Hands on Place Value Fun

Hi, there! We’re 10 days in and beginning to dive into our curriculum. We’ve been practicing and practicing and…..practicing routines some more as we get to know one another. In the midst of all of the “getting to know you”, we’ve also begun setting the foundation for lots of working with numbers!

In case you haven’t stopped by in a while (because I haven’t blogged in a while)…last year, I made the jump from 1st to 2nd! Haven taken some time to  become acquainted with all things 2nd…I’m READY to share again! Yay!!! Thanks for following the fun on Instagram and Facebook! It’s going to be our #bestyearyet on the blog too!

The number of assessments we have to give this year has been reduced, PTL!!! Because of this, our procedures for unpacking our standards have moved away from being focused on a single assessment, to being focused on the learning needed to understand the standards. Our unpacking (backwards design) posters will now contain illustrations of the models and representations that we’ll use throughout each unit. This page is hung low on the board because it will be Page 1 of a wall sized flipbook. The next one we make, will be hung right over it….they’ll be left on the wall for the duration of the year for students to lift and look at as a reference tool. The needed vocabulary cards will also move to our classroom word wall, once our unit focus changes.

As we began to show numbers in different forms, students were consistently expanding numbers using only the single digit rather than the number needed to represent its value…..so, enter our handy dandy place value demo cards!

Sometimes, you have to walk a mile in a number’s shoes to truly understand it’s value! Young students need kinesthetic, whole body learning as much as possible. This lesson was just the right fit! Students actually took turns sitting on a giant place value chart (our carpet) to represent numbers in expanded form, then stood to dance along with music before aligning the cards to represent the number in standard form.

I’m usually about all things literacy, but admittedly have been inspired to have a LOT more fun with math this year. Dare I say, I AM enjoying teaching math?! I said it! And meant it…math is fun! Now that I think about it…most of the training I attended this summer was over MATH!

After getting a better grasp on number forms, we also began to play with representing numbers in more than one way using our base-10 blocks. Realizing that you can model a number more than one way and it STILL be the same number was a huge eye opener and students enjoyed manipulating the blocks over and over again to represent BIG numbers!

Concrete models….&

Pictorial models…of BIG numbers! Hands on…music…movement…drawing…equals a firm foundation for comparing and ordering to come! Want to get moving too? Click HERE to grab a set of demo cards for your classroom!

See ya soon!

Freckle Juice & Freebies Too

Hi, friends! How are you? Starting in a new grade level this year AND having my son start football at the same time has to say the least…..been EXHAUSTING! While the blog has had a cobweb or two form, I want to take a quick sec to say THANK YOU for following on social media! You all rock! Hopefully, this little post will be the rekindling of a lovely relationship between myself and this little blog again!

I think I’m getting the hang of teaching second grade! It really has been fun! The kid part and the teaching part have been fun. We can talk about the testing part another day…that part is not so fun. Being able to leap forward from first with a few of my friends from last year’s crew has been ooper schmooper helpful! Here’s just a tiny peek into some of what we’ve been up to!

Teaching reading has taken on new meaning this year. The focus is no longer on teaching how to read so much as it is…teaching how to understand what we read. Because of that, our basals are collecting dust while we dive into authentic literature. At first, I was a little nervous about moving away from the structured focus of the basal….but NOW, I’m enjoying the freedom of teaching skills from real books….complete books, not just a part of a book that may be included in a textbook.

You know, I LOVE a great foldable! During the week we shared Freckle Juice, we completed a little blend of literacy and math to make some fun cross curricular connections!

Just computation…in second grade…not a chance. It’s all about the story problems now….all.the.time. Reading in reading and MORE reading in math….computation and application and thinking….lots and lots of thinking…and showing processes!  Here, we applied what we’d learned about identifying coins and counting collections of coins…

…and using number lines to subtract.

During our literacy block, we practiced writing and reading contractions with simple, index card mini-foldables. After working to create contractions, we housed them in the pocket of the foldable created using a mailing envelope.

The original two words were written on one side. Once folded, on the other were the remaining letters needed to create the contraction. Write, fold, flip…two words to one word. =)

Students also chose their favorite character from the story to analyze traits. After illustrating the character, students used sticky notes to record something the character said and something the character did. Lots of fun discussions were had as we took a closer look at each of the kiddo’s favorite characters.

Analyzing character traits was fun!

Sneaking in a little fine motor practice to cut and glue was fun too! Like it…want to use it? Click HERE to grab it!

We’ve also enjoyed WRITING class books. As our introduction to adjectives, we created this little book inspired by our cranky friend. This book easily became a class favorite because they each got to add their own "catch phrase"! 

It’s a little late to get cranky now, but if you’d like to add this little goodie to your files for your next year, click HERE to grab it! Did you know there are other Crankenstein books too? We’ll definitely be seeing more of him this year!

Our walls are no longer empty; there’s lots of learning splashed everywhere! Thanks for stopping by and catching up! Now that football season is winding down, I should be back in business and have time to share more of the journey into SECOND GRADE!

I’m excited about getting this transition year under my belt….about having the opportunity to get to know new friends…and of course, sharing with YOU! See ya again soon!

TPT Challenge Accepted! {Makeover Madness}

Just give a product a facelift they said. Add a little something new. Update it! It’ll be easy! Well, one product deleted and completely recreated later…..it was fun and so much more than just a little facelift! =)

I’m so glad I jumped into the TPT Seller Challenge that started this week! At first, I wasn’t sure which product I wanted to tackle first….BUT then, I went to a two day training. In the midst of the training, my creative wheels started turning and I knew EXACTLY what I needed to change…..and quickly! The training was over writer’s workshop with a word wall component. Not just any old run of the mill word wall though…..a new {to our area} word wall system!

Like most of you, my word wall was set up like this at the beginning of the year….in two neat rows, divided between M and N. Well, once upon a time ago….in a PreK training we were advised to hang our word walls horizontally in ONE long alphabetical row from A to Z. Some of us did, space allowing….BUT most of us continued to utilize our word wall in the formation above. It’s worked…it’s been updated to be manipulative. It’s become interactive. NOW….it’s being revolutionized! Which leads me to the product that I made over! Stay with me….I promise we’re going somewhere with this.

Next year, when I go in to set up my word wall…that writing goals chart will have to find a new home because letters WILL be arranged horizontally from A-Z. In addition to adopting the new structure, the background will be black. High frequency words will be posted above the alphabet strip and vocabulary words will be added below the alphabet strip. Different right? There’s more…

With there being two types of high frequency words, differentiation will [visually] come into play. Decodable sight words will be printed on neon paper and cut to the shape of the word. Phonetically irregular words will be printed on white paper and framed in black to the shape of the word. Vocabulary words will be added onto rectangular cut manila paper…below the letter. My classroom “theme” is black and white with pops of color soooo, hearing this started my heart to leaping and gave an educational reason to the color students will be seeing on the word wall.

…and it inspired my makeover item! A couple years ago, I created the little book above as a resource for our writer’s workshop folders. The old one is on the left. The NEW and IMPROVED one is on the right!

Instead of it being sized to fit into one of the side pockets of the folder, its now been edited for hole punching to fit onto the prongs running down the middle of the folder…to use as a resource to record and find spellings of frequently used words.

Notice the difference on the inside?!!! HUGE! THIS will also be how our word wall will look…..so, the book students will use to record new words will be a reflection of the wall we post them on! Lines will help with organization and they will have the alphabet with accompanying symbols to assist as a formation reference. Mind blown! If you can’t tell….I’m a little excited about the upcoming change! We’ve only been out of school for a week and my head is spinning with ideas to begin preparing for the new year!

Sometimes, friends' names can be a little hard to spell. There’s a space for those names and subject specific words at the end of the book.

Makeover…..done!

I just uploaded this cutie to my TPT store and because I’m so excited about how it turned out, I listed it as a forever FREEbie! Click HERE to grab it! Stay tuned…inspiration is flowing. More is in the works to accompany this….

See ya next week, when we continue the challenge by daring to dream……..BIG!

Filling Buckets with Class Books {Love Notes}

Hi, Friends! Long time, no blog! We’re down to the final stretch of the school year and things are starting to clear away a little….we have exactly 18 days left! 18! That’s it!

While it’s hard to believe that we ARE actually in the days of the final countdown, we have worked hard as a little school family and are ready for some rest and relaxation! I’m linking up with my bud, Kacey for a Five for Friday bucket filling idea!



As we’re winding down the final six weeks, our focus in writer’s workshop is creating class books. By doing so, we can review a number of topics in a fun way that the kids can’t wait to get their hands on. Alliteration. Rhyming. Phonics patterns. Conventions. Punctuation…..BUT, most of all….filling buckets and continuing to build our classroom community right up until the very last minute!

Like normal, I gave my littles a voice in the planning of this endeavor. We brainstormed a list of topics they’d like to write about. After compiling the list, students voted to choose their ‘Top 3’ ideas. To my surprise, their #1 choice was little ole ME! I have the best class of littles on the planet, but it can be a little scary to give them free reign to write a book about YOU! =)

After a little prayer…..and prepping a cover… [Yep, they told me EXACTLY what they wanted on that too!]…the kids set to work with a starter sentence to give the book a little rhythm. The starter sentence was……Ms. Dwyer is my teacher. Beyond that, they added anything they liked to describe me as a teacher and tell what or how I taught them in 1st grade. We were reviewing adjectives that week and let me tell you, those little stinkers made me cry! Like….for REAL TEARS!!! I cried! I tried to wipe them away and play it off, but ya’ll, the things they said were so heartwarming…..and I’m a big ole softie when it comes to my kids…..melted my heart as I read every page! That little book is one I’ll treasure for a long, long time!

….and just like THAT, one idea birthed ANOTHER!



It started with bringing adjectives to LIFE! We used one courageous friend as a living anchor chart! This brave little stood at the carpet, glowing from ear to ear as friends used adjectives to describe HER. As they provided adjectives, I jotted them down quickly and we labeled away!



We couldn’t exactly leave her there standing all day, so we created a “Flat Stanley” version and placed the sticky notes on the chart. After the adjectives were added, she got to add a noun under each adjective to name what it was describing. The next day, we used the chart as a class again to review each item students described and how we use adjectives in sentences before beginning a surprise project! It was super top secret and we had a limited amount of time to get it down while our friend was out of the classroom!

Did you notice the other little book covers on the 1st picture? Well, if my bucket was filled as an adult getting such a sweet gift from my class of littles, I got to thinking about how each of them would feel getting the same thing! So, as one of my littles was out of the room, we each sat down and wrote a note to tell her exactly how terrific she is! As she returned, I projected the book on the document camera and turned the pages. Each student read the page aloud and you could just see the pride and warmth bursting from each of their pores! It was one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever seen as a teacher. To hear each student, one by one, tell a classmate what makes them special…..especially, during the wonky times of these last few days was uh-mazing!!!!

I wish I had taken pictures of the actual book, BUT I think its now under guarded lock and key because the student receiving it LOVED it just that much! Each day from then until the end of the year, we’ve decided to fill a bucket for a friend or two! Love, love, love my littles and the care they show for each other.



Our guided reading groups have all blended to form strategy groups. During the first 20 days of school, we worked to build routines to foster a collaborative learning environment. During the final 20 days, students are collaborating and sharing what they’ve learned throughout the year as they review comprehension skills in mixed ability groups. In short, they’re teaching each other! Again…..teacher heart melted!



We’ve had a great year filled with lots of learning with great friends! While I get a little teary eyed this time of year, it’s only because I’m so proud of my kiddos. They don’t need me anymore. I’m just in the room to make sure there’s adult supervision. They know the routines because they’ve helped to create them and practiced them all year. They’re working together. They’re teaching each other…..and they’re ready, ready for all 2nd grade has to offer! And me, I’m the lucky one….because I got to be a part of their journey! I got the privilege to make learning fun!

…..and that little book that we created as a surprise? The student receiving it, proudly declared THAT day as the BEST day of her life! She felt special and was stronger than me because she was able to hold back her tears of joy! It’s the little things that make teaching so fulfilling, that remind me daily of why the extra effort to love on each kiddo in my class is the most important part of what I do. It’s what makes the learning possible.



Think your class might like to end the year filling each other’s buckets too? Click the pic above to grab a cover and a writing page insert to use! There are options to print the cover in color or in black in white to be colored. There are also 3 different simple double-sided writing pages to choose from. Enjoy these last few days…summer will be here before you know it!

   

Thanks for stopping by!

Smart Art: A Very Grouchy {Reading & Math} Craftivity

Hi, Friends! Has spring fever sprung in your classroom already? I think my class had bowls and bowls of Loopy Fruits before school on Friday…but I think, I think we managed to survive it!

It also turned out to be a very grouchy day in our classroom….BUT, in a good way!

 

Our smart art for the week was a fun connection between reading and math. Initially, my kiddos were wondering why we were doing math during our Daily 5 block, but after we got started with a fun interactive reading of Eric Carle’s The Grouchy Ladybug they quickly understood! Reading this book together was fun and everyone was able to participate because of the repetitive “call and respond” pattern found in the text.

This little activity helped us to wrap up our time unit, practice retelling, review shapes and use fractions in a fun way!

Each student was given a time taken from the story to represent in 3 different ways…how they would “read” the clock in words, how it would appear on a digital clock and how it would appear on an analog clock. That bold little ladybug had quite the busy day, so there were lots of times to represent!

The clock hands were colored to match our classroom set of Judy clocks. Each student had to show their time and get a thumbs up before gluing it to the clock face. After gluing the hands to the clock or ladybug’s body…students wrote to fill in their ladybug labels, then cut and glued them to the wings. In our classroom, students have creative control…so they did not all have to create their ladybug in the exact same way….BUT they had to make sure their analog time was visible after having glued the wings on.

See the whiteboard in the background? That was my little example projected onto the board to serve as a guide for their completed project.

We have new math standards in TX this year…the ending of the story worked very well for explaining “about time” or how we use quarter hours on the clock too. As the little ladybug flies through the story picking fights she moves from hour to hour. At the end of the story, she harasses a whale every quarter hour, which made for a great “teachable moment”.

After leaving for lunch and recess to let our little ladybugs dry, we returned to the classroom to retell the story. Each student grabbed their little ladybug and we sat in the hall in front of our lockers. Our intent was to sequence the times in the order of the events of the story {and hang them on the lockers] and we DID….BUT, HOLY MOLY did it look busy once we were done! I couldn’t even look straight at our lockers without getting dizzy! LOL!

Sitting in the hallway added a little novelty to the lesson too! With spring fever in full swing, finding new spots to learn in will be definitely be on the agenda!

See?! BIIIIII-ZZZY! Look away….scroll down, before your eyes begin to cross!

Whew! Much better!

If you look very closely, there are two little empty spots. Smart art is serious FUN, but also serious business. Students ONLY get to participate in smart art IF they have completed the two “must do” activities from work stations during the week. If it is not completed, then they must use their smart art time to become, well……smarter…and complete the work that was required of them. NO “must-do”, no smart art.This practice prevents students from being rewarded without having earned it. In our classroom, we have a lot of fun. Students are rewarded well, but it is because we make things look easy by doing the hard work, first. =)

Feeling grouchy? Click the pic above to grab this little activity for your class of ladybugs!

Happy reading! =)

What kind of pet would YOU like to have? {Research FREEbie}

Hi Friends! How are ya? Today started out a little wonky with a dead car battery and will end with a visit to the torture chamber a.k.a the dentist….so in between all the randomness of the day, I thought I’d stop in to share a little research fun.

Conducting simple research is an on-going topic for us and my little class of curious firsties is LOVIN’ it! After completing research using biographies, we tackled pets/animals next. The little chart above was created to document partner discussions at the carpet. Kiddos shared 1 target question about an animal they would like to have as a pet. After lively discussions with partners, we listed the questions to share and give each other ideas before recording the pet/animal on one sticky note and the 1 question on another.

We visit the computer lab once each week. During our computer lab time, students worked with helping partners to take notes. Each student was responsible for finding 3 facts that were connected to answer their guiding question.

What’s a helping partner? Glad you asked! I allow students to choose who they will work with when its time for partner activities. There’s only 1 rule. You must choose a partner that is NOT in your reading group. Reading groups contain friends with like abilities right now. Whole group and partner activities involve mixed ability groupings, sooooo when we work with a partner, it’s part of our classroom culture for stronger readers to be paired with a friend that may need a little more help.

I alternate, how they choose…sometimes the friends who need a little more help get to choose a partner. Sometimes, the strong readers choose. It’s created an environment of empathy and compassion that I’m very proud of. BFFs make for great pals at recess or during free time, but they can be very distracting when it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty.

Over the course of the week, students worked together during writer’s workshop to complete their writing and illustrations. This little research project was also an extension of our story for the week, Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats. It made for a lot of connections between reading and writing and even science! In order to take care of a pet, you have to know what a living thing needs to survive.

As we enjoyed stories by Ezra Jack Keats and about real animals online, students were also exposed to elements of media literacy. It was a wonderful week of all the little pieces we’ve been learning over the past few weeks coming together in lots of teachable moments.

When I complimented the class on doing such an amazing job with their second research project, the “Teacher Jrs” came up with a great idea! The trouble with giving a class of kiddos creative control is that once they’re used to it, they’ll exercise that right…lol! So, next….they put me to work!

I was asked to create a cover, so we could compile our writings into a class book! Here’s a look at how it turned out…

…and now we have a brand new book full of facts about pets…and a class of firsties excited about research!

Just like little Peter enjoyed learning how to do something new, it’s been a joy to watch my kiddos grow as readers and writers and now…..researchers.

With research complete and open house done, smart art was on the agenda for Friday. Researchers can be artists too! Willie jumped right out of the pages of the book onto the streets of our little city! When Peter’s mom sent him to the store, it looks like he whistled all the way to HEB and back! Just in case you don’t live in TX, HEB is our local grocery store. It’s the ONLY grocery store in a lot of areas! =)

Click the pic above to grab this little FREEBIE to get your research on too! Either I really like having choices or I’m indecisive….either way {lol} there are two choices of note taking pages and two choices of writing paper for your student’s final drafts, including a “back of the page” sheet and a cover if you’d like to make a class book too.

Enjoy and happy researching!

Five for Friday {First Week Back}

Hi Friends! How are ya? Did you have a great first week back at school? My kiddos and I had a busy week of review and catch up! We were all a hot.sick.mess during the weeks leading up to Christmas…..so we had to use our first week back to review.review.review and CATCH UP! And by golly, I think we’ve done it!

I’m linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching to share our faves from this past week.

We skip counted through the week in math! Notice the typo on the 5’s chart? Ugh! Not sure what we were thinking…thank goodness for my eagle-eyed team mate! It’s all fixed scribbled over to say in instead of is now. When you teach syllabication in the morning, and skip counting in the afternoon…..BEWARE….you may end up with big words on your math anchor chart! =)

Simply [rote] skip counting is of days past. Now, our standards call for skip counting sets of objects….the day we worked on counting by 5’s we each traced our hands and lined them up across the carpet to count sets of 5 little fingers! Kiddos loved how long the line was and were utterly amazed when they discovered how many fingers there are in our classroom! After we counted them, 3 students worked together to label each of the hands in order beginning with 5 before I hung them up to use as a reference.

This week, Smart Art began on Thursday. What we were going to do, would take some time….so it just couldn’t wait all the way until Friday.

I absolutely LOVE using the book The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall to teach how the changing seasons effect plants. After reading it and discussing what happened to the apple pie tree during each season, we worked to illustrate what we had learned. As much as I love sharing an awesome book, I love tying in art even more…

On Thursday we worked to cut, glue, and draw details to illustrate winter and spring. On Friday, we flipped our little foldable over to illustrate summer and autumn.

The wonkiness of kids’ work adds character. No patterns were provided. I like seeing their personalities shine through their work. Each kiddo started with a blank sheet of paper and a model projected on the whiteboard as a guide to get started. Though we were all illustrating the seasons, each and every tree, leaf, and apple are unique because they were given creative control of the work they’d produce. Lots of happy smiles were seen among the mess of clips and snips of paper all over the room!

Wanna peek inside? After giving summer and autumn a little time to dry, we opened them up to prep for next week. One of our performance assessments is to observe and record the weather over the course of a week. Last week….seasons. Next week….weather. We’ll use our little foldable to record the weather and relative temperature each morning. On Thursday, during our normal science lesson, we’ll read Gail Gibbons’ Weather Words and illustrate the vocabulary. Lastly, students will illustrate their favorite type of weather!

Creating a display type foldable added a little novelty to our work. Foldables shouldn’t have to always be flat! I love using them, BUT I don’t want my kiddos to get bored with them by continuously using the same kind all the time. They watched me prep this one for them and absolutely couldn’t wait to get their hands on it!

Will your little meteorologists be making observations about the weather soon? Click HERE to grab the mini-pages we’ll be using. Check out some of the books and resources we’ll be using below!




Happy weather watching!