Seven days people. SEVEN DAYS!!! I'm very excited, and so are my little ones....and it's showing :D Therefor we are pulling out all the stops to make this last week and a half CRAY-FREE instead of CRAYZEEEEE!!! {Can you tell we just finished up a Robert Munsch author study? If you have no idea what this reference is talking about, listen 50 Below Zero HERE. You'll appreciate the humor}.
Here's some of the goodness we've been up to to keep our little minds {and fingers} moving...
Fun with Fact and Opinion:
If you've never read the book, "The Day the Crayons Quit," you need to order it ASAP! It is the CUTEST book and the illustrations are to DIE FOR! We all just loved it!
After reading, we charted some facts and opinions found in the story, and then altered them into the opposite. Facts into opinions, visa versa. We are working on keeping the main topic of the sentence the same when we alter it instead of making an entirely new sentence.
Students then did a Crayon Cafe mingling where they traveled around to different tables lined with chart paper, and wrote a fact and opinion about that color {in that color I might add :) }. You can use this activity anytime your littles need to be UP and moving-which at this point in the year is quite often...
This is a quote from my dad I shared with my kiddos while reading the pink page after pink is a "girly" color comment was made.
We're Going to the Zoo!
We recently visited the North Carolina Zoo and we were super excited!!! To help prepare us for our trip, students worked with a partner and National Geographic.com to do some researching on an animal they might find while visiting.
We then spiced it up with a little mobile style illustration of our animal/ insect along with facts and opinion frames which hung from the illustration. They were super cute and the kids did a fabulous job with altering their fact into opinions.
*Believe it or not, they tied all of the yarn by themselves! Amazing, I know...
Getting in touch with our artistic side :)
They were CRAZY excited when they found this #proudteachermoment <3
We also made a snazzy life cycle lap book to go along with our animal unit:
Life cycle sequencing--don't know the source :/ I think it's Scholastic???
Great fill in reader we completed during small group reading
Aaaaaaand of course I'm throwing in some text feature review!
I have this set and it's PERFECT if you teach animals and life cycles- I go back to it over and over again. Great for your lower level friends, too--plus it comes with 2 handy dandy thinking sheets to go along with each book {these were added to the inside cover of our lap books}.
To challenge our friends a little more, I assigned each group a life cycle of their own to research with a friend. To publish their work, each group created a poster and presented it to the class. After we displayed them for a few days, they "rock-paper-scissored" with their teammate to see who got to keep the poster-
This app is great for information on "cycles." It may come off as a little "boring" but it gives really good information.
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| A Lifecycle App Available on the App Store |
I also created a quick life cycles page on our class website to aid with their research. It's amazing what they can produce when you tell them you expect something awesome. :)
They were AMAZED a rock actually has a "life cycle!"
They think they're so funny {ok, they are...}
Fishing for Fractions!
#selfexplanatory #nocopiesneeded
Out of this World Planet Research
I know you're probably thinking, "Is that all this chick has her kids do is research?!" The answer is.... YES! This year, my kids absolutely love it! So, I could read them a book about it, or they could read about it on their own and make more sense of it--so yes, we research...a lot. :)
I'm sure your library has these--they are PERFECT for researching in second grade! They are easy enough to read, but provide TONS of cool information and pictures for you little ones.
We used THIS and THIS research guide, because frankly I haven't had 30 seconds to make up something of my own, they were FREE, and awesome! It was just what we needed to help guide our research while Mrs. Perchinsky finished math benchmarks. :/ #thankgodthatsover
We then published them into these snazzy little booklets! These are SO AWESOME because the kids can decide on the layout of each page, it leaves space to add illustrations, and it's only ONE copy for a 6 page book!!
Students shared their books with a few friends and reported out some new learning they discovered from their friend's research. *I have to keep them accountable for "buddy" work and this seems to do the trick.
Robert Munsch Author Study!
Summaries don't tell too MUNSCH!
We started our author unit with Robert Munsch! He is without a doubt the BEST author to model reading with EXPRESSION!!! I've been slacking on my in class photo taking lately, but here is a few of the activities we completed with Mr. Munsch:
"Summaries don't tell too MUNSCH!" with Character Cut out :) We cut, colored, and stuffed these bad boys! Aren't they adorable!?
The Boy in the Drawer
If I had my very own boy in a drawer...creative writing and crafty
50 Below Zero:
Sequencing & Summarizing {Great to view on Tumblebooks}
Stephanie's Ponytail
Best book read by Robert Munsch EVER!
Students retold the story by answering guided questions and wrote about an influence they would like to have over others:
Also, check out the Paper Bag Princess--super cute and teaches a great moral. If you need to "fill" some extra time, your little ones can watch it HERE with a little extra added fun {aka a rapping dragon}.
Kevin Henkes Author Study:
Chrysanthemum: "What's so great about a NAME, anyway?"
What's more fun than writing your name over and over and over again with a white crayon?! NOTHING!!!
Students randomly chose a classmates and wrote positive qualities about him/ her in the form of an acrostic poem. It was a secret so sharing them aloud was the cutest thing ever. Their faces were the perfect shade of pink :)
Wemberly Worried: Our Third Grade Worries
Students wrote a worry {or two} they had about third grade...
...then we busted out the paint to design ourselves our own little Wemberly background. We used a template I quickly drew up to make our "Wemberly" selves. They then took the brainstorming {post its from above} and wrote about their worries in a few simple sentences. I swear, reading this book really helped ease their worries about leaving second grade--and maybe mine too!
Lily's Purple Plastic Purse:
Summarizing with Plot and trying our hand at book critiquing!
*We talked about the different types of "critics" this week and they could not believe you could get paid to eat and talk about food! They of course, are now all going to grow up to be food critics :)
Design a Tie for Mr. Slinger:
You can also get yourself a simple little comprehension game HERE for free!
...aaaaaaand of course, when you have nothing else to do, bust out the Wii and play Just Dance Michael Jackson edition :)
I'm working on getting some of the activities above uploaded onto my TPT store, so if you're interested and have a few weeks left of school, 1. I'm so sorry for you, and 2. Check back next week for some fun freebies to get you through the rest of the year!
We're off to Camp Perchinsky next week! Bring on the S'mores, sleeping bags, and flashlights! With NO specials and NO migrating outside to take a wiggle break, it's going to be a challenge to keep everyone occupied for 7 1/2 hours STRAIGHT for 3 days in a row!!! I may have to zip myself into my sleeping bag and hope for the best...#needmorechocolate
We're off to Camp Perchinsky next week! Bring on the S'mores, sleeping bags, and flashlights! With NO specials and NO migrating outside to take a wiggle break, it's going to be a challenge to keep everyone occupied for 7 1/2 hours STRAIGHT for 3 days in a row!!! I may have to zip myself into my sleeping bag and hope for the best...#needmorechocolate
