I'm so excited to join Rachel over at The Classroom Game Nook and over 40 bloggers for a fun Trick or Treat Blog Hop!!!! We will be sharing lots of tricks with you along with lots of freebies. So keep on reading and then hop on over to the next blog! This blog hop will run from October 24th until November 1st.
My trick is all about Cause and Effect. I don't know about you but I think it is a hard concept to teach. I have found it easier to teach by making it hands on. I make cause and effect cards for my kiddos to sort. They work in groups sorting the cards and then they put an arrow in the middle to show how the cause leads to the effect. I copy the causes on colored card stock and I put the effects on a different colored card stock. When they need more of a challenge I will copy them on the same colored paper.
Now it's time for a freebie!! You can get a free copy of my Cause and Effect cards by clicking on the picture below. This product will only be free during the time of the blog hop. It will stop being free at the end of October. Get it while you can.
I also have a Cause and Effect Fire Safety activity. It's a great way to review fire safety while teaching cause and effect.
This past week was a short week for us because of Columbus Day and a two day workshop but we got a lot done in those two days. This week I introduced nouns. We worked on nouns last year in first grade but I have a new student this year and after a long summer break some of my kiddos needed a review.
I've been doing a lot more charts this year, especially Interactive Anchor Charts. My kiddos LOVE them, and so do I!!!!!!
I love building the chart with them. They are so engaged! This week I decided to introduce Nancy Noun to them.
Well......I purposely named her Nancy because it is my first name and let me tell you, IT DID NOT GO UNNOTICED!!!!! lol They loved that she had my name. So now that I had their attention I asked them what kinds of words are nouns. They quickly told me that nouns are people, places or things.
Now that they are in 2nd grade I wanted to let them know that an idea could be a noun too.
I told them that the word friendship could be a noun such as, This friendship is the best. OR the word music as a noun such as, The music was so loud.
After we discussed the different kinds of nouns and gave lots of examples, it was time to show what we know. This is what our anchor chart looked like so far.
Now it was time for my kiddos to show what they know! I had 4 different colors of Post it Notes. I gave each student one Post it Note. Depending on the color they got, they had to come up with a noun to write on it. If they got a pink post it they had to write a person, yellow was place, green was a thing, blue was an idea.
After everyone finished writing their word, I had them share their word with their partner. Once they discussed it with their partner and made any necessary changes they met me back on the rug. Then each child brought their post it up, one at a time, read the word, and put it on our Interactive Anchor Chart.
I also made a smaller poster size that we can refer to all year.
and I also made a smaller size that my kiddos can put in their interactive notebooks.
Next week we will be working on verbs, adjectives and adverbs.
OH MY!!!!!
You can purchase my Parts of Speech Interactive Anchor Charts which include the smaller posters too by CLICKING HERE
Hi All, I'm joining up with Rachel over at The Classroom Game Nook for her Ten for Ten monthly link up. This linky party is all about sharing ten things on the 10th of each month.
I don't know about you, but I am NOT a fan of snakes or snake eggs! I don't even like to look at pictures of snakes.
At this point, you may be wondering why, if I don't like snakes, I am writing this blog. It all started as a simple prank. My husband and I were traveling to South Carolina from Maine. Maybe it was all of those hours of riding in the car. I'm really not sure, but by the time we stopped at a souvenir shop and found envelopes of rattlesnake eggs I knew I needed to bring them home to my kiddos.
Have you seen these before? They are so much fun!! You give them to someone and tell them to open them but to be very careful. Of course, when they go to open them they make a noise and vibration. This is what is inside
All you do is twist the elastic many times until it is very tight. Carefully slip it inside and close the envelope. Now it is all set to share with someone else.
Well, once I had my rattlesnake eggs I couldn't wait to share them with my first grade kiddos. I decided I would individually share them so each one would have a surprise. They were so cute and their responses were so much fun! I videotaped their responses and my daughter put them together into one video. I showed it to my kiddos and they loved it!
Of course, they were very intrigued and wanted to figure out how it all worked. Even more than that, they wanted to do the prank to someone else!
Well....the next morning they all came back to school chatting about who they had tricked and how scared they were and I immediately saw a fantastic writing opportunity. I quickly settled them down and told them to write who they had shared their rattlesnake eggs with and how they reacted. After they got their initial thoughts on paper I gave them a paper that looked like this:
Once everyone finished, each one shared what they had written. This is a writing activity that I will be doing again along with a few extra activities. Do you ever do an activity and then afterwards think about ways you could do it better? Well, that's what happened with this activity. Next time, I will show them the eggs and then have them write about what they think will happen if they open the envelope and then follow that up with what happened. Then they will draw a picture of themselves with what they looked like when they opened it. Fun right??
Next they will answer the essential question: How does it work? I think they will enjoy checking out their envelopes and figuring out the mechanics of it along with realizing that there is the fear factor too. We set people up to be scared saying there are rattlesnake eggs in the envelope.
I have also included a page that shows how to make your own rattlesnake eggs in 6 easy steps with materials you can find around the house. Perfect for a 6-7 year old.
I've also added a rattlesnake report using nonfiction text features such as table of contents, heading, maps, captions, comparisons, and a diagram. I think they will be excited to write the report because they are invested in the topic.
I DO NOT like snakes but I LOVED doing these writing activities with my kiddos.They loved it and it showed. If you would like to purchase a copy just click on the picture below. This week I'm linking up with Kelly and Kim's Kindergarten Kreations for Markdown Monday's Linky Party. That means I'm marking my Rattlesnake Packet down from August 10th-14th. Get it while it's on sale.
Hop on over to their blog by clicking the picture below and check out all the other deals.
I'm so excited!!!! Tomorrow is the big day! The TeachersPayTeachers Back to School Sale starts in 1 hour and 9 minutes! This is the biggest sale of the year. It is such an exciting time of year as we get our classrooms arranged and decorated the way we like. I will be posting more about that later....
I have some great products that can help you get your school year off to a great start! This back to school packet is stuffed full of activities for the first week of school. I have included a full copy in color and black & white. Directions are included for each activity.
Another great product that you can use all year long is my Long Vowels packet.
This is a long vowel bundle of my five long vowel units. Be a word detective hunting for and sorting long vowel words. Get all of the Word Detectives Long vowels together for a discounted price. This bundle includes games, printables, word sorts, and making word actiivties. Each bundle contains a long vowel booklet and fluency strips. Each one is in color and black and white.
I just finished this great packet and I plan to use it as soon as school starts. If you are looking for a better way to start your day with your kiddos, then September Morning Work will work for you too! Morning Work is the perfect solution. It is all about that first 10-15 minutes of your day. There are some students that come in to the classroom ready to start the day and then there are others who need a little more direction.This unit includes 3 different types of printables. I love that my second graders will walk into my classroom knowing what to expect and that they can be independent and settle quickly.
I'm excited to link up with Rachel Parlett over at The Classroom Game Nook for Ten on Ten Linky Party! A big shout out to Rachel for hosting! Now I get to share with you 10 fun things that I have been doing over the summer or looking forward too.
First I should let you know that this summer is very different from the past 12 summers. For the 12 years I have been the Summer Camp director at our school. I started the program with the idea that I could help students by giving them a safe place to play with friends and learn at the same time. I wanted to help them avoid the "summer slide" by doing fun simple review through games and activities. The idea was that they would be reviewing, without realizing that we were already doing it.
In the beginning I had only my daughter (a middle school student) helping me, but as the program grew one of my best friends and coworker decided to come on board and help me out. We had so much fun and loved spending our days with these kiddos.
Well, after 12 years, this year I decided to take the summer off. I had a very busy year and really felt that it was important to take my summer off and recharge. I really miss my campers but I am enjoying lots of new summer activities.
First thing that I did when school got out was to clean my classroom. It was a mess! I was sick on the last day of school, so as soon as it ended I went to the doctor and then went home and rested for about 4 days. As soon as I was feeling better my mom and aunt joined me at school and helped me clean out my big walk in closet, my cabinets, and my shelves. We threw lots of junk away and organized the rest. I even got rid of a lot of my big pieces of furniture. We hauled the rest of the furniture out and it is ready to have the floors painted. Our school does not have the staff to do any of the painting or cleaning so it becomes a family, friend, and parent volunteer affair. So thankful I have lots of those! I will be doing a post as my room slowly gets put back together so you can see the before pictures and what it looks like when it's done.
We got out of school so late this year that it seemed I just got my room wrapped up and 4th of July was upon us. We had a wonderful day with a family bbq and lots of badminton.
Check out this big guy!!!! He spent one whole day in the yard looking for food under the bird feeder.
One of the best parts of having the summer off is getting to spend time with great friends.
Of course I'm spending lots more time with these two guys too!
I now have time to work on new products.
I met up with a couple of friends and we had a picnic of Chinese food while overlooking one of the oldest lighthouses in America, Portland Head Light
Next up on the Summer agenda is a vacation to the Berkshires with these two 4th of July cuties!! We are already planning a stop at the American Girl Store!
Should be lots of fun!
Click below to check out some other Ten on Ten from other bloggers.
