Are you looking for engaging grammar centers? These parts of speech activities are perfect. Here are 7 noun centers for teaching grammar.
Hi Friends…. The past two weeks we have been working on Prefixes and Suffixes in our second-grade classroom! My kiddos were having such a good time brainstorming words with prefixes and then figuring out the meaning. They really had a strong grasp of the concept… I was pretty impressed. After our whole … Prefixes, Suffixes and a FREEBIE Just for YOU! Read More »
Second graders need to have hands-on practice with ELA skills in a meaningful way. This post shares some fun 2nd Grade literacy center ideas.
This past week, we started a new personal narrative writing unit all about my many memorable firsts. I began this unit with a hook to engage student interest--we talked about roller coasters. Who doesn't have a love-hate relationship with a good ol' roller coaster? Especially in a room of second graders, the feelings are unanimous. "Roller coasters are SO MUCH FUN!" We talked about what it was like to go on a roller coaster for the very first time--how that wait in line feels like forever; how when you get into the cart and put on the seatbelt, your heart starts to race; how as the coaster slowly goes clickit-clackity up the tracks, you are thinking "We are going up so high!" and your heart is beating out of your chest; how at the very top it feels like the world stops for just a moment, and then woosh!; how you scream at the top of your lungs as you zoom down the track and loop upside down. I shared my personal story of the first time I went on the roller coaster The Mantis at Cedar Point, and my students were all in. They couldn't wait to start brainstorming! I modeled how to come up with some ideas to get my students on the right track (no pun intended), and put some common experiences down, like the first time I lost a tooth or the first time I rode a bike, to prevent students from getting "stuck" in a writer's block. Students had to come up with at least 3-5 ideas, but many of my students came up with many more. We did lots of sharing out, and then we each circled one idea on our web that we would write about. The next day, it was time to start some serious planning. I created a pre-writing organizer that would not only engage key information like the "who," the "where," and the "when" but also would engage sensory details right from the get-go. We spent the most time on the "Things on the Outside" section as we went through the five senses. What did I see? Hear? Smell? Feel? Taste? I chose to use the idea of the first time I swam underwater, so I wrote down things like I saw the blue water of the pool, I heard my mom cheering for me, I felt the blazing sun, I smelled chlorine and sunscreen, I tasted salty sweat on my lips as it dripped down my face. Then, it was time for our sequencing organizer to get the meat of our story told using temporal words. I can't wait until we are to the revising/editing portion and can dig into these checklists! If you are interested in this "My Many Memorable Firsts" common core aligned personal narrative writing unit, I just uploaded it to TPT. Just click the picture below! Also, get the "Peer Editing Checklist" as a FREEBIE! :) Click the picture below!
Use these vocabulary activities to enhance your vocabulary instruction to help boost your students' reading skills and comprehension.
When teaching narrative writing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade, there are so many writing skills to cover. They range from creating a sequence of events (beginning, middle, and end) to more difficult
WOW! 300,000+ Second grade worksheets, free printable games, and 2nd grade activities to make learning math, literacy, history, & science FUN!
Need a creative idea for teaching money to kids? The Money Game is a fun hands-on way! Inspired by the Beth Kobliner Book- Make Your Kids a Money Genius
The first few weeks of school are all about setting the foundation. We're establishing routines and procedures, encouraging a growth mindset culture, building classroom community, etc. I also like to spend some time laying the foundation for what students will need to be successful writers throughout the year, especially since writing is a focus that threads through all subject areas. In second grade especially, sentence structure is a great place to start. We review the 4 parts that every sentence has to have in order to be a complete sentence:
Visual literacy explicitly teaches a collection of competencies that will help students think through, think about, and think with pictures.
Learn how to plan and manage literacy centers through differentiated instruction activities, rotations, & behavior management strategies.
Explore research-based instruction and data-driven practices in literacy education. Learn how to structure your lessons using the Science of Reading principles without feeling overwhelmed. Discover step-by-step guides, scope, and sequences for effective lesson planning. Download free resources for c
Classroom teachers have a ton of daily tasks to guarantee that students are engaged and learning. It's a tough job, and a stressful one, too. Teachers wear out easily if their classrooms aren't well managed. Creating a classroom that runs itself while you teach in smaller groups is the best way to keep students engaged.
Are you classroom teacher looking for engaging ways to teach your students to comprehend stories? Read this post for primary ideas on how to get children to learn to visualize and build reading comprehension.
8 Awesome Literacy Games That Will Help Kids Learn to Read.
Fun ideas for teaching adjectives and descriptive writing that are just right for October and Halloween week in the primary classroom.
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.
My Story Sandwich is a fun literacy activity perfect for your next book report! Students complete the sandwich pieces by adding the components to their story including the title, author, characters, setting, problem, plot, author's message (for that extra crunch!), and resolution. Students can inc...
Each classroom brings students of multiple learning styles and backgrounds. It is our job to provide opportunities that reach all of the many different learning styles that come to us. For this reason, it is
Learn how to play the Kaboom game in your classroom to make practicing math facts, sight words, and more a blast for your students!
Hello! Hello! I have been searching high and low for a literacy center packet that covered all of the areas my Kinders are currently at. I found lots of awesome packets, but I would have still needed to piece together additional activities. So *light bulb* I created my own packet! This is the third set of […]
What are Bossy R Words? R-Controlled Vowels are often referred to as the "Bossy R" because the r bosses the vowel to change its sound. The vowel and the
Discover the ultimate guide to scheduling your literacy block! Maximize time with whole group reading and small group instruction. Explore strategies for differentiated learning to meet the needs of all students. Get your free Suggested Literacy Block Organizer now!
An alphabet arc can help develop students' letter knowledge, sequencing, automaticity, and more. Read on to learn how to use alphabet arcs.
Simple tips for improving writing in your second or third grade classroom. These tips are a must if you want better writers!
Let's dive into some new options to teach vocabulary, for those who have the time and energy to pursue them. In this post and podcast, I'm sharing ten ideas for making the study of vocabulary something students might even look forward to.
Engage your students with some this wonderful book study to correlate with the cute book We Don't Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins.
Want to elevate your students' writings from the beginning. These brainstorming ideas can set your students up for better writings.
These 2nd Grade I Can Checklists are written by The Curriculum Corner. Provided are free checklists, posters, tracking pages & more.
Past, present, and future.
These worksheets for main idea and supporting details are a great way to build reading comprehension in young students. Grab the free sample.
Fluency tends to be a commonly overlooked skill, but you can change that by learning about strategies for teaching fluency with your elementary students!
Why does writing in complete sentences seem like such a grueling task? I'm sure you've heard students say, "Do we have to write in complete sentences?" Learn effective teaching strategies to help even your most reluctant writers. These tips will guide your students to be successful writers. Students are being held to more rigorous standards. Most teachers not only require students to write in complete sentences when writing essays, but also when answering text-dependent questions for reading comprehension, math problems, and content area activities. With this requirement in all subject areas, students need to master the basic tools to writing in complete sentences. Why go back to the basics? A shocking fact: 27% of 12th graders in the U.S. perform at grade level in writing. Many upper grade teachers think students already have the fundamentals of sentence structure ingrained in their brains. They quickly learn this is far from the truth. Although subjects and predicates are introduced in the lower grade Common Core Standards, most upper elementary students need these skills repeated to be successful writers. Middle school and high school teachers also reach out to me for help with the basics to get quality writing out of their students. What are the steps to writing in complete sentences? Taking time to thoroughly explore complete sentences can only benefit your students for future lessons, writing activities, and standards-based goals. Here are 5 steps to achieve one of their writing goals. 1. TEACH Knowledge is power! Explain that every sentence needs a subject and predicate. I like to provide a visual for students to help their long-term memory. The anchor chart below shows a visual of PB and J. Subjects and predicates go together like PEANUT BUTTER and JELLY. Refer back to the PB and J throughout the year for reminders and motivation. A COMPLETE SENTENCE needs a subject and predicate. A SUBJECT is who or what the sentence is about. A PREDICATE is what action the subject does or links the subject by telling what the subject is. 2. MODEL Model examples like the ones below for your students. This will set the foundation for lessons on fragments and run-on sentences. 3. NOTES They can't remember everything! To help students remember the lesson and have a reference for future writing assignments, they should keep a writing notebook. Whether it is written notes, interactive notes, or printed mini anchor charts, students can use them throughout the year to remind them of the lesson. It gives students a permanent record of what they learned. 4. PRACTICE Practice makes perfect! In order to get to the next (most important) step, students should practice what they learned. Practice helps students identify subjects, predicates and complete sentences. Just like learning to ride a bike. You might not get it the first time, but practice will help you get there! It is a step in the right direction. Don't stop at this step! Practicing grammar lessons in isolation has proven to be ineffective! Read on! 5. APPLY Make it real-world! Why shouldn't we teach grammar lessons in isolation? Grammar is best taught in the context of student writing. It is more effective when students learn through writing! On the Pennington Publishing Blog, they list 16 Reasons Why Daily Oral Language (D.O.L.) Doesn't Work. Although it is necessary for the previous steps, students will learn at a deeper level through authentic context. They need to APPLY their knowledge and WRITE! Get your students writing and discuss the complete sentences within their writing. I hope you learned some effective strategies for your students! Resource for teaching complete sentences: Connect With Me! TPT Store Facebook Pinterest My Blog
For K-1 students, centers are one of the most developmentally appropriate things that you can do for them. Let me give you the break down on each of my 5 centers, and how I manage them!
We are starting our unit on Bears! Last week we read many versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Part of our work on the story included this story map. It is made for kindergarten students, but would be appropriate for first grade too. They drew pictures to show their ideas and then I labeled the drawing or wrote the dictation about what what happening in each part of the story. First, the kiddos worked on the setting and characters. I love this colorful busy picture that includes all sorts of details. She put the beds outside the house because she wanted to include some of the items from inside the house in the picture. This little boy drew just the house, but added the different sized bowls and had me label them. This was a great characters picture. So darn cute! Then on another day, students did pictures for the beginning, middle, and end of the story. First, we did an activity together where we ordered picture cards and talked about different parts of the story. It was great to hear the kids verbally retelling the story in their own words. That is one of the things that is great about doing an activity like this - a great way to really listen carefully to the oral language of students. I love the picture of Goldilocks in this one. Her hair is great! I was so excited when this little sweetie used the word "discovered" in her dictation to me. Woo hoo! Great language! I thought my sweet little students did a great job with this activity! And I was happy with how much they were enjoying the many versions of the 3 bears stories. And, now that they have done a complete story map with a very familiar story, I can start doing these with more challenging literature. OK, here is your freebie, just click on the link under this image to go grab it in my TpT store: Story Map FREEBIE by Katie Byrd I hope it is a big help in your classroom! Please leave some love in the comments if you are using it with your class. Happy Teaching!
Teaching multisensory math techniques as well as incorporating multisensory math activities into lesson plans is not only best practice for students
Hoi, Welkom terug bij leren met Anita en Suzanne. Vandaag een leuk en leerzaam spelletje namelijk Boggle. Je kunt met deze download alle kan...
Hey Ya'll! Do your kids love to learn by playing games? What if I told you that you could increase your students vocabulary by playing games that take 20 minutes or less? Vocabulary is something that is highly stressed in my district. It seems like each year, more and more pressure is put on us to increase students vocabulary. Today I'm here to share with you 4 easy games that you can implement into your class to increase vocabulary and make learning fun AND engaging! Kids should get excited about learning. Implementing games into our daily routine helps increase their learning when they don't even know it. All of these activities that I'm about to share can be used in a whole or small group setting. First up is Heads Down, Vocab Up! This is a game I like to have my kids play when I have a few minutes to kill before moving onto the next subject or when their little brains just need a break. It's super simple. Does your class like to play "heads down, thumbs up" or some call it "heads up, 7 up"? Mine do! Heads Down, Vocab Up! is just like that only using word cards. You can use any type of vocabulary cards you'd like. We play using sight words, compound words, contractions, academic vocabulary and more. Here is how to play: Pick 3-4 students to be it. Give each student picked a vocabulary card. Turn off the lights and the rest of the class puts their head down (NO PEEKING!) and their thumb up. The students chosen go around the room and pick someone by touching their thumb. When the teacher turns the lights on, those picked stand up and try to guess who picked them. Rather than calling out the students name, they must call out the vocabulary word that student is holding. If they get it right, they get to trade places and be it. If they get it wrong, they sit back down. Then the next round begins. You can also have your students tell the meaning of the word, use it in a sentence or give a synonym. This way it can be easily differentiated for various learners. When using academic vocabulary cards, I like have them say the word and their own meaning of the word. This is a simple review that can be done in 5 minutes or stretched out into a whole group lesson. Up next is a little game I like to call Word Speed! Word Speed is quick game that we play daily throughout the week. I do this with vocabulary and grammar skills mostly. All you need is some chart paper and makers. You could easily laminate chart paper and use dry erase markers to make it reusable. What you'll see below is bulletin paper from our workroom. Here is how you play... 1. Split your class up into 2 teams. (You can do more if you'd like) 2. Tape a piece of chart paper on opposite sides of the room for each team. You want them far enough apart where the other team can't see the others paper. 3. Write the topic you are covering at the top of the chart paper. 4. Time them for 1-2 minutes (sometimes this will be longer such as 3-4 minutes until everyone has a turn, but they think they only have one minute). 5. Each person write a vocabulary word and passes the marker to the next person. They are not allowed to talk while doing this. (The picture above, they had to write a pair of synonyms. They cannot write something that has already been written.) 6. They have 1-2 minutes to write as many words as they can. 7. When the time is up, the person holding the marker brings it to you. 8. I give each team one point for having the correct words. They race every day. On Monday-Wednesday, I do not count off for spelling. On Thursday and Friday, if a word is misspelled, I do not count it. This helps with preventing tie-breakers. 9. At the end of the week, the team with most points is the Word Speed Champ for the week! We play with a new piece of paper everyday so that they are able to use the same words. On Tuesday, I use the back of the page that they wrote on, on Monday. I kept a tally of the points on the board. I found that they loved this game so much, that they would go home and ask their families for words to use. Once the kids got into the routine of playing for various concepts, they would always ask if it was Word Speed time! Now lets talk about a class favorite that I use for multiple concepts. This little game is a BIG DEAL! It's called KABOOM! I blogged about this concept awhile back. You can read about it here. I'll do a quick recap. All you need to create KABOOM is popsicle sticks, a permanent marker, and a cup. Here's how to play: Color one tip of each popsicle stick. This end sticks out of the cup. Write a vocabulary word on each stick. You also need 5-10 KABOOM sticks. (For my academic vocabulary sets, I put 2 sets of vocabulary words that are 8 words each, and then 5 Kaboom! sticks. For sight words, I do a full set and then 10 KABOOM sticks. Place all the sticks in a cup with the colored tip sticking up. Students play rock, paper, scissors to see who goes first. The first player draws a stick and reads the word. For academic vocabulary they must read the word correctly and tell the meaning or use it in a sentence. This is good for differentiation in your groups. If the student reads the word and uses it in correctly they get to keep their stick. If they read it incorrectly or use it incorrectly, the stick must go back in the cup. If they draw a stick that says KABOOM! They have to put all of their sticks back into the cup. This is a BIG DEAL ya'll! The player with the most sticks at the end of the game wins! I like to play KABOOM with academic vocabulary at the beginning of each small group. I can easily differentiate each question I ask based on each student to fit their needs. We also play whole group using sight words, parts of speech, and for various math concepts. This is a favorite during stations as well. I keep all of my games set up in baskets and the kids can easily grab a cup when they have time. All the other games I have created are stored and labeled in ziploc bags. Last but most certainly not least is my personal favorite, Beach Ball Vocabulary! I originally started playing this game with math facts and learned that I could use it for all different subjects. You can read my math fact post here. All you need is a beach ball and a maker. Write vocabulary words all over the ball in a random order. Here is how to play: Have students form a large circle around the room while you or another student stands in the middle. GENTLY toss the beach ball to a student. Whatever word their thumb (you can pick right or left) lands on, they must tell the definition, use it in a sentence, or give an example of. Then they GENTLY toss the ball back to you and you throw it to another student. The example shown above was played with antonyms. Students had to say the antonym of the word one of their thumbs landed on. For academic vocabulary, I have all of unit 1 words written on a ball, all of unit 2 words written on a ball, etc. This way they are getting review of words we have already learned. All of the games show above can be used with multiple concepts such as academic vocabulary, synonyms/antonyms, prefixes/suffixes, compound words, contractions, parts of speech, sight words and so much more. Use them cross-curricular for math concepts or science and social studies. I hope you can incorporate at least one of these activities into your classroom! My kids love them and I hope yours do too! Have a great day!
