October Story Problems - Now on TPT

I finished up my second story problem packet called October Story Problems.  This packet has 16 story problems.  There are 4 Add To, 4 Take From, 4 Compare, and 4 Equal Groups.  I used equal groups and compare to up the challenge a bit for kids and classes who are ready for it. In addition to the various problem types, there are three number choices for each problem, which lends to easy differentiation.  I also have two formatting methods. A cute full page with clipart and a half page, which makes for easy copying with limited copy numbers.  See a few pages below and be sure to check it out at my TPT store here.

 
 
 
 
Be sure to check it out at my TPT store.
 
Happy Sunday everyone!
 
 

Opinions, Opinions, Opinions

We've been coming up with lots of opinions in my second grade class.  We've done a variety of opinions - some literature based, favorites, and taste-tested.  Here's what we've been working on...

We started off with this great opinion writing unit by writing about Oreos.  We taste tested two different types - Halloween Oreos and Mint Crème Oreos.  I got this fantasic idea and cute Oreo writing paper from First Grade Fanatic. The kids loved this! Who wouldn't love eating Oreos in class.  Most students picked the Halloween Oreo, but there were a few who liked the Mint Crème flavor.  Below I have a picture of my circle map.  In the middle, we put our favorite Oreo and then we put our reasons why in the bigger circle.  I also have my teacher model of the Oreo paper. This was a great way to start opinion writing because the kids were engaged instantly!


 
 
Next, we wrote about our favorite pets.  Again, we used a circle map to set-up our paper and brainstorm our reasons.  We had quite a few different favorite pets - ranging from your typical dog and cat to bunny rabbits, snakes, etc.  Here are two student samples.  We have spent a great deal of time slowly writing our paper and doing parts together.  We've been focusing on including a topic sentence, three reasons, and a conclusion. 
 
My example that I modeled for the kiddos:



 
Student Samples:


We've also read a lot of stories that went well with opinions. Some stories we've used include: I Wanna Iguana, Chrysanthemum, and Listen Buddy.
 
 
Here is my teacher example for I Wanna Iguana:



 
 
Student Sample:
 
 
I also decided to incorporate opinions into my writing station during literacy stations.  I've created some Opinion Writing Prompt Cards on TPT here.  These cards can be used for whole group prompts or could be put on a ring like below and used for students to pick a prompt to write about during their station.
 
 
Happy Saturday!
 
 
 
 




 

Schema - Text to Text Connections

So this post has taken me way too long to write.  Things got super busy at school with data week and open house so unfortunately posting for the last week or two has gone by the wayside.

Anyways...here is the schema post I mentioned about two weeks ago.  We've been focusing a lot on schema in my second grade classroom.  I use Debbie Miller's, Reading with Meaning for ideas.  My last post/recent post was about Oliver Button is a Sissy and coming up with text to self connections.  The day following Oliver Button, we read the story Amazing Grace.  We then made text to text connections between the two stories.  To show our text to text connections we used a double bubble map. 


 
The kids did a great job with coming up with similarities and differences between the two books.  The double bubble map also showed it perfectly and I love being able to color coordinate things :-)!

Happy almost Friday!

Math Stations - Introduction Round

For my Math Stations, I use Debbie Diller's Math Workstations book as my guide. Math Stations change throughout the year and the best part is that they incorporate games we've already played.  So, it's more review for the kids and also less prep because the games are already there, ready, and taught.  I change out my Math Stations about every 3-4 weeks depending on how often we've got to them.  I have 12 stations in my room.  Stations 1-10 are in storage bins, Station 11 is computers, and Station 12 is the SmartBoard. For Stations 1-10, I have doubles of each station.  For example, Station 1 is the same as Station 6, Station 2 is the same as Station 7, etc.  This way, it's more review for the kids.  They might play Station 1 game on Monday and then the next Tuesday they'll review those games again at Station 6.  This way they're getting lots of practice, but it's not the same thing two days in a row.

For my introduction stations, I make them easy and a little bit more of an exploration station.  The reason I do this is because I focus more on the management piece of stations.  We go over our Math Station Expectations, we go over how to work with partners, we go over how to use  math tools correctly, and how to keep our voices at a Level 1 Whisper Voice during stations.  I also don't pull math groups during the introduction stations.  During this time, I'm walking around the room helping kids work together, complimenting the good things I see (partners sharing, Level 1 voices, etc), and making sure the management piece is there.  I find by doing this it makes it so much easier to pull groups in following weeks because I've laid the foundation down during the introduction unit of how stations should be.

Here are my introduction stations:

Station 1 and Station 6 - Time Exploration.  In this bin, I have time puzzles, a book on time, two mini clocks for the kids to explore, and the large Judy clock.



 
Stations 2, 7 - 10 Frame Station.  In this station, I have counting books, blank 10 and 20 frames,  and counters.  They can build numbers on the 10 and 20 frame and work on finding out how many more they need to fill it.
 


 
Stations 3, 8 - Place Value.  For the place value station, I have place value books and the place value game.  For the place value game, students need a place value mat (one side for the ones and one side for the 10s), a dice, a 10 frame, and unifix cubes.  Students roll the dice and then fill in how many ones they got on the one side of their board.  Then, students roll again.  Once they have ten ones, they put them together to make a ten stick, and move it over to the tens side. This game is a great way for them to really see how to make the ten and actually gives them a chance to do it (I always start place value this way and then move to the base 10 blocks).
 


 
 
Stations 4, 8 - Addition Practice.  At this station, I have addition books for the kids to read, addition flashcards, and the game from our Everyday Math Curriculum Addition Top-It.
 






Stations 5, 10 - Geometry Exploration. At this station, I have math books for the kids to read, attribute blocks for the kids to explore, and geoboards and rubber bands.




 

 
Station 11 - Computer Math Games. At this station, I have various online math games and math practice for kids to play.
 
 
 
Station 12 - Smart Board Station. I don't have this station up and running during the introduction stations, but I will have more info in it on the next round.
 
 
 
Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their weekend!


Attendance Chart

At my new school, attendance is a major issue and an issue the school is really focusing on trying to fix.  We are in a neighborhood where you have a lot of movement and I've already had 3 kids withdraw and we've only been in school 3 weeks.  So...in an effort to help with attendance we are tracking our data in the classroom. The kids have actually really gotten into this and we've been good about updating it each day.  This week we had 2 days with 100% attendance, which is the most we've had in a week.  I decided to use a quick fraction and percentage chart so that I can quickly put up the results each day. I also decided to go with something simple instead of a bar graph because the number of students in my classroom is constantly changing.


 
Hope everyone has a great night! Time for me to go watch the rest of the ASU/Wisconsin game. Go Devils!

More Schema...

Here is another schema chart that we completed yesterday. This idea and chart set-up comes from Debbie Miller's book, Reading with Meaning, which you hear me praise a lot on my blog. 

Yesterday, we read the story Oliver Button is a Sissy.

 
 This book touches on a bunch of issues, but is a great one to use because at some point in these kids lives they will either be teased or have already been teased and this book definitely touches on that subject.  As I read the book, I shared my connections to the story - text to self.  When I finished reading, I had students pair share to share out their connections sitting eye-to-eye and knee-to-knee. They had a lot of great connections to this book. Then, we completed the chart seen below.  To help kids get used to providing part of the text along with their connection we use the frame "When I heard the part about _____. (which is from the text)  It reminded me of _____.(their own personal connection)"  The kids are really starting to get the hang of sharing out their connections like this.



On Monday, you'll see this story again, but paired with Amazing Grace.  Then, we'll be working on text-to-text connections using a double bubble thinking map.

Anchor Charts Galore

Well, as I mentioned in my last post, I'm trying to blog more - and yay - this is two days in a row. I also said I'd write a post about my introductory math stations.  That was the goal, but monthly benchmark testing got in the way today. So...instead of math stations - I have anchor charts galore for you to show you a few things we've been working on.


Anchor Chart #1 - All week we have been doing a review of short vowels in addition to working on words with consonant blends. Below you'll see a tree map used to categorize different words depending on their short vowel.

 
 
Anchor Chart #2 - Schema Chart. Today we read the story, Super Completely and Totally the Messiest by Judith Viorst. First of all, super cute story! The kids really identify with the messy character, which is what makes this story perfect for teaching schema - text to self.  My schema set-up comes from Debbie Miller's, Reading with Meaning.  I shared my schema during a think aloud while reading. The kids then pair shared and shared their connections. Then, they shared out and we charted it.  Soon they'll be ready to start writing connections on their own.

 
 
Anchor Chart #3 - In writing today, we started to review nouns. I asked the class at the beginning who had heard of nouns back in first grade.  Well, that response was scary. I got a lot of 2nd graders shaking their heads no, some with confused looks, and a lot of kids with their thumb down.  So, we moved on and watched a little clip on Brainpop Jr to either introduce it or review it. We then came up with our own list of nouns (which all happened to be common) and used a tree map to organize our thinking.  By the end, we had a basic understanding of nouns and/or a quick review to get us back up to speed. 

 
 
Happy Wednesday! Only two more days til the weekend!

Using Thinking Maps in Math

As most of you may know after reading previous blog posts, I'm a big fan of thinking maps. Well, lucky for me, my new school uses thinking maps too!  So, today we started using thinking maps in math.  Our assignment in Everyday Math was to show how numbers have equivalent forms and that there is more than one way to write a number. Well this fits in perfectly to thinking maps and perfectly into differentiation. 

Here we made a circle map as a class coming up with numbers that equaled 10.  This was my time to model how to do the activity and also show kids how there are many ways to come up with a number. I love when they start to see that it doesn't just have to be two numbers added together - that it could be 5+2+3 and I love when they see the various subtraction sentences too.

 
 
Here's a student sample. I gave each partnership a different number. For my kiddos who have a hard time with math, I gave them a number below 10 - 7, 8, 9

 
*Disclaimer* Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to finish these in our math block so you are just seeing the beginning stages.
 
 
For my kiddos, who are ready for more of a challenge I gave them numbers in the teens up to 20.  Eventually this activity will be moved into math stations and kids can choose from a variety of numbers - especially friendly numbers - 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. to get them familiar with using those friendly numbers throughout math.

 
My goal is to post more during the week and with school getting into full swing that has been a little difficult. But, I'm hopeful tomorrow to have a post on my introductory math stations.  Have a great night!

Story Problems

I love teaching story problems.  When I was a kid, I actually despised doing them. Something about seeing words in a math problem freaked me out. Now, after being CGI (Cognitively Guided Instruction) trained and after using story problems extensively at my old school - I love them! They are a great way to hit multiple Common Core Math Standards and a great way to get kids thinking and sharing their strategies. 

I came up with a Back to School Packet of Story Problems for 2nd graders, which is on Teachers Pay Teachers, here.  This packet could also be used for high first graders or for 3rd graders in need of some interventions.  In this packet, I have 4 story problems for each type of joining problem and 4 story problems for each type of separating problems.  In addition to the 4 story problems, each story problem has 3 presentation choices.  The story problem can be printed with a graphic, with number choices (great differentiation), or on a half sheet to save paper.  This document can be edited so you may change the numbers, names (students love to see their own names in the problems), or the problem. 

Here are a few student samples from this week in my classroom:
For this problem, my student chose to use the 10 frame to help her organize her problem. She put 25 dots on the one side and 10 on the other. Then, she counted by 10's, 10, 20, 30 and then the 1's, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35.  Nice number sentence too!
 
This student used the place value model to figure out this problem. I was so excited because we really focused on place value this week.  Most of my kiddos are still stuck on drawing everything out by 1's so I was excited that this student was ready to move on to place value. She has two tens sticks and 5 ones and then another ten stick. Then, she counted the tens and then the ones and got 35. 
 
 
So, here is a little sample of my TPT creation that you can check out here...
 




 
 
Hope everyone has a great Saturday!!!