

We also played a quiz-quiz-trade for telling time, as well as go fish for the same.

Yesterday and today we practiced telling time before and after the hour and this is proving to be a little trickier for my kiddos.  Today we created flapbooks to practice this.

This is what it looked like from the front.

Here's the inside.

Monday I'm going to have everyone set their flapbooks out and we'll all walk around and record answers from each other's flapbooks without peeking.  

To get your hands on these fun games and flapbook, check out my What Time is it? packet on TPT.

Do you Daily 5?

Now I know a lot of teachers are jumping on the Daily 5 bandwagon and I'm here to say, if you haven't yet, what is the hold up?  Amy Lemons from Step Into 2nd Grade with Mrs. Lemons was discussing this on her Facebook page the other day and it inspired me to do this blog post.  

Let me start with the source:

When I first started, I had only read this.  It has everything you need to get started.

Next, I read this:

Until I read this I was a little like a fish out of water when it came to conferences and planning what to do with my small groups.

I very much recommend both of these books.  I'm not one to purchase books - I prefer borrowing - but these are worth the money.

To sum up the whole kit and caboodle, The Daily 5 is a way to format the way your day looks.  You do mini-lessons followed by your students doing one of these 5 choices: read to self, read to someone, work on writing, word work, or listen to reading.    

This format, how you give children choice and build stamina and interest in becoming a better reader or writer, is amazing.  I totally believe in it and I feel like it's the best thing that has ever happened to my ELA teaching.  Here are a few pictures of my kids hard at work.

Read to Self (I let my kids sit wherever during their choice.)

Read to Someone

Word Work with Play-Do

(They can either write in it.)

(Or they can create the letters.  We focus on Fry Words.  A lot of my 2nd graders are practicing 3rd grade Fry words on account of mastering 2nd grade words.)

 Writing in shaving cream - they LOVE this.  I actually had to restrict it to one person doing it at a time because it's all anyone ever wanted to do.

Listening to Reading - Tumblebooks (which my building subscribes to) is my best friend when it comes to listening to reading.

No work on writing pictures for some reason.  

But isn't it so cute?  And not only are they so cute at work, but they are truly into it!  

This is a picture from an earlier post on how my classroom looks.

This is how I set up my Daily 5 anchor charts and Cafe Menu.  If you do the Cafe and are looking for a menu, check out my freebie menu at my TPT store.

Do you do the Daily 5?

You are appreciated!

Teacher Appreciation Week is upon us and in honor of all of us teachers, I am throwing a sale!  Come by my store this week anytime between Monday and Thursday for 20% off anything you fall in love with.  As a bonus, if you haven't seen yet, TPT will be offering an additional discount of 10% off on Tuesday and Wednesday.  To get the 10%, you'll have to enter the code seen on this picture:

So come by my shop sometime and check it out.  If I have time this week I'll post some of the awesome products I've purchased that you might want to grab while on sale this week.