August 28, 2012

Dear Deer

I love doing art projects with my class. It reminds me of what excited me when I was a young student. Last week we studied homophones and my ELL 2nd graders were a little confused. We're going to have to keep working on them, but they did enjoy making their little deer and writing them letters.

I got this idea from Cara over at The First Grade Parade. I purchased her TPT file on camping last year and I never got around to doing it. We read Henry and Mudge later on in the year and it would go perfectly with that theme, but I was too excited to get those precious little deer up already!!

Tables vs. Desks

Now on to what I made this weekend. I saw this pin and I thought it was a good idea.

Then my coworker actually made on in her classroom. It looked so cute. I've always had a compliment chain, but it always took too long to reach the floor and it just wasn't that cute. I knew I wanted sometime cute, but I didn't want to use the jar. At first I was going to make Brownie Points and when students earn all of their "brownies" I would make them brownies. Very cute idea, but I went ahead and made a gumball machine instead. That way the students will be able to vote on their reward, that is half the fun and surprise!!

The gumball machine starts blank and whenever the class receives a compliment for making smart choices, or for having a nice line, they will get a gumball added to their machine. When the whole machine is filled up, they will be able to vote on a reward (extra recess, movie, free time, etc.)

I'm linking up over at 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made it!!

August 17, 2012

I Spy Time

I have yet another activity that I picked up from Teacher Tipster. It is called I Spy Time.



Last week introduced time to my 2nd graders. They were pretty good at telling time to the hour so I decided to teach them I Spy Time. I paired up the students and they went around the classroom looking for the letters for each problem.

 

They were both equipped with a clip board and answer sheet (available on Teacher Tipster). Since this was the first time they played, I wanted them to be able to work with a partner. Once they found the letter that matched the answer sheet, they worked together to answer each question.

I'll have my students play this a few more times before using it as a math center. I love this game because I used it as an assessment and my students had a lot of fun with it. I would suggest only having 2-3 pairs of students going around the room at a time. That would be 4-6 students walking around total, while the other students are working on another activity. Ultimately, this is going to be a center so only 2 students will be walking around. This activity is so easy to recreate. All you have to do is create the letters and you can modify it to fit your needs. Right now it is time to the hour, but later on in the year it will be 1/2 hour, 15 minutes, and even to the minute. I'm thinking of changing the locations of the clocks in January to make it a little more interesting and bring the fun back to this activity.

Magic Answer (Flip Chute)

Don't we all just love Pinterest? I know I do! I have been wanting to implement math centers into my routine this year and I slowly want to teach my students games that can one day be part of their math centers. I am currently working on a math fluency "program" (future post) and I knew that I wanted math facts to be a big part of my math centers. I saw this flip chute on pinterest and I thought it was perfect.

I went ahead and made one of my own. It was actually pretty easy.

There is a video on Classroom DIY, but I decided to do a more step-by-step video. You can see that video here.

I also  made a template in word that you can go ahead and type your questions and answers into. Click the photo to visit my TPT where you can download the template for free.

First Week of School

It is Friday of the first week of school. I dont' think I've ever been so excited to say that it's Friday! I had a fun week though. All of my students on my roster showed up on the first day and I haven't had any new students yet. It's nice getting to know my students and practicing routines and procedures with a consistant class. Here are some highlights of the week...

• starting whole brain teching (post later)
• staying on top of planning and copies
• sticking to my resolution schedule
• my "wiggly" student sitting in his seat the whole 40 minutes of writing
• learning all of my students' names on the first day of school
• having a "straight" line basically all week
• getting a compliment from the assistance principal
• working together with my grade level team

I have Self Control UPDATE

If you guys remember, I made a post about Teacher Tipster. I found him through Pinterest and I knew I wanted to try out some of his ideas. The first one I wanted to try out was his self control bubble lesson. I wanted to try it out on the first day of school, but I knew that my little darlings wouldn't be able to handle it. Since today was Friday I figured it was the perfect day. We went outside for a morning recess and there were a couple wiggly kids running around outside in another class while they were in line. My students saw it and instead of deciding to be wiggly, they stayed in line. I was taking a big chance, but I wanted to try it out.

I followed everything that Mr. Smith did in his video and... IT WORKED!!! We were able to talk about having self control and one of my students, who needs a lot of work on self controled put it in perfect student friendly words. He said, "It's like your brain is driving your body." He even put gestures with it!! I was so amazed at how well it worked. It was nice to reference it later on in the day. We will see how often the poster will help them. Of course you don't want to pull your bubbles out every time your students loose control, that would just be a nightmare waiting to happen!!!