Hello New Year!

Well I haven't blogged since before our winter break... but I'm back! Anddd linking up a day late to Doodlebugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

New Year's Resolution time... My teaching resolution is to work even harder to get Whole Brain Teaching techniques into every lesson and into our day more often. This means... more gestures, more use of the scoreboard, more references to our rules & more consistent use of the Super Improver Wall. If you want to know about any of those wonderful WBT goodies, check out my WBT tab & hop into a WBT Wednesday (which I PROMISE I will get back into!!! especially now that I "met" fellow WBTer Heidi over at Droppin' Knowledge who also does a WBT Wednesday.

I'm so excited to be working with one of our amazing reading consultants & my fabulous teammates & one of our special education teachers to start a new fluency block during our week. We sorted our second graders into types of readers and are each taking a group of 10 or less kiddos and teaching fluency geared at the types of reader we have.

Our reading consultant introduced this awesome fluency book that is really guiding us through this process. Right now we are meeting 2x a week for 15 minutes and will reassess in 6 weeks to see how much our students' fluency has improved.

I've had the somewhat bad habit of coming up with math games on the fly lately... but this one was a hit for working with double digit subtraction WITHOUT regrouping. Grab it for free...

To play, just have your kiddos roll a dice 3 times (I had them roll a double dice and a 12 sided dice - 10, 11, 12 kiddos picked any number). They fill in the boxes with the numbers they rolled, being sure they create a larger number on top.

I also created this one this week to practice counting back by 10's before we delved too deeply into double digit subtraction. It was a nice little refresher on Monday to get back into school mode.

This was a little less "last minute" and even has directions right on the top of the page for ya ;)

We've been working hard on nonfiction text features. The kiddos loved this super simple activity this week. We had a shortened amount of time due to our new fluency rotations so I gave each partnership a nonfiction book about animals (National Geographics for Kids series) and 4 pieces of highlighting tape. Their job was to try to find a heading, a caption, a map and a label and they only had 5 minutes to do it. They did SUCH a great job. Every group whose book had all 4 of these features found them. A few of the books didn't have maps, but those groups found the other 3 without a problem :)

 

And finally, I just can't help but share the AWESOME gift my students' families got for me... talk about the coolest teacher chair ever!!! I am so lucky for the group of families I have this year!


I hope you all had a great holiday and are starting the New Year off right!

Five for Friday: Welcome November!

Linking up with Doodlebugs for another Five for Friday!

Mustache you a question survey, data collection & bar graphs are always a hit & the photos are just a hoot!

They make for a pretty great hallway decoration too!

My kiddos are LOVING that our new classroom website has a blog section! I'm choosing kiddos to write solo & collaborative posts about what we do in school during the week. Loving the free weebly education site features! May even have these second graders creating their own websites soon - also through the weebly education site!

We are studying matter in Science and the kiddos LOVED this liquid investigation. I had mystery liquids in cups around the room (hand soap, dish soap, water, milk, glue, etc.) First the kiddos observed with their eyes & drew the liquid, then they smelled the liquid, recording what they smelled. They were then able to use their touch to observe the liquids. Finally, they guessed what they thought the liquid was. They rotated between all the liquids, recording their observations. At the end of the investigation I revealed the identify of the liquids. So fun! Grab yourself a copy of our recording sheet below:

My district has school on Veterans Day so I always try to do something to honor the brave men & women who have and are protecting our freedoms. This year we made star wreathes. Each star had a word we thought of when we heard "Veterans Day" after reading a Scholastic News about Veterans Day & going to our "Poppies & Poetry" Veterans Day assembly. We made this wordle with our words so students had somewhere to refer when creating their wreathes.

Loving the November door one of my families created! Be sure to check out tomorrow's post on Mrs. McClain's Blog Hop to learn all you Oughta Know about door decorations!

You Oughta Know October Blog Hop!

Welcome to my post for Mrs. McClain's blog hop...

I think you oughta know about the MANY uses of STICKY NOTES!

I love love love sticky notes and I use them in a ton of ways in my classroom! I'm going to share a few of those ways with you today...

 Whole Group Lessons:

I use sticky notes for whole group lessons a lot & students will stick one of their sticky notes to the "Sticky Note Parking Lot" at the end of the lesson.

Often I will use sticky notes during a read aloud for students to stop & jot. I will give students a certain number of sticky notes, have them number them, then stop during the read aloud, ask a question, ask students to make a prediction, ask a question, etc. and they will stop and jot it on their sticky note.

At the end of the lesson I will ask students to park a certain numbered sticky note or their "best" sticky note. I can easily use these to gauge which students are on, approaching or not on the target. I use the organizer above to easily sort out which students have mastered the objective, standard, etc.
I keep these organizers in a binder. Simple sticky notes can be a great (and easy way) to assess students' learning. You can grab a copy of these organizers by clicking the photo above.


Small Group:

I also use stickies a ton in reading groups/book clubs. The kiddos love to write on sticky notes so what better way to get them to write about their reading than writing questions on sticky notes an sticking them inside their books. When the students get to the sticky note, they stop and answer the question.

In order to ensure quality answers, we use the above T.A.P. bookmarks to rate our answers. Students can receive a point for turning the question around, a point for answering the question perfectly and 1-2 points for proving their answer using details from the text. You can grab these book marks by clicking the picture above.

Individual Conferences/Goals:

My students also use sticky notes when they are working on individual reading goals from our C.A.F.E. board. Many of the strategies they are working on lend themselves to writing their thoughts while reading on a sticky note. I.e. Ask questions, make predictions, summarize a chapter. The kiddos love that they have some ownership over these stickies and it isn't just stopping and writing when I decide they should. The stickies are nice too because they serve as natural book marks, so when I individually conference with my students, they know right where to go in their book to prove that they are working on their goal.

I even carry around a little bin of "supplies" to my individual conferences so kiddos can restock on stickies and so I can create "model" stickies for kiddos who need them.


There are SO many uses for stickies including tons beyond what I'm sharing here. How do you use stickies?

An InLinkz Link-up

Five for Friday: Journals & Charts & Freebie!

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs for Journals & Anchor Charts & a Freebie, oh my!

Our grade level started using interactive math notebooks this year. I recently found THIS amazing resource from Blair Turner and it was worth EVERY penny! I really mean it too, because I'm not one to spend a ton of money on TPT products, I'll try to figure out a way I can make it/do it myself or ways I can make it fit my teaching style better, etc. But this is second grade math interactive journal perfection!

The kiddos LOVE adding to their journal. We do a version of Math Centers/Math Workshop and they LOVE when I tell them the teacher rotation will be their math journals.

I hope this will eventually be an independent rotation but for now they need my support so I use it as an opportunity to expand on/reteach my mini lesson while they cut & glue.

Our grade level has also started using (at the reccomendation of one of the 3rd grade teachers) interactive reader's notebooks. I bought THIS amazing resource from Nicole Shelby  to help with that.

I've been using it in small pieces about 2-3 times a week. So sometimes it takes a full week to complete an entry, but I'm finding it's working well because it isn't taking away from any of my "normal" lessons.

I also am using parts during reading group - i.e. summary entry was made after completing a book in a reading group so we could talk about that story in relation to what we learned about summaries.

One of my girlies says: so can I look at this page when I'm reading to make sure I'm thinking about what's important? I could of hugged her! YES YES YES, that's what these journals are for!!!!!

The toughest thing with the interactive notebooks is all the cutting... so I've started to really put the paper cutter to use when I prep for an interactive journal day!

I was inspired by Nicole Shelby's interactive notebooks and used her "What stuck with you?" bubblegum theme for author's message. My kiddos were even impressed with my artistic anchor chart... it made my day that they noticed my hard work :)

On the anchor chart note, I'm loving our addition and subtraction strategy anchor charts this year! Last year we included "count on fingers," "use manipulatives," etc. but this year my kiddos are more proficient with their math facts so we have included more "complicated" strategies! Our subtraction one isn't quite finished yet!

Finally, the promised freebie! Although this is not an "anchor chart" per say, it is certainly a chart that is a huge part of our daily routine. Each day we complete this "number of the day" chart for the number of days we've been in school. It has really helped my kiddos with their number sense, especially when it comes to 10 more/10 less! I have the cards printed and laminated then taped to one of the giant post it note chart papers so I can move it to the easel during morning meeting and stick it up behind the easel during the rest of the day. This would also work really well to gear kiddos up right before math! I hope you can find it useful in your room.