Create a solid math foundation with these tips for teaching place value in 1st grade. Use these ideas to avoid place value mistakes!
Just found out you're teaching second grade! Here's a quick start guide!
Do you teach your first and second-grade students to learn how to write a paragraph? In this post, I share ideas, lessons, and activities for students to learn how to write their own paragraphs in a structured way. Before I dive in, I wanted to let you know you can watch or listen to all […]
Just found out you're teaching second grade! Here's a quick start guide!
Second Conditional In English Grammar with Examples, In this blog, You will learn about Second Conditional with Examples in English
Awesome illustration of the PARA organizing method I teach from @Silly_Strokes, who is part of cohort 14
Save time by checking out this list of French back-to-school resources with links to videos, free printables, and more! Ready for "la rentrée scolaire"?
5 Fail-Proof Ways to help you teach students how to identify the main idea & the supporting details of a passage, short story...
Learn three simple things you need to teach your ESL beginners right away. These include variations of introductions, classroom surroundings and basic needs
Here’s a few classroom procedures that have worked well for me – and a couple awesome ideas I’ve run across since I’ve stepped out of the classroom...
One of the important concepts we teach in early elementary is about the great big world we live in. Students will learn about the world beyo...
There's so much to love about Montessori, but did you know it's great for raising bilingual kids? Here's more on teaching a second language with Montessori.
If you are looking for some high-interest activities, try using animated shorts to teach inference. Free handouts focus on student learning.
Past, present, and future.
Empower ELL newcomers with essential classroom English phrases using this resource pack designed for beginners. Perfect for mastering survival English skills.
Grammar Day by Day is a great option for teachers who want quick, no prep options for daily grammar practice with 2nd grade students.
Hello friend, Do your students need practice with doubles facts? I created this game for students to practice doubles fact fluency. Students can play alone or with a partner. You can differentiate with the number of dice or with the kind of dice you use. I hope you find it useful! Doubles Game Freebie If […]
Help your children listen better with these fun activities. Get your children to obey the first time you ask by playing one of these listening skills games
Preschool and Kindergarten Writing Lessons This 10-part series from This Reading Mama and me took place in the spring of 2014. This series will help you understand how to teach writing to young children, from
Dolch sight words list for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and third-grade levels. Our free printable Dolch sight word lists provide you with colorful sight word charts for easy reference and assessment. Teach your child to read sight words with these full size PDF Dolch 220 sight word lists. We've also included a list of Dolch sight word nouns.
Differentiating your instruction can be overwhelming. I get it. When you hear the word "differentiation" do you automatica...
Interactive Read Alouds allow us to teach a broad range of standards within one text. This month's read aloud lessons focus on the Key Ideas and Details and Craft and Structure standards in Literature for Second Grade. They cover answering questions using key details from the text, recounting the story, determining the central message, describing how characters respond to major events and challenges, and describing the overall structure of the story. The books were chosen based on the needs of students returning back to school. These books contain themes of bravery, inclusion, kindness, growth mindset, and names. Although each week's lessons cover a broad range of standards, there is a focus for assessment purposes on one specific standard. The first two weeks in this particular set do not end with a multiple choice assessment, just because it's the beginning of the school year. You could use the final task those weeks for a grade if needed. The read aloud lessons are designed to cover five days per text and include anchor charts, posters, daily lesson plans, assessing and advancing questions for partner talk and response to reading, printable sticky note questions, vocabulary, vocabulary instruction routine, daily independent tasks, crafts, mentor sentences, and DIGITAL Google Slides TM lessons for each week (these are AMAZING for distance learners and in your own classroom to guide your instruction). August Second Grade Interactive Read Aloud Lessons (Printable and Google Slides TM) This month's read aloud texts include: The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson The Bad Seed and The Good Egg by Jory John Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi If you do not want to buy all of these books at once, check with your school's or your community's library. I know that some of these titles can be priced a little higher at back to school time. Standards covered: RL 2.1 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. RL 2.2 Recount stories, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral. Rl 2.3 Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges. RL 2.5 Describe the overall structure of a story, including how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action. Here is a little set up of a focus board you might include in your classroom. I like to keep these displayed throughout the unit of study. The anchor chart can be printed as a poster on your own printer following the steps included in the resource. I have also included posters for the standards-based strategies or skills covered for the month. There is a lesson plan included for each of the five days of the week that contains a scripted mini-lesson, text dependent questions to ask during the reading aloud, a daily independent task in which students respond to the text, partner share, and an exit ticket. The sticky note questions can be placed inside your book, so that you are always prepared ahead of time. No need to worry about coming up with questions on the fly. They are organized by key ideas and details, craft and structure, and integration of knowledge ideas type questions. I like to turn the sticky notes sideways when I print, so that I can cut them apart and place on the pages that I want to stop and pose the question to students. At that point, they will discuss the question with their partner using accountable talk strategies. We then come back together to discuss responses. This ensures that everyone is engaged during your read aloud. Each story contains 3-4 vocabulary words from the text. I use this instructional routine to teach the words. In the digital component, I also include cards that contain the word, definition, sentence, and an illustration along with a simple task to complete each day. The anchor charts are based on the focus standard for the week. This one is to work on describing the overall structure of a story. You will want to create these with students. You can also use these with other texts throughout the year. Here is an example of the posters, all standards-based. Now let's take a look at the independent tasks that students will complete each day. They will need a journal for many of the tasks. Assessments for Each Kindness and The Name Jar are based on the focus standard and include four multiple choice questions and a short written response question. Each of the crafts and directed drawing included are standards based, so no need to worry about justifying why you are incorporating art into your lessons. Finally, I do include a mentor sentence for each week to review language standards while also tying into your text for the week. I print the large one for myself and students receive the individual words from the sentence. They put these in order in their journals. There space below for an illustration on both. You will then start identifying parts of the sentence and color coding them, such as color the nouns yellow and the verbs purple. The best part of the whole resource might be these digital Google Slides TM. I took the PowerPoints that I used in my classroom and converted them to Google Slides TM. This way, you can assign the slides needed to your virtual or distance learners and they can complete their responses to the task and submit back to your for feedback. Different schools have different expectations for virtual learning, so I tried to meet all of those. You might be doing recorded or live lessons, either way you can send this to students to complete individually on their own time or during your live lessons. They follow the exact structure of the lesson and even have fun embedded videos including the story. I do highly recommend, however, that you read the book to the students. That way you are developing that connection with them and are able to stop at certain points to discuss the provided questions. You can also clearly state your expectations for the students tasks. Even if you are doing in person learning this year, you can use these during your lesson. Just project them on your board to guide you through the different components of your lesson. You can take a look below at the digital lessons. I have included a video preview that explains them in more detail on the listing. These are also sold individually and in a digital only bundle. There is a free version of a first grade lesson HERE if you want to download that first to see if it would help you with your distance learning assignments. The goal of these was to make your life easier. It's so much to convert your lessons into digital right now with everything else going on. Thank you for reading and I hope these lessons benefit your students this year! I know they have been incredible for my my students in growing as readers, writers, and good citizens. :) August Second Grade Interactive Read Aloud Lessons (Printable and Google Slides TM)
Need some great ideas for greetings for morning meetings in your K-2 classroom? Try some of these engaging and creative "hello's"!
A better way to teach classroom procedures and expectations on the first day of school.
Are you ready to teach your students how to add 8 to a single digit number? Then, let's get hopping! Just as with The 9 Rule, I created two different resources for teaching The 8 Rule
Running a self control group counseling program? Your students will love these 10 games to teach kids self control skills!
Use low-prep writing crafts to get students excited about writing and showcase everything they have learned.
Point of view can be a tricky skill for students. We want to make sure that we are teaching point of view in a very explicit, yet memorable way. I decided to revamp my whole point of view unit with a fun, retro theme which is sure to be engaging and unforgettable for students. In this post, I will share some teaching tips, my favorite mentor texts for point of view, and some groovy activities for point of view with a fun room transformation idea! Before teaching point of view, look at your standard. In first grade, students have to be able to identify who is telling the story at different points, while in second grade, students should be able to determine when characters have different points of view. All of these activities can be used for first and second grades! This post may contain affiliate links. Point of View Room Transformation You do not have to go all out on a huge room transformation. Just by simply having a theme and printing these decorations I have included will be enough to get your students super excited to learn all about point of view. If you want to do a room transformation, I am including links to some fun items that you could use with your students. Families are always willing to contribute or purchase room transformation items for my classroom. So it doesn't hurt to ask if anyone wants to donate! I just send a wishlist on Dojo. Decorations Banner Hippie Sunglasses and Headbands Hanging Paper Lanterns Mentor Texts You can see below some of my favorite mentor texts to use when teaching point of view. All of the activities can be used with any text, passage, or even with your basal. The Three Little Pigs The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs Little Red Riding Hood Honestly, Red Riding Hood was Rotten Goldilocks and the Three Bears Believe Me, Goldilocks Rocks! Three Hens and a Peacock Hey, Little Ant Introducing Point of View Even if you teach second grade, you should still cover this part of point of view. I have found that students need review of what different points of view a story can be told. A story can be told from a character's, the narrator's, or from the author's point of view. I then go into first, second, and third person points of view using these posters. Give students key words that they can look for in the text to determine from whose point of view a story is told. We then do this sort together, which I leave up during the unit for student reference. If you teach second grade, you will also need to teach that characters can have different points of view on a situation or event from the story. I then go into what perspective means. Craft If you teach first, you might want to do this craft at the end of your unit. Second grade will want to do this on the first day of your unit. Students will make this fun VW bus craft, including from whose point of view the story is told on the bumper and two pieces of text evidence to prove their thinking. Point of View Activities We want students to be able to provide text evidence that helps determine from whose point of view the story is told. You can do this activity with groups and then can use it as a center for further practice. The graphic organizers go in a progression from identifying point of view of a whole text to identifying when point of view changes in a story. Some stories provide different points of view. I also included a Venn diagram to compare and contrast when characters have different points of view or perspectives. Of course, you always want to do some sort of exit ticket at the end of a lesson. I like to just grab a quick passage and have them tell me from whose point of view it was told or the perspective of the speaker. When I teach point of view, I ask students to think about it as if we are seeing the story through someone else's eyes. So I made these retro Point of Viewers glasses that students can wear when they are identifying and describing point of view. I always give my students bookmarks that go along with our standard, because I want them to apply that skill to their independent reading. By having these in their book bins, it reminds them that applying this skill is important to their comprehension of texts. A fun little activity that you can do at the end of your unit is Brown Bag Book Club. They can fill out the graphic organizer over the text you use that day and glue it to a brown bag. Then, you fill the bag with popcorn. They get into groups to discuss the text and their thinking. There are also discussion questions that I include. This is a great little assessment to use that students will love! If you do a room transformation with this, you have to tell me! I cannot tell you how excited I am about the new retro look! The clip art is so cute and fun! Not only will this unit be engaging for students, but it's really fun for the teacher, too. You can grab the pack by clicking any of the photos or by clicking HERE. Happy reading!!! Save BIG on all of my comprehension units by grabbing the bundle below! So many fun themes!
If you have been following our blog, you might have seen our post about our favorite teacher hack, earlier finisher packets! If you missed it, don’t worry, I will sum it up real quick for you. Essentially, despite teaching different grade, Emmy and I realized we were both having the same Issue. Kid
14 Brilliant Ways to Quiet a Noisy Class! Check out these behavior management strategies for classroom management!
These first day of school tips and ideas for teachers are perfect for back to school! Grab your freebies for second grade today!
10 multiplication games and activities for teaching multiplication. Students will love learning their multiplication facts, building fluency and strategies.
Are you wondering how to teach fractions to your first grade or second grade students? Check out these 15 hands on ways to teach fractions.
FREEZE is the math movement game of every elementary teacher’s dreams! It combines academics, social skills, movement, AND fun into one amazing activity.
A free printable for fine motor task cards. Help kids strengthen their fine motor skills with these easy activities!
