Team J's Second Grade Fun: September 2014

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Hero Writing Activity

This week with our Journey's series, we read Roberto Clemente, The Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates. What a great story! Our focus this week with essential questions was - what causes someone to be called a hero?

So, for a writing activity, I had the kids write about one of their heroes and what made them special. Here are some of the responses....

Here is our Hero Bulletin Board....

And here is a freebie - the hero's page write-up. Check it out in my TPT store here.

Who is Your Hero? Writing Prompt

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Five for Friday - September 26

In addition to not posting regularly the last few weeks (man those first weeks are hard especially at a new school) I haven't linked up with Five for Friday in awhile. So this week I decided to link back up with Doodle Bug for her Five for Friday.

In Math, we've been working on a variety of strategies for double digit addition. My kids like the algorithm, but have no idea why it works or the conceptual understanding behind it. So, we've gone back to place value model, empty number line, and breaking numbers apart/expanded notation. I'm seeing great progress already!

We just got our subscription set-up for Spelling City. I'm excited to get going on it. Anyone else use it? Any tips?

We love GoNoodle brain breaks. We've been using it since the first day, but this caught my attention the other day. How cute do they all look linking up to do the kickline in Best Friends by Koo Koo Kangaroo.

One of my new favorite read alouds. I read it to my 2nd graders last year and we're almost done with it this year. I love Junie B. Jones so Clementine is very similar. It's nice to have another funny character since Junie B is kind of played out with the kiddos by 2nd grade.

Last week, Andy and I went to AZ to do our wedding tasting. It was so much fun and the food was AMAZING! Here's a picture from our night out in AZ. It was nice to get away for the weekend!

Have a great Friday and be sure to link up with Doodle Bug!

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A Make Your Day Moment

You know those moments in life you have that just make your day- well I had one a week or two ago courtesy of my second grade teacher. Yes you read that correctly my teacher. Here's the back story...

My new school has a blog and they were featuring new teachers on it. We had a questionnaire to fill out with all the basic teacher questions. And in why I teach I talked about how my second grade teacher, Mrs. Stolley, inspired me to go into teaching.

Well my sweet mom sent my blog post to Mrs. Stolley and Mrs. Stolley wrote me this sweet note back.

So this goes for all teachers - we make a difference in kids lives and they will remember you. Even 21 years after the fact. I'm so grateful that Mrs. Stolley was such an amazing teacher that I wanted to be one myself. She always made it look so fun and was the kindest person. So on those hard days teaching (and there are many) remember why you got into it and know you're making a difference.

There's my little pep talk for a Wednesday. Hope everyone has a great week!

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Subjects and Predicates

We've been reviewing subjects and predicates over the last few days and my kids have struggled with knowing the difference. Some kids have understood the difference between the two, but are having a hard time identifying the whole subject and predicate. They are just picking out a word when really a few words are making up the subject or the predicate. So, here's how I decided to reteach/review subjects and predicates...

First, we watched a Brainpop Video on Subjects and Predicates. There's just something special about Tim and Moby explaining something. Kids just listen :-).

Then, we worked on a Subject and Predicate Sort from Jill Gribbin's TPT Store. Check it out here.

My students worked on this with their table group and had a blast deciding where each part of the sentence should go.

Lastly, we completed Subjects and Predicates Around the Room. This was our first Around the Room Activity of the year. Unfortunately we were so busy with the activity that I didn't get a chance to take any pictures, but I've posted a few below of the actual freebie so you can check it out.

The Subjects and Predicates Around the Room is now in my TPT store as a freebie - be sure to download it here!

Thanks for stopping by to see how we worked on subjects and predicates!

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Updated/Revised "I'm Done"

Every teacher hears this at least once a day (if not a million times) - "I'm done, what do I do now?" Well a few years ago I saw this idea on Pinterest called the "I'm Done" cup. See how I used this here. While this worked for awhile, I've decided to try a different approach for how kids choose and allow the choice to be theirs not up to what stick they draw. This also will solve some behavior issues that would come from multiple kids trying to draw sticks at the same time.

Here are their options so far...
-Read a book
-Take an AR Test
-Practice math facts on Xtra Math
-Write a story
-Bucket Filling
-Practice spelling words

I'll add more as the year goes on, but this is a good start and isn't too overwhelming. Students have the options up and visible and they can pick one option from the door. Multiple kids can be working on the same option which is fine unlike with the cup.

Here's what it looks like...

Close-up

What do you have kiddos do when their done with their work? Comment below. I'd love to get some more ideas for my "I'm Done" door.

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