Plant Power! Bring on the Spring!

Ugh.  So tired of snow and sooo ready for Spring!  Right now, it's raining outside, but there's the possibility that it might mix with snow tonight.  Boo!

My family spent yesterday at Busch Gardens (Williamsburg) celebrating St. Patrick's Day with the leprechauns and generally just having fun! :)  The weather was FANTASTIC!  I mean, 60 degree day!  Snow - tonight???  ARGH!

Anyway, we tried to bash away the winter blahs this week by going full force into our plant unit after losing 3 days last week to the "s" word.

We used this wonderful golden oldie AIMS activity to dissect seeds.  I'd share, but I'm worried about copyright (hint hint:  do a Google search....shhh!  I won't tell). 

Then, we created this Pinterest-inspired (slightly altered) activity.  I like using the straw for a stem to help teach that it "sucks up" the water and delivers it to the rest of the flower.  It's impossible to glue, so we taped it down.  The flower is a cupcake liner.

We also "planted" seeds and are observing them day by day to see how they grow!  Students are anxiously awaiting the first stage with the roots!  We're documenting it each day in a plant journal.

We also had a visit from our "4H Lady" to get our 2nd grade gardens ready for planting!  Students learned about the different types of soil, how worms help gardeners, and pulled out the old plants (that our cafeteria uses in salads and taste testings which is too cool!) to make ready for new!

 

Since I was out Friday afternoon and will be Monday afternoon thanks to a cancelled and rescheduled doctor's appointment for my son, the St. Pat's activities were confined to reading and writing (because we are too behind on math!).  Students wrote a letter to the leprechaun asking him not to trash our room (with the sub).  I warned students beforehand that if they didn't use the correct letter format, he'd trash our room!  

When I went to school after hours on Friday, I checked where they had hung them in the hallway for "Lucky" to see, and most of them looked great with only a few errors!  Good thing - I told them that in the past, my classes had always gotten some sort of treat from the leprechaun, and that it often included a treasure hunt!  Students were MOST excited to hear that.  Of course, some asked me how trashed was the room in the past, and I told them that I didn't know, since my students had always written their letters very carefully!  hah hah :)

So, after resource (which we have at 8:15), students will find a note on the board from the leprechaun and the first clue in their hunt!  The "pot of gold" at the end are shamrock stickers and "gold" (Rolos).
I have the leprechaun hunt as a freebie at my TpT store from last year.  Click {here} to check it out! 

Money, White-Tailed Deer, and Contractions - Quite a Combination!

Been burning the midnight oil lately trying to get the units done. I don't know where the weekend or these snow days go - you'd think I'd be more together!

Ah well.

Wanted to show off my latest efforts. If you teach in Virginia (and possibly other places), one of our lovely standards is that we have to teach the white-tailed deer as part of our life cycle standard. Yep, must be a hunter there in the capital!

 Anywho, there's not much out there kid-friendly or even activity-wise about white tailed deer (unless I've been looking in all the wrong places!). For my VA friends, I've created a packet to help you out! Also, be sure to check out my wiki page on life cycles - I've uploaded a video from the VDGIF that they created just for this standard! (You can also find it on their website).

 The packet includes the are/have/live charts I've really grown to love using! Whether we're completing them cooperatively, or the students are doing it independently, they are wonderful! Not sure who came up with the idea, but thanks! It also includes a diagram (cut/paste) of the deer and a life cycle chart (3 different versions). Click on the picture to go check it out! ;) 
 

 

Next up, Contractions.  Had a brainstorm while planning with my collab teacher....trying to think of some sort of game the kids could play with contractions that was similar to the ones we did for abbreviations (they LOVED "Abbreviation Call Out").  So, after racking my brain, I came up with "Building Contractions."

I focused on not, is/am, will, and have contractions. This set comes with letter cards to "build" the two words that form a contraction (such as can and not).  "Bossy apostrophe" comes along, tells certain letters to sit down, takes their cards, and puts him/herself in the place of the letters.

It really helped my students understand about the contraction and where the apostrophe goes!  We made a list of the contractions as we "built" them, and students were able to see a pattern of which letters were replaced.  It was another big hit with my students and the understanding has shown in their work! :)  Click on the picture above to check it out further!

The last activity I have to share with you is the what I created for  my money unit.  I have to confess - I am using some ideas from Investigations, but my kiddos this year just can't get the "abstract" part of the series, so I have been branching out on my own.  I am completing a 5 day unit on money and will begin a 5 day unit on time (to the nearest five minutes).  My kiddos lack the basic skills to "build on" to where Investigations say they should be, and though we've been practicing money all year long...well, time is another story. 

I went shopping for a lot of time things over the "super sale" weekend.  I will be going through these and will share some of the units/activities I bought in another post.

Until then, I'm pretty proud of the money activities I created.  Some of them are old ideas "refreshed," but my favorite is my "money mat."  My kids in the past have had skills with counting, but when it comes to writing money - well, let's just say seeing the cents mark at the end of a dollar amount gets old after awhile, right?  Almost makes me want to teach decimals to the kids before writing money!  But that's a whole other concept and not exactly in our standards for second! :)

So, I am posting my money unit that I wrote on Google Drive for you to access {here}.  However, please check out some of the activities that go with the unit by clicking on the picture below!

 Hope you were able to see something you could use! :)  Have a great week!

Limas and Butterflies

We've been quite the Science classroom lately!  My class faces out to the playground and this week, I realized that we truly looked like a working lab!  Bags were hanging in our window to help encourage our tickle plants to grow, lima beans were sprouting like crazy in the other window, plant books lined the windowsill, ready to be read.....and of course, our caterpillars we received a week ago are now starting to form their cocoons!  It made me feel proud that my students were so actively engaged in their learning!  


Of course, now the limas are transplanted and growing outside in our school garden our second grade is staffing this year, the bags have been taken home, but our caterpillars remain!  Hopefully in a few weeks, I'll be able to publish their release!  Till then, I included a pic from last year of our butterfly release, in anticipation. :)

Our first day (April 25th)

"Moving on Up" (yesterday)

Attaching themselves to the top...VERY exciting! :)

Butterfly Release 2011 (Painted Lady Butterflies)

Apples and Pizza

This week, besides prefixes and suffixes (another post, another day!), we were working on fractions and Johnny Appleseed. Yes, a little late in the year to be honoring good ol' John Chapman, but in our reading series (Harcourt Trophies), they have his story as a Reader's Theater, and since most of my kiddos couldn't participate reading that, until now, we waited. It went well with our plant/animal life cycle unit :)


So, a few Pinterest-inspired activities: The fraction pizzas my sub did while I was out sick (unfortunately, I just got them up, and after a few corrections my kiddos did!) and "getting to the core of Johnny Appleseed." I thought they turned out cute. We also did an anchor chart on Johnny Appleseed as well.

Our "brag" wall :)



A few pizzas...I like the one with the bugs! :)

I also threw in my fossil anchor chart as well as our "metamorphosis" one (yes, I had to use clip art for deer after my first attempt, which the kids thought was a dog!).

So, hope you find something useful! Feel free to comment or ask questions! I'm excited because tomorrow is our "unmuffin" episode for Electric Company, and I am excited about our activities!!! "I love it when a plan comes together!"

Life Cycles, Fractions, and Rounding...Oh My!

I have posted some different activities/games on Teachers Pay Teachers....I'm pretty proud of them! My class is sooo into Scoot, I find myself going and making new Scoot games for review in math, as well as branching out into our current Science unit! I try to make them versatile for every teacher, including cards up to 30 for those larger classes. My students are too cute...they are even requesting "Scoot" for reading! (One of my students even demonstrated during reading groups how we could do it!) I think my "to do" list for Spring Break is growing! :)

So, let me show off what I've done so far....click on any of the pictures to see more details.
Fraction Action includes suggestions for games to use the cards with, including recognition of fractions and equivalent fractions! I am so excited to have a set of cards to be able to use for different games in my classroom, as well as being an extra set of flash cards!

You don't have to have the book to use this activity (but I find it's usually available in any school library or in a buddy's classroom...Pat Hutchins is VERY popular!).
Be sure to check them out on my TpT store! Right now, I have them priced CHEAP! Next up will be a Fact/Opinion Scoot and a Telling Time to the Nearest Five Minutes Scoot (as soon as I can get them done!).

Oh, quick question....I'm thinking of expanding into a"Teacher's Notebook" store. For a one-time fee of $19.95, you get 100% of your profits (minus any Paypal fees). Do any of you have a Teacher's Notebook store? How well does it do? I think TpT is more popular, but it sounds like Teacher's Notebook is friendlier. Just curious if anyone knows a difference or has a preference? Thanks so much for the input!!!!