Second Grade Rocks

matter, science

Solids, Liquids and Gas!

October 17, 2016

It’s finally here! It’s finally here. We started our unit on Matter. I LOVE this unit. I mean I seriously LOVE this unit. We use Foss science kits in our district, but I supplement the kit with Hope King’s Matter unit and I can’t say enough about this fun unit. I began the lesson by having the kiddos watch, Bill Nye the Science Guy’s episode on solids, liquids and gas. After the video I had the kids go back to their seat and find the Matter picture I had left under their name tag. I used the pictures from Hope’s unit. As a class we discussed and sorted the pictures onto Solids, Liquids and Gas posters. After we sorted the pictures together I gave each student a set of their own pictures and a flap book to sort their pictures into. I hung the posters up so the students could reference them if needed. They really enjoyed demonstrating their knowledge on the flap books.

desert, reading street, research, science, writing

Desert Research Writing

October 17, 2016

Last week our story was the riveting selection, “A Walk in the Desert.” It is not the most exciting thing to read, but the desert is a topic of interest to seven year olds and I wanted to capitalize on that. I decided to use this selection as a tool for “researching” the desert. The first read of the selection story I always have the kiddos listen to the audio version. The next day I buddied up the kiddos and had them read the selection and fill out this graphic organizer together. They did a great job. The categories of the graphic organizer correspond to the Desert Book the kids made the next day. I hung up posters of each part of the graphic organizer (which I did not get a picture of!!) and collected the student responses onto the poster pages so the kids could see what their classmates had come up with too.The next couple of days the kiddos worked at writing their research book about the desert. They really got into it. I let them work around the room (flexible seating anyone?) and use the class posters, their graphic organizer and the reading book for reference. …

reading street

Henry and Mudge Camp In

October 3, 2016

We just finished reading, “Henry and Mudge and the Starry Night.” Who doesn’t love Henry and Mudge? The kids were really into it so my teaching partner and I decided to have a “camp in” complete with s’mores!!! I know, what were we thinking??? I’m blogging about it DAYS later because it has taken me that long to recover. But, it was well worth it. The kids brought in sleeping bags, flashlights, lanterns, snacks and books. We had a lot of opportunities to read throughout the day and the campers completed an instruction book on how to make s’mores. Fun, exhausting day. Whew!

decodables, reading street

Reading Street Decodables for First Grade Unit 1

September 25, 2016

I happened! It finally happened. I have finished unit 1 Reading Street decodables and activities. I even bundled them so you don’t have to find each decodable for the unit in my TpT shop. They are now in one easy download. Sweet Tomatoes I’m so happy. This has been on my to do list for months and I have heard from several of you that you are waiting. Thank you so much for your patience. I’m starting on unit 2 TODAY! If you haven’t used these decodable activities in your classroom yet, what are you waiting for?? They are FREE!! I have retyped each decodable and included phonics and comprehension activities. You can use this whole group, small group or at a center. The possibilities are endless. You can download unit 1 right here: Reading Street Decodables Unit 1 Be sure to follow my store and this blog so that you will be notified when I get unit 2 up.

verbs

Angry Verbs!

July 13, 2016

I’m finally finding some time to pull my school photos off my phone!! Eeekkk! I realize this post is late, very late… let’s think of it as “early”-early for next year. The timing of this activity actually fell 2 weeks prior to the Angry Birds movie coming out. See how long ago this was?! I was looking for a fun way to review verbs and I found several activities on TpT and Pinterest for “Angry Verb” activities. Which I really liked and then I stumbled across this post by First Grade Fairy Tales and my whole Angry Bird/Verb vision came to life. I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE student generated projects. They make me happy and I loved how she had her kiddos actually cut out and assemble their own angry birds rather than color a picture. This is where things got a little tricky for me though. I could not find patterns for the life of me anywhere. First Grade Fairy Tales explained that she just made the patterns and I thought okie dokie- I’ll make my own patterns too. Holy Cow! They were much harder than I anticipated. I did save my patterns to share with all…

directed drawing, Star Wars

Yoda Directed Draw Instructions

May 29, 2016

Boy oh Boy! I have gotten a ton of questions about our Yoda Directed Draw. I took some photos so you could see the steps I went through with the kiddos. I hope this helps! Thanks for all the amazing feedback.

lego, Star Wars

Star Wars Legos

May 24, 2016

At my current rate of blogging I may have all my Star Wars posts up before next Star Wars Day- MAYBE! I won’t make any promises. But… these ideas could be used at any time of the year not just Star Wars Day. You could even use these at a Lego themed birthday party!! I will say that this was definitely one of my favorite activities during Star Wars Day. I gave each group of 3-4 kids a baggie containing a set of legos that I had taken out of a polybag. Each group got the exact same set of legos, but nobody got the directions or a chance to see the polybag they came in. I told the students that it was their mission to create a droid using ALL the legos in the baggie. All the kids went to TOWN. They loved it. I will also add that each student in the group was actively participating. Some students were thinking up ideas, others were building, some were separating– they were all busy and working cooperatively. LOVE THAT! Once all the droids had been completed, each group shared their droid with the class and explained what their droid…

phonics, post it notes, reading street, Target

Oh so much fun with ‘oo’

May 22, 2016

Last week our story was, “Dot and Jabber and the Great Acorn Mystery” and our phonics skill was ‘oo’ as in spoon. I saw a cute spoon anchor chart on Pinterest. The teacher had written all the words on spoons. I thought that would be fun and I love to have my kiddos get up and move during our lessons. So……………. I went to Target to get 100 plastic spoons. I probably didn’t actually need 100, but in my head at that moment I couldn’t accept anything less than a hundred. I also made an amazing find during my spoon bonanza at Target, because, well, duh, it’s Target. As I was walking up to check out I passed these on SALE! I have eyed these for quite awhile. They are awesome. But, I could never think of a way to actually use them. I couldn’t buy something for the sheer awesome factor alone. Heavens! I stood there gazing at these and holding my million spoons trying to conjure up a way for these spoons to interact with the BIG post it notes. Then it hit me! My kiddos could make their own spoon anchor charts. BAM! I had a…

comprehension, reading

Compare and Contrast

May 21, 2016

This week one of our reading skills for, “Dot and Jabber” is to compare and contrast. We have touched on this skill throughout the year. I was ready for my kiddos to hit it home. So, we went with life size Venn diagrams via hula hoops. I’m clearly a big believer that the bigger you go the better they’ll learn it. I keep seeing this theme as I look back at previous posts. Well, whatever works right? So I gathered the children around our Venn diagram and randomly chose 2 students with my handy dandy stick picker app (if you don’t have that app you must). Each student stood in one of the hoops and the class called out differences between the students. I wrote these down on sticky notes and planned to lay them on the ground around the students. But… when I handed the stickies to Miss K she started sticking them to her and I thought BRILLIANT!! How cute is that and it really provides a much better visual. I would say that they definitely have this concept down.

art, directed drawing, Star Wars

Star Wars Directed Draw

May 20, 2016

I have become rather passionate about incorporating directed draws into my lessons when I can. I thought Star Wars day would be a great opportunity for a directed draw. But………….. I could not find any on TpT or from a Google search. There was nothing out there, which really surprised me. So… I thought…. I’ll make one myself. Which is terrifying. I have said it before and I will say it again. Art + Me = Disaster. Plus, art with first graders would elicit honest commentary that I wasn’t sure I could handle. I decided I would jump in and if this part of the day went badly the kiddos would forget all about it in in their Yoda Soda haze and I could just quietly dispose of the evidence. Guess what? They turned out great. I couldn’t be prouder of these kids. Yes, these yodas may resemble Shrek or The Grinch. But, who cares? We love them and that is all that matters. What do you think?

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