It's been a little crazy in 2nd grade!

Well, sorry it has been a little while from my last post, but I think you understand when I say that things have been BU-S-Y! I had to complete placement cards, get paperwork ready for retention meetings, RTI meetings, end of the year checklist, and if life wasn't crazy enough we decided to have a field trip on Friday! I haven't even mentioned the things going on in my personal life. So needless to say I have been running on all 6 cylinders.

I have been working on a little end of the year craftivity and a summer writing journal so the students can keep up with writing practice. So many years I have overlooked giving my students work that allows them to practice their writing over the summer. That is going to change this year! I have put A TON of work into my students this year in the area of writing. They definitely were not an easy bunch to get where they needed to be to pass our end of the year benchmark. So I do not want them to forget all the hard work we have done this year.

The students are going to create a journal of their very own to take home with them and write about their experiences during the summer. Inside this journal there is going to be topic ideas, sigh word helpers, a vocabulary tracker, friends' names page and editing tips. Each cover is personalized with the first letter to represent the students name. I am also including a little craftivity to celebrate the end of the year. I am almost done with the unit. It should be posted tonight. I will be putting this unit as well as my Reflections From The School Year unit  on sale in honor of the end of the year. So check back later for my little sale and unit posting. You can check out the cover below!



 

In other news, I left my camera at school.... I have so many pictures that I want to share with all of you. I think I am going to make a post mid week to share with you all of my classroom happenings. We finished our traveling unit this week and started diving into the world of mysteries. The students are earning their mystery case files in order to become detectives and solve mysteries using their inferring and synthesizing skills.We are having so much fun.

We also finished  up our measurement unit and started learning about capacity. Let me just be a little honest here, I really don't like teaching capacity. However, I am going to try a new strategy in math that I recently found. It is called KIM (Key Idea, Information, and Memory Clue). I hope that this strategy helps them remember what unit of measurement to use when looking at different containers and amounts of liquid. I will be posting a little organizer freebie for this strategy.

In writing we are taking a break from our normal writer's workshop and learning about how to create an advertisement. Not just any advertisement though...... a Got Milk? advertisement to be precise. This is one of my favorite units to teach. The kiddos just love it. We go over the five elements of an AD and every year the kids go crazy over the slogans. I mean it is the cutest thing I have ever heard. For example, this year my one of my little guys shared his slogan example and started signing, "Five dollar, five dollar foot long!"  but then he informed us that he also had another one and sang the slogan, "Like a good neighbor State Farm is there." I'm telling you, you will fall in love with your students just a little more.

So as you see I have a TON of pictures to share. I promise I will be posting them mid week. But for now check back with me for my end of the year writing journal and mini sale.