Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer!

So, usually the last day before our Christmas/Winter break we do a fun Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer graphing activity which keeps students engaged, let's us have fun, and keeps the sanity right before we are out for school. I have done this activity for 5 years, and my kids love it.

First we sing the song, and then I give students the a tally chart to record how often each word happens in the song! We then graph the results of the song (picture graph, bar graph, or line plot) depending upon what we are studying at the time.

Sometimes, I change the words on our graph to sight words to help some of my kiddos work on sight words.  For more information about Rudolph graphing, check it out here!.

No Prep Christmas Math And ELA Activities

The month of December is often a very hard month to keep kids engaged, especially with their thoughts of the upcoming Christmas.  Many times you need a way to assess student learning or keep them entertained with fun activities. For this month, I have created a variety of differentiated no prep December activities! Check them out at my store here!

Giveaway Winners

Thank you so much for participating in celebrating my tpt having reached 500 followers!  Here are the winners of the giveaway!

• Winner of $20 items of choice from my store is: Toni Nicholson 
• Winner of Giveway Number 2 (which includes the following): Kirsten Kirk
• $5 Giveaway of Choice from Discovering Hidden Potential
• $5 Winner’s Choice from Loving Math
• Winner’s Choice from A Plus Kids
• Respect Packet from Penelope’s Portfolio
• Financial Literacy Posters From Teach And Tell
• Bloom’s Taxonomy Posters From La-nette Mark
• Paragraph of the Week (Science) By Tied 2 Teaching
• $5 Giveaway of Choice From Anderson Academics
• Grandfather Tang’s Journey by Mrs. Schlatcher

• Winner of Giveaway Number 3 (which includes the following): Kelly Brown
• November Morning Work from Lovin’ Little Learners 
• Rocking Clip Card Addition and Subtraction Centers From K’s Classroom Kreations 
• Season’s Sorting Paula’s Preschool and Kindergarten 
• Produce of Your Choice from Firstie Friends 
• $10 from Momma With A Teaching Mission 
• Scarecrows Math & Literacy Packet from Nancy Strout 

• Winner of Giveaway Number 4 (which includes the following): Jennifer Nicholson Agolino
• Product of Your Choice by Shifting Teacher K-2 
  Letter Recognition Printables by Lattes and Lunchrooms
  Product of Your Choice up to $5 from Third Grade Giggles
  
  120 Grid Monster Math Pack by Teresa Lomasney
  ELA Common Core Centers Bundle from Scissors And Crayons
  
  The Kid Friendly Research Paper by Morgan Hunt
  Weather Craft From WOWorksheets
  Tens Frames From WOWorksheets

Life Cycle Project

I am so proud of my students for finishing their life cycle projects!  Students researched their animal in the computer lab, working on writing life cycle books using google chrome, and presented a 3D model of their animal's life cycle to the class.

John Mitchell and His Duck Bill Platypus Life Cycle Project!

Eli and His Elephant Life Cycle Project!

Jackson and His Small Mouth Bass Life Cycle Project!

River and Her Rainbow Trout Life Cycle Project!

Jayna and Her Sea Turtle Life Cycle Project!

Justin and His Sea Turtle Life Cycle Project!

Skylar and Her Sea Turtle Life Cycle Project!

Danielle and Her Honey Bee Life Cycle Project!

Alex and His Black Bear Life Cycle Project!

500 Follower Celebration

Wow! I can't believe that I have 500 followers on teacherspayteachers! I started this journey a little over a year and a half ago, and it has changed my life in many ways.  To celebrate I want to give back to my followers. I am holding 4 different giveaways to celebrate! I have many different tpt authors and bloggers who are donating items from their tpt stores to help me celebrate.  Enter to win each of the prize packs below!

Giveaway Number 1: $20 to my tpt store!
Click Here To Enter

Giveaway Number 2:
Enter to Win:

$5 Giveaway of Choice from Discovering Hidden Potential

$5 Winner’s Choice from Loving Math

Winner’s Choice from A Plus Kids

Respect Packet from Penelope’s Portfolio

Financial Literacy Posters From Teach And Tell

Bloom’s Taxonomy Posters From La-nette Mark

Paragraph of the Week (Science) By Tied 2 Teaching

$5 Giveaway of Choice From Anderson Academics

Grandfather Tang’s Journey by Mrs. Schlatcher

Click Here To Enter!

Giveaway Number 3:
Enter To Win:

November Morning Work from Lovin’ Little Learners

Rocking Clip Card Addition and Subtraction Centers From K’s Classroom Kreations

Season’s Sorting Paula’s Preschool and Kindergarten

Produce of Your Choice from Firstie Friends

$10 from Momma With A Teaching Mission

Scarecrows Math & Literacy Packet from Nancy Strout

Click here to enter!

Giveaway Number 4: 

Enter To Win:

Product of Your Choice by Shifting Teacher K-2

Letter Recognition Printables by Lattes and Lunchrooms

Product of Your Choice up to $5 from Third Grade Giggles

120 Grid Monster Math Pack by Teresa Lomasney

ELA Common Core Centers Bundle from Scissors And Crayons

The Kid Friendly Research Paper by Morgan Hunt

Weather Craft From WOWorksheets

Tens Frames From WOWorksheets

Click Here to enter!

Reading Detective Reference folder (tool for responding to written comprehension about characters)

I don't know about you, but many times my students lack of vocabulary limits their ability to perform a comprehension written response properly.  Especially when they are asked to tell a character trait or a feeling of a character.  A typical response is mad because their brother took away a toy, etc. 

To help my second graders, I created a reading detective reference folder to help them build their vocabulary and strengthen them as readers.  A big push for Guided Reading Levels F-N is characters: how characters feel, character traits to describe characters, a characters feelings, and details to explain how the reader knows what they know about characters. I created this reference folder to help out my second grade students. This folder includes an example of a good strong written response using text based evidence terms, positive and negative character traits (with definitions and synonyms with deeper shades of meaning), and feelings (with definitions and synonyms).

An example of the front of the folder with an example of a strong written comprehension piece and a feelings reference guide (with definitions and at least 6 synonyms for each feeling) for my students.

A reference guide for positive and negative traits.  Each trait has a definition and at least 6 synonyms for each trait.

 When I passed them out to my kids last week, you would have thought that I gave them candy! They were so excited that they got to keep it forever. 

You can find out more about it at my store here.

Syllable Types Book

Do your students often struggle decoding words or need more practice learning their syllable types? My second graders often struggle with this concept, and need specific instruction on how decode words by learning the 6 syllable types. Throughout the years, I have tried a variety of ways to work with my kiddos on syllable types.

This year, I designed this personal syllable type book for my students to have more practice learning the 6 syllable types, rules or decoding words by breaking them into the 6 syllable types, prefixes, suffixes, and more. My students loved this activity and their decoding skills have taken off.

I introduced  each syllable type activity to my students through a small introduction activity, had students partner code words, and then had students code the word on their own.   To help my kids become better decoders, I taught them to clap, tap and palm their words to see how many syllables in the words. I also showed them the orton gillingham approach where students dot the vowels and draw syllable bridges around each syllable for a word. By having my students learn how to break a word into syllable types and parts, my students will become stronger readers!

Students had practice at all 6 syllable types, prefixes, suffixes, double consonants, adding -ed and -ing, and sorting words by the syllable types.

Find more information about my syllable book here!

Differientated Halloween Money Games

To have fun for my kiddos, I made some fun Halloween Money Games that can be differentiated for my different groups! Check them out at my tpt store here!

Included in this game packet are three different differentiated game boards and cards, number lines, and comparing cards that can be used in a variety of ways. The traditional way to play the game is for students to play with a partner. A student draws a card and covers the correct amount on the board of the card that they drew. When students get three in a row they win. Another version of the game is for partners to choose a card, calculate how much money they have, and whoever has the greatest amount of money wins. The third way to play the game is for students to draw a card and find its place on the number line. A fourth way to play this game is for students to deal out the cards and have students flip over one card each. Whoever has the greatest amount of money wins the round and gets to keep the cards. Whoever has the most cards at the end wins. The last way to play is to draw 3 cards and put the cards in order from the least to greatest or greatest to least. The differentiated levels are listed below:
Bats: nickels and pennies
Frankenstein: nickels, pennies, and dimes
Ghosts: nickels, pennies, dimes, and quarters

Students needs can be met by playing a variety of math games or activities using the same cards!

Examples of two different levels of the activity boards and cards!

Halloween Nonsense Words Activity

While nonsense words are not necessarily thought as a powerful tool for teaching, they are a fun and great way to assess what your students know about decoding and which decoding skills they need to work on.  To help me assess student knowledge, I have created some fun Halloween Themed Nonsense/Real Word I Have, Who Has activity sets!

My students love to play games such as these for the first 5 minutes of groups.  For them, it is a fun way to practice decoding, and for me, it is a great way to see where their decoding breaks down!
So, in the spirit of Halloween, I made these I Have, Who Has activities! Find them at my tpt store here!

My set has differentiated levels to help a variety of students in class!

 Here are some examples of what each level looks like:

Measuring To Compare Inches And Centimeters

My second graders love to measure anything, but when they have to compare measuring in inches to measuring in centimeters, then it can become complicated for them.  To help my kiddos out, I created a measure to compare series of activities to learn that an inch has a longer unit of measurement than a centimeter which is why you have a higher number of centimeters than inches when measuring.  When working with measurement always refer to inches and centimeters as units of measurements and discuss on the ruler how 1 inch is a larger unit of measurement than 1 centimeter.  Think of body benchmarks by comparing the width of your pinky nail (about 1 centimeter) compared to your second knuckle on your pointer finger (about 1 inch).



For the first activity, I have my students choose 1 unit of measurement, either in inches or centimeters, and measure two objects on a task card and find the difference between the two measurements.  Sometimes students need guidance on what the difference in measurement is.  For my second graders, the difference is how much longer or shorter one object is compared to another. For this activity, I have 24 different measurement task cards to use, so that my students have a wide variety of items to choose from.  When I use this activity in a small group, I do not always use the recording sheet but rather differentiate for different students.

 The next activity that I have my students do to practice measuring and recording data is to measure objects around the room.  You can use the cards as a measure around the room activity where the cards are placed around the room at different places, or you can have students to measure designated objects around the classroom in various stations. I either have students create a line plot for measurement or a bar graph.  I usually have them create a line plot because in North Carolina and with common core students need to be able to measure objects to create a line plot.

My third activity is where my kids play a center activity, after small group instruction, where they use a game board and the first set of measuring task cards.  To play the game, each student draws a card and measures the two objects on the card in either inches or centimeters.  The player that has the greatest measurement gets to move 1 space on the game board.

 

Lastly, I work with students in small groups measuring objects first in inches and then in centimeters discussing why when you measure you have two different measurements for inches and centimeters.  We discuss how an inch has a larger unit of measurement than centimeters, so you have more centimeters than inches when you measure.  To end my comparing measurements mini-unit, I have students play a measurement word problem game where they have to draw a card that shows an object and tells how one person had a measurement in centimeters and another person measured the same object in inches.  The player who draws the card has to use some higher thinking skills to determine whether one of them is correct, neither is correct, or both are correct and justify their reasoning with a partner before they can move 1 spot.  Talk about a higher level thinking skill activity! My kids love it and often want to create their own measurement game using measurement comparison word problems.

Check out my Measure To Compare and other measurement activities in my tpt store!

Sight Word Graphing

Last week I introduced a new sight word activity that I created with some of my students. Second graders often take of in reading, but still struggle with sight words.  Let's face it . . . You just have to memorize sight words.  I remember being little and my mom flashing sight words to me.  I learned my sight words but it was boring.  If you are a struggling reader and struggle with sight words, it makes it even harder to learn your sight words.

Last weekend I made sight word graphing for my kiddos.  They loved it! As a matter of fact, they begged to have sight word graphing for homework that night.  Here's how I did it with my kids.


I have two different versions of sight word graphing.  In one version, students simply find the words and then color in boxes to graph.  This is an acceptable practice, but research actually says that if students cannot write or spell the word correctly, then they do not really know the sight word.

This week I had my kids find each word by reading it out loud, write the word on the graph over the appropriate header, and touch and read the word again.  Students then colored the boxes of the graph in to see how many of each sight word they found! They loved it!

Go by my store to get my sight word graphing bundle from levels pre-primer to 3rd grade!