Teaching rounding can be hard and monotonous, so I try to make it as fun for myself as possible because teacher fun=student fun! I'm a story teller. I love to hook my students with a good story, even if it means I have to embellish a little along the way. To kick off the first
7 Addition Strategies to help students become successful math students in Second Grade. Includes: Cheat Sheet for Students and Parents 7 Posters/ Anchor Charts to help describe the strategies for addition
Learn a changing matter experiment you can easily do at school that is perfect for 2nd grade. This properties of matter ice cream in a bag science experiment is a delicious demonstration of temperature changes matter that students can eat at the end!
Hello, friends! Today's post is my annual "back to school" post. It includes a few classroom photos (nothing too exciting this year, give...
Each Monday we collaborate with our building's new and Dual Language staff members for a professional development session based on what they highlight as their needs and/or desires for learning! This week we focused on Daily 5 ideas as all of our staff are currently working hard to get their stations and guided reading up and running! The teachers who attending the session came up with a variety of wonderful ideas and activities that could potentially be used throughout the year in these work stations. I thought some of you may enjoy taking a gander at what they came up with as well! Just a little background... we utilized a strategy many of you may be familiar with called "Round Robin" to gather ideas during our meeting. The staff were given the anchor charts with only the titles and asked to add any activity ideas they were doing, would like to do, etc. based on the title on their paper. We gave each group 1 minute to brainstorm and write their ideas, and then they were asked to pass the poster to the next group. We continued to do this until all posters had made it to all groups. This is a great strategy that you could use with your students as well to assess their background knowledge and/or learning of concepts. You could even do it at the beginning of the year to see what activities they already know and enjoy doing during Daily 5 if they are familiar with it from the year past! This may give you some insight as to what they may want to do in your classroom as well! Alright now onto the posters...keep in mind these were quickly written by our staff and we discussed them a bit after as well, so not everything may make perfect sense! But feel free to ask questions in the comments if you have any and I would be happy to try my best to answer! After our meeting, I also took some time to type up all of their ideas onto one page for them to hold on to and refer to throughout the year. You are welcome to a copy if you'd like- just click on the image below :)! (Graphics: Scrappin Doodles, Priscilla Concepcion)
Are you like me and busy checking Instagram and Pinterest for Back to School ideas? Even though I have been teaching for many years, I get bored doing the same thing year after year. Pl…
Learn how to use these quality books for questioning that will help you teach students how to ask thoughtful questions before, during, and after reading.
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 »
Children will refer to a map, a key, and a compass rose to answer eight questions in this colorful map-reading worksheet.
Creative and hands-on habitats activities for second grade science. Find teaching ideas, ready to use lessons, videos, and science experiments for kids, ideal for teaching 2nd grade habitats and ecosystems.
If you are looking for comprehensive and kid-friendly no-prep 2nd grade language arts worksheets, you've come to the right place.
I have always loved words and am a self-proclaimed word nerd. I actually read the book Word Nerds, met the authors at a conference a few years ago, and got to lead a PLC in my school all about it! Research shows that a child's vocabulary is a key component to their success in school, on standardized tests, and in life in general! Those three reasons alone should be proof enough to any educator that VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION IS IMPORTANT! What I love about vocabulary instruction is that it's cross-curricular. The words found in children's literature are just as important as those found in content areas, like science and social studies, which, in my opinion, makes it almost effortless to incorporate into your instruction. However, the hard part of vocabulary instruction is making it interesting and engaging to students. Merely writing definitions can only go so far. One way to make vocabulary instruction more engaging is to provide your students a variety of ways for them to engage with a vocabulary and then allowing them to choose what type of activity will help them best learn the word and internalize its meaning. A vocabulary menu can accomplish this. Students are instructed to choose from the ...
ALL ABOUT FRIENDSHIP Friendship and conflict solving skills are so important to teach our kiddos. Our job is to teach them important social skills. They need these tools to ensure successful relationships with their peers and adults. It is tricky, but it can be done! I am sharing some
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• THIS 2 PAGE DOCUMENT IS A SIMPLE VERSION AND DOES NOT CONTAIN ALL SECOND GRADE STANDARDS. YOU CAN FIND THE VERSION WITH ALL STANDARDS HERE: 2nd Grade Reference Guide- All Common Core Standards •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• This product is bundled with other 2nd grade common core I can reference tools here : 2nd Grade Common Core I Can Statements Bundle This skill goal sheet is a 2 page resource that is a fun and very visual way for the kids and parents to see second grade skills. There is one sheet for ELA and one sheet for math. Easy to copy front and back to communicate general 2nd grade expectations to parents and students This can also be provided to parents at conferences, parent teacher conferences or open house to inform parents what their child is expected to learn. These can be placed in homework folders or data notebooks as a form of communication to students to allow them to see all they have learned. Includes basic second grade skills such as: reading multi- syllable words reading with fluency retelling stories reading short and long vowel words counting, identify numbers and writing to 1000 telling time identify halves, thirds, and fourth reading and writing sight words adding and subtracting with fluency adding and subtracting 10 and 100 writing personal narratives This does not include all second grade standards but a great variety so students and parents can see what is expected. Included with the common core standards listed in each box and a second version with only the images and text. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• You may also like the other grade level skill sheets found here: •Pre-Kindergarten Skills •Kindergarten Skills •First Grade Skill Sheet •3rd Grade Skills •4th Grade Goals Sheet ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
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WOW! 300,000+ Second grade worksheets, free printable games, and 2nd grade activities to make learning math, literacy, history, & science FUN!
Friday letters offer so many insights into your students and keep parents connected to your classroom. See how I teach students to manage them themselves.
An elementary art teacher blog with art projects and lessons, DIY projects and outfit photos as well as clothing I have made myself.
My school district recently adopted McGraw-Hill Wonders as our new K-6 reading series. Previously, we were using a variety of series and resources to meet our students' needs. In my 8 years of teaching, this will be the first year I've had a reading curriculum that addresses {most of} our standards! If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you might know that using a basal to teach is not exactly my style, so this is a HUGE change for me. In an ideal world, I would use a reading workshop model to teach whole group mini-lessons with trade books and then differentiate with leveled readers in small groups. I am still planning on using a reading workshop model, but I will be integrating Wonders into the model. I hope to blog about Wonders throughout the year to share about the integration process. According to McGraw-Hill, Wonders is the first and only reading program designed specifically for the Common Core. This is a definite improvement over our previous series; however, this does not mean the curriculum is without flaws. My colleague, Amanda, and I spent A LOT of time this summer aligning Wonders to our 2nd grade CCSS and developing a scope and sequence for the year. Throughout this process, we discovered many things we loved about Wonders, as well as a few things we were not impressed with! I will start with the things we loved! :) 1) Literature: The stories in the literature anthology of Wonders are very good! I've worked with a lot of basals that had really dull stories, so I am excited that Wonders includes stories that are engaging and high-interest for my students. 2) Instruction Model: The 2nd grade curriculum of Wonders includes 2 textbooks. You use the Reading/Writing Workshop textbook to pre-teach the comprehension and vocabulary of the week, as well as model close reading. Then, you have students apply these skills to the weekly selection in the Literature Anthology. I really like the concept of being able to pre-teach skills and apply them to quality literature. 3) Multiple Selections: Both textbooks include multiple selections each week. The selections are a variety of genres to allow for multiple ways for students to practice their skills. Now, onto the main problem we are having with Wonders... scope and sequence! {a large problem, I might add!} Scope and Sequence: I emailed the folks at McGraw-Hill multiple times to see if they could provide a matrix that indicates which CCSS are being focused on each week. (Because my district uses standards based grading, it is important for us to see the scope and sequence of the standards we are teaching and assessing). The best McGraw-Hill could do was tell me to use the online Weekly Planner resource to pull up the weekly standards. So, I tried it. Unit 1, Week 1 lists 44 standards for the WEEK (12 of which don't pertain to 2nd grade). Clearly, that's not going to work for us! Like usual, I decided to create my own resource to meet my needs. My friend and colleague, Mary, created a template to use to map out Wonders for 4th grade. Using the template, I worked with my friend, Amanda, to create a scope and sequence that showed the CCSS that were truly being focused on each week. You can download the FREE checklist by clicking on the image below. {Full Disclosure: We worked on this at 2 AM on some nights, so I make no promises that it's 100% accurate, but it's a start!} Throughout the year, I will be creating additional Wonders resources to meet our needs. One of the first things I have already created is a spelling unit! Second Grade Wonders includes weekly spelling words based on a pattern. Although the words are provided by Wonders, I found that the curriculum was lacking some necessary components such as: 1) Organized lists to send home to parents 2) Word cards for sorting by pattern (Wonders does provide word cards in their online resources, but they do not include sorting headers and their cards are huge... which wastes too much paper in my opinion!) 3) Most importantly, a guide on how to assess students' spelling! Because my team is going to be utilizing Wonders for spelling this year, I decided to create a comprehensive unit for us to use. So far, I have Unit 1: Weeks 1-5 completed and posted on TPT. I am currently working on Units 2-6 and will create a bundle if there is enough interest. Here is what my unit includes: {Click on the image above to check out the unit} {Download the preview file for a FREE sample of Unit 1: Week 1} Click on the images below to see a full size image. These can also be downloaded in the preview file. {How I plan on teaching spelling} {The weekly spelling patterns and the words that are on each test} {Word list to send home with students... includes lines for handwriting practice!} {Word cards and headers for sorting} I have my students cut, sort, and glue the word cards on notebook paper. I've included a few blank cards to help students think of additional words that follow the pattern. {Description of the spelling test} {Example of a spelling test} Phew! This was a long post! Hooray for you if you made it to the end! Please comment below if you are using 2nd Grade Wonders this year. I would love to connect and collaborate with you!
Create stunning tin foil art with your kids using a simple technique with aluminum tinfoil to make beautiful designs from flowers to animals.
Free Google Slides and Seesaw activities for students in kindergarten through second grade. These digital math and literacy activities are lots of fun!
Science journal activities for budding scientists. Have your students keep a standards-based science journal like a true scientist.
Conduct this simple Sharpie solubility experiment ideal for teaching students the processes scientists use and the steps to the scientific method. Easy to do in any classroom and ideal for 2nd and 3rd grade students.
Graphing activities and probability lessons that build math skills in hands-on ways and keep kids engaged in K-2. Grab a free graphing boardgame and children's book list!
"It was like herding cats!" That was my answer to my husband the other day when he asked how my day had gone. Seriously, the days I have first and second graders are just hard - fun, but exhausting. That is until I found the SECRET to STEM and the littles! Are you ready for
How do you start your morning each day? Do you walk into your classroom, drop your bags, and make a beeline for the copy machine so you can get your
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…
Literature Circles in the elementary classroom. How to do literature circles with 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students.
K-1 NONFICTION WRITING My nonfiction writing unit is here! This is the perfect way to introduce kindergarten and first grade students to what informational writing is. This unit is so engaging for students because it uses real life photographs and animals. We discus
Second Grade Stories • A Second Grade Teaching Blog
My students loved learning about the different types of quadrilaterals with this mix and match Quadrilaterals Freebie…. and I hope yours do too!
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!
Last week, I blogged about how excited I was to be teaching geometry with no curriculum provided (I was being serious!) Well…we have just finished up our shapes and are moving on to fractions! Now that we are geometry pros, we’re moving in to partitioning shapes. To introduce this concept, I read, “The Hershey’s Milk […]
As I dig through pictures of my old classrooms to get ideas for setting up my new space later this summer, I keep finding some really great ideas that I forgot about. I thought I would share some organization tips that worked for me in the past and might work for me (and hopefully you)
An elementary art teacher blog with art projects and lessons, DIY projects and outfit photos as well as clothing I have made myself.
Free second grade morning work, first grade morning work, counting money worksheets, and grammar worksheets for 2nd grade.
This interactive CCVC and CVCC word building literacy activity can be used in Google Slides or Seesaw. Teach this phonics skill with a fun digital activity!
This Product is included in my Color by Code -Sight Words Third Grade Growing Bundle. Please do not purchase this product if you have already purchased the growing bundle. Get the Color by Sight Words Third Grade Growing Bundle HERE Please download Free Color by Sight Words Second Grade before you decide to purchase this product. There are 20 pages of color by sight words worksheets in Summer Color by Code-Sight Words Third Grade. These pages are fun and effective way to reinforce all of the third grade Dolch Sight Words with safari, pirate, ocean and summer theme. Each coloring page includes a color code for a specific set of sight words. Students can use crayons, colored pencils or markers. These pages are perfect for kindergarten, first and grade students. You can use as classroom activities, morning work, homework, word work and literacy centers. Included in this products: 2 Weather Theme images 1 Safari images 3 Pirate images 6 Ocean images 8 Summer Theme images Answer Keys Sight words included in this packet: About, better, bring, carry, clean, cut, done, draw, drink, eight, fall, far, full, got, grow, hold, hot, hurt, if, keep, kind, laugh, light, long, much, myself, never, only, own, pick, seven, shall, show, six, small, start, ten, today, together, try, warm If you like this product, you may like: Winter Color by Code - Sight Words Third Grade Sight Word Practice Bundle Sight Word Activities Bundle Mystery Sight Word Practice Bundle For more information about my products and freebies, please check out: Miss Faleena Pinterest Miss Faleena Instagram Miss Faleena Facebook Miss Faleena Website Please see the preview to download the free sample. Thank you for stopping by! You can contact me at [email protected] with any question. First Grade | First Grade Grade Worksheets | Second Grade | Second Grade Worksheets | Third Grade | Third Grade Worksheets |Coloring Pages | Color by Code | Color by Sight Words | Homework | Morning Work | Spring
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
