Are you a new 2nd grade teacher? Here are the best tips for taking on grade 2 and all the fun that comes with it!
Fun and engaging ideas to get to know your students at the beginning of the school year. Build a strong classroom community with these free resources.
Perfect for puzzle lovers, this complete-the-pattern worksheet is a great way to build logical reasoning skills.
Real-life inspiration!
Don't have time in your day to reach every student? My 10 Minute Reading Intervention resource can help you squeeze in lessons that are fast & effective!
No more boring book reports! Check out 26+ FUN, creative and unique book report ideas and free printable projects too!
Our first week of second grade was full of fun! From learning our classroom procedures, to team building we learned so much!
Which Back to School Activities Elementary can I use for Building Community in my Classroom? Which All About Me Activities are most engaging for my students?
Learn about plants with this 80 page botany lesson for kids! Information, worksheets, experiments, and more for elementary age!
These 5 fun 3D shapes activities for kindergarten are a great way for students to learn about shape attributes while having a blast.
Please Note: All images seen below are of my students artwork only. These photos/lessons are not posted in any particular order regarding the flow of my curriculum. Abstract Self-Portrait Paintin…
Learn about stars for kids with this handy, free printable Constellations Booklet to learn about star patterns in the night sky.
Learn about countries for kids with Around the WOrld Country Coloring Pages! These coloring sheets are easy way to explore 19 countries!
Check out the morning meeting ideas with greetings, questions for sharing, activities, games, and messages. Grab a FREE week of morning meeting slides to simplify your routine and build social-emotional skills!
Looking for a fun way to introduce the writing process to your students? What about using playdough? Come grab a fun & hands on lesson for your classroom!
You want your second graders to have hands-on practice with ELA skills in a meaningful way. Of course, these activities should be fun so that students aren't bored! Well this post shares some unexpected 2nd Grade literacy center ideas your students (and you) will love! These activities provide essential ELA practice while keeping kiddos interested.
I love the whole idea of project-based learning! The idea of addressing all subject areas in the context of one project makes so much sense, and allows for better real-life application. I had dabbled in PBL a little bit, but never to the extent of this project, in which I asked students to design a zoo. This was the perfect project for the end of our strange traditional-turned-virtual school year, and the kids really took it and ran with it! They were able to complete it at their own pace, collaborating with their families, and it went so well that I'm already planning to use it again next year when we're (hopefully) back in the traditional classroom. While the task of designing a zoo sounds monumental, I broke it down into individual tasks for my students. Differentiation was easy as I gave families the freedom of doing more or less than suggested for each task, depending on the needs of their child and family. (Let's face it, crisis schooling is not the same as homeschooling; I know some families just didn't have time to go all-out on a project, and that's okay!) Using this in the traditional classroom will make for easy differentiation, too, and I've included teacher tips for both higher and lower lever learners for each task in the download which is available here in my store! This project includes all of the subjects and many first grade standards. First, students select animals to include in their zoo and conduct research on them, making notes about what they eat, what kind of climate they need, and more. Next, they design the habitats based on their research, and create a plaque for each animal exhibit. They work on mapping skills as they create a map of their zoo, and coding as they then use their map to give directions to popular destinations. Math is integrated as they come up with prices for tickets and extra amenities they included in their zoo, and also as they set a feeding schedule for their animals. After all of that work is done, they get to add in art and technology as they design advertisements and create a commercial. Some of my kids even decided to design t-shirts! It was so satisfying as a teacher to see all of the ways my students completed this project. After completing all of the tasks and research, most of them actually set up a physical zoo in their house, and they were incredibly creative! Some of them made animals out of clay, others used stuffed animals--one even used her sister wearing an animal hat! They all truly made it their own, while learning and applying skills along the way. I hope your class has as much fun with this as mine did! You can find it here in my shop or here in my TPT store. Keep teaching with heart and passion!
Print these free symmetry worksheets and activity pages to use with your students. Learn about the line of symmetry with these fun pattern challenge worksheets. Students must use logic, reasoning, and spatial skills to draw the reflected pattern across the line of symmetry.
Simple tips for improving writing in your second or third grade classroom. These tips are a must if you want better writers!
Worksheets for 1st grade math, first grade math worksheets for free for the basic math topics taught in grade 1.
Name posters are an easy art project for the first day of school and also double as classroom decor!
A simple, super smart way to motivate your students to turn in their homework.
The first day of school is always chaotic! Follow this simple trick and use playdough on the first day! Learn how and why it works here!
Just found out you're teaching second grade! Here's a quick start guide!
Need to help your students get more hands on practice for their vocabulary words? I've got 5 fun vocabulary games you can use right away!
Planning to tutor over the summer? Here are tips for quick and easy planning! Hi there! It's Sarah! I've been tutoring kiddos for the last year and have developed a routine that makes my planning easy and my session flow smoothly. All of the kiddos I tutor are grades K-2 and in need of a boost in their reading skills...fluency, comprehension, and phonics. Warm-up I like to start with some reading that is simple or familiar. I'll either have the kiddo re-read a text from the previous session or read fluency sentences. I have my kiddos keep a composition notebook with past passages to go back and re-read. I use lots of guided reader books to find the just right text for my kiddos to read. These are also great books to leave for kiddos to practice between sessions. Fluency sentence strips from The Moffatt Girls are a GREAT help to boost fluency and confidence! They are also super easy to leave for practice between sessions. Fluency Reading Practice My kiddos have all had good sight word recognition and really need fluency work. I switch between leveled readers and text passages. I usually have kiddos read the text themselves first. After reading, we go back through the text and find words that were tricky and read them. Next, I have the kiddo read through the text with me or by themselves if they are confident. Using a leveled reader Using fluency passages and recording words read per minute (the kiddos love to see their growth!) Find these fluency passages HERE! Using text evidence passages. Grab these passages HERE! Comprehension After some fluency practice with the selected text, I move into comprehension work. In our district, kiddos need to do a written response comprehension question as part of their reading assessment. I have my kiddos practice a written response question with every text and in every session. Comprehension with level reader I use these question stems to develop questions based on the text. Grab the question stems HERE! Completed written response, kiddos write in their composition journal Comprehension with text evidence passages. Grab these passages HERE! Here I use a reading passage with several comprehension tasks for a 2nd grade kiddo. Find these reading passage + comprehension packets HERE! Phonics After the reading and comprehension tasks are complete, I work on some phonics task with my kiddos. One of my favorite tasks is doing a word family word splash. I select a word from our text. I like how this tasks shows kiddos that if they can spell a work like bat, they can also spell cat, mat, sat, etc. Writing short sentences with words from the Word Family Splash Word building and sounding out Extras I like to use phonics poems as an additional fluency tool. The kiddos glue them into their composition notebook so they can go back and re-read between sessions, continuing to build fluency with familiar texts. These phonics poems are from Susan Jones. I use our Literacy Bags in between reading tasks. Literacy Bags break up the rigorous reading and fluency practice we do for much of the session. You can find Literacy Bags HERE! I'm working with a few Kindergartners who need sight word practice. I use the K version of our Differentiated Reading Fluency passages. In K, the passages start as reading letters, then sight words fluently. It perfect support for my K kiddos! You can grab these HERE! Additionally, our Print a Standard packs have been a great support for targeting specific skills students need to work on. Each pack contains tasks for one standard and has several activities for that standard, so there are a lot of opportunities to help the student learn, practice, and master standards based skills. You can grab Print a Standard packs for ELA AND MATH HERE! Connecting with students and parents on a more personal level is the best part of tutoring. I love giving kiddos instant feedback and celebrating their successes! I also love that I can give them more choices to foster a love of reading. In the picture above, I'm showing several text selections. The kiddos I'm working with is able to choose the book he'll read with me for the session. I also love being able to help parents foster learning at home. I've found most all of my parents did not really know about their kiddo's reading level or reading abilities. This makes it difficult for parents to find the best "just right" books for reading at home. After I work with a kiddo, I leave the text piece we worked on for that session (a passage or a book) so the kiddo can re-read it with parents. I leave their composition notebooks with phonics poems for the kiddos to go back a re-read. I also leave the fluency sentence strips for practice between sessions.
The one night that is most stressful for me is definitely Meet-the-Teacher Night, but I have learned through the years that it can also be...
Reading self-portraits, clay snails, and much more!
Get helpful tips for how to manage data folders in the primary classroom. Download the free student data folders kit to get started!
I wanted to stop by today and share some a few of my “go-to” activities during the first week of school to build our classroom community and set expectations for […]
I love teaching a split-grade class. I know this may not be a popular opinion in teaching, but there it is. In reality, many of us teach split-grade
Create a solid math foundation with these tips for teaching place value in 1st grade. Use these ideas to avoid place value mistakes!
Geometric Art
Massive list of classroom jobs for elementary students in preschool, kindergarten, first grade, or second grade - such great ideas for classroom jobs!
The first day of 2nd grade for pretty much any grade is a whirlwind. Plan for the first day of 2nd grade to keep students engaged, and excited to come back!
Learn all about China and lots of intesting facts About Chinese culture with these coloring pages! Simply print worksheets!
Classroom Management: Using a WOW Board No comments Classroom Management, student recognition, WOW board Have you heard of the WOW board? This tool is not a brand new idea, but I only started using it last year. And, I intend to keep using it! Using a WOW board is a great (and super easy) way to recognize individual students and reward their choices, achievements, and efforts. It is also a great way to boost self-esteem too. What is it? The board is simply a table that is printed onto poster sized paper. The table is labeled with letters along the bottom, and numbers along the side, creating cells. It is laminated so it can be used again and again. I printed my board using the standard poster size setting on our poster maker. I know that some schools may not have a poster maker, but there is no rule that says your WOW board has to be poster sized! How do you use it? When you see a student making a smart choice, setting a good example, making gains, or whatever you feel should be recognized, they add their name to the board. They can choose any space they want and write their name in the selected space. Many WOW boards have 100 spaces, but I like for it to fill up quickly, so my board has only 25 spaces. Since I use other means of recognizing students, like reward tags, I didn't want a board with 100 spaces. Since the board is laminated, students can use an Expo Vis-a-Vis marker to add their name. This makes it easy to erase and start over when we're ready to do so. What do you do when the board is full? When the board is full of students' names, I choose 5 students to receive a "prize." Really, they get to choose a classroom reward coupon. Prize buckets and I don't get along (#clutter). The classroom rewards cost me nothing and the kids love them. You can find all sorts of classroom reward options on TPT. Then, I erase the board and we start filling it up again and the cycle repeats. How do you choose the winners? I usually just pick five random cells and write them on a sticky note, without looking to see whose names are in those cells. For example, I might write down A3, C4, B5, D2, E1. I call out the cell number and identify the name of the student written in that cell. They're a winner! You could write all your cells (i.e. A1, A2, A3, etc.) on color tiles, small slips of paper, or anything else you can fit into a small bucket. Then, when it is time to choose your winners, you just pull a tile, slip of paper, etc. out of the bucket and match it to the name in that space on your board. Using a Wow board is just another way to recognize your students and motivate them to do their best. If you'd like to give it a try, you can download my free template. If your school doesn't have a poster maker, don't dismiss the idea of using a WOW board. You could easily print this on regular paper and just use a smaller sized version. The kids will still love it! DON'T FORGET IT, PIN IT! Share It:
Read for my favorite Amazon finds for classroom management. There's something for managing groups, getting students' attention, keeping management tools organized, and more!
Practice grade 2 math with FREE printable 2nd grade math worksheets. Turn second grade math worksheets into a FUN Mad minutes game!
Lots of EPIC Simple Machine Projects for students to make using things around the house! Learn about simple machines for kids!
Here's a very special Mini Passport Book, which you can print out and assemble with the kids for your learning journey when you travel!
The first day of first grade is always a really fun, but hectic day for my littles. They are so excited to come to school, but they are always a little nervous since they don’t know what to expect when they walk through my classroom door. I always have an activity such as a first day coloring page or a play-doh model on their desks to work on right when they come in so my students are busy creating while I welcome students and take attendance.
Switching literacy centers in and out every week is such a headache for teachers! This post shares 3rd grade literacy center ideas that work with any curriculum and last the entire school year! PLUS--you can grab some free printables at the end of this post! *This post contains affiliate links to Amazon for your convenience.
