Primary Graffiti: February 2012

Sneetches Freebie

Today I introduced the SNEETCHES to my students. We had wonderful discussion that connected to our Black History Content. We began with understanding the theme of self worth and acceptance while facing those who are prejudice. After making deep and meaningful connections, I introduced a few vocabulary words. We followed our discussions with collecting data and determining if any one group was more important than others.

We followed up with a sheet comparing two different people that LOVED the same things!

Grab your Freebie Copy by clicking the graphic below...

Oh.MY.GOODNESS! I have to share a secret. I found an etsy shop that I adore!!! Jaymee of Bubbles and Bugs makes the cutest shirts. AND...She will fill a custom order. Jaymee and I started our discussions on Sunday and I've already received one of my shirts. She rushed the order so that I can wear this BAD BOY on Friday!! I highly recommend you contact her to pick up your own cutie patootie design!!! You can also follower her on Facebook.

I'm looking forward to day four of SEUSS!!

Fox in Socks and The Foot Book Freebie

Today we wore funny socks to celebrate Fox in Socks and the Foot Book for Seuss week. I searched online for a video of The Foot Book and found this reading of the story.

The kids LOVED his deep voice and expression!

I found this cute freebie on Buggy for Second Grade.

After Seusstastically describing feet with the above freebie, the kids created their own funny feet antonyms.

Flinstone Feet (with warts) and Regular Feet


Animal Feet/Human Feet AND Loud Feet/Quiet Feet

Love Feet, Mad Feet

Bone Feet/Skin Feet

Up Next...Fox in Socks! Love this book. We are working on measurement with various units. The kids are using centimeters, inches, feet and working on 1/2 inches. The kids got a kick out of the Ginormous Fox in Socks!

Here are a few pages I made to support our learning. Hope you find useful!!

Fox-Socks and Foot Books

PS. I have blog followers from my county and had the GREAT opportunity to go to their school today and observe their classroom. These ladies are PHENOMENAL teachers! I really enjoyed both Mrs. McLeod and Ms. Thompson. My favorite moment was watching the kids play I have, Who Has. Their kids play everyday. Students are timed for 3 minutes on their double digit subtraction. Once they beat the time, their teachers introduce a new I have, Who Has game. The kiddos broke the record at 2 minutes and 20 seconds! HUGS TO YOU BOTH!!! I hope we can meet for lunch in the future.

Cash Bash Review

I've had the pleasure to review several products from Learning Resources. I received the Cash Bash Electronic Flash Card several weeks ago. I decided this product would be a perfect fit for my second grade students

Cash Bash is a hand held electronic game for independent practice. Students worked to race against the clock which is set at 60 second rounds. The game provides different levels to meet the needs of varying abilities.

Level one works on simple coin combinations. The flashcard produces an amount digitally and students are to use the coin buttons to add up the value. I noticed my lower performing students having challenges recognizing the coins. Some students are still working to identify the coins and their values while others are working on combining values. The coins are represented with the heads of the presidents and the picture was a little challenging to see. However, the coins are proportioned to represent the size attributes of a coin which can help with identifying the values.

When observing students, I noticed the kids were not counting efficiently. Since this is a timed game, we discussed how much time was wasted counting by 10s when they knew how to count by 25s. We timed a round skip counting with lower values. For example: when counting to 85, we used 10s and 5s. Then we timed a round counting efficiently and noticed skipping by higher values was time productive with more flash cards solved.

Level two incorporated the dollar bills with the coin combinations. The dollars were easily identified with their value on the bill. Each of the combinations represented were under 20 dollars.

I love the option of having music or being able to put the game on mute by turning off the sounds. The additional sounds are interesting but can be distracting in a hard working classroom. Overall, the kids were eager to play and race the clock to solve the most combinations.

Seussville in the Making...

Today was a ton of fun. I wanted to share a few pictures from the freebie I posted yesterday.

Mr. Weird teaches pigs to moo and cows to fly.

Mrs. Trampoline teaches kids to jump.

Mrs. Starfeel teaches the kids to watch the stars.

Mr. Explosive teaches kids to blow up things!

Mrs. Plastic teaches the kids to recycle.

Mrs. Bouncy teaches the kids how to jump.

I've been working secretly to change my room into Seussville. My friend Elisabeth Delk has the BEST patterns available in her store. When she released her top selling unit, I email and asked if she would package just the patterns. I'm overwhelmed with the amount of STUFF I have to do this week and wouldn't have the time to incorporate an entire unit...although it looks FAB! She immediately responded with an uploaded pattern pack. MUCH.LOVE.TO.YOU.ELISABETH!!!! I projected her patterns on the Elmo and made patterns larger than me...NOT KIDDING! The kids are really going to flip out!

I plan on finishing the rest of the Seuss friends tomorrow. When I arrived at school, my vice principal had decorated the workroom with Truffula Trees. The book of the month for March is The Lorax. My school does a fabulous job at transforming the school to match the theme of our book of the month. Check it out...

A Styrofoam ball on a plunger with a boa glued to the the ball. Easy!!

Diffendoofer Day

Hooray, tomorrow is Diffendoofer Day! My class is wearing different hair styles and excited to celebrate a week of Seuss.

Click the graphic to download a freebie file and celebrate with my class! Link here for a video reading of Diffendoofer Day!

See pictures here.

Biography and Text Feature Freebies

This week we began biographies in readers workshop and reports in writers workshop. Our week began with an introduction to biographies. Eek!! Wilma Rudolph was so.very.popular! The kids began their studies with the anthology which featured a wonderful non fiction story about Wilma in time order. By mid week, we were diving into the school wide book of the month: Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the Fastest Woman.

Writers had a strong focus on text features. The kids took a keen interest in learning all content thrown their way! It just so happened that I was offered an opportunity to try Scholastic Magazine for February and March just in time for reports and life cycles. After reading Beth Newingham's article on Non Fiction Reading Resources, I jumped at the offer. The magazines are perfect for learning text features and their digital issues would ensure students engagement throughout the entire lessons. With the now!Board, I was able to display and allow the kids to interact with the magazines whole group. I decided to focus on timelines.

This article came from Feb 2012 Scholastic Issues.

After reading Wilma Unlimited and observing photos online, we charted a few facts. The kids went back to their anthologies to pull out the rest of their facts. With peer and teacher conferencing, kids ordered their dated facts on a timeline and secured them with tape. Their biographies were the best I've ever seen from 2nd graders.

I tried to enlarge so that you can read!

To conclude biographies, we ended our week learning about George Washington Carver with our 3rd Grade FCAT Buddies. Brainpopjr features a wonderful video on their website. I purchased a membership early this year for a single computer at $8.00 a month. TOTALLY WORTH IT!! As a result, we have this cutie patootie door!!!!

Whatcha think?

The kids created a list of words from the Brainpop video to describe George Washington Carver. They teamed up with their buddies and used a Thesaurus to identify synonyms. With synergy, Team FCAT developed wonderful vocabulary.

If you want to subscribe to Scholastic Magazines, you can go to this link here!

HM 2nd Grade: Theme 5 Thunder Cake

I've completed Theme 5, Week 4 selection: Thunder Cake. On page two, you will find two graphic images from The Teacher Wife. With Lindsey's permission, I've added these graphics to align with our phonics lessons for the week. The kids enjoyed her unit VERY much! If you get a chance, click the image below or within the pdf to link to her unit. IT'S.WORTH.IT!!! I promise. =)

Theme 5 Thunder Cake

now!Board a Portable Interactive Solution

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I am excited to introduce you to the now!Board, a Learning Resources Portable Interactive Whiteboard Technology to use in the classroom.

now!Board offers similar interactions to SMART technology without the board. This is a cost effective solution to purchasing a $1500 interactive board. now!Board is available at the affordable price point of $499.

I was a bit surprised to receive a package as small as a shoe box. I was certain more was still to come. After opening, I pleasantly stunned to see how portable the device really was! Technology that literally fits in the palm of my hand! With only three steps, my new now!Board was installed and operating successfully!

Step 1: Download the software.
Step 2: Hook up the camera by USB cord.
Step 3: Calibrate the board with the stylus.

NOTE: You will need a projector and a computer to interact with the now!Board technology.

The portability factor is a HUGE plus. As a team teacher, I'm able to pass along the technology to my partner to use in her class. No longer are the worrisome days of moving grade levels or classrooms and leaving the installed technology behind!

The product comes with a wand and stylus for differentiated motor skills. Since you are using a regular whiteboard, you do not have the touch capabilities of the SMART Board.

Houghton Mifflin is my reading curriculum resource. Although I love the eWord games, I often leave this as a center tool rather than an instructional tool. This past week, I was able to allow the students to interact with the eWord vocabulary games for Theme 4 during my mini-lesson AND the kids loved it! We set up teams and without realizing, the kids were learning.

The product will be available in April 2012. Although the cost is affordable for interactive technology, I'm aware of the challenges to come up with five hundred spare dollars to spend. You can set up a DonorsChoose project for the now!Board by clicking the link.

I encourage you to watch the video on how to use the now!Board.