Fancy Nancy!

I tried this my first year of teaching, but since it was my first year (and I didn't know quite how to balance what I thought were "best practices" and the basal) it didn't go as well as I'd hoped. Now, in my 5th year, I am going to try it again....a Fancy Nancy Word Wall! I love Fancy Nancy, and so do my students. I just had to share the letter cards I made that are at Staples as I type getting laminated. If anyone has done this in the past and has great ideas, I'd love to hear them. I plan on using this word wall and Fancy Nancy books to teach vocabulary, vocabulary strategy mini-lessons, and getting kids to keep their eyes open for new fancy words and ways they can use the fancy words we already know! I'd also love to come up with a way to keep track of students who use words from the Fancy Nancy word wall during writer's workshop. I plan to decorate/ have students decorate each word as they go up in some fancy, fun way...probably using glitter, since glitter makes everything better :)

Repeated Reading Chart...freebie :)

I just made a repeated reading chart to track my students' oral reading rate.  (Download here:
repeated reading chart) I won't use this strategy for my students way below grade level or way above grade level, but it's a great strategy to use to build fluency for the rest of the kiddos. If you haven't done repeated readings before, here's how it works:

1. Choose a text at the student's high instructional level (close to independent so the student isn't focused too much on decoding).

2. Time the first read through, graph it. Go over errors. Tell student to practice reading the book during independent reading time (or at home).

3. The next day, or in two days, reread the same story. Time it, graph it, go over errors.

4. Repeat this as necessary. Once there are no errors and the reading rate is acceptable, choose a harder text and repeat the steps!

Workshop Help Desk

I thought I would link up with TBA today to talk about writing. I teach writing using the workshop model, and I totally lean on Lucy Calkins every step of the way! Last year, I discovered some very helpful, inexpensive books that supplement her units of study (although Lucy didn't write them, she edited them). The series is called "Workshop Help Desk" and I highly recommend them! Here are two I love:

This book really helped me plan my mini-lessons for my persuasive writing unit. I had never taught persuasive writing before using this book, and it gave me a clear idea of what I wanted my students to be able to produce by the end of the unit. 

This book gives a year-long plan (specifically for 2nd grade) for writer's workshop and offers great tips for mini-lessons and how to organize units. It's no more than 50 pages - so a very quick read that I refer back to a lot! She has these for all grade levels too!

Homework Help

I need some advice. Other than sharpening pencils, homework is probably the source of most of my headaches before 10 AM. I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't grade homework. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this...but I check in the homework every morning to make sure it's getting done (I try to glance at a few kids key kids' work to make sure they're getting it), but at the end of the day....I throw it away! What ends up giving me my headaches though is that it's the same 3-5 kids and then another random 1 or 2 who don't turn in homework consistently on a daily basis. What makes me so upset is that those 3-5 kids who don't turn in their homework most days are the same 3-5 kids with failing grades. I try reaching out to parents, offering positive incentives for turning in homework, and taking away privileges for not turning in homework. Nothing seems to make a difference.

One of my goals for this year is to make homework more meaningful and in turn hopefully I will have 100% (or close to it) homework completion each day. I have read other bloggers' ideas and teacher websites and have found a few different possibilities.
1. Weekly schedule for homework (different activity for each day of the week)
2. Weekly packet (due Friday)
3. "Speller's Choice" activities to choose from

Here are my questions:
1. How important is it to go over the homework in class?
2. How much do phonics worksheets help students? Are they worth it?
3. Do you send homework home graded? If so, what are the benefits that you've seen?

I would love to hear what works for you!! I welcome any and all ideas!

Favorite Author Linky Party

I love this idea for a linky party...probably because I have so many favorites! Thanks, Clutter Free Classroom for thinking of it!

If I had to choose one author with whom I couldn't get through the year without, I think it would have to be  Jan Brett. Some of my favorite books of hers are: The Mitten, The Hat, The Gingerbread Baby, and Hedgie's Surprise.

I love using this book for sequencing! And, as with all Jan Brett books, it's great for teaching making predictions!

I love using The Mitten to teach compare and contrast, as there are so many other versions of this same story. It's a great book to use during a thematic unit on any winter topic. I have used mittens before to teach compound words, create number stories, and  partner game for math where each student draws pictures/shapes/designs on one mitten and then using only descriptive language tries to get their partner to draw the exact same mitten.

My students absolutely love this book. I have used it in a Gingerbread Man unit. We have used gingerbread babies as a measuring tools as an introduction into standardized measurement, and soooo many other things during reading and writing! If you want more details, I'd be more than happy to share!

This is a great book about friendship - can spark important conversations and be used as a model. I have also known people to turn it into a readers theater, although I have not tried.

    

First Days of School

I love reading the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes on the first day of school. When I taught first grade, I spent more time on the concept of names (letters and sounds), but now that I teach second grade, we spend a lot of time on what it means to be a good friend as well.

Some fun activities:

1. Letter bead necklaces: I found great foam letter beads at Michaels and my students loved making name necklaces. It also helped me learn their names quickly!

2. Name Graph: Count the letters in first names to make a class graph (Chrysanthemum has 13 - we usually include her in the graph)

3. ABC order: Students line up in alphabetical order with name cards

4. Word Wall: I usually add students' names to the word wall - there are so many things you can do depending on the names in your class. (i.e. Gillian/ Greg, Cecilia/ Chris/ Cara, Sara/ Shawn, Will/Bill, Ry-an/ Re-bec-ca, Edgar/Ethan...)

5. For "homework" I send home a sheet that has questions for students to fill out with their parents about how/ why they got their name

6. I often use this book as a lead in to talking about class rules/ responsibilities. We talk about how Chrysanthemum's feelings changed throughout the story and why, which leads into what we can do to make sure everyone is happy and able to learn each day. This is also a time when I have thought about doing a sequencing activity either with pictures or sentences - in response to how did Chrysanthemum's feelings change during the story.

7. Paint names on a large piece of construction paper/ and or a self-portrait (I know paint is bold for the first day of school so you may want to use crayons and other art supplies instead).


I'm sure there are so many other ideas out there as well!

Math Word Wall Words part 1

I just finished making all of my math word wall word cards for the year. I saw great ones on Christina Bainbridge's website, and used hers last year. I decided to keep going with her theme and create words for the whole year.  unit 9 and 10 math words

I am not sure if I uploaded them correctly on google docs so let me know if I need to redo it!

I'll put my other units up here later, so check back!