Date Change for AZ Bloggy Meet-Up

Please use the button above to link back to this post.The date and time has been changed for the AZ blog meet-up.  Due to several requests, Michelle and I decided it would be better if we changed the date.  If you will be in AZ on July 10th and would like to meet up with us, please post about the meet up, link your post back to this one using the button at the top, and add your link to the linky at the end of this post.  Please email me Linda Kamp to RSVP by clicking the flower image below.  I hope we can have a great turn out and I'm really excited to get to meet all of you AZ bloggers!!! 

RSVP by Clicking on the flower

One Lovely Surprise!

I'm so tickled to have been given the One Lovely Blog Award by

Teacher Mom of Three and Superlative Science!  Thanks so much, Lauren and Penny, it was truly a lovely surprise! I hope you will all head over to visit Lauren and Penny's blogs! Lauren's got a really cute idea for using a floaty pool noodle as a word builder!  One more reason to love Dollar Tree, right?
Head over to Penny's blog and see her new classroom pet!  It's a bearded dragon!  No, really it is!

 

Once you receive the award, you must follow 3 rules:

1. Follow the person that gave you the award
2. Link back to the person that gave you the award
3. Pass the award on to 15 new bloggers


Here are the lovely blogs I am passing the award to. Click on their buttons to visit their blogs!

A Day In First Grade

Southern Sweetie in Second Learning with Laughter 

Classroom Snapshots

 

Roadtrip Through My Reading Endorsement

One of the things I've been thinking alot about this summer is my vocabulary instruction.   I want to change it up a bit OK, a lot, and make sure I've put into place as many opportunities as I can for my kiddos to really integrate and retain new vocabulary.  I also want it to be fun!  I recently completed my Reading Endorsement and while I was taking classes I gathered and was given some really great resources, ideas, and videos.  So, I thought I would do a little "road trip through my reading endorsement" and share!

One of the resources I found and really loved was the work of Dr. Anita Archer and her active participation strategies.  (She was a new discovery for me, although I think her work has been around for quite a while!)  To keep students engaged, she uses a combination of choral, partner, and individual responses during vocabulary instruction.    She has a really fun and motivating way of using explicit, step-by-step instruction with clear directions and explanations of the concept.  

(I'm really trying to get better about over talking some things!)

This is a video of  a Kindergarten class, but I began using these same strategies with my second graders when introducing new vocabulary in reading and in math, and saw a huge difference in their retention, understanding, and use of these words during the day.  Plus, they really loved the back and forth interaction and the whole body movement.  We called it "ping pong".  Nothing new or fabulous about that, but my kids love anything we give a name to!  I swear, if you name it they will do it!  And like it!

I used these routines  along with animated Powerpoints of my target vocabulary so

 the kids would have a visual of the word, definition, and  pictures representing the word. My kids get so tickled when the words bounce into the frame and it gives me a reference to point to.  And.... don't have to make any anchor charts!

We're all trying to work smarter not harder, right?

Click {Anita Archer Strategic Literacy Videos} to see some lessons with more primary

and middle school grade levels.

Well, it's back to procrastinating about packing for me!  We're moving in a couple of weeks and I have got to get on top of it!!

I hope you're all having a *restful* summer!

Shining the Spotlight on Second Grade Shenanigans!

I've linked up with Hilary over at Rockin' Teacher Materials to shine the spotlight on one of my favorite blog posts!  So.... (drum roll please...) I'm shining the spolight on...

I guess it's been a little over a year now since I discovered teaching blogs. I must have been living under a rock! One of the first blogs I discovered was Hope King's Second Grade Shenanigans. There, in full color, were ideas and explanations of how she teaches various reading and math strategies, printable resources, technology tips, classroom organization, reflections on her teaching and pictures of her class in action. Honestly I thought I'd died and gone to teacher heaven!

One of my favorite posts from Hope is A Little Math Pick Me Up.   Check out this post for a great math strategy for practicing problem solving!  She makes the  fabbiest math resources and centers plus, I love ALL things flippy, floppy, and foldable!

So Long Vertex Edge Graphing!

I've been cleaning up and organizing my files this week and came across this little bit of fun I did with my second graders this year.  It involves marshmallows...and chocolate...and graham crackers!

My kids love munchie math and so do I!   Almost as much as I love marshmallows…and chocolate…and graham crackers..in that order, all stacked up on top of each other! Well, next year second graders in my district will begin Common Core and vertex edge graphing is not invited to the second grade party! 

I thought I'd post these in case you might have a use for them or maybe just some extra graham craackers hanging around!

You can download these {HERE}

 So long vertex edge graphing….I'll think of you next time I'm eating marshmallows!

Tomie dePaola and a Strega Nona Freebie

One of my very favorite authors is Tomie dePaola.  I just love his themes and his illustrations. I also love that you can just about find a Tomie book to teach any comprehension strategy or skill.  Many of his books are based on his memories from childhood and all of his books are a teacher's dream for teaching about text connections, point of view, author's purpose, generalizations, prior knowledge, drawing conclusions, cause and effect, problem/solution….I could go on and on! 

My team and I like to do author studies during our fourth quarter and include all of our projects as part of our end of the year open house.  Of course in our class, we learned all about Tomie dePaola and read every Tomie book we could squeeze in!  My kiddos were already familiar with this author as my district uses Houghton Mifflin Reading and two of his books are included in our second grade reading curriculum, The Art Lesson and Little Grunt and the Big Egg.  My kids love those stories and all things 
Tomie as much as I do! 

Here are some of the things we did during our author study:

We started out by reading The Art Lesson and talking about the author's viewpoint.  This was a bit tricky for some of my kiddos. It took a bit of discussion and some "I wonder if-ing" on my part to get my second graders in the mindset of putting themselves in the author's shoes, but once they got there they took off running!

As we created this anchor chart, we discussed some of the things the main character says and does   and what insight that might give us into how the author thinks and feels. 

We made a little author's viewpoint craftivity, but all I have is this sad little picture.  I thought I took pictures of some finished work but can't for the life of me find them now! Darn it.

Here are some of the things we did with  Little Grunt and the Big Egg.

I love these little problem/solution dinosaur eggs!

We spent the next two weeks reading many of the  Strega Nona books.  I love these books, they are my all time favorites!  We talked alot about theme, prior knowledge, text-to-text connections and cause and effect with these. 

Tomie dePaola uses a lot of Italian words in the Strega Nona stories so we began to collect them on an anchor chart.  Next year, I'll have students use sticky notes and add them as they find them in the stories.  We also made these little Italian dictionaries. The pages get cut apart and stapled into a little book.

 Here are a few of the graphic organizers my kiddos made.  We compared, described, defined and formed analogies every which way! I had students write text evidence in the frame of reference next to their entries.

 

                                          This is a problem/solution flap book we made.

These are some of the anchor charts we made beforehand.

I projected this little anchor chart on my SMARTBoard while reviewing cause and effect

with my kiddos. They then made Big Anthony cause and effect tri-folds. 

After reading Strega Nona Takes a Vacation, students imagined where else Strega Nona might travel and wrote postcards home from Strega Nona's point of view. 

On an "armadillo watch" in Texas!

Cruisin' in a limo in Hollywood!

The back says"  I wish you were here to stop this ride!

We also did this little writing activity to remind Big Anthony about some very important things!  The girls were Strega Nona, the boys Big Anthony. My kids had no idea what tying a string on your finger meant!   When I explained it, one little cutie said,
 "My dad just sets his phone."!

Of course, I was thrilled when most of my kids wrote about the important things to remember when regrouping, telling time, dividing words into syllables etc. and then there was
 "When it's time to go to bed, don't forget to turn off the tv if you hear your Mom coming."
I love that one!
 I really fell down on the job when it came to getting pictures of those!
Maybe I need a string on my finger to help me remember to take pictures!

 

"When you play with your Legos don't forget to put them away. If you don't there would be no more space for lunch and my baby brother could choke on them."

"When you are writing a letter don't forget to write a greeting and a closing because
 then it is't a letter its a note."   Sound advice don't you think?

 We talked alot about character traits and did a little sorting activity with the character traits of Strega Nona and Big Anthony.

Students also made a mini-art gallery of their favorite Tomie characters and wrote

character traits on the back of their "canvases".  They then displayed them

on their "museum floor".

I wouldn't want to run into Bambalona in a dark alley!

We made these nifty little author study folders to hold all of our projects and display on our desks!

We used the Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then strategy to help us write

"sandwich summaries" of Tony's Bread.

We used this grapic organizer to discuss and record how the main character changes during the story.

As promised, here's a little freebie. 

This is a whole to parts brace map to decompose the setting into its parts.
Students draw Strega Nona's kitchen including important details then break it down into its
individual parts.

Click {here}to download this freebie.

On a side note... I have to give a shout out to Michelle at 3am Teacher, who is oh so talented
(and generous!), and made the frames for this unit for me.

If you love Tomie books and would like to do this author study with your class,

I've put together all of these activities and many, many more

 in my Tomie dePaola Author Study Unit.

Click on the buttons below to  find it:

I hope you're all having a great summer so far!