Making Words Activity

This was my last lesson I did. YAY!!! If you'd like to see more about it then click HERE. :)

We are the shapeshifters!

Today (April 15th) I had the opportunity to complete my bulletin board assignment. So, I got to teach a mini lesson with the students and do an activity. I read The Greedy Triangle to them.

They were completely glued to the story. It was awesome. I guess that means my voices and expressions passed the second graders test. ;) Then, I gave them their instructions, showed them an example and we worked on our anchor chart.

The bottom one is the sample with the sample also written on an index card in the corner for my shape sample. I also asked them for words they thought they would need help spelling and wrote them on the top chart. :) The parallelogram stumped both the teacher and myself. LOL! We had to look that one up. I told them that was a very good word. ;) haha!

Here are some examples of what the students' did. There are two boys who have autism in this class as well. Both of theirs are pictured. I just loved the creativity. I know, you are thinking, "Why didn't I give them something to trace?" Well, I did this for a couple of reasons. I wanted them to know the shapes and to do them on their own. The other reason, and much more important reason, was that I wanted to students to be creative and make their own shapes. I wanted all the shapes to be different, just like they are. I wanted the shapes to show character. There were two girls who did pink stars. If they had things to trace then the stars would have looked exactly the same. However, they didn't have templates or anything to trace so they looked completely different and totally fabulous! I loved the way the students used their own imagination to create their shapes.

Here is how the whole thing looked. Two students were absent so theirs will be added later. ;)

I had so much fun!!!

By the way, I earned an A!!! :)

Learning Resources

There are two things I have recently learned about that I have incorporated at home but could easily be incorporated in a classroom as well. All students need brain breaks, right? Especially since so many students are only given one 15-20 minute recess each day. That's crazy!!! Most teachers do "Movement" in their class. It's an opportunity for students to get up and move. I recently learned about a website called Go Noodle! It's a fun opportunity for brain breaks. You can set it up for FREE!!! :) Just go to https://www.gonoodle.com/.
You set it up for your class and choose a class champ. The champ is sort of like a mascot. As the students complete different brain break activities, they get more points and the champ grows.

See, here is our champ. This is actually our second champ because we completed the first champ. The program is cool because all you do is click that big green "PLAY" button on the bottom. Then, it takes you to a screen where all the activities are. You can favorite the ones you really like. My kids favorite the ones they like, I don't. I can also decide if they choose something from the Energizing section or the Calming section. If they're falling asleep on me or just plain lethargic and bored then they choose a Energizing activity to wake them up. If they're too energetic or stressed from school then I put on the Calming section and let them choose one from there.

Here's a screen shot so you can see some of the options. There's dancing too, it somehow hasn't made it to our "favorites" section yet. And, yes, that's Frozen in the corner. ;) Some of these are olympic sports where Olympians actually exercise "with" the students. My kids think that's really cool. They have them stretch a bit and then they show them how to do their sport and then they do it. Collin really likes those. Ryanne prefers the dancing ones. Neither of them mind Frozen and the calming videos came in very handy when I had a very frustrated child on the verge of tears. YAY!!!





OKAY, now for the second resource I discovered.... Wonderopolis!! This is a fun site that has a bunch of things kids have wondered like... How long is the longest bridge? Why is the ocean salty? What do you mine in mincraft? Why do fireflies glow? Why does skin get wrinkled in water? and many, many others!

So, now you're probably asking what do I use these for? Well, writing prompts! :) We watch the video and then I ask the kids the question. They think about it for a moment and then write about it. Once they've written their thoughts, I show the answer with another video or reading the article.

Today's question was "How are gummy bears made?"
Then we watched this video:


Haribo gummy bears from kolbovskiy on Vimeo.

Afterwards I asked them the question and then they got to writing. Ryanne wrote that jellyfish are cooked with strawberries and then cut into bear shapes. She said she knew it was wrong but didn't know the right answer so she decided to get crazy. Collin wrote about making gelatin and putting it in bear molds. Then... we watched another video to answer the question...



Modernist Cuisine - Recipe - Olive Oil Gummy Worms from Modernist Cuisine on Vimeo.

The kids said this was the best writing prompt I've ever given them. They've already picked out the writing prompt for tomorrow.

Wikki Stix

What in the world are Wikki Stix? Well, they are a very versatile educational tool. :) They are fun to play with too. Basically, it's yarn covered in wax. Super simple. I bed I could figure out how to make some. Until then, a pack of 43 is available on Amazon for $7.96 here.  They are also a great teaching tool. While they can be used for many things, I'm going to talk about what I use them for. :)

I have a kindergartner who is a very phonetic reader. If you're wondering what that means, what happens is that any time Ryanne reads she sounds out every single letter before saying the word. This happens even if she just said the word in the previous sentence. She doesn't recognize the word. Her Kindergarten teacher recommended I buy these to help her. So, I did.

I went through and I cut them into thirds. Now, as she reads a book I do a guided reading type of thing with her. She reads it but I have cards with her sight words and I give her 2-3 of those cards. Anytime she comes across one of those words she has to circle it with one of these. The great thing is that these stick to the paper but they're easy to remove as well. This is what her book looks like when she does it....

Isn't that so fun? We're hoping this will help her to recognize words instead of sounding out every single one. We'll see how it goes. :)

Teacher Talks Tuesday: Rainbow Writing

So many boys in the classroom seem to struggle with writing. My son is also one of these boys. So, I figured I needed to do something about it. My son loves colors so I thought, "What if he writes each sentence in a different color?" So, I created Rainbow Writing. It's very simple. All he does is roll a die. Each number corresponds with a color and that is the color of the next sentence. My reluctant writer writes now. It's so nice. He doesn't use this method for final copies, only the "sloppy copy" or the rough draft. On the final one he still has to use a regular #2 pencil. However, at least the "sloppy copy" is a lot easier to work through.

You can get the PDF by clicking HERE.