Second Grade Rocks

science, Star Wars

Star Wars Science

May 19, 2016

I’m sure you’ve been on the edge of your seat waiting to see another activity from Star Wars Day. Well, I will not disappoint (if the bar has not been set too high). Ha Ha. Please keep in mind this was an entire day of Star Wars related activities. If you are interested in implementing The Force into your classroom you may want to check out my previous posts. This post is on the science activity that we did. I searched high and low for Star Wars science. There were lots of fun ones on TpT, but for some reason I kept going back to one I had seen years before when creating a Star Wars birthday party for my son. I really loved it and decided to implement it in a classroom setting and it went marvelously. Except for one thing………. the kids had no reference to Han Solo being frozen in carbonite. Excuse me-what the what?? I assumed (yes, I know) that the kiddos had a least a vague recollection of that epic scene. Uh-NO! It is all about The Force Awakens now and I had to do a little back peddling. Thank goodness I found a snippet…

math, Star Wars

Star Wars Math

May 18, 2016

As I mentioned in earlier posts- May the Fourth was a celebration of EPIC proportions at my school. The whole school was in the Star Wars spirit and my little classroom was brimming with Star Wars learning. I remember LOVING Star Wars as a kid and playing a lot of Star Wars at recess. I wanted my firsties to experience the same magic for at least one day. I was hard pressed to find Star Wars learning activities and ones that actually were geared for the younger set. So… I decided to make my own and that task remained on my to do list FOR WEEKS. Then…. the magic happened during a trip to Target. Honestly, isn’t that where all the teacher magic happens? I spotted… wait for it… STAR WARS CEREAL!!!!!!! Are you kidding me? I had no idea it even existed. I immediately thought of all the Lucky Charms sorting and Valentine heart sorting activities I have done through the years and I just knew that my kiddos needed to sort Star Wars themed marshmallows. I came home and made sorting mats for “gathering data” and recording sheets that allowed them to analyze their data–very official, we are….

ipad, phonics

Final Syllable -le

May 17, 2016

Final syllable -le can be so hard to teach and to be honest I kinda dread those lessons. Some kids are born with a gene that makes them spell words -el No Matter What!! It can be so frustrating for them and ME. When I saw the lesson in my first grade teacher manual I was very apprehensive to say the least! Are you kidding me?? It is hard enough for second graders I couldn’t imagine first graders. I decided to tackle this lesson head on. I took the bull by the horns. I was not going to let this concept defeat me or my kiddos. And you know what? It went really well. Shockingly well. After watching a couple of youtube videos on the concept and making an anchor chart together I had my kiddos play this game I found {here} for FREE! My class loved it. They had to read the word they landed on and write the word using the doodlebuddy app on the ipad. If you are going to be teaching this skill, I highly recommend trying out this fun game.

Star Wars

Star Wars Day

May 16, 2016

Our class had so much fun on May the Fourth. Our school had a Star Wars spirit day and most of the students were representing Star Wars in one way or another. Our whole school looked AMAZING. Now that I’m writing this, it has just occurred to me that we should have had a school photo taken. Dang! This may have been my favorite spirit day by far (and we have awesome spirit days). Our classroom tasks were all Star Wars related for the day and we were BUSY!! One way we marked this special day was to make Yoda Soda. You do need to channel “The Force” if you make Yoda Soda, it’s the force that makes it so yummy. In addition to the force you will need rainbow sherbet, sprite and neon straws. The kids went nannas for the neon straws too. That was completely a fluke that I used those, but they were a hit so if you make Yoda Soda in your classroom or at home go with the neon straws.

directed drawing, shark week

Shark Directed Drawing

May 15, 2016

I am loving directed drawing activities with my firsties. I’m a big believer that a child’s art should be a reflection of them and that made me a little leery of directed drawing in the past. That, and I am not a great artist. But… Holy Moly Batman, kids can be creative with anything. Directed drawings just give them a direction and the rest is all them, baby! I just love their sharks that we did during SHARK WEEK 2016.

rooted in reading, shark week

Shark Week!

May 14, 2016

My kiddos had such a great time learning about sharks. We used Amy Lemons and Katie King’s May Rooted in Reading. The unit is geared for second grade, but I was able to use many ideas for my firsties and will do the rest next year because I am looping up with my class and getting back to second grade. Win! Win! We started out our week with this anchor chart. The kids wrote one thing they thought they knew about sharks on the purple sticky notes. We read through all the shark facts as we put them on our anchor chart. The kids really got a kick out of this. Next, we used the blue sticky notes to write down 1 thing they wanted to learn about sharks. This was very insightful. One thing is true, kids LOVE sharks!!

decodables, reading street

Reading Street Decodables Unit 5

May 9, 2016

Thank you so much for all the wonderful feedback on the decodables reader activities. I just finished Unit 5 and they are posted in my TpT store for free!!

Uncategorized

Decodable Readers for ‘Tippy-Toe Chick, Go!’

May 8, 2016

I just finished up a new set of decodable readers for “Tippy-Toe Chick, Go!” You can grab them for FREE {here}. I like to use this in a variety of ways to practice the phonics and comprehension skills for the story.

inferring, reading

First Grade and Inferring! Yikes!!

May 8, 2016

Is it just me, or is inferring a REALLY difficult skill for littles to grasp? I am always looking for fun ways to teach this skill. I started following Jessica Travis on IG (Wild About Firsties) and I saw her post about ‘Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar.’ I fell in love with it. Firsties love to be detectives. They already fancy themselves knowers of everything. So I knew this activity would be a hit. If you are looking for some fun inferring activities you can check out Jessica’s activity {here}.

Uncategorized

May the Fourth Be With You

May 4, 2016

Star Wars Day is TOMORROW! My kiddos and I are so excited. We even get to have it as a school spirit day so we all get to dress up too!! Woo-Hoo! I was feeling especially optimistic a couple of weeks ago and decided to see if we could get some Star Wars characters to visit our school and they said YES!!!!!!!!!! My kids are seriously OVER.THE.MOON!! Our school only has 1 hour with Darth Vader and Princess Leia so they will be doing quick classroom pop ins. We decided to have each class ask 1 question of Princess Leia and 1 for Darth Vader. I asked my kiddos to write their question on a post it note and we would choose a question as a class. I was not prepared for the awesomeness of their questions. I mean, WOW, first graders have some real points they ponder. I enjoyed them all and I thought you might too. Hopefully you get a chuckle from these too! Questions for Darth Vader asked by First Graders1. Where do you get your clothes?2. When is the newest Star Wars movie coming out?3. Where do you live?4. Where do you get your light saber?5….

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