Second Grade Rocks

r controlled vowels

R controlled er, ir and ur

February 17, 2016

These are some seriously tricky sounds! I knew I needed to really engage my firsties when introducing these sounds. I spent way too much time scouring Pinterest, TpT and just good old fashioned googling. And then it finally happened!! I found the perfect activity!! Don’t you love it when you have that Eureka moment? I knew this activity was exactly what my kiddos needed. The best part was that it was FREE!! Free? I couldn’t believe it. I quickly downloaded everything because I was pretty sure the free part was a mistake. If you need some bossy r fun you must check this activity out right {here}. It is just so cute. You get a letter from the ir, ur, er triplets. I chose 3 kids to wear a headband to represent each triplet (headband in packet for FREE). The students than sorted word cards to the correct “leadER.” We then sorted the words onto the cape shaped anchor charts. Now that the students were ir, ur and er experts they got to make a super hero mask to show off their new power (yep, FREE in packet). With their masks affixed to their super smiley faces they were tasked…

frog and toad, reading street, sequencing, writing

Frog and Toad Together

February 17, 2016

My little firsties are getting so awesome with their sequencing skills. I attribute that to doing these little babies! I normally teach second grade and sequencing is always a challenge. Since I am looping this group up I decided to hit the sequencing hard and boy am I glad. When I started doing these we did them whole group. Now they do them during their buddy reading each week and it works out great. You can grab this freebie {here}.

100th day, apps, technology

100 Day Awesomeness!

February 16, 2016

I just love the 100th day of school! So many fun learning activities abound on TPT, Pinterest and Instagram. I came across the idea of aging the students too 100 years old. In the past I have had my kiddos rip paper to create a portrait of what they thought they would look like at 100 years old. The ripped paper makes for a wonderful wrinkly effect. But….. Now I can age my kiddos with an app!!! How awesome is that??? I took photos of my firsties and aged them all to 100 years old! My plan is to make a bulletin board and they will guess who’s who. After that, I will use the photos in a class book. I’m seriously loving this!! I think the missing teeth makes it even better.

nouns, reading street

Honey Bee Noun Search

February 16, 2016

Wow! I was going through my camera roll and realized I didn’t post this fun activity. Well, better late than never! I used this activity when my firsties read the story, “Honey Bees” from Reading Street. They worked with a partner to locate nouns in the story. The kiddos really loved the illustration part for some reason. You can grab this freebie {here}.

phonics, r controlled vowels

Bossy R!

February 2, 2016

Bossy R can be so tricky for firsties. Last week we were working on the Bossy R with /o/ words as in -or and -ore. I really wracked my brain trying to come up with something clever that would get my kiddos excited for these tricky words. I finally decided to go with a sport activity because I knew my class loves sports and that would be one of their favorite -or words. I started the lesson by having my students watch this Annie Prankster video from “The Electric Company” on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE2HFLDPPDc They really seemed to enjoy the video. We talked about how adding an /r/ can change vowel sounds. I explained that they would be working with a buddy to sort some words according to the bossy r. They were super excited to get started on this and they did a great job. Next, I had the class tell me some bossy r words to add to our anchor chart. They could use the words that they just sorted, but they had to use a bossy voice when they told me their word. What kid doesn’t love bossing the teacher around? Ha! We came up with a great…

math, place value

Hopping Into Place Value!

January 25, 2016

My kiddos are loving the place value activities from Regan Tunstall’s Guided Math Place Value Unit. I have been using her activities in my math workshop and the kids LOVE them. I use Math Expressions as my primary resource because it is our district adopted curriculum. Math Expressions doesn’t lend itself to small group intervention as well as Regan’s units do. It takes a bit of prep work to match the unit activities up but it is well worth it. For this activity we are adding 10 and taking away 10. I thought it would be way more fun to make our number lines on the playground. My daughter has an over abundance of sidewalk chalk so it was easy for every student to have their own chalk. We made number lines that started at 10 and went up to 120 by 10’s. I started by calling out a number and they would jump to it on their own personal number line. Then I would say add 20. They would jump ahead 2 and we would all shout out what number we were on. When the kids were really good at adding 10’s I started having them subtract 10’s. Finally…

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Activities for Small Group Reading

January 24, 2016

I just finished up a worksheet to go with the advanced passage for “The Class Pet” in Reading Street. I wanted something more than just the discussion piece. These kiddos are ready to take things up a notch so I included a Main Idea and Details activity to accompany the selection. I also added a piece for the students to write their own sentences for the vocabulary words. I usually do this with my second graders and it is always a challenge. I am hoping that by starting them with my advanced readers in first grade it will be much easier next year (I loop my kiddos up to second next year). I will try this tomorrow and let you know how it goes. If you want to try it with your firsties you can get the worksheet for free from my TpT shop {here}.

lego, place value

Place Value Play

January 21, 2016

Last weekend we went to the Lego store. That pick-a- brick wall gets me every.single.time! I have never ever been able to walk away without adding to my classroom Lego supply. Never. Last weekend I saw these little green Legos and immediately thought they would make fantastic ten sticks. They go together in a way that you can easily see the 10 ones that make up the 10 stick. Plus, I get a cool Lego cup to keep them in. Win-Win. I decided to pair these Legos with Cara Carroll’s Scoop and Sort activity from her Place Value Packet of Fun. The kids loved it. I used this as one of our math rotations and had a parent volunteer helping the kids. They scooped up some of the Legos with a small cup and sorted them into tens and ones. I had them stick the ten sticks and ones onto small Lego bases. They filled out their scoop and sort sheet as they went. I know we will be doing this again. It was definitely a hit.

compare and contrast, Honey Bees, reading street

Bee Compare and Contrast

January 11, 2016

This week we worked on the story, “Honeybees” from Reading Street. Our comprehension skill was compare and contrast and that can be tricky for first grade. We did this venn diagram after our shared reading. Before we began reading and discussing the story together I showed the students the Envision It video from the Pearson Interactive Digital Path to set the purpose for our reading. The students knew we would be contrasting bees to people after we read the story. They were very engaged during our reading/discussion and were ready to complete the venn diagram. They had a great time comparing people to bees and of course they came up with things I would not have thought of. After we completed our diagram the kiddos made this quick bee craftivity that can be found for free right {here}. I had no idea I would enjoy working with this story so much. My littles just loved all our activities for the week.

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Honey Bee Informative Writing

January 11, 2016

We were able to work on our Informative Bee writing this week. My little animal lovers had such a fun time learning and writing all about bees. After they read the story, “Honey Bees” from Reading Street they were given a graphic organizer to record facts about bees. I also had students reading a variety of bee books during our small group reading time. It was during our small group time that I was really able to assist students in filling out their graphic organizers. Which, of course, I didn’t take a picture of. It is included in my honey bee informative writing packet though. Once the students had 6 facts written down they chose their favorite 3 facts and we turned that into a paragraph. I think my little firsties did a fantastic job.

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