The Teachable Moment + A Freebie!

Today I had an opportunity to go with the teachable moment. We are hard at work on our Haunted House for Sale writing project. Today we talked about the topic sentence and how important it is. I told the kids that if their topic sentence wasn't interesting and exciting, a potential buyer probably would not take the time to read the rest of their ad. We brainstormed some great topic sentence ideas such as "Are you in the market for a new spooky haunt?" or "Enter my hideous haunted house if you dare!". Then I set the kids free to write their own topic sentence based on their haunted house. In the middle of their writing I had a fantastic idea!

I grabbed my "witch" and "zombie" fingers that we have been using as pointers in reading groups and put them on all of my fingers. Then I told the kids that once they finished their topic sentence they needed to bring their paper and sit on the carpet. I took the role of "monster/zombie/witch/ghostly ghoul" and each student had to come up one at a time and read their topic sentence to me. I, the scary creature, then would tell the writer if I was interested in their house our not. If I was interested that meant their topic sentence was great and had lots of details. If I wasn't interested they had to go back and rewrite it or add details until I was interested. They LOVED it. We were all giggling. I made sure to use my best scary voice and say things like "Come here my pretty!" or "Silence Urchins!". We had so much fun and their Topic Sentences were awesome! They really are starting to become dashingly delightful descriptive writers!

In more teachery related news, I have a freebie for you. I made a fun Halloween Family Project for the kiddos to take home next week. I figured with all of the candy they are collecting it would be great to incorporate some graphing and math! I added a few Halloween writing pages I found on TPT but you could also just add some fun Halloween stationery with a simple prompt such as "What did you dress up as on Halloween?". Hope you enjoy! Click here to download your copy. I'm making mine completely optional but it could also be great homework for next week!

Classroom This and That

Today I've got a variety of tid-bits from my classroom. I wanted to take some pictures but of course I left my camera at home. So I apologize for the poor cell phone quality pictures.

The awesome writing process tracker pencil chart that has been floating around Pinterest. I knew I had to make one! I can't wait to start using it!

I bought this awesome Haunted House Descriptive Writing Project on TPT and I love it! So far we have brainstormed who would buy a haunted house and what kinds of things they might look for in a house. They had some super creative ideas! Today they made their haunted houses out of construction paper and tomorrow we will start writing our ads.

This is my teacher bulletin board that is right next to my desk. I'm a big fan of the polka dot border. The beach/hammock picture is great to stare at and pretend that I'm there in the middle of a stressful day. :)

Don't you just love our cute fact and opinion owls? We have learned all about facts and opinions and one of our activities was these cuties. The kiddos simply cut the strips and sorted them by fact and opinion before gluing them onto the owls.

My classroom job chart. I use clothespins for EVERYTHING. I have a long list of jobs and each kid gets their own job. We keep the same jobs for 2 weeks. I "pay" the kids Eagle Bucks (part of our school behavior incentive program) on "payday". They know that I pay more for a job well done! Then the kids who get paid the most get to pick their next job first. I told the kids that I want them to do their job well so they get to choose instead of me assigning. It works GREAT! They love the responsibility and it helps me out so much to not worry about some of the little things in the classroom.

Math Games, Part 2

Here are the rest of my math games. Be sure to check out my original post to see how I store my materials.

Game #5: Writing Story Problems - I think that writing story problems is one of those skills that 2nd graders seem to struggle with, so after seeing an idea on pinterest, I created a math game to go with it.

Two students take one story problem book, one flash card, and one object card (index cards with animals, etc on them) to write a story problem. They have to show the math mountain that would go with their flash card. After they write their problem, they turn the page over and solve it TWO ways before writing their answer and label.

Game #6 - How Big and How Low. This is one that another teacher passed onto me. Each pair has a deck of cards. When it's a player's turn they pull 3 cards, placing one card on each place value label. I remove jokers, jacks, queens, and kings for this one. Then the other player does the same with 3 cards on their mat. If the students are playing How Big the player with the largest number wins and takes both player's cards. If the students are playing How Low the player with the smallest number wins and takes both player's cards. The game ends when one player has the entire deck of cards.

Game # 7 - Time's Up - Another fun game from Christina Bainbridge. Though I haven't officially taught telling time, we do it as a part of our daily math routine and the kids love it. This game is great to get them practicing!

Game #8 - Flash Cards - Such an easy and simple game! Just take any flash cards you have laying around and put them in a bucket. I was afraid this wouldn't be a popular choice but it is! I think my kiddos are mostly enjoying the Cars flash cards and the money flash cards.

I have a few more games that aren't pictured that are from our math curriculum, Math Expressions. They are addition/subtraction practice games that I simply put into plastic sleeves so they could be used over and over again.

Bookworm

Today I made a risky choice. I went into Barnes and Noble. Might not be a risky choice for most people, but as elementary teachers we know that the children's section can be a very dangerous place! I had some time to kill before meeting a friend so I let myself have some book browsing time.

It never amazes me how MUCH I love reading new children's books. I had an awesome Children's Lit professor (hey Beth Frye) who really made me love children's books more than I already did. She always challenged us as teachers to expose our students to high quality books and be readers ourselves! I find myself giggling when I read brand new children's books at a bookstore.

I found a few titles that I had to share. I only let myself buy the following 2:

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet by Diane DeGroat - I love Diane's books. Gilbert is such a lovable character that I think all children can relate to. He always learns a valuable lesson in each book. I didn't have this one yet, so I decided to add it to the collection.

Thank You, Sarah by Laurie Halse Anderson - This is a completely new one to me. The book tells how one woman helped make Thanksgiving a National Holiday after years of trying. There is so much history weaved into this book it would even be great for much older children (and adults) to read as well.

This last book I did not buy but I REALLY want.

Lucy the lovable and very excited bear is back in another fun story by Peter Brown. I originally wrote about one of his books Children Make Terrible Pets in this post. You Will Be My Friend was just as much fun! The illustrations are vivid and fun and Lucy is hilarious! I'm hoping the school library gets this one so that I can read it to my kiddos!

Teaching Text Features

As we dive into 2nd quarter my reading instruction is now full of non-fiction. Most of our reading objectives for the quarter deal with non-fiction. While my second graders usually know what non-fiction is and how it is different from fiction, they often don't understand most of the conventions, text features, and how to retell. So we spend a LOT of time in our minilessons learning all we can about non-fiction.

I've started out by introducing text features. I had an old poster that had a list of non-fiction text features on them in marker lettering. It wasn't fancy but it worked for the time being. As I started out this year's unit I couldn't seem to find that poster. I searched high and low in my carts but couldn't find it. So this morning during arrival I decided to make another one. Somehow this is what I ended up with:

I think it turned out pretty good! It's much more colorful and interactive than the old one and I included actual examples of some of the features from magazines. I enjoyed adding the colors and making it fun. I see anchor charts all over blogs and Pinterest that are so fun and to be honest I usually don't have the time or skill to make mine look that good. But this may be a stepping stone to livening up my anchor charts!

I made sure to include "why" author's use text features. Some older grades teachers have told us that their students may be able to identify text features but do not know why they are put in a book or text.

Of course, there's a major emphasis on USING text features to help students understand what they are reading. It's a strategy after all!

While I'm on the subject of non-fiction I have to give a shout out to Beth Newingham and her post on teaching non-fiction. I love her text feature books that the kids make with magazines. I made them with last year's class and will be pulling them out again soon! I also printed all of the posters to post near our carpet area.