Rainbow Verb Clouds

Throughout the current unit in our Reading Street Program our second graders have been learning about verbs. Students have discovered that verbs describe actions and they change depending on if they happened in the past, present, or the future. For example, students know that they would add an “ed” to “call” if it happened in the past or they would add an “s” to “call” if it is happening in the present. In order to practice this skill, we created something called “rainbow verb clouds”.

Each student was given a different verb such as “bake” or “dance”. First, students were responsible for drawing and cutting out a cloud on a white piece of paper and writing their verb on the cloud. The next step in these verb clouds was writing their verb in the past, present, and future tense on different colored strips of paper. After writing each verb tense, they were responsible for writing a sentence using each of these verb tenses on different colored strips of paper. For example, if a student had the verb “bake” he or she would write “bakes” for present tense and write an example sentence like “She bakes muffins today for dinner.” Students enjoyed building their own colorful clouds and thinking of sentences using these different verb tenses. Today these “rainbow verb clouds” are hanging around our classroom, bringing a bright pop of rainbow color to our day.

Compound Word Concoctions

Just this past week, second graders were learning a new concept through our Reading Street curriculum: compound words. Throughout the week, students were spelling, reading, and forming compound words in multiple activities in the classroom. One of these last activities was by far the most fun for the students. We liked to call it Compound Word Concoctions.

In this activity, each student in the classroom was given a different compound word, such as “butterfly” or “pancake”. Their job was to show these compound words as two separate words and one whole word through pictures. For example, given the compound word “ladybug”, the student would separate the word into two words, “lady” and “bug”, and draw a picture to go along with these words. After breaking the word apart, they would put it back together to make “ladybug” again and draw the picture for this compound word. Students truly let their artistic talents shine through in this activity and they enjoyed putting creative touches to their pictures.

These Compound Word Concoction pictures are now decorating our hallway window. Feel free to come and check out the creative compound word talents of our second graders!

Craft Day

The Friday before Christmas break, our second graders, along with the rest of the students at Bethlehem School, had the opportunity to participate in a whole school craft day! Each of the teachers in the school prepared two crafts and the students had the chance to decide which crafts they would like to make. Students had two hours to walk throughout the school and make crafts, bringing a small cardboard lid to hold their many goodies throughout that time. If students became tired and needed a break from craft making, they could go into the youth room to have some popcorn and watch a movie while they relaxed.

The students loved walking throughout the school and choosing which crafts to make. They were so proud to take home all of those craft goodies after school that day and I know that they couldn’t wait to go home and show their goodies to their families!

Math Centers

These past few weeks our second graders have loved getting involved in math centers! Every once in a while for something extra engaging, we have math centers. This is so students have a chance to practice things we have learned, as well as participate in activities that will make them more fluent with certain math concepts.

One math center that students have really enjoyed is “fly swatter math”. Throughout this activity, I read off addition or subtraction problems, such as 9 + 3 or 10 – 6. After hearing the problem, students have to solve quickly and use their fly swatter to “swat” the right answer that is written on a piece of poster board. This activity promotes memorizing, rather than counting on their fingers to solve so that they can be the first one to “swat” the correct answer. Students have been doing an amazing job with becoming more fluent and faster at swatting the correct answers while memorizing these addition and subtraction problems.

Another math center that students have come to love is “popcorn math”. Throughout this activity students draw three pieces of paper out of a cup of popcorn. Students draw two pieces of white paper (the numbers) and one piece of yellow paper (the addition or subtraction symbol). Once they draw these three pieces of paper, students write down the problem and solve it. For example, if they drew 22, 35, and + they would be responsible for adding 22 and 35 together on their “popcorn math” worksheet. This activity allows students to differentiate between addition and subtraction as they use those two math concepts.

The last two math centers students participated in were addition and subtraction flash cards and using the computer to look through different math games. Through all of these math center activities students have become engaged in becoming more fluent with certain math concepts. Encourage your second grader at home by practicing these math concepts to further increase their fluency.

Glitter Galore!

Yesterday we really got in the Christmas spirit by creating ornaments! The students were extremely excited to have the opportunity to make their own ornaments. For this activity the students knew from the beginning to make sure to pay attention to the steps taken to create their ornament because after creating their ornament they were responsible for writing down the step-by-step process.

To start off, students took off the tops of their ornaments so that I could spray about seven sprays of floor wax into their ornaments. The students were then responsible for swirling the floor wax around, coating the inside of the ornament. After it was completely covered, the students dumped out the excess into a cup. The next step involved glitter…lots and lots of glitter. Students chose what color of glitter they would like and, using a funnel, we poured the glitter inside and students once again swirled the glitter around inside the ornament until it was completely covered. Once it was covered, students dumped out the excess glitter onto a plate and put the top of the ornament back on. The students’ final step was to choose what color ribbon they would like on the ornament and tie it on.

Once students had made their ornament their next job was to write out, step-by-step, how they created their ornament. Students made sure that they started with a beginning sentence, used transition words such as “first” and “last” in their steps, and closed their writing with an ending sentence. By writing out these steps, students got a better idea of each specific step they went through in order to make their ornament along with the importance of doing these steps in order. Plus, now they have a written down process so that, if they wanted, they may create more ornaments like the one they created today.

The last step of these gorgeous ornaments was my job, which was writing the students’ names on their ornaments using puffy paint. These beautiful ornaments are now hanging around our classroom, which lends a Christmas feel to our room.