Around the School #4

I just feel like there a weird vibe in the air.  With the terrible things going on in the world and then today we had severe flooding all throughout our town/county.

They called off school and we had a "rain" day.
I'm hopeful that everything will clear up and we will be back on track!

So onto the goods!
If you've been a follower you know of my monthly posts called "Around the School."  This is where I walk around my school and snap photos of some of my talented co-workers!  You should try this too... I bet you will be amazed at all the happenings in your school!!

You can see my previous 3 Around the School posts at the link just below my header! :)
OR you can follow my "Around the School" Pinterest Board...HERE :)

 Cute plate cut in a spiral to make the "streamer" effect!

 Each child "filled" the egg with a different animal.

I LOVE this one!  Each part of the caterpillar has a type of pasta to represent the butterfly life cycle!!

 CUTE!

This is so cute yet easy!!  A "U" for the handle of the umbrella and a half of a paper plate! 

This is total cuteness!  They look amazing hanging in the classroom!

 The rabbit is super cute!!  I've made the flowers when I taught first.. I loved that project!  The kids write the words in crayon and then use water colors to paint over- gives it a cool effect.

 Research project!  The smaller papers were actually created using recycled materials! :)

Cute spring acrostic poem!  You can get it in this pack. :)

Biographies!

Thanks for coming along with me on my walk around the school!

Be on the look out for my next post on my new Mother's Day pack... giveaway too! :)

Earth Day At-home project

Hey everyone!  Hope your weekend has been great! :) 

We've been working on a little bit of home improvement...

This room used to be purple.  We are thinking of moving my son into this room.  He was not diggin' the purple :)  

Our house was a wide range of colors when we first bought it...

pink family room

mint green hallways

orange living room

bright blue bedroom

purple bedroom

It's been a joy painting over all those lovely colors :)

Oh and we are FINALLY getting rid of the PINK in the bathroom..

I'm almost embarrassed to show you this!  We are having the tiles sprayed this week.  I'll be sure to post after photos soon! :)

The second graders have been working on a few projects to celebrate Earth Day!  We've also coordinated this with our Science unit on Natural Resources so it was a nice tie in.  Our first project was an at-home assignment.  The children were to find an object (s) that are no longer being used and "save" them from the trash by reusing the object as something new.  It was TOTALLY amazing to see some of the things the children created!  I saw an orange juice container turned into a wallet (no joke!), a pair of jeans turned into a "snake" to stop the draft from the door, and even cereal boxes turned into drawers for storage!  Here are some pictures of a few other things:

Glass Jar- now a picture frame!          

         

These are M&M wrappers turned into a wallet!

This is a ketchup bottle turned into a bird feeder!

These are water bottles turned into a jump rope!  My personal favorite!  :)

Here is the paper that we sent home with the kids to explain the project:

Click to get a copy

Also, if you want to show your students some examples, you can use THIS.

What is your plan for Earth Day?

Future posts:

More on Earth Day

Double Digit Subtraction (new product!)

Mother's Day

Around the School #4 (April edition)

Stop on back!

Have a great week!!

Fluency part 2- TONS of ideas!

Hi Everyone!

I'm back for fluency part 2!!

You can read all about part 1 here!

I have to do a quick share of one of my students first.  So I have this little girl in my class this year.  Reading just isn't her thing.  I'm sure you have a student like that too.  

In my class we do Daily 5.  One of the choices is word work.  If I let this girl, she would pick word work every. single. round. of. every. single. day.

Well, just last week she picked Read to Self 8 times in a row!!  I kid you not!!  I nearly fell over when she picked it without my prompting!  Those are the moments when I think.... ok, I got to her...somehow, some way...

victory! :)

So let's jump into fluency... part 2!
This week we have been working on a reader's theater based on one of my favorite books...




Love that penguin!

I start off showing this video of Tacky
and asked the kids to watch for signs of good fluency.

Luckily the woman who reads the book has GREAT fluency so we had a lot to discuss!

Then I passed out the reader's theater script

(click above to get a copy)

Prior to passing out the scripts,  I assigned parts to the students.  I actually split the class in half and each half is doing the exact same script.  They will be performing their reader's theater version for the other half of the class.

We have been working on:
 watching punctuation
reading with expression
projecting our voice
following along in our script
standing still ;)
and...
holding our script without dropping it!

We have been practicing all this week on the Tacky script and we will perform for each other tomorrow.

Next week we will break up into three groups with three different scripts.  They will be getting "big kid" binder scripts...

I will have to post a pic of how cute they look all standing there with their black binders looking all serious. :)

We will be reading scripts from:

The Recess Queen
(It's not the one I use...but it's a good one)

Wemberly Worried
(On TpT- I'd love your feedback!)

Caps for Sale
(There are a WHOLE bunch including this one here!)


We will perform for our first grade friends after about a week of practice.  I can't wait! :)


When I was thinking about this post I made a list of the things I do to encourage fluency... I came up with a bunch and I wanted to share with you...

1.  High Frequency Words-
This is the root of fluency!  Without a good sight word foundation, fluency is difficult.  I use this...

It's a fun way to practice building that sight word background!


2. Re-reading-
 This one is HUGE!
I have a sheet with a letter that I send home.  The sheets are designed so that the child is reading the same book 3 different times and then again at the end with me.  All that extra exposure to the same book builds confidence and fluency.
The sheets look like this:

Read 3 books at a time sheet

Read 1 book at a time sheet

I use books from our reading series as well as printed books from Reading A - Z (I really like their non-fiction books).


3.  Listening to reading-
When I taught first grade, I actually had the kids read an entire book (short level 1 book) on a tape and we created a listening center of all the kids reading.  I hung the books on a clothes line in my room and I used old "walk-mans" and the kids could listen to each other read (it was old school but so fun for the kids to become the listening center!).

I did a similar thing in second grade, except we created a poetry listening center on tape where each child read a poem and all the poems were together on one tape.  Again, they loved listening to each other read.


I actually have a tape recorder just like this picture... and it took me a LONG time to locate one!  It was a great purchase though!!

My plan this year is to record (video) the kids using my iPad and then letting them watch/listen to themselves read.  I think hearing yourself read is so powerful!

We also do these two things during our listen to reading time...



This site is simply AMAZING!!  It is quite costly.  However, I would search your local library or your neighboring libraries as they often have it for free (I actually use it from a library about 30 minutes away from my school).




This is GREAT!!  You can sign up for FREE as long as you have a scholastic account and they give you 10 books free just for starting!  You can use it on your computer, laptop, or iPad (that is how we use it).  Many of the books are read to the children and there are often activities to go along with the books. I actually use my scholastic points to get more books!


4. I've posted about this before...

It has specific word lists that progressively get harder.  The children read the words for 1 minute.  I use this with my parent helpers- and it works!  Oh and it's completely free!


5.  Reading incentives-
Yes I do believe in bribery! ;)
But really, it is motivating and fun!
We will be getting ready to do this one very soon...

It's perfect to do in the spring!


One last thing... teachersclubhouse.com 
has a fun poetry race to build fluency- we haven't tried it yet but it looks very motivating and fun for the students.


Phew! You made it to the end! :)
Thanks for reading... I LOOOOVE your comments so if you are here, and gained an idea (or two!) leave a comment! :)
Oh, and I'll give one of my High Frequency Word packs to one lucky person!
(leave your email!)

                 

Thanks Doodle Bugs for the great linky!

Five for Friday {ok Saturday}

This is my first link-up with Doodle Bugs Teaching.  I know this is a FRIDAY link-up but really... I can't get my act together to actually link up on a Friday! :)

So here is my week in a nutshell...

1.  Laptops!

Our fantastic PTA has provided our school with a laptop cart which I conveniently park inside my room most mornings.  I really love this time of year in second grade.  The kids could really run the show without me :)  We have a routine of morning work, laptop work on our math facts, and then Daily 5.  It runs smooth as silk :)

The program we use is called Fasttmath from Scholastic.  The kids really like it.

2.  Spring Kites

This is one of my favorite projects and the parents LOVE it!  The kids write an about me poem, type it on the computer, and make a kite!  It brightens up the room and they are so fun to read!

Check it out here:

3. Fluency!

I posted a pretty long fluency post HERE

and I promise I am working on another one coming soon!  I started writing down all the things I do with fluency and the list was a MILE LONG! :)

This past week we really looked at punctuation in a sentence.

Two books I plan to read this coming week:

  

Hehe...

4. Math Double Digit Subtraction

Ok, all I can say about that is... 

wowsers!

Our school is fully implementing Common Core next year.  Our team has been dabbling with it all this year.

We learned that we are no longer to teach double digit addition or subtraction in the "traditional" way.

{gulp}

I nearly had a panic attack this week trying to figure out how to teach subtraction WITHOUT "borrowing!"  

We are currently trying out the "jump" strategy on an open number line.  I will be posting pics and talking about this more next week.

I'm also working on a subtraction companion to my addition pack:

I think the subtraction one will be a work in progress!

5. Easter!

This is of my little bug-a-boo on Easter morning.  My sweet bloggy friend Sarah posted a Q-T scavenger hunt and I grabbed it and had my son do it... it was the cutest! 

I was shocked at how quickly he put that sentence together since we have never done anything like that before! (he's a natural! :)

Thanks for the FUN Sarah!!

***BTW-- are you a Facebook follower??  Get on over there and follow!!  Those peeps get in on so many fun/free/fabulous things!!

FOLLOW ME HERE

I'm doing some stuff there today so get on over there! :)

Fluency part 1 (5 days of lessons and freebies!)

Hey Everyone!

Getting back into the swing of things after a nice long week off has been tough.  My class is definitely showing signs of - I've been home too long running the show and not listening to authority- syndrome.  We are working on that.

I am trying to locate my GIANT 600 follower giveaway winner!!

If you are, or know Jillian Ramoly, Please tell her to check her email!! :)

I just LOVE LOVE LOVE this time of year!  The kids are really reading... I mean REALLY READING!

Ok, I know, I teach second grade and I know they come to me reading.  But in the spring... something just clicks for some of them.  They enjoy books more, they light up with new vocabulary, they get the author's message, they actually want. to. read.

It's AMAZING!!  :)

{big smile}

So that is why I love this time of year, the time when fluency comes together for them!

I start by reminding the kids of a poster I actually show at the beginning of the year when I introduce our "fluency phones"

Click to get... leave some feedback if you like it!

I love the visual of this poster.  It helps them realize that they should sound like they are talking to a friend not like a robot (#1).

It is a lot of fun to model this poster for the kids! :)

We've been using these all year to work on fluency:

These beauties were given to me by a retired teacher... PVC pipes put together.  I hear they were easy and inexpensive to make!

Then I read this book in 2 ways.  I first read about half of it with no expression, reading quickly, and not watching the punctuation.

(do you know how hard it is to read it that way??!!)

If you've ever read this book you know there is some MAJOR opportunities to show expression! :)

After I finish reading, we talk about the things I could have done to improve my fluency.  We discuss things like:

~notice the punctuation

(it tells us to do something)

~slow down when reading

~think about character's emotions

~read smoothly (not like a robot)

So on my second read I HAM IT UP and read it with all of the above and more. (yeah, that's better!)  We compare the two reads and of course there is a unanimous love for the second read.

All of the above is on day 1.

  

On day 2, I start by reviewing what the kids learned about fluency (the list above). Then I share one of my all time favorite poetry books:

There are so many poems in this book with great opportunities to show expression, however, my absolute favorite is... 

SICK.

I actually have the book with the CD of Shel Silverstein himself reading a few of his poems... he does a GREAT job adding expression!

After listening to a few poems, we talk about punctuation.

hehe... I LOVE this poster!

What does the period tell me to do when I'm reading?  And we think about the question mark, exclamation point, the comma, quotation marks, and even what it means to have a ---->   . . . 

(I always say,  more .   to  .   come  .)

That finishes day 2. 

 On day 3, we review punctuation and what it all means to the reader.  Then I pass out strips to the kids.  The look on their faces is classic.

click above to get a copy

This is the BEST way to teach punctuation!  I love that it removes the "reading" and it focuses on the punctuation!!  We have some good laughs reading these!!

Each child gets one and then reads it to the class as we follow along.

We did this today and the kids really got the idea that their voice should change depending on the punctuation.

It's a beautiful thing!

Oh, and super hilarious!! ;)

On day 4 and 5 I partner the kids up and give them a poem.  They get to decide on how they are going to read it together as a team.  I usually partner the kids so they can learn from one another (i.e. the one with good fluency understanding who can help the other one).  They practice the first day and they present their poem the second day.  Here are some of the poems I use (click pick to grab these)

All of that is just our first week!  In the next post I will share what I do the next 2-3 weeks! Plus more goodies!

I'd love to hear what you do for fluency!  Please share in the comments below!