This post contains affiliate links to products I recommend. Read my full disclosure statement. Learning to add money, make change, and compare money amounts are skills that are coming up in our money unit. I've been working on putting together lots of fun games and engaging opportunities to practice. Here are some money activities for second grade

These PowerPoints are designed to support instruction for Module 1, Unit 1, Lessons 1-11 for SECOND GRADE of EL Education (or Expeditionary Learning).I've included slides to help guide through all the important points of the lessons, including learning targets. All slides were made with second grade...

I can't believe it is already May, and we are down to only about twenty days of school left! It didn't really feel like May a couple days ago when it was snowing, but we are going to try and pretend that didn't happen. Let's make corsages for Mother's Day! For Mother's Day this year, I wanted to have my kids make something to go along with the little Mother's Day Booklet that we do. So, I came up with the idea to make corsages after seeing really cute tissue paper flowers on Pinterest. I got all of my materials at Walmart and Michael's. With my 50% coupons at Michael's, it only cost about $30. Rather than try to include step by step photos, I made a video of how to make it. These are some of my kids corsages... I thought they turned out great! I guess a couple moms even wore them to the Mommy Son dance last weekend! At one of our professional development days this year, a fellow teacher talked about all different kinds of technology to use in the classroom. One of my summer goals is to experiment with some of the things she talked about like Plickers, remind.com, Edmodo, and Prezi, to name a few. I thought I would share a couple of ways I have used technology in my classroom, and then I even have a giveaway to share with you! I have used Class Dojo for a few years now, and I know most of you probably already know about it. This year, I began using it a little differently. In the past, I would give prizes at the end of the week to the kids who had earned the most points. It wasn't long before certain kids gave up, knowing they just couldn't compete with those students who are always doing what they are supposed to be doing. No matter how hard I tried to catch them being good, they just weren't in it to win it, if you know what I mean. This year I created a reward chart and just allowed the points to accumulate. When a student reached a certain point level, he/she would earn that reward. This way the students weren't competing with each other. They were just trying to earn as many points as they could to reach the next reward. I made a chart with each student's name on it and colored in the space when a reward was earned and used. If you would like to try this out with your class, you can get my Class Dojo Behavior Management Set in my TPT Store for free! Something I tried out for the first time this year was RAZ Kids. This is a program affiliated with Reading A to Z. I have used the Reading A to Z books many times, but I had never heard of RAZ Kids. Well, apparently special education teachers in our building have been using it for several years. It is an online program where students can read the leveled books and then take quizzes on them. My school bought a couple additional subscriptions to the program and each teacher was able to sign up a few of their lower readers to participate. If you are an upper grade elementary teacher, then you know how challenging it can be to get some of your readers to read books at their level. The students can also listen to the books being read to them and then read them on their own. It is definitely something that I will want to continue to use. I'm so thrilled about my 4th Show & Tell! I am guest posting on Minds in Bloom with Rachel Lynette! It just so happens that my post about how to put an end to endless book browsing during reading workshop time is going live today. Please check it out by clicking on the button below!

One of my favorite things I like to do is browse other teachers’ classrooms! In person, or online, it’s all the same to me! I just love to do it! I’m linking up with Ashley and Angie for #2getherwearebetter and with Blog Hoppin’ for a classroom reveal- Melonheadz style! Last year I went with a ... Read More about Classroom Tour {2015-2016}

Our first week of second grade was full of fun! From learning our classroom procedures, to team building we learned so much!

I hope you are all having a wonderful summer! I have been relaxing, reading, swimming, spending time with family and friends, and working on stuff for the classroom. Summer is the perfect time to…

I've decided to start a new series on my blog called "TeacherBoss Hacks". The plan is to share a tip from my classroom that will hopefully be helpful to other teachers. Today's tip is on keeping track of unfinished work. Update: 2018 New classroom, new set-up, new hacks needed. So, I don't have my orange

CLICK the PIC I thought I'd share this with everyone! I created Class Dojo themed QR behavior cards to use with the kiddos. ...

Informational writinand expository writing in second grade is all about animals. We go in depth with gathering facts, sorting the facts, and writing.

Confession: I've never had a long range plan. Ever. Not ever. For real. Then one day my amazingly talented and uber generous and inspiring...

Make the first day of school a little easier with this fun, engaging, first day of school activity that your students will LOVE!

Planning and prepping differentiated math centers can be simple when using the Math Workshop framework. Less prep time and greater student growth is a win-win.

My new obsession this year has been making and using anchor charts for my lessons. Here are just some of the anchor charts I have made this year. Some of these charts are original ideas but many are ideas I have seen and used from other teachers. I am not good at drawing so I use clipart from my computer to add pictures to my anchor charts. I print them out and glue them onto the chart! It’s so much easier and looks so much better than what I could draw! I also laminate my anchor charts so I can use them year to year. By laminating the charts I can easily write and erase on them by using an Expo marker. Click HERE to download the worksheet writing templates for opinion writing, informative writing, step writing, personal narrative writing, fictional narrative writing, and postcard writing that match these anchor charts from my TpT store! Click HERE to download the files needed to make the Sequence of Events and Transitional Word Examples anchor charts from my TpT store! Click HERE to download the file needed to make the Fiction/Non-Fiction Sort anchor chart from my TpT store! Click HERE to download the words I used on these anchor charts on my TpT store!

So I kinda sorta told the kids that if they painted and printed their winter selfies really well, we just might get the magic of snow. Snow seems to elude us in these parts...but not this year. Turns out these cute things really DID bring on the snow which was totes fab...except for the fact that it meant we've been working on these bad boys for a coupla days weeks. But that's all right. I mean, just take a lil look-see at how stinkin' awesome these printed and collaged winter self-portraits are! I knew I wanted to introduce my second graders to printmaking but how? I remembered that my buddy Laura over at this fab-o blog taught her students how to create adorable winter selfies last year. I thought it'd be fun to add the printmaking element to this lesson and viola! Here you have it! This lesson was chuck full o' art teacherin' moments: we learned how to use the elements of art to create pattern, we learned how to make both marker and ink prints, we learned how to create a tint of blue and print snowflakes in the background, how to draw selfies and design a pleasing composition. In short, we was busy. Lemme break it down for you: Day #1: Intro to carving a print. We used Scratch-Art Foam Board but styrofoam plates would work in a pinch. I had created hat and mitten templates so that we could move on to the pattern designing and printmaking faster. I have 30 minutes art classes so I have to take the guess work outta some things. After the first class, most of us had this: Day #2: On the second day, we continued our pattern design with ink pen. I encouraged the kids to go over their lines more than once just to make sure they'd have a successful print. Early finishers colored with marker and we started to pull marker prints. You can see that in the video...if you've never done it, it's magical! Day #3: We are ready to use brayers and ink to pull prints! I like to use water soluble Speedball ink because it's the jam. I usually lay out a couple of colors and the kids rotated creating two different color prints on colorful copy paper. (This video was created for my third graders but it's the same idea so I thought I'd share!) Day #4: We learned how to create a tint of blue and painted a piece of construction paper. We also used cut pieces of mat board to dip into white paint and print snowflakes. It was fun to introduce the kids to a coupla printing processes. Day #5: Selfie time! The kids had mirrors, this idea sheet and sketch paper. They had to create three thumbnail selfie sketches before moving on to drawing on their final paper. Pink chalk was used to show just how cold it was outside! Day #6: Time to start assembling our collage. We had a long chat about composition and balance before going on this adventure. The kids could use their favorite prints, whether that was their marker or ink prints (we'll use the extra prints for another project, stay tuned!). I happened to have a ton of scrap paper from another project so many of the kids used oil pastels to create scarves! Some of the girls used chalk for their long hair. So in love with this self-portrait! I love how vibrant the marker prints are, it made my happy when the kids chose them. Several students decided to arrange their composition on a horizontal format. Last thing added was the pompom! For that, have the kids wrap an 18" long piece of yarn many times around a 2" piece of cardboard. Carefully slide it off and double knot tie another string around the middle. Trim the loops of yarn and you have a pompom! Now...maybe sharing these snowy selfies here will get me one more snow day, eep!

Here is the beginning of the Mastering Mentor Sentences Series with Collaboration Cuties! I told you about the book Dandelions last week in this post about mentor texts. As I mentioned, I use the book for reading and writing, with social studies integration, too… and I’m here to tell you I also used it for my […]

Explore The Learning Community's 3045 photos on Flickr!

Ideas for math centers in the primary grades.

This post contains affiliate links for Amazon. By purchasing an item on the Amazon site using these links, I will receive a small commission on your purchase. For more information about my Disclosure Policy, please

My fellow teachers have commented that "I LOVE to use my ANCHOR CHARTS" and they are so right! I use them as a visual and resource all the time. (yes I know my pie graph equals more than 100%....It was made prior to coffee-Whoops!) We just finished our Chapter on Graphing Data. I enriched this "easier" chapter with additional types of graphs and a family project. (seen below) I have to admit, this years "Family Project" participation has blown me through the roof. I had 14 out of 19 students turn in an optional Data Family Project! I love that the parents support enriching activities like this at home! On Thursday we started our LAST math chapter on Geometry. I had the students work as a team to discuss the math vocabulary: faces, vertices, edge, 3-d, 2-d, and 1-d. We had so much fun making our 3-d Shapes foldable resource (not pictured) for their math journals. If you haven't already read this, you need to! I ordered it off Amazon and it is such a hilarious book on 3-d shapes. The kids were so into it and it retaught the shapes for reinforcement. I asked questions throughout the story (found on TPT for free) that went along with "Captain Invincible and the Space Shapes"

Are you using INTERACTIVE MATH NOTEBOOKS in your classroom? You really should be! My students love them, create them, reference them, and will take them home at the end of the school year where they will continue to learn from them! They can be used in either a whole group or small group setting. Th...

Hi Friends! Confession time…writing is my LEAST favorite subject to teach. I know, I know…teachers shouldn’t have favorites! In all seriousness, teaching writing to first graders was not my favorite subject to teach. I was in a place where I thought, “If it’s boring to me, isn’t it boring for them?” I desperately needed to spice things up. That year I made it my professional goal to improve my writing instruction. I spent time reading, researching best practices and developing a system that would work in my classroom. As a result the Daily Quick Writes were born. The idea behind the quick write is to focus more on the quality of writing, instead of the quantity. A quick write prompt should only take 5-10 minutes…we all have time for that! The prompts are versatile and cover a wide range of topics. They were designed to encourage your students to express themselves as they learn the art of writing! I typically used a writing prompt a day as a writing workshop warm-up, however it can be used any time that works for your classroom. The original Daily Quick Writes were designed for kindergarten and 1st grade students. When I moved to 3rdgrade I developed Daily Quick Writes for BIG KIDS. The prompts are similar, providing an amazing opportunity for differentiation! Over the past few years I have had many requested for a blank version of the Daily Quick Writes paper. I have good news friends, I FINALLY did and it is a FREE download! Daily Quick Writes Subscribe to get the your download & check your email! Subscribe Powered By ConvertKit Daily Quick Writes for BIG KIDS! Subscribe to get your download & check your email! Subscribe Powered By ConvertKit

If you follow me on Instagram you probably saw my post in December about how I'd be starting The Great Pencil Challenge with my class. Every student was given a newly sharpened pencil with pink duct tape with their number written towards the top in Sharpie. That's how we can tell the pencil challenge pencils away from the regular "emergency" pencils. I always keep a small bucket of sharpened pencils handy in case their challenge pencil goes dull or the point breaks during the day because I don't ever run the pencil sharpener during the day. My sharpener is great but loud. It also becomes a distraction during the day that we don't need. Once the pencil gets too small to sharpen I replace it with a new challenge pencil. As long as they don't lose the pencil, they remain in the challenge with a pink taped pencil. So here's the question... DOES THE CHALLENGE WORK? YES! Friday was our 5th week of the challenge and 14/17 students still had their pencil! It's unreal, y'all. They're SO into it. I have one sweet thirdie who almost had a panic attack because he thought he lost his pencil. Bless his sweet heart. Does anything happen to them if they lose their pencil? The sticky note with their name comes off the wall and they don't get a Pencil Challenge Dojo point (worth +2)... but that's it. No one is going to kill you if you don't have your pencil! Why give The Great Pencil Challenge a try in your classroom? I was sick and tired of them leaving pencils on the floor and going through them like crazy! The only reason I have gone into my new pencil drawer since starting the challenge has been to get a new challenge pencil for a friend whose pencil has become too short to write with. I have saved SO MANY pencils already. Still not convinced? This is a perfect opportunity to teach responsibility for items and see them take pride in something! If all of this doesn't convince you to give it a try I don't know what will! How long will your kiddos last? Make sure to follow me on Instagram to see how many survive week 6!

Are you looking for 2nd Grade Morning Work worksheets that will provide a spiraling review for your math, grammar, and ELA Skills throughout the year? This bundle contains 180 worksheets to use for 1st grade morning work. This Morning Work pack is Common Core aligned.Each page has math and English l...

Happy Friday! {20 days left…okay 19 if you don’t count Memorial Day!} I’m linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her wonderful “Five for Friday” linky party! Here’s a sneak peek at my {incredibly busy} week! Monday was Cinco de Mayo! How did you all celebrate!?!? We crafted away! We made some simple sombreros with […]

I found this lesson idea over at Art Projects for Kids and decided to try it with my grade three students. I am a new fan of Amedeo Modigliani and the kids are too. After looking at many of the ar…

If you need a writing anchor chart to help your students with visual references, this post has 9 must-make anchor charts to boost your writers.

I absolutely LOVE IKEA and even though the closest one to me is about 3 hours away, I always make a point to go a couple of times a year. A few years ago, I did a post on items from IKEA that teachers can use in their classrooms. You can check out that post HERE (most of those things are still available!). Below are some of my finds from my most recent trip... There are tons of alternative seating options at IKEA. Most of the office type chairs are sold in two parts... the seat and then the base. The seat part is a great floor seat.. similar to the rocker chairs people are using. Here are just a couple of the options that I thought looked the most comfortable and affordable... If you need some basic stools for your students to sit on while they work... IKEA has some awesome cheap rugs. The rugs I bought for less than $5 over 5 years ago are still holding up and look great (even after 180 days of use a year by primary students). I use rugs for silent reading but also for my low table where students sit on the ground. These are a few of the rug options... I grabbed up two of these larger circle rugs... my kiddos will love them! Two students can fit on them for partner reading. I loved this green dot rug.. look at the price! You can't really tell the size but this would be a great rug in a small area where 3 or 4 kiddos could sit and play a game together. This would be a great addition to any classroom. IKEA has tons of deals like this! They also have a TON of chair pads.. the ones with the strings that you tie to the back of the chair. these would also be great for your floor kiddos. I picked up these round versions that go on stools... they have rubbery grippers on the back that will prevent them from sliding on hard floors. If you are looking for "spots" to keep your students in one place while sitting on the rug these could be an option... they are actually placemats! They have a rubbery backing so they won't slip on laminate flooring and are just the right size for primary kiddos. This is a longer cushion pad... two kiddos would fit perfect on this for partner read! I wish I had about 12 of these! If you want to go kind of big and you are looking for a couch, this is so cute. I almost grabbed this up but couldn't decide on a color... It comes in yellow or a dark gray. These stools are so cute... they would be great at a tall table. The don't wobble and are sturdy. They have a ton of other stool options. I love stools because they can be stacked or pushed under tables so easily! Here are some lower stool options. They will work on regular height tables. If you are brave enough for pillows (I always tell my kids no heads on the pillows....if you get my drift) they have a ton of cheap options. This dish rack would be perfect for organizing tablets! Just slide the tablets into the slots and place any iPods into the silverware holder portion. I purchased this shelving unit (in white) to transform my fluency station... These picture frames are perfect for displaying learning objectives at small groups.... If you can screw into walls and cabinets these would be perfect for so many purposes... displaying student work, displaying pics from the year or I think they would be great for hanging headphones. Just slip the headphone over the wire and you are good to go! This is my dream item at IKEA...I would love to have two of these to hold my differentiated tubs for literacy and math rotations. It holds 12 drawers (3 drawers for each group) that can hold different leveled materials. If you want to whimsically figure up your data this calculator is super cute...I would love for my principal to come in while I am punching in numbers on this ridiculous thing... I have never seen this section in IKEA before (maybe it's new or I am just blind) but they have cute party favor type decor. I often use the tissue balls in my classroom. I love these options! This section also had these number paperclips and quotation paper clips. These would be a fun little teacher gift! I also grabbed up this cheap tub to store rugs and pillows. Finally what my kiddos will be most excited about BEADS (for fun friday). These are super cheap! IKEA also has these rolls of paper (should have grabbed a dozen for my artsy kiddos!) for super cheap! What items do you use from IKEA in your classroom? If you have any questions make sure to leave them in the comment section!

Again, I know this room may not be new to some of you. I decided to reveal this room back in October. For those of you new to Schoolgirl Style…WELCOME! As the year is winding down, I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful it was to teach in this space. The room was […]

I worked for what seemed like an endless amount of hours on my classroom this year. I wanted everything to be just right and a place where my students and I could feel comfortable throughout the day. I tried to make sure that everything had a “home” and the kids would not question where something goes. …

Download a FREE Second Grade Math Curriculum Map that you can use to plan out a year of math instruction for your classroom.

Each year Teacher Week comes around and I'm just settling in for my first few days of school. I have all intentions of throwing down posts daily yet you're pulled away due to the wild and crazy ride

The Rise and Shine Binder uses interactive morning activities to wake up with the standards! This is a year long hands-on math and literacy interactive notebook that will engage your students each morning! Great for Kindergarten and First Grade.

Cultivating a postive classroom community is such an important part of teaching, and I've learned that little things go a long way. The Best Part of Me writing activity is a great community builder!

Ready to find the best chapter books for 3rd graders (8 year olds) to get your kids reading more? This list of books and reviews wil help!

Creating a student photo wall with student-selected quotes and missions is a great way to build a positive classroom community where students are supported.