Author's Party

This was a HIT!  It was one of those things where you think "I will definitely be doing this every year for as long as I teach."  Those moments don't happen all that often, so when they do...I figure it is something worth sharing!

My second graders have been working on narrative stories.  We have been working on them for about 3 weeks.  They started with their ideas in a graphic organizer, wrote a first draft, double checked it for capitals, periods, and adjectives, participated in an author's circle (where they read their story to a few classmates who then shared what they liked about their story and their questions or "wishes"), wrote another draft which included the "wishes", and then illustrated it after I had typed it for them. 

They worked really hard and I wanted to do something fun, so I decided to have an "Author's Party"!  At the beginning of the week I told the kids that on Thursday we would be having an author's party for anyone who had finished their stories.  A couple of kids took their stories home on Wednesday nigh to finish illustrating them, and some where finishing at school on Thursday morning.  Every single one of them was done in time for our party though!  Since I had been talking it up all week, I tried to make it really fun and special, after all we were celebrating them!  We were celebrating the fact that they were authors and we were celebrating the fact that they had finished their first story of the year. 

I had streamers in the doorway when they came back in from recess.  I also had party blowers on each of their desks.  And I had 23 balloons (with student names in them) blown up and taped to a door.  There was also a huge party hat (to be worn by the reader), and of course party favors.  All good parties have party favors. 

I had the kids take turns coming up and using a pair of scissors to pop the balloons.  Whosevers name was on the paper that flew out of the balloon was the one who would read their story.  The kids had fun putting on the party hat and then reading their story to the class.  When they were finished everyone was allowed to blow their party blower three times (as opposed to clapping) after which they placed it back on the ground in front of them.  I then called on three people to share things they liked about the story that had been read.  Following that we started the process all over again by popping another balloon.  Each child got to pop a balloon and each child got to read their story. 

Once everyone had read, I passed out the party favors.   Everyone got a brand new, fun pencil, so that they could continue to be authors!  There were some Smarties attached just to make it a little more fun. 

Fun was had by all!  I asked who had had fun at our author's party at the end of the day, and every single hand went up.  I even had a girl write about it in her journal the next day saying how much fun it was. 

I loved the fact that we got to celebrate the kids and their writing.  This one is a keeper!  I hope some of you will try it in your own classes.  Happy writing!

Camp Compliments

 

I've seen this before and apologize that I don't know who the original genius behind this was.  I told the kids at the beginning of the year that for each compliment they get (from another teacher or administrator) , we will add a link to our chain.  When the chain hits the ground we will have a class party!  They are doing AWESOME, we're almost there.  I'm not a huge fan of external motivation, I would rather it be intrinsic.  I am a huge fan of positive praise however, and this is a great way to celebrate compliments and positive praise.  It also makes the class have to work together as a team in order to earn compliments, I'm all about that!

Egg Hunt Review

This is going to be a "Throw Back Thursday" post.  I didn't blog nearly as much as I would have liked to this past year.  I had a great group of kids and it was a really good year.  I was sad to see them leave at the en of the year, but look forward to their smiling faces in the hallways as third graders after a well deserved summer break!  I am excited that I have some time to relax, rejuvenate, get some projects done for the classroom, and do some blogging. 

Towards the end of the school year I am always looking for fun games and ways to review math.  I have posted about some of them in the past.  This year I got some plastic eggs and put a math problem in each one.  I numbered the eggs and then hid them around the room while the kids were at prep. 

When they came in they each got a recording sheet with 23 numbered, blank boxes on it (similar to the recording sheet that you would use for the game "scoot" if you are familiar with that).  I then explained the rules that students had to find each of the eggs and put the answer to the question in the corresponding box.  There was also a rule that there was not to be more than one person at an egg at a time and the eggs needed to be put back right where they were found. 

The kids were completely engaged and had a great time with the review.  I love when I can let them be a little more active while still being engaged in learning or in this case reviewing. 

While I did this at the end of the year, it could also work as a review for a single unit in math or be adapted and used as an activity to practice a literacy skill.

It's feels good to be blogging again, hopefully I can keep it up through the summer and do a little next year too!

 

If you would like a copy of the review questions I used, you can find them here.  Happy hunting!

 

 

 

 

Money Management and Duck Tape Wallets

This past school year was the first year that we used the math common core.  Money is no longer taught in first grade with the common core.  This makes money a big deal in second grade.  That being said I have decided to use a money management system next year to give the students increased exposure to money. I think it will also be very motivating for them.  I hope that it will not only increase motivation but responsibility as well!

Students will earn money for things such as setting a good example, working hard, doing an exceptional job on an assignment, helping a fellow student, helping me, cleaning or organizing without being asked, following directions perfectly, etc. 

As far as behavior goes students who are misbehaving will first receive a warning.  If they do not comply after a warning they will owe me 25 cents.  Following the fine if they still do not comply they will owe me another 25 cents and will fill out a "think sheet" that will then be sent home to be signed.  Following a "think sheet" there is another 25 cent fine and a missed recess.  If students are still misbehaving there will be a phone call home accompanied by another 25 cent fine.  

To increase responsibility there will also be fines for the following:

Leaving your desk messy -10 cents

Turning in homework late or not turning it in -10 cents

Not turning in your reading calendar - 10 cents

Not having the required minutes on reading calendar -10 cents

Talking or running in the halls - 10 cents

Stealing someone else’s money: ALL YOUR MONEY

As I was working on the management plan the other day I decided that it would be cool to make the students duck tape wallets to keep their money in!  They will keep the wallets in their pencil boxes.

I easily found a YouTube video done by a young girl that taught me how to make them.  You can check it out:

Here are my supplies:

I made two different styles.  One for boys and one for girls:

Here are the insides:

Here are the tickets that I will print on red paper and laminate.  I will then place them on students desks or hand them to them.  They will then come and pay me when they are doing independent seat work, so as to not disrupt the class during a lesson.  

How to use money management for small groups:

I assign table group points for the table who is in listening position first or to table groups who are all working hard.  Tables who have their books out first or tables who are all cleaned up also get points on occasion.  I keep track of the points on the board.  At the end of the week the students at the table with the most points will each receive a quarter.  

How to use money management with whole class:

When the whole class is being good or when they receive compliments in the hall I will award them money.  We will keep track of it on the board.  I will also take away from it when the class as a whole is not behaving.  At the end of each quarter when we are able to buy prizes (I will divide the amount of class money equally among the students and distribute it).

We will see how it works.  I think that the students will respond very well!  

Question Cubes and Prompt Sticks

I had these great dice from the dollar store. I got two for a dollar.  I decided that I would use some of them as question cubes for Guided Reading.  I color coded them so that it would be easy for me to know which set to use.  The green ones are for my students who are reading bellow grade level.  The blue ones are for my students reading on or above level and the red ones are for non fiction books.  I love that they are made out of foam because they won't make too much noise when the students roll them on the table. These could be good for group discussion at the end of Guided Reading or it could be fun for the students to roll to determine what they will write about in their Guided Reading response journals. 

Dice, the questions, scissors, and a whole bunch of mod podge was all I needed for this project.  And some t.v. shows to watch while making them of course. 

Grab my questions for FREE HERE!

Another thing that I worked on today was a journal prompt jar.  I started with the prompts last year but then the project didn't get finished in time for school and they just sat around. If you are ever stuck on journal prompts I LOVE looking at this website for ideas.   

Now when I hear the oh so common "I don't know what to write about", I can simply reply "Go pick a journal stick."

Summer Projects!

One thing I love about summer is that I have so much time to work on projects for my classroom!  It seems that when school gets out I have this sudden energy and excitement and I am able to get a lot done.  I have to run with it while t lasts, because I know that it won't last all summer.  School has been out for a week and a half now.  Here is what I have accomplished:

- I moved my classroom (I am moving to a room that is bigger).  I organized everything as I went so everything in my new room is super organized which is great!  I even labeled cupboards and drawers so I can stay organized throughout the year.  I also got rid of stuff that I haven't been using or that had been thrashed by the kids.

- I made a homework binder that the kids will sing each week if they have not done their homework.  It is organized by week (we have 30 weeks worth of homework packets).  This will be an easy way for me to notice who is not turning in homework and allow me to contact home. I also have plastic sleeves in the back so that I can keep a black line of each weeks homework in the binder so that it is easy to make additional copies if needed.

- I updated my "teacher binder" I created a few new forms for it and put it in a new binder.  My one from last year was completely falling apart.  To read about what I have in my teacher binder click here. 

- I created my sharp and dull pencil jars.  Due to the fact that my kids always break my pencil sharpeners (without fail), I will be the only one sharpening pencils next year.  They can put their dull ones in and take a sharp one and then at the end of the day I will sharpen all the pencils that need to be sharpened. I got the ins for 1.00 each at target : )

 I created class journals!  I plan on using these as fast finishers.  When students are done with assigned work they can respond in one of the class journals.  Each journal has a prompt on the front and some ideas of what types of things to include in the journal entry.  Student can latter go back and see how their classmates responses to the journals.  I got this great idea here. 

If you are interested in using my prompts you can download them here.

- I made my math Guess That Number game using an old Guess Who game.  Read about it here.

- I made a jar for Box Tops using an old Ragu jar

- I made some new signs to go by our calendar.  These ill be laminated so that the kids can write on them each morning as we do calendar. 

- I made up some "Fast Finisher" signs that I can put up on the boars (a few at a time) so that students know what their options are should they finish early with an assignment.  I got this great idea here.

- I made some glitter clips to use to hang up "World Class Work" in my classroom.  These were super easy an I love how they look! Got the idea here. I made 12 of them : )

- I cut scraps of old t-shirts for my students to use as whiteboard erasers.  I made a T-shirt quilt last summer and saved the scraps so that Icould use them for this very reason.  I still have a ton of t-shirt scraps left.  It will last me for years to come : )

- I printed out these keyboards that I found here for my students to practice typing their spelling words on for word work. 

- I also came up with a book report form and a missing poster that students can choose to fill out as a fast finisher.  I used a lot if ideas from here free download of a book report.

- I made a reading bingo board to hand out to parents in the fall, you can read about it here.

- I made some question cubes for Guided Reading.  Different colors are for different reading levels.  I got the foam dice in a 2-pack at the dollar store.  They will be great because they will not be loud on my guided reading table and will therefore not distract my class : )

I have also managed to hang out with friends, go to the movies, exercise, make a scrapbook of all my love notes from my kids this past year, go on a camp-out, blog a bit, go to the pool, eat my first snow cone of the season, and find a place to live next year!  Next project here I come!

Reading Bingo

I have seen a lot of different reading bingo boards on Pinterest.  I've been wanting to make one of my own for quite some time now.  Now that it's summer, I did!  One thing that I didn't like about some of the reading bingos that I saw was that they were fun and motivational for kids, but they didn't emphasize reading with a parent.  Being a second grade teacher I am constantly emphasizing the importance of parents reading with their children.  Students can sound like they are reading great but they may be making up words or skipping words unbeknownst to whoever is listening if they are not following along with them.  Here is my reading bingo that involves lots of reading with parents!  

Grab a free coy HERE!

   

I'm excited to share this with parents in the fall as a way for them to help their children to be motivated about doing their home reading each night.  This would also be great to send home at the end of the school year to keep kids motivated to read through the summer. 

Pop Rocks Poetry

We are working on poetry this week in class.  Yesterday I decided that I was going to do a lesson on Haiku poems today.  Now the question was, how would I make it engaging for the kids?  I remembered Pop Rock - an awesome candy from my childhood!  I knew that getting to eat and write about Pop Rocks would be motivating to my students.  After going over what a Haiku poem was, the format, and emphasizing the difference between number or words and number of syllables I passed out the Pop Rocks.  Each student got a baggie with Pop Rocks in it.  After they had eaten them we described them so that they would have some words and phrases to go in their poems. 

I passes out some papers for them to do their poems on and they got to work.  Some kids could definitely use some more time and practice with Haiku poems, but some of them did a great job!

As we were winding down the assignment and getting started with Guided Reading and centers the school lost power.  Fun, fun, fun.  Always an adventure in Second Grade!

Heads Up Seven Up - Review Style

I remember playing Heads Up Seven Up in third grade and LOVING it! But, since when is there time to just play a game for the sake of playing a game?  There is always something to be teaching or reviewing.  Today I decided that I would edit the Heads Up Seven Up game a little bit so that I could use it as a review game in my classroom!  It went over really well!  The kids were really good and loved it!

I started by picking three students to come to the front of the classroom.  Everyone else put their heads down on their desk.  I would then ask a review question (synonyms, antonyms, homophones, long and short vowel sounds, same vowel sounds, contractions etc.) The students with their heads down on their desks would then put their thumb up if they knew the answer to the question.  I pointed to one of my three students at the front, the student I pointed to went and put someones thumb down and came back to the front.  Everyone put their heads up.  The person who had their thumb put down would answer the question and then guess who had put their thumb down.  If they guessed right they got to go to the front and the person who had put their thumb down went back to their own seat.  If they guessed wrong then the person who had put their thumb down got to stay at the front.  You can play as many or as few rounds as you want!

If you play with your students be sure to let me know how it goes!

Have a great week!

Review Fun!

"grudgeball"

I found a review game called "grudgeball" on Pinterest.  Check out the original blog post HERE!  The game is originally meant for middle schoolers, but I found that my second graders loved it!

Here is how we played in Second Grade.

I put team numbers 1-5 up on the board.  Each team had 10 X's.  I got the kids into 5 groups.  I gave groups questions one at a time.  If a group got a question right they were able to erase two X's from the board (from any team they chose or they could split it between two teams).  They also got to shoot a ball into a container.  They could choose to shoot it from a closer line (1 point) or a further line (2 points).  If they made the shot they were able to earn either 1 or 2 X's for their own team.  The goal is to have the most X's at the end of the game.

It was very interesting to watch my second graders with this game.  At first they didn't realize how it would feel to have another team erase their points, they were angry.  They retaliated.  There were some contentious vibes.  Then one of the students shot for a point and barely missed, it bounced off the rim.   I heard a few players from a different team than the student who had shot say "God job" "Nice Try".  I promptly stopped the game and explained that I was going to reward the team that has people being good sports by giving them an X.  When the next person went up to shoot they missed and automatically the whole class erupted in cheers. They were saying things like "Great try!" "Good Job!" "Almost."  That is a moment I will remember for a long time!  It was the greatest thing to see my kids cheering each other on!  After that one of the students came up and asked if they could give teams points instead of take them away.  When it came to their turn they crossed out one teams X and then gave an X to a team that needed it.  How cute is that?

My class was reviewing addition and subtraction, they were having a blast, and they really had an awesome bonding experience!  When we were finished they were asking if they could play again when they got back from computers. 

I would say it was a review success!

Literacy Review Ball

Another thing that my students loved was this Literacy Review Ball! There are tons of things like this on Pinterest too.  Unfortunately I do not know who was the first, so to whoever you are, thanks a million!

 I decided that on my ball I would just put a to of questions, all having to do with literacy/skills we have talked about this year.  Homophones, contractions, compound words, synonyms, antonyms, multiple meaning words, short and long vowel sounds, the works. We tossed the the ball around the classroom.  The person who caught it got to read the question under one of their thumbs.  I would then either have the whole class answer the question, ask a certain student who was raising their hand to answer, or have table groups talk about the answer.  After the question as answered the person who had read the question would pick someone quiet and throw it to them...and so it continued.  This would be really easy to take outside too if the weather was nice!

Review Relay

I was at Dollar Tree the other day and I saw some pails.

I came up with the idea of a Review Relay!  I would have four teams.  Each team would have two buckets about 20 or so yards apart. All the review questions would be in the buckets on one side.  Each team would start at the same time.  They pull out questions one at a time and work together as a team to answer them.  Each team would have a whiteboard, a marker, and a number line if they needed it.  When the question is answered they peel the tape off the back of the question and see if they got it right.  If they got it right they run and put the question into the other pail.  if they got it wrong they keep it with them (outside of the pail).  They can't try again if they get it wrong because they will already have seen the answer.  This will put the pressure on them to get the right answer the first time and not guess.  When the runner returns the next question can be taken out. 

The team who finishes first wins,unless they got questions wrong and another team got more questions correct than them.  Doing the math right and getting the right answer is the most important thing! 

Pails: 2 of each color.  One at the start (with all the questions) and one at the finish (with the questions that were answered correctly).

   Pails lined up at the finish line! Go team, go! Tape hiding the answers on the back.

     Running the questions down to the end quickly and coming back quickly for the next question to be read!

My kids really enjoyed this today!  It was a great way for them to review and get their spring/it's getting close to the end of the year wiggles out. I will definitely be making up some new sets of questions so that we can play again next week.

I hope that at least one of these ideas will find its way to your classroom (or blacktop).  Happy reviewing!  Let me know how it goes : )

Animated Shorts are Great!

Yes. This is the third blog post of the night.  The truth of the matter is that I have thought about blogging a lot in the past month, but have not had the time to do so.  I have a little bit of time tonight, so I am playing catch-up.

Animated Short Film quite often make their way onto the Education page on Pinterest.  I was teaching about making inferences last week and decided that it would be the perfect time to use one of those short films I had pinned. 
We ended up watching two.  A longer one and a shorter one.  I played the film and would pause it at certain spots and have the students make an inference of what they thought would happen next (based on the context clues and what they had seen thus far).  Once again, almost every kid had their hand raised and wanted to participate. As a teacher, I LOVE it when that happens.  It means I have done a good job of getting the students engaged. 

Here are some short films that are good for teaching about inferences:

Happy President's Day Weekend!

Compare and Contrast

Last week we learned about comparing and contrasting.  I threw together THIS PowerPoint to get the kids excited about it.  They loved the PowerPoint and came up with tons of ways to compare and contrast each set of pictures.  You know it is motivating when almost every child in the class is raising their hand wanting to participate and tell you how they were able to compare and contrast the pictures. 

I hope that you can use this and that your students will love it just as much as mine did!  Let me know what you think.

Persuasive Writing and Turkey Disguises

I honestly d not know where the first quarter of the year has gone! Two more school days until Thanksgiving break - WHAT?! With Thanksgiving upon us we did some Thanksgiving themed writing this week.  Our writing from Journeys this week was persuasive letters.  What better persuasive letter assignment than to pretend you are a turkey and persuade a farmer that he should not eat you for Thanksgiving dinner.  This is a writing prompt that I have heard about from many different people, it is perfect for this time of year.  

One of the things that our little ones can struggle with sometimes is coming up with ideas of what to write.  Or in this case ideas of how to persuade the farmer not to eat them.  I though I would play a little dress up to get them thinking.  We have writing right after recess, so while my class was at recess (luckily I didn't have duty) I changed into some jeans and a plaid shirt and straw hat.  Overalls would have been ideal, but unfortunately I didn't have any and thy weren't in the budget.  When the students came back in I had them go into an empty room.  I came in and talking with a little bit of a different accent told them that I was Farmer Paul and that it was almost Thanksgiving and I needed to find a Turkey.  I told them that luckily I had lots of turkeys and pointed to all of them.  I had a few of them show the class how they might be able to act like a turkey.  I told the class that when I said go they were to go around the room acting like turkeys.  If I pointed to them with my arm extended and said "shoot" the whole class had to freeze and the person I said "shoot" to had to come up with a reason why I should not have them for Thanksgiving dinner, then we did it again only I would choose a different student.  My students LOVED this and they came up with some awesome ideas!

Some of them included things like:

- I'm to young to die

- I'm skinny, I don't have any meat on me

- I am a rare type of Turkey, I'm the only one of this kind on your farm

- I won't taste good

- I have poison in me

- I'm dirty

It was great when we went back into the classroom because I gave the kids a graphic organizer (they had to have three reasons why the farmer should not eat them with explanations for each reason) and they went to work, they were creative and didn't complain about not knowing what to write.  They had gotten enough ideas in our little drama experience to get them excited about their writing. 

After the graphic organizer we wrote rough drafts and final drafts of our letters.  Then today we did a little art project to go with the assignment.  I told the kids that their letters were great, but in order to make sure that the farmer really didn't eat them for Thanksgiving dinner they would have to disguise themselves!  We brainstormed some things they could disguise themselves as on the board.  Then I gave them some turkeys and some tips on how to cut the disguise to fit the turkey and they went to work!  Their turkeys are GREAT! I love looking at them in the hallway.  Here are a few of them:

The disguises below include a word wall letter, a barn, a ninja, fire, a bowling pin, a rose bush, an iPad, and a Christmas tree.

 

                               

                                        

                                   

They all did a great job and it is so fun to look at them in the hallway!