Favorite First Week Read Alouds!

First Test of the Year

When I announced on the second day of school that we would be taking our first test of the year, my brand new little second graders were a little less than thrilled. 

When I passed out the test and they realized that it was a test about ME their teacher, their nerves were eased. 

I honestly don't know where I saw this idea, but it is GREAT!  The kids LOVED this and it was a fun way for them to get to know me. 

I read them all the questions and had them circle their answers.  Then we went over it.  I would have them raise their hands to show which answers they thought were right.  I had them get our a crayon and circle the right answers so they could see how many they got right.  I gave a prize to the student with the highest score. 

 

Side note:  Six weeks after this quiz, I was absent for the day and had the kids guess where I was.  One student guessed that I was at the pet store getting a cat because I had never had a cat, but I did already have a dog and a turtle and a bunny.  If you notice number five on the test that is the only time I gave them that information all year!

Superheroes for the year!

Traditionally in Second Grade at our school we teach about relationships and consequences as part of our communities unit (teaching the kids how to be a good citizen/member of a community).  This year I decided to do communities and relationships and consequences at the very beginning of the school year.  It's something that I wanted the kids to get right from the beginning of the year and not in the middle somewhere.  I had a three day unit and the kids LOVED every day!

Day 1:  Emotions

I put up a list of emotions on the board.  We went through all of them.  I had the kids show me what they looked like and we talked about when we feel the different emotions.  We played the "mirror game" where two students stand across from each other.  One student would have to use their body and facial expressions to display an emotion.  The other student had to mirror (copy) them and then guess what the emotion was.  Each partner got to lead a few times.    After  that activity I had a bunch of pictures of people displaying different emotions.  The kids had to decide which emotion each picture was showing.  After this we talked about how we should react and interact with people when they were feeling each of the different emotions.  We then broke up into groups and each group was assigned an emotion.  The group had to come up with a skit with some people showing the assigned emotion and others reacting to it.  The kids loved the lesson and I think they really took it to heart. 

Day 2:  Consequences

I started by sharing a PowerPoint.  There were pictures that had clear consequences (for example a glass sitting on the very edge of a table).  I had the students raise their hands and tell me what they thought the consequence would be of each picture.  Through this we learned what the word consequence really meant.  After we were done with the PowerPoint we talked about how consequences can be bad or good.  I gave the students some scenarios and they told me what the consequence might be and whether it was bad or good.  After this I held up an egg (not boiled) and asked what the consequence would be if I dropped it (into a bowl of course).  There were audible gasps, I don't think they believed I would actually do it - but I did : ) Of course the egg cracked.  We talked about how I might be able to clean up the mess, but I could NEVER put the egg exactly back how it was.  That is how it is when we make a mean comment to someone, bully someone, or hurt them.  We may be able to say sorry or make up, but the damage has been done and we can't completely un do it.  I think this analogy really hit home for the kids and it made them realize that their actions are important.  It was a powerful teaching moment.

Day 3:  Kids can be superheroes!

Our school counselors have a superheroes theme this year and that is what got the thought process going on this lesson.  My final lesson about relationships and consequences began with a discussion about superheroes and what my students knew about them.  They were excited to answer and they shared a lot of great characteristics that they knew superheroes had.  I then asked them if they thought kids could be superheroes.  I was surprised that almost all of them said yes right away.  We talked about what kids could do to be superheroes and made a list of what they would do specifically this year to be superheroes.  We then went back to our desks and I showed them a couple of videos from a website called Kids are Heroes.  Find some of the videos here.  After that of course we had to make our own superhero faces!  When they were finished I put them around the superhero pledge we had made.  It turned out great and I am going to love looking at it in my classroom all year long.  It will also be a great reminder to the kids of the type of person they need to try to be this year!

Here is a picture of the pledge and the superhero faces:

Back to School

Well, it was back to work today!  We had our opening institute this morning and the keynote speaker was great!  He shared this quote from Rudyard Kipling:

No printed word, nor spoken plea can teach young minds what they should be.
Not all the books on all the shelves – but what the teachers are themselves.

I absolutely love this!  It is definitely good food for thought at the beginning of another year. 
After a great summer it feels good to be back, now I just can't wait for the kids to get here!

As promised here are some pictures of my classroom:

 

 

The board is all ready for our Open House on Wednesday:

(description of what is on the desks, what to take home and what to sign and leave)

 

(Sign ups for helping with class parties and volunteering during centers)

 

On each desk there is a packet of information about myself, my management plan, rules, procedures etc.  There is also a letter to the parents about the importance of reading with their child at home.  Attached to it is the first reading calendar along with some information on how to help students with reading at home, questions to ask students during reading, and a bingo board for some extra motivation.

 

 I can't wait to meet my students!

 

 

 

Back to School Gift

In the past I have given my students smarties on the first day of school with a little note on them.  See them here.  I decided to make it a little more exciting this year and add a pencil as well since I was able to buy 30 for $2.50 at Walmart. 

The note now says: 

I am so glad to have such a "sharp" student in my class.  What a "smartie" you are!  Welcome to second grade.  We are going to have a great year!
Love,
Miss Paul

Here is a picture:

 

I am moving apartments so I have spent the past few days working on packing, but I will be back to my classroom on Friday to add some finishing touches before I go back to work on Monday.  Classroom pictures will be up soon!

Marker Management

Ever have that time when you get to the board and intend on writing on it, but there are no markers there?  Since my kids have whiteboards and we use them quite often, on occasion my markers from the front board go missing.  Last year I saw a beautiful colorful pack of expo markers.  I decided that this would be a perfect solution to my missing marker mystery.  My school provides black, blue, green, and red markers, therefore those are my "student markers".  The rest of the colorful markers are my "teacher markers", off limits to the students. 

 

 

I keep my "teacher markers" in this pink magnetic container on my whiteboard that I got for a dollar at Dollar Tree.  The kids also know that the marker in the pink container are mine : ) 

 

 

This is my solution to the Missing Marker Mystery.

 

I hope that this will be helpful to someone else!

 

Miss Paul

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. 

Beginning of the Year Read Alouds

Are there any other exhausted teachers out there?  I think I have the best job in the world, I am so lucky to spend my days with 27 amazing second graders and to have the opportunity to teach them. 

Who doesn't love a job where you get things like this?

One of my favorite parts of the day is Read Aloud!  I absolutely LOVE to read to my kids.  It's a time where I don't have to worry about using proximity so that a student will stop fiddling with a pencil during a lesson.  I don't have to tell the whole class that I love how "suzzie" has nothing in her hands,is folding her arms, and looking at me (so that the rest of the class will comply).  I don't have to give out tickets or warm fuzzies (even thought those are good things and it is a pleasure to give them to the students who are being good).  I don't have to give warnings or take away tickets.  I get to read and my kids sit quietly, listen, smile and laugh.  Read Aloud is always something to look forward to right at the end of the day before we go home : )  

The first book I read to my class this year was The Hundred Dresses.  It is a short book and we read it in just under a week.  I didn't read it last year, but I love the message in it and decided that it would be good for the beginning of the year this year.  The book gave us the opportunity to talk about the importance of being kind to everybody and also what we should do if we see bullying.  I think that most of my kids enjoyed the book.  One of my boys even said "Yeah, that was a really good book."

Since our first book was a little more on the serious side I decided that we needed a fun book for our next read aloud book.  I decided on The Twits by Roald Dahl.  I read this book last year and my kids loved it!  I love this book because there is great voice.  The book really allows yo to model for the kids how to read with expression.  You know you have chosen a good book when the you tell the class that we will be stopping or today and they all say "awwww".  To those classes next to me who may have heard me yelling or speaking very loudly, I apologize. We were just having a grand old time reading and listening to The Twits!  

Some of my other favorite read alouds include: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Summer of the Monkeys, and Boxcar Children Books

I am also excited to read Flat Stanley with my class this year and to do the project that goes with it. 

What are some of your favorite read aloud books?

First Week!

Summer came and went and the new school year just began!  I have 27 incredible little second graders this year!  Yep, 27, and I am already in love with them.  They have been really good at following rules and procedures so far (I'll keep my fingers crossed), and have been good at working quietly.  The greatest thing is that I have already (in the first few days of school) seen them be so kind to each other.  One girl went and got a tissue for a girl who she noticed needed it.  Other kids have helped push in chairs for students who forgot or helped to clean up peoples desks. I see students helping each other find the right pages in their workbooks.  Students have written sincere compliments to other students and put them in the compliment jar.  Seeing this type of love and service in my classroom can't help but make me smile!  This is what it is all about.  If you can create this type of environment in the classroom you are providing an environment where students will be able to succeed.

Here are a couple of things we did this week:

We made all about me people! I got the idea HERE.  I had the students fill out the "all about me" paper first, then they made their face.  Following that they glued their "all about me" paper to a piece of colored paper and turned it into a shirt.  Most of them wanted to make full bodies and I let them go for it!  They turned out SO adorable and all unique ad individual just like my students themselves!  I love them in the hall! 

We also did our glasses.  The students were so excited about these big glasses that they got to color in and cut out!  See this post to learn all about the glasses. 

Together they look pretty good : )

Some of the other things we have done this week included All About Me bags,  get to know your teacher guessing game. a classmate word search, journal writing,Get to Know you BINGO, motorcycle math, calendar, silent reading, making bookmarks, learning about class rules and procedures etc.

 

Best moment of my week so far:

I was letting the students ask me questions about myself.  One boy raised his hand but then had a hard time getting his question out.  When I finally got it out of him the question was "Do you have a boyfriend?".  Gotta love kids!

In closing, here is a fun little first day treat, it would work for the end of the first week too : )

If you have already started school I hope that it's going well!  If you have yet to start, best of luck!



Looking Back on Summer

Last spring I found this fun idea on Pinterest.  The kids draw pictures of what they see themselves doing during summer break in sunglasses.

I thought I would change it a little to make it a back to school project instead of a school's out project.
The tag line to go with the activity is "We're looking back on summer, this is what we see."

Have the students draw pictures of what they did over summer break in their glasses.  I'm going to have my students share their glasses with us when they are finished so that we can get to know each other a little better!

Here is a free download of the glasses if you are interested!

Classroom!

I have been out of town for a lot of the summer but I am back in town and have been working on my room a lot the past few days!  

I've got a long way to go but here are some pictures of what I've got so far:

Welcome to Miss Paul's room!

When you walk in towards the back of the room there is the "second grade road".  Next to it is a sign with a bunch of things we will be learning this year!  This little display may just be one of my favorite things in the whole room!  I saw the idea written about somewhere, expect for the signs were all along the road.  I changed mine up a little :)  The stick that the signs are on is a bolt from fabric.

This is my carpet area!  Calendar, morning meeting, read aloud, story sharing, lessons, etc, it's all going to go down right here : )

On the stand next to my chair I have my compliments and concern jars.  Students can write compliments and or concerns that are distributed or discussed at our weekly class meetings.

Mountain Language will go up on this bulletin board.  Above the bulletin board is my birthday train!  It says "All aboard the Birthday Express".  I put the kids names along with the day that they were born on strips above the car with the month in which they were born.

I decorated above some of the cabinets with things from around the world.  I've got a travel theme going on if you haven't picked up on that yet.

Bookshelf. Still need to do a little organizing.

This is my wolf.  He is from Mexico.  I have the students put him on their desk when they go to the bathroom.  This way only one person is out at a time and I can always see who is out. 

This is a combo of two quotes that I found on Pinterest of course.  I painted it.  A little inspiration for my kiddos!

Rules, consequences, rewards.

My bookshelf.  Done Jars and Warm Fuzzy jar are both there!

"Paul Airlines - were learning takes flight"  I found the tag line somewhere and painted it on the airplane that I found at Hobby Lobby.  I just couldn't pass that plane up!

George!  Actually, I don't know what his name will be this year.  I let the kids brainstorm names and then vote on the first day of school.  He goes home with one student each weekend.  They take him home, play with him to their hearts content, write about it all, and then bring him back in his suitcase on Tuesday and share about their weeked with the class.  

 

No Name, No Grade!  This is where no name papers are going this year.  I am going to attach a pen to it with a string so that students can write their name on their paper and turn it back in if their paper does happen to end up here.  Students will be responsible for checking for no name papers.

That's all for now folks!  It's coming along slowly but surely! 

Recipe to Success!

I came up with this idea towards the beginning of the summer and am really excited about doing this lesson sometime during the first week of school.  One thing that I LOVE to do is to dress up for lessons!  The look in the kids eyes is priceless and they listen really well too : )  

The objective of this lesson is for my new class and I to come up with a "Recipe to Success" for Second Grade!  I will begin by dressing up as a chef/baker. Luckily I dressed up as a baker for Halloween a few years back so this part will be easy.

I will come in and have the kids brainstorm things that a baker or a chef would need.  They will brainstorm in table groups and then I will call on some students to share.  Hopefully they will come up with "recipe", if they don't then I will lead them to it.  We will come up with ideas on why a recipe might be important and why we need to use a recipe. 

I will then tell them that we are going to come up with a Recipe on how we can make Second Grade a great year.  I have a letter that my class from last year wrote to my incoming class, we will read that and pull some ideas from that.  I will then have the students share things that they did last year in first grade that made first grade great.  We may add some of those.  Following this I will have students think about rules and procedures and different things that I have told them about my class. 

As I write our ideas on our BIG RECIPE CARD (that we will display in he classroom near our rules and consequences) the students will write some of their favorite ones on THIS small recipe cad.  I found the free download on Pinterest, you can type on the recipe card to personalize it to your class.

When we are done with the lesson I will take the students recipe cards and laminate them.  I will then give them back to them and let them use them as a bookmark.  They can serve as a good reminder throughout the year.   

That's a wrap.  Recipe to Success Lesson.

All About Me Bag

This is something that I did last year at the beginning of the school year.  The kids loved it and it's a fun way to get to know each other so I am going to do it again!  Simply give the kids a brown paper bag on the first day of school, have them bring it back the next day with four things in it that they can use to tell the class about themselves.  Throughout the day the second day of school I have a few different times set aside where I let the kids share their bags.  It is fun to see how excited the kids get when they discover that a classmate has something in common with them. This year I made a paper with directions to staple to the top of the bag so that it is easy for parents and students to see what they need to do! Get a free download HERE.

I know that there are many people who already do this activity but I hope that someone will find this helpful for the beginning of the year!

Make your own class hundreds chart!

This is something that I did with my class at the beginning of the school year.  I plan on doing it again this year, I thought I would share.

First, I got out my huge hundreds chart! See THIS post for more on the hundreds chart. 

We talked about what it looked like and what it could be.  I asked them if it could be a hundreds chart and if it was a hundreds chart where would 1 be?  They helped me number it.  We wrote on it with a dry erase.  I had kids go and stand on different numbers so that we could notice patterns (e.g. if you add 10 you will end up directly below the number you started at.)  After we had explored the hundreds chart and numbers a little bit I gave each student some squares and assigned them numbers to write.  We then put them all together to make our very own hundreds chart that was up in our classroom all year!