2nd Grade Happenings: 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!