The Teaching Reef

May 19

It’s been a little crazy in 2nd grade!

Well, sorry it has been a little while from my last post, but I think you understand when I say that things have been BU-S-Y! I had to complete placement cards, get paperwork ready for retention meetings, RTI meetings, end of the year checklist, and if life wasn’t crazy enough we decided to have a field trip on Friday! I haven’t even mentioned the things going on in my personal life. So needless to say I have been running on all 6 cylinders.

I have been working on a little end of the year craftivity and a summer writing journal so the students can keep up with writing practice. So many years I have overlooked giving my students work that allows them to practice their writing over the summer. That is going to change this year! I have put A TON of work into my students this year in the area of writing. They definitely were not an easy bunch to get where they needed to be to pass our end of the year benchmark. So I do not want them to forget all the hard work we have done this year.

The students are going to create a journal of their very own to take home with them and write about their experiences during the summer. Inside this journal there is going to be topic ideas, sigh word helpers, a vocabulary tracker, friends’ names page and editing tips. Each cover is personalized with the first letter to represent the students name. I am also including a little craftivity to celebrate the end of the year. I am almost done with the unit. It should be posted tonight. I will be putting this unit as well as my Reflections From The School Year unit on sale in honor of the end of the year. So check back later for my little sale and unit posting. You can check out the cover below!

In other news, I left my camera at school…. I have so many pictures that I want to share with all of you. I think I am going to make a post mid week to share with you all of my classroom happenings. We finished our traveling unit this week and started diving into the world of mysteries. The students are earning their mystery case files in order to become detectives and solve mysteries using their inferring and synthesizing skills.We are having so much fun.

We also finished up our measurement unit and started learning about capacity. Let me just be a little honest here, I really don’t like teaching capacity. However, I am going to try a new strategy in math that I recently found. It is called KIM (Key Idea, Information, and Memory Clue). I hope that this strategy helps them remember what unit of measurement to use when looking at different containers and amounts of liquid. I will be posting a little organizer freebie for this strategy.

In writing we are taking a break from our normal writer’s workshop and learning about how to create an advertisement. Not just any advertisement though…… a Got Milk? advertisement to be precise. This is one of my favorite units to teach. The kiddos just love it. We go over the five elements of an AD and every year the kids go crazy over the slogans. I mean it is the cutest thing I have ever heard. For example, this year my one of my little guys shared his slogan example and started signing, “Five dollar, five dollar foot long!” but then he informed us that he also had another one and sang the slogan, “Like a good neighbor State Farm is there.” I’m telling you, you will fall in love with your students just a little more.

So as you see I have a TON of pictures to share. I promise I will be posting them mid week. But for now check back with me for my end of the year writing journal and mini sale.

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May 07

Shopping, shopping and more shopping!

Okay so yesterday was well, can I say a shopping HIGH! I got all giddy and excited inside knowing that there were sooo many TpT sellers having some awesome sales. I sure did get my shop on. Then I was blog surfing this evening and I came to Lindsey’s post over at The Teacher Wife and can I just say I got all giddy inside again. I know, I know doesn’t take that much to make me a happy teacher.

So I discovered her post about all her purchases and then that led me to Erica Bohrer’s First Grade blog where she made another cute sign……CHECK-IT-OUT!

It is all about your shopping purchases! The only thing I love more than shopping for teaching supplies is well talking about what teaching supplies I bought! I think I speak for tons of teachers out there. This is what my shopping cart looked like.

I went a little crazy for Second Grade Shenanigans’ lessons and purchased these units:

First up is her new Writing Portfolio Unit {My year in writing} which I am super excited to start next year. I have been looking for a creative way to collect my student’s writing and I am so excited about this unit. I feel like I continually collect their pieces to show growth but now I can make it centered around the students which I love. I want to make them part of the process as much as I can and this allows for that. They look so easy to put together and I just love, love reading my students writing’s as well as teaching it. So this was definitely one of my favorite purchases of the night.

The second unit I purchased from Hope is her Measure Up Unit. We are working on measurement right now and I wanted to add a little spice in my measurement lessons and her unit is perfect for this. There are quite a few interactive lessons that get students using and applying measurement from centimeters, inches, feet and yards.

The last Unit that I purchased from Hope is her Gone Camping Math Centers. I wanted to end the year with some math review and her centers cover such a variety of topics and they are super easy to use/make. They are just plain great! I plan on investing in more of these for next year.

Then I bought Lindsey’s Biographies Unit. I want to use these next year as a way to get to know all of my students. I also think that it will get those reluctant writers eager to share about their life and get writing. At least this is my theory. I mean…you are the only expert there is when we are talking about your own life, so I think it is a sure win…..I hope.

Last but not least I purchased the Lemonade Stand Unit from Sarah. After I read about how she is donating half of her proceeds to a wonderful cause I had to buy one. This is where she is donating her proceeds so spread the word and the love.

ALEX’S LEMONADE STAND–A FOUNDATION FOR CHILDHOOD CANCER. PLEASE VISIT THE SITE http://www.alexslemonade.org

Well that about does it fr my shopping spree! I had so much fun sharing all my goodies. Make sure you head on over to Erica’s blog and get your own copy of her cute little sign.

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Posted in Sale, Shopping

May 06

New Units, Some Traveling Photos, May Currently and A Thank You To All The Teachers!

Well we have been very busy in my classroom learning about the 7 continents. On Friday, we started to get our travel on! We made a craft from some of the 7 continents. In order to fully get the traveling experience we had the children make traveling suitcases. Here is what they looked like. They put stamps where ever they wanted on the front. Then we put Velcro on the top so they could open and close their suitcase to store all their traveling souvenirs.

Then the children made a Papel Picado to represent Mexico in North America. Papel Picados are colorful paper banners that are traditionally hung in a Mexican marketplace. The kids loved making these.

We are completing our travels and passports this week so I will be back with more craft pictures (some needed to dry over the weekend). The students are also tracking their thinking, summarizing nonfiction and learning how to answer questions from the text. This is all done in there traveling binders. Once they are completed I will post how all of that is organized. I’m really proud of the work they are doing. Let me just tell you that the thinking my students have been doing during this unit is AMAZING! They are definitely thinking like third graders. LOL- I tell them this all the time to get them ready for the next grade.

Okay so on to my new units. My unit about idioms (When Pigs Fly) Has been such a success (thank you so much) that I got to thinking about alliteration. I thought how could I create something that was the same but different. As I was thinking I came across a book that I had purchased at one of those Scholastic book sales, it is titled Superhero ABC written by Bob McLoed. If you have never read this book before it has TONS of alliteration on every page and the superheros he creates are truly his creations. NOT ANY heroes/heroins are the famous ones we already know all about. The reason why I like this is because kids need to see how authors create things from scratch- not changing what is already thought of. It inspires better creativity if you ask me. Anyway if you haven’t read this book before you can check it out by clicking {here}.

So back to my new unit…… there is a lesson that requires the students to make a superhero alliteration page using a letter from the alphabet which connects from the literature mentioned above. However there is also a lesson that teaches the students how to make alliteration poems better known as tongue twisters. Of course I couldn’t resist the urge to make a little craftivity to go along with it, so you will find one in the unit as well. You can check out the unit below.

I have also been working on a little foldable craftivity to celebrate the end of the year and reminisce all the things you have taught your students this year. I wanted something fun but educational and purposeful to end the year so this is what I came up with. The lesson is called Reflections From A Great Year and can be customized for each grade. It is an accordion style book that has the students fill out different pages from things they have done throughout the year (there are 8 different pages). I am in love with the mirror style cover that goes with the theme of reflections. Take a look below.

Well as some of you know I just got done having a sale to celebrate Cinco De Mayo. However I also want to celebrate all the teachers out there so guess what? I am having another sale for only 2 days to give some love to all of the fellow teachers out there. To be honest I just couldn’t resist (I just love a good sale) and I know that every penny counts so…..happy shopping. Isn’t the sale sign cute… it is from Erica Broher’s blog!

Here are some of my favorite units that are one sale right now. If you click on each image below it will take you to my TpT listing so you can take a closer look by viewing the product preview.