2nd Grade Happenings: May 2014

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Let's Celebrate!

There are a ton of things to celebrate!

First, Summer vacation to Mexico is BOOKED! woo!
It did NOT rain today for Field day! Double woo!
There are only 2 days left for the school year! Yay!

But the best one, I HIT 100 FOLLOWERS ON TPT! woooo!!!

So to celebrate, I am offering 2 BRAND NEW FREEBIES!
Plus I will be hosting a Sale tomorrow!! wooooo!

First I have my Sail into Summer activity!

Great to review literacy concepts! Review literacy concepts such as ABC order, making words, antonyms, synonyms, nouns, descriptive words, and making sentences!

Great brain break or just for fun activity that still allows students to review what they have learned!

The next one is Find Someone Who….. Math review!

A great way to get students engaged and interacting with one another. Students will have other students solve math problems they have learned all year long.

Thank you everyone for all of your support! Please if you are new to my blog, Keep coming back and check out my TPT store! Follow me for great activities and ideas!

Happy ALMOST done with School Day!

Come back soon! <3

Monday, May 19, 2014

In the single Digits!

Man oh man, and to think, I would have been done with the school year THIS Thursday if it wasn't for the polar vortex! But, I am still hanging in there. 7 school days to go, and so much to get done!

All of my data for my students is entered.. Check!
Students are sorted for next years classes… Check!
Got a estimate of my expected class size next year (13.. holy moly)… Check!
Finally found out who I am/ am not teaching with next year for co-teaching… CHECK!

On top of all of that, I am still slowly re-doing my room for next year.. and I am in LOVE with it so far! I will definitely be sharing on here once I get all the pictures taken and all that fun stuff to help inspire anyone looking for a fresh start next year! I am lucky enough to be able to leave my stuff up this summer, just have to cover it!

As for the goodie of the week…. I want to share my iPad rules posters! Next year my classroom will be 1:1 with iPads and I am stoked! The possibilities are endless and I already have a list of activities to make this summer to use with iPads! So even more goodies coming your way.

Being that this will be my first time with 1:1 iPads, there is a lot to think about! Routines being the first one. Routines have to be established and put into place to help it all run smoothly and efficiently. Classroom iPad rules is the first place I started, and here they are!

They are half sheets, perfect to fit in smaller areas but include graphics to help younger students remember.

These are NOT on my TPT yet… however… this hasn't worked yet.. BUT if I get people who follow, and Comment with their email address, I will gladly send this file as a freebie! Lets see what happens!

I wish you all good luck this week! I will be back soon.

Happy Monday! <3

Monday, May 12, 2014

Crazy May-ness!

As many of you teachers out there know.. MAY is such a crazy month. The students start to get antsy, the teachers start to get antsy.. and Summer fever hits hard. ESPECIALLY when next thursday was SUPPOSE to be your last day…. until the polar vortex decided otherwise this winter. But we are toughing through it!

The last week of school, I always try to make to make it fun, hands on, but still keep as much content as possible! So I do a travel unit with the students. Our mornings are our literacy block, so we will read a read aloud about it, some informational text, fill out some story maps, and even work with vocabulary. In the afternoons for math, I introduce a little multiplication work, then of course review review review from the school year! And of course writing is included! Writing about their trip, about where they visited, and even making their own stories. Since our last week is usually 3-4 days with field day and assemblies, I plan 3 days of travel.

So of course they get their own "passports"

And we load a "plane".

After we get off the plane we go through "customs" and they get their stamp from the country.

Then we start the day with fun activities from that country!

In Egypt, we read about Egypt and the pyramids. In guided reading groups I will pull non-fiction books about Egypt and work with the students on them. Then we will read the informational text provided and solve the mystery words using the facts we learned to find out even more!

There are even fun hieroglyphic writing activities.

For math we work with Egyptian "multiplication" where students work with arrays and writing both multiplication problems and repeated addition problems.

In Australia there is a lot of fun to be had as well! Learn about kangaroos with Marsupial Sue! (can be found on Tumble books! With great comprehension activities included. Also read informational text and answer questions. For math there is a year in review with place value, addition/subtraction problem, basic 2nd grade fractions, telling time, and more! The of course a post card to write home with!

Then for my last day we finish it off with Big Anthony in Italy! Read Big Anthony, His Story by Tomie DePaola! (not included) work on comprehension as well as work on new Italian Vocabulary from the book! Read informational text about Italy! And for math, play BINGO with place value and addition/subtraction facts!