It's Time!!!

It is the eve of my most favorite unit of the year - CHARLOTTE'S WEB!  Maybe it's the overall theme of friendship, maybe it's the promise of SPRING - but whatever it is - this book sure is magical every.single.year.  I've been reading it for at least five, but this will be just the third year of digging deep with vocabulary and extended comprehension activities.   I just posted a brand new unit/pack on Teacher's Pay Teachers - a comprehensive unit for all 22 chapters of the book.  It includes an overview with daily vocabulary words, a resource list, and a student packet.  It's on sale for $5.00, so please check it out.  I will be posting a Charlotte's Web FREEBIE in the coming days - a fun assessment for students to use towards the end of the book.  For now, I am off to dream of spiders and pigs. ;)

Time is flying….

….we are in the last few days of March.  Already!?   It feels like winter here in the Northeast, which means the end of the year  - when (if?) it finally warms up, will really fly by.  We go until June 27th this year…the latest in recent years, so time will NEED to fly as "Summer Fever" hits the kiddos.
Point of view is going so well….the kids had a blast using the photo prompts (see freebie, below) and are enjoying the read alouds we've chosen.  I finally uploaded a small unit to TpT and have it for just $3.00.  It includes 8 photo prompts, a poster/reference page for display, a book list, and a printable activity to be used with any book.  Check it out by clicking below and PLEASE -submit feedback and share my blog.

How do YOU see it?

I am ready to get this blog up and going.  Ready to share some ideas teachers around the country (world!) and connect with people I would otherwise never have the chance to meet.  It's been in my mind - almost daily - for nearly two years.  There's the part of me that thinks I am too busy to manage it all, but another piece of me that thinks it's now or never---and that I have to step out and give it a try.  Seeing as I have these two points of view - it's been an easy concept to explain to my kiddos!  We started by introducing FIRST PERSON and THIRD PERSON.  We then dove into some mentor texts and started looking closely at the points of view within a text and how they differ.  We read A Fine, FIne, School by Sharon Creech.  The kids saw the POVs so clearly!  
We are ready to take it to the next level now - I will be having the students compose two different points of view from a picture.  I've created a few versions that I plan to put in a larger POV pack on TpT, but for now, here is a link to a freebie for you! How do YOU teach POV?

Waiting, Wondering, Hoping....

Waiting, wondering, and hoping...all VERBS that have to do with us and our butterfly larvae!  I found out today that there is a delay because of the cold weather here in good ol' New York, and they should be shipping today or tomorrow.
And yes - we are working with VERBS this week!  The class had fun coming up with verbs for different parts of our day - waking, brushing, chewing, running (to the bus stop!), riding, walking, unpacking, writing.....
Tomorrow, we are playing a little guessing game after we spend time brainstorming in groups.  Basically, the groups will be assigned a topic and will brainstorm verbs that go along with that topic (i.e.. birthday party - singing, opening, laughing, eating, playing....).  Then, they will report out their verbs to the large group who will try to guess their topic.  Fun, huh!?  They will love it and will get some good verb practice in in the meantime!  The link to the file on TpT is below.
Hope your Monday was great!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fun-with-Verbs-a-brainstorming-activity-and-guessing-game

Can you spell METAMORPHOSIS?

Can you say disappointed?  My class waited anxiously all.week.long for the butterfly larva to arrive and they never did!  I hope they are just a few days behind, but I will be tracking them first thing tomorrow!  In the meantime, we have been busy learning about the stages of the life cycle.  One thing I have been really focusing in on this year is vocabulary.  My students just love learning BIG words and impressing adults by knowing the meaning of these words.  This week, we had fun with the word METAMORPHOSIS.  They couldn't get enough of it!  I created a Making Words for the word METAMORPHOSIS so they can manipulate those letters and get to practice sight words and vowel patterns.  Can you believe there are over 1100 words within metamorphosis?  Don't worry...I narrowed that list down to the ones I felt K-2 teachers would find the most use with.
Cross your fingers for us and think positive so we get a special delivery tomorrow!

Time for Butterflies!

It's an exciting week in second grade!  Our butterfly larvae will be arriving!  I always love this unit because the students are so motivated and engaged.  From the minute the larvae arrive to the moments that we set them free---it's just so great. The students will name their larva and make observations and then we start learning about the life cycle of the painted lady butterfly.  We touch on butterfly body parts, migration, and the differences between moths and butterflies.  A favorite activity is when we see what it's like to look through a compound eye.  You can download this at my TpT shop with directions on how to make your own class set of compound eyes without breaking the bank.  :)
Stay tuned for some great pictures of all things butterflies as we have FUN in second...and for much more than a second! ;)
Click here to purchase: Butterfly Compound Eye Activity
Click here to purchase:  All About My Larva Writing Activity

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