Our Teaching Tribe August Challenge

Welcome to Our Teaching Tribe Blog Hop! We've traded products with other Teaching Tribe members for a product review, just in time for back to school. Maybe you'll find something new to try in your classroom!

I was lucky enough to be paired up with Katie Palmer, another 2nd grade teacher from Pop into Primary. Check out her awesome TpT store that features great Word Work Activity Books! Since I teach math, I got her See It, Solve It Stories Math and Reading Mashup, which is perfect for 2nd-3rd graders.

It's a great product that combines reading and math in one! Students read letters to a detective and solve the problems. They also need to find the caps and punctuation errors in the letters. They work on counting and adding and subtracting money too!

What I love about this product is that it crosses over curriculum areas and makes the most of your time, while engaging students in a fun mystery to solve! Once they solve all 8 problems, they use the information to get the answer to the mystery.

I can't wait to use this product with my 2nd grade students a little later in the year. I know they'll love reading the letters, looking for mistakes and solving the problems to crack the code! I will probably make a copy of the letters for students while projecting it on the Promethean Board, that way they can circle the mistakes on their own, but still get support with reading the letters if needed. I think it will be so fun for kids to try to make guesses to solve the mystery! I'm looking forward to hearing their theories!

To see more great product reviews, click the button to hop to the next blogger, which happens to be Katie reviewing one of my products! Happy Hopping!

Flip Flap Book Report Project--50% off

After some internet struggles this morning, I was finally able to upload my newest product:

click here to get it

I assigned this project to my students and they were so excited to make all those flip flap books. They were also excited to make their own lapbook about their book. In order to make all the flip flap books fit, I added a page to the inside of the file folder. If you cut off the shorter side of a file folder (I used some old folders that had writing on the tab) and glue the "bendy" part to the inside, you can make extra pages. The "bendy" part is the part that is usually at the bottom of the file that allows it to expand. It makes a PERFECT page inside the file folder. 

If you don't have enough file folders, you can also give the students poster board or staple sheets of construction paper together to make a book, which is what I usually do for our lapbooks. This product contains everything you'll need, except of course, a book! My students were really enthusiastic about this project because they got to choose any chapter book, as long as it was a fiction book. Here's what you'll find in this product:

Oh, did I mention that it is 50% off right now???? Run over to my TPT store and grab it up!

100th Day Lessons Learned

Over winter break I made my 100th Day Pack and was pretty excited about using it with my class. I shared it with my grade level team on the condition that they give me honest feedback after using it. We celebrated the 100th day yesterday and after just a little scurrying around to find those last minute items we needed, we were ready to go! My little darlings were just too excited this week as their 100th day projects trickled in. We had some really "interesting" collections this year from army men to Q-tips. My favorite, of course, was 100 Box Tops!

I went around the room, snapping pics of the kiddos hard at work and having fun.

 They L.O.V.E.D those headbands! A couple kiddos had trouble keeping track of their 100 sticker counts, and one little genius had the idea to number each sticker with a sharpie. They really are 100 days smarter!

We had some trouble with the penny stack station, though. At lunch, my colleagues and I discussed some ways to make it work better. One smart teacher taped 100 pennies together. I had to think on my feet and decided to make a little "splint" with rulers to keep that stack steady.

For the most part, things went smoothly. There are always a few "oopsies" here and there. But I learned so much about product design by implementing this with my grade level. One lesson learned is that the adorable yellow frames just do not show up when printing in B & W. The roll, tally, and graph activity needed more lines on the graph and it IS really hard to stack 100 pennies. I made some adjustments to my product and now I'm offering it for 50% off until the end of January. Check out my store to get your copy at this steal of a price.

 Even though it was exhausting, it was all worth it when one of my little sweeties said, "This is the best day EVER!". Their writing was funny and sweet, they practiced some math skills, they listened to counting songs, read books, and had a great time. These are they days they'll remember most.

Have a great weekend everyone!

100th Day Pack and a FREEBIE

I have been slaving away (in between helping my 16 year old with college soccer coach letters) and have finally finished my 100th Day Pack #1. It is full of fun language arts, math, art and hands-on activities to keep those little ones busy all day (and maybe longer).

click here to get it

 

My students love the 100th day of school because they get to throw the old routines out the window for a day and do something new. I usually set up 10 stations and challenge the kids to get through all the stations before the end of the day. This pack includes a letter to send home describing the project I have the kids do with their families. They just love bringing in a collection of 100 things! They'll use their collections in a weigh station on the 100th day.

 

Our 100th day is only 15 days of school away, but I'm giving a freebie for you all today! I have quite the collection of 100th day books and never have time to read them all, so I made a simple book report that can either be put in a read to self station or listening center either on the 100th day or during that week. You can grab that freebie here! Please leave some feedback if you get a chance.

 

Since I have so many 100th day activities, stayed tuned for 100th Day Pack #2 (soon, I hope!)

Teaching Students to Make Inferences (and a freebie!)

This is quite a difficult skill for second graders to learn. I have seen so many anchor charts on the topic that it must not just be me struggling to teach it. My biggest issue is finding stories that really make it easier to make inferences. I came across the BEST book to read aloud to my class. This book actually requires kids to make inferences!

 

This story is told from the point of view of two ants that have invaded a human home. The author never tells the reader exactly what is going on because he uses different vocabulary. For example, the ants are in search of crystals to take back to their home. It takes the kids a few pages (and clues from the pictures) to understand that they are looking for sugar.

 

I started my lesson by activating their prior knowledge about ants so we could refer to it as we made inferences. As we read the story, I stopped and had the students make inferences about different parts of the story. The kids really understood how to make inferences after this awesome read aloud. Then, I assigned my Making Inferences Flip Flap Book (freebie!) to the students so they could write about the inferences they made.

 

I'll admit that they struggled, at first, but eventually got the hang of it. My kiddos really enjoyed the story and how it was told from the perspective of the ants. They felt like they were detectives looking for clues in the text and illustrations and using their schema to make some great inferences.

Look how much these boys were writing!

 





Literary Elements Flip Flap Books and a FREEBIE!

I have been hard at work this Thanksgiving break, making some products for my TPT store and to use in my classroom. I was inspired to make a flip flap book to help my students write about the inferences they are learning to make while reading. I came up with two designs:

This one is a full page and can be glued into a journal or stapled to lined paper.

This one is meant to be folded in half lengthwise.

Making inferences is so difficult for 2nd graders. We worked on it all last week and will continue on through the next three weeks. The reason I was inspired to make some flip flap books was the awesome pack I purchased on TPT from Graphics from the Pond. Click the pic to get it or the link to her blog, which is adorable!


I was so inspired, that I made a whole set of flip flap books to use as reading response papers with just about any book. These cover the first three RI and RL common core standards for 1st-5th.
Click on the pic to see my new product:

 

 

 

This pack has 7 different literary elements flip flap books with 3 different designs of each. They are simple and easy to use. My students love them and prefer them over traditional graphic organizers. I guess they love any excuse to get those scissors out!

Now for your FREEBIE! I also uploaded the Inferencing Flip Flap Books for free so you can try it with your class. I'm planning to create some subtraction task cards to use with my math centers, so I better get back to work.

Candy Contractions

After searching on TPT for some contraction activities to use with my class next week, I became a little overwhelmed. I didn't find exactly what I wanted and so I decided to whip up a sweet little pack of practice pages with a peppermint candy theme that is perfect for December.

There are five pages that have contractions grouped together by type. This page has contractions that all have "not" in them. I decided to teach one type of contraction each day, and this page will serve as a quick practice kids can do while I work with reading groups. There is also a page that includes QR code cards so kiddos can check their work and make corrections independently. See my previous blog on how I set up a QR code scanning station.

 

 

Click here to visit my TPT store and grab this product for your class!

 

 

On a personal note, today was one heck of a day. Today and tomorrow are parent-teacher conferences so the kiddos are out of school all week. I had 17 scheduled for today alone! I guess parents wanted to get them over with and get on with their Thanksgiving Break plans. I can't blame them...

However, here in New Mexico, people don't exactly know how to drive in any sort of weather and we had a snowstorm this weekend. When we get some snow, our school districts often opt for a 2 hour delay, which is exactly what happened today. I was up at 5 this morning to get to school by 7 and got the call about the delay. I slightly panicked because my district didn't have a plan about how to deal with conferences during a snow delay. I looked outside and saw that my street was clear and emailed all my parents telling them that I would carry on with conferences as scheduled, but if they felt unsafe about driving, I would reschedule. There was so much confusion amongst parents, teachers and even district officials. Thank goodness each of my families got to school safely and I didn't have to reschedule any. Now, after talking for almost 9 hours straight, my throat hurts. I still have 7 more to do tomorrow so I guess I better retire my voice for the night. It also dawned on me that we have exactly one month until Christmas! Yikes! 

Parts of Speech Sort

 My students have been struggling to remember and differentiate between adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and pronouns, and verbs. I decided to create a simple cut and past parts of speech sort for them to work on independently while I work with my reading groups. I also added QR codes and set up a QR code scanning station with my iPad so they can independently check their work. The kids have loved it and I really think it is helping. I just posted it on my TPT store, if you're interested. I made the words simple enough for ending first grade or second grade kiddos.

click here to get it

Here's a picture of one of my students working:

I also set up an iPad scanning station so students could check their work without interrupting my reading groups to ask for an iPad to scan the QR codes. The case I have is very handy for propping up. All the students had to do was hold the QR code behind the iPad and *poof*, the answer showed up on the screen for them. I did check their work later for accuracy. The kids really loved the independence and trust I gave them and really did make me proud.

Well, I better get home and start on dinner. I'm going to be holed up all weekend doing report cards because conferences are Monday and Tuesday! As soon as I'm done with conferences, my Thanksgiving break will start. I have 17 on Monday and I just hope my voice holds out. I'm normally much more prepared and calm than this but I have had so much going on both in school and at home. I just can't wait for my Momma's turkey, my Grandma's gravy and all the wonderful foods I've been craving lately.