Paper Bag Books: A Simple Way to Teach Story Elements Have you ever made a paper bag book? I hadn't, but I'd seen them floating around pinterest and finally decided we had to try! One of our current favorite activities is creating books. I like to staple a few pieces of paper together and have my son draw pictures on the pages and then we talk about the pictures and I write down what he says or have him write down his own stories. There is no real plot yet in his stories... and if there is, it is really confusing and hard to follow. My goals as we created the book were to... have funbe creative togethermake a paper bag book (since I really wanted to try this)teach the basic story elements of conflict and resolution (in a simple way) These concepts seemed easy to introduce since I feel like we spend a lot of time each day talking about problems and how they could be resolved! Materials Needed for Paper Bag book:several paper bags (I think we used 3-4?) How to Make a Paper Bag Story Conflict/Resolution book: Did You Know?
Multiple Meaning Words Multiple Meanings just seem to be made for M&M's! This is just a fun and memorable way to reinforce multiple meaning words. Students will choose a word that has at least two different meanings, like "bat." Next, they will write a sentence that shows one of the two meanings on one of the two M&M figures. They will write a sentence that shows the other meaning of the word on the other M&M figure. Put a colored circle behind the M's on the title of your bulletin board display to make them look like M&M's candies.
20 Ways to Keep Your Students' Attention As the end of the year approaches, it can be more and more challenging to keep your students' attention. Brain Breaks are important, but there are plenty of things you can do within a lesson to keep kids from day dreaming...or worse yet, nodding off. Here are some ideas:Desk Switch: Students have ten seconds (count down from ten) to find another desk to sit in that is in a different part of the room than his or her normal desk. Did you get a new idea? Laser Fingers Daily 5 (currently 3 in my classroom) is running great. I still have to use the basal.....so, I manage to squeeze it in. The stories in the basal have vocabulary words and some of them are pretty tough so we use a vocabulary journal. I have been using this (or some form of it) for 3 years....and, the original idea is not mine but was shared a few years ago. This is a pic of half a page. This is a whole page.....sorry it doesn't show up very well:/ These really help the kids grasp an understanding of the vocab. A few days ago I blogged about the great idea I had seen using the laser fingers. Got them at Dollar Tree!! I also wanted to blog about a super cute idea I started using today during Daily 5. If you look closely, you will see "creepy creatures" on the students desks and papers.....they loved this and it fit in perfectly with Work on Writing for Daily 5. Daughter ankle update (totally non-teacher related....sorry) This pic freaked me out!! Happy Monday Everyone!!
Our Reader's Notebooks Today we had a 6th grade Language Arts teacher planning day. I was really excited about it, but I am bummed at the lack of things we actually got planned today altogether. I wish I could have just had a whole day to plan alone because I know I could have at least gotten a 6 weeks taken care of. I was actually excited to dive into the C-SCOPE materials because I have really struggled with not having a real scope and sequence to use this year. Well, I know what I am going to be doing over the Christmas break! I know that I have blogged about our reader's notebooks a few other times, but I just love them. Sorry for the bad quality, they are from the phone.
Day In the Classroom - Foldables and Anchor Charts for Geometry We used Cheez-Its to explore area and perimeter. Any square cracker would work. Afterwards we ate our math. I haven’t been doing very well with my blogging this year. I like the foldables because they serve as a good organizational chart, but they are engaging to make. DIY Map Magnets I picked up this puzzle at a yard sale a few weeks ago. I intended to frame it in Matthew’s room, but unfortunately I realized one piece was missing. Bummer! I still love the look of the pieces, so I decided to turn the individual states into magnets. I used sticky magnet strips on the back of each piece. The magnets weren’t sticking well, so I ended up using hot glue to stick them on. I attached a locker door front on this little empty wall space in Matthew’s room. It’s the perfect magnet board for a narrow space. When my kids saw it they thought it was really cool, but my little two year old nephew seemed to enjoy playing with it the most! This ended up being a really fun and easy project. As for the locker door front, I love it so much as a magnet board I decided to put one in my studio too!
Blogging, Teaching and Second Grade... Oh My!