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.

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!

Money, Money, Money, Money! Plus a Freebie!

We have been practicing counting coins lately and we've had a lot of fun with it!  I whipped up a couple of games because who wants to do tons of boring worksheets to learn how to count money?  No one, that's who.

One game my kids had a lot of fun with involved them using playing cards and money to create different amounts.  On their turn, they flipped over two cards and made a number with it, such as 57.  Then they used coins to figure out how to show that amount in cents.  Such a simple idea for a game, but they were totally into it!

We played a lot more games with coins all week and they are now rockstars at counting money!  I'm so proud!

If you're looking to spice up your money unit with some fun games, you can find this game plus several more, along with recording sheets at TPT.  Just click on the picture below:

I'm giving away part of this packet (a coin value flapbook), too!  Just click on the picture to get it for free!

Turkey Day and a Freebie

 

Turkey day is coming up.  What are you thankful for?  It’s really fun to help kids remember to think of all they have to be thankful for.  That’s what I did with these cute little turkeys.  Click {HERE} if you want to download this turkey for FREE!

Here are some of my kids' examples:

 

First, I had kids list 7 things they were thankful for.  Next, they circled the thing they were most thankful for and plan a paragraph about it.  They wrote a rough draft, then the final draft on the writing paper.

This week I think I’ll let them write to the prompt “Save a turkey, eat more. . ."

You can click on the picture below to get all of this for free.

While you’re at it, you can check out my Wonderful Winter Fun activities by clicking on the picture below.

Here are a few things that are included:

Spiders + Native Americans = Fun!

There is something to be said about getting the scissors and creating things when you’re talking about 8 year olds.  The engagement level goes right up.  Today we made a few things that I was pretty excited about.

First I did one of Amy Lemon’s (Step into 2nd Grade) super cute and, as a bonus, free, activities.  We created spiders and wrote poems about them. This was perfect because we’ve been learning parts of speech, well, all year, it seems and these poems involve using verbs and adjectives.  Here are a few examples of my students’ work:

If you want to snatch this up, head to Amy’s TPT store {HERE}.

The thing we did later in the day wasn’t quite as cute but it was fun for my kids.  I whipped up a flipbook Venn diagram for Woodland and Plains Indians to go along with our Native American unit.  We’ve watched a few United Streaming videos about the Woodland Indians and the Plains Indians, created an anchor chart (I gotta say, that anchor chart is ugly as sin.) and discussed the characteristics at length, so I thought I’d see what the kids could do as far as comparisons. 

If you do a unit over Native Americans my unit on TPT might be helpful to you.  You can check it out {HERE}.  

If any of you want the Venn diagram flipbook for free, please just leave a comment and I’ll link it to this blog post so you can download it. 

Life Cycles

This week we wrapped up our life cycles unit.  This is a really fun unit for the kids because we watch butterflies go through most of their life cycle.  A little bummer this year, though - only one of our caterpillars actually made it to being a butterfly.  Here is that lucky guy:

To review the life cycle of chickens we made foldable pyramids like so (fold on the lines, cut on the dashed lines):

Then, on the inside of the pyramids students drew and labeled the life cycle of chickens.  They turned out really cute and I was surprised by how my kids didn't struggle with constructing the pyramids.  

 

So fun!

Money, Money, Money, Money!

I'm in the middle of teaching money and I'm on a foldable kick.  I was just in the mood so I whipped up a little foldable for coin value even though my kids are past that.  

 

You can click {HERE} if you're interested in using this with your kids for FREE! 

It will fold up similar to this one if you have kids fold on the solid lines and cut on the dotted.

 

This shape foldable can be found as part of my Geometry Foldable packet I have on TPT also.  I loved using those foldables to review 2-D and 3-D shapes.

Now I just need to come up with some more fun money ideas.  :)