Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Rosa and Blanca

We will be reading Rosa and Blanca from our Reading Street Series the last week of November.  Here is the game board that I've created that goes with the skill vowel patterns i, ie, igh, and y.



Reading Street Practice Pages

For additional Reading Street activities you can click here and here.


Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Even and Odd Street

I loved when I saw The Teacher Wife do her Even and Odd Street activity.  We have finally covered even and odd numbers in Math Investigations, and I just had to have my class do this fun activity too!  Here's our Even and Odd Street.

Thanks Lindsey for a great math activity!  My class loved making their even and odd houses!

Monday, November 21, 2011

Disguise the Turkey

We recently completed our monthly take home project, Disguise the Turkey.  Here are some of the turkey's my 2nd graders created.
Bumble Bee

Santa

Easter Bunny

Cow

Astronaut that says, "Houston we have a problem!"


Business Man

Sunday, November 20, 2011

I am thankful for...

Here's a quick writing paper that I made to use just in case I run out of Thanksgiving activities for Monday and Tuesday.


On a side note, our pumpkin week was a hit!  The kids LOVED the pumpkin pie in a cup!  The kids also brought in their Turkey's in disguise.  They were so cute!  I hope to take pictures of some of them and post those tomorrow! 

Friday, November 11, 2011

Life Cycle of a Pumpkin

So this coming week my team and I decided to do things a little out of order.  We are going to teach the Reading Street story Life Cycle of a Pumpkin.  This story is actually about 4 weeks ahead of where we are, but teaching about pumpkins will make so much more sense now than a month from now.  Here are some of the activities we plan on using this week.

Here's my weekly game board with vowel patterns oo and u.  Click on the picture to download.

Life Cycle of a Pumpkin Dominoes

Life Cycle of a Pumpkin Comprehension Questions

Tic-Tac-Toe Choice Board

Life Cycle of a Pumpkin Trifold from Cary Short

I also wanted to personally thank Vicky Kinder who has created many of the activities that go along with our Reading Street Series.  You can find a TON of other activities here that she and some other generous teachers have created.

We are also going to use Christina Bainbridge's Pumpkin Observation Booklet and Ocean's of First Grade Fun's Life Cycle of a Pumpkin Writing.  Last, but not least, we are going to make Pumpkin Pie in a Cup from Teaching Heart Blog.


Monday, November 7, 2011

ClassDojo Rocks!

So last week I checked into ClassDojo after seeing Mrs. Brainbridge's post about it.  I am sooo glad that I did!  This is a great behavior management tool to use with your students.  Each student is given a cute monster avatar with their name underneath.  You can give out points to students for positive behaviors, or take points away for negative behaviors.

I quickly entered my students and chose which positive and negative behaviors I wanted to recognize, then it was up and running.  I introduced it to my students today and it was a hit!  Everyone was so excited to earn points.  I decided that for every 5 points that a student earns it was an automatic clip up with our clip chart.  


I used my laptop to award points, but tomorrow I am going to try using my iPod Touch as a remote.  ClassDojo has their own app that you can download onto an iPod or Smartphone.  They also have behavior reports that you can send home to parents!  You can sign up your class or take their short tour by clicking on the image below.




Sunday, November 6, 2011

We Give Books

Here's another great website for Reading to your class:  We Give Books.  This website has a ton of popular books to read online.  They recently sent me their monthly newsletter and had some Thanksgiving titles featured for the month.
Enjoy reading these and all of their other books at We Give Books!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Compound Words Gameboard

This coming week our Reading Street Story is Anansi Goes Fishing.  Here is the compound word game board that we will use that goes along with the phonics skill of the week.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Speakaboos

I recently came across a website I had never seen before when we were finishing up our Fairy Tale Unit called Speakaboos.  They have tons of books that read the story online.  I found just about every fairy tale I could think of!  Plus they have other books like Arthur!  Check it out the next time you are looking for a book to read online with your whole class or for individual stations!  It has a sign up and log in section, but I haven't had to complete that in order to view their books.