Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie

Well we have officially left the world of geology and are beginning our adventures with the sea!  To kick off this unit we read a wonderful book called, Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie.  This is true story of courage.  It tells all about how a young girl kept the lighthouse lights burning all by herself during a tremendous storm.  If you like books about bravery, then this is the book for you.  But you don't have to take my word for it...

As we read the book we really focused on deep thinking comprehension skills.  Students determined the main idea, wrote down interesting words, discussed the story parts, determined Abbie's character traits, sequenced the story, shared their favorite part, and wrote a letter to the main character.  Wow!  We have been busy!

 

We also tied in math to create these neat lighthouses using coordinate graphing.

I absolutely love all the fantastic art that accompanies our ocean unit.  Here is our first piece -lighthouses.  Students designed their lighthouse then outlined it in black Sharpie.  Next they used crayons to color it in.  We pressed super hard so they look like pastels minus all the smudging.  Last they watercolored the background.  Two cool things about this watercolor process were that they used salt to make it look like was raining, and the resist of the crayon shows the light shining brightly.

 

My Father's Dragon

Before Spring Break we finished reading one of my very favorite read aloud novels, My Father's Dragon.  This is a adventure tale of a young boy who journeys to Wild Island with the mission of freeing a baby dragon that is being treated as a slave.  Before leaving Elmer Elevator, the main character, meets a cat who gives him a laundry list of items to take with him.  Elmer packs each of the items in his knapsack and stows away for the adventure of a lifetime.
To make this novel even more engaging and highly interactive, the students each created a knapsack and packed it just as Elmer did.  They then wrote predictions for how they thought each of the items would be used.  As we read, whenever Elmer would find himself in a predicament the students would reach into their knapsacks and pull out the item they thought he could use to help get him out of the current mess he was in.  These discussions were so rich!  After we read on students would determine what in fact was used and write down how it was used on their item card.  So engaging!  It was almost as if a was preforming an interactive play as I read this memorable novel to the class.

 

Flat Stanley Unit Has Begun!

Woohoo!  We have officially started our Flat Stanly unit!  So far we have read the book and done several reading, writing, and vocabulary activities to deepen our understandings.

Then the students got busy creating their "flatselves" and wrote a letter to me telling how they got flat.  Such silliness and creativity!

Next each student wrote a letter to a friend, family member, or the president of the United States asking them to host their flat person for a week.  Accompanying the letter is instructions and a travel book.  We are going to learn so much about our beautiful country throughout this unit.

We walked on down to the mailbox and carefully placed each letter in the mail.  I am anticipating several good mail days in the coming weeks! Our trip to the mailbox Flipagram!

Week 2 in Review ~ Chrysanthemum, Math, "Me" Projects, and Reading CAFE

Well I think it's safe to say everyone is feeling comfortable and right at home in room 8!  I love to see new and old relationships blossom as the students work hard and have fun together.   This week we have definitely started to press on the gas peddle just a bit as we have been busy bees!  Here is our week in review...

 Our anchor text this week has been Chrysanthemum, by Kevin Henkes.  We have used this sweet book for several lessons including, story structure and story retelling.  I planned to do a syllable sort, and make posters charting what makes us wilt and bloom, but we didn't quite get that far ( I have to remind myself it's only day 7 ;), I also planned to snap pictures of the kiddos work to show you...but...I  forgot.  Thank goodness for tomorrows!

In math we have been building on many foundational skills.  We have been working with the hundred number chart, telling time to the hour, attributes of pattern blocks, repeating patterns, and word problems.  We even had our first math test AND our first round of math centers!

I am completely enjoying learning all about my new room 8 family!  This week the kiddos shared their All About Me posters, made their own special name book, created adorable self portraits, and wrote a paragraph telling all about themselves.  Can't wait for you to see their work at Back to School Night on the 11th.

We have officially launched our Reading CAFE!  And I think we are all super excited about it!  Something I love about second graders is how hungry they are to become skilled readers.  CAFE is an acronym for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expand Vocabulary.   I will be systematically and explicitly teaching the students many important strategies needed to be a skilled reader, we will set goals, and practice, practice, practice!  We have done three lessons so far, Check for Understanding (comprehension), Go Back and Reread (comprehension), and Voracious Reading (fluency).  We have also been learning how we do "Read to Self" in our classroom.  Our reading stamina is already up to 11 minutes and 40 seconds!

Thanks for hanging in there for such a long post!  I have been talking (writing in this case) so much these days, there is just so much information to get out there these first dew weeks.

Here is this week's FLIP.

Happy Sunday!

Oh my cuteness!

I just had to share this cuteness overload!  For my graduate class I am conducting a research project on reading centers and The Daily 5.  I asked my students to help me gather data by participating in a survey about reading perceptions and reading motivation.  Everyone was happy to help me out (yay!) and I just had to share some of their precious responses! Out of the mouths of babes!
Q: Do you like reading?
A: Yes because it makes me smart.
A: Yes because it's good for my brain.

Q: Are you a good reader?
A: Yes because I love it!
A: Yes because I practice.

Q: Do you read at home?
A: Yes because it settles me down.
A: Yes I read from 8:00-8:25

Q: Is reading important?
A: Yes because I want to learn.
A: Yes because you read most everything.
A: Yes because it gives you brain power.

Q: Is reading hard?
A: No because if I find a word I never read I sound it out.  Then I read the sentence so I understand what the word means. (I'm doing a happy dance over here reading this response!)
A: No because I practice!

             

Character Traits and Winn-Dixie

* Disclaimer...  Please excuse the lack of photos these days.  We have just been so very busy I keep forgetting to snap pictures as we go.  But you all have great imaginations I'm sure! :)

We just finished a treasured book called Because of Winn-Dixie.  We zipped right through this read aloud because the kids were SO into it.  It's such a delight to see my sweet students get wrapped up in great stories!  This novel lends itself to rich meaningful conversations and the characters are so special.  Yesterday we learned all about character traits and played a little game involving the characters from Because of Winn-Dixie.  I created cards that shared things that the characters said and did in the story.  The students then matched the actions and words to the correct character and then told what character traits describe that character and why.  They had to have support for each character trait they selected and I was so impressed by their insight!  My favorite moment was when someone shared that a person's character traits can change over time.  What an important life lesson to learn!

After we talked all about the characters from the book, I then asked the students to think about the character traits that best describe themselves and why.  They took this task very seriously as they got to writing in their writing spiral.  Next week we are going to take these character traits and make make a very special project.  Stay tuned!
 

This lesson is available at my TPT store. :)

Cereal Box Book Reports

The second graders have been working on a cereal box book report project at home over the past few weeks.  I have to say they did an AWESOME job!  The quality and thoughtfullness of the projects clearly shows that effort, rigor, thinking, and creativity shine in project based learning!  The kiddos loved sharing their books reports with the class and everyone was highly complimentary of each other's book reports.  We all have a lot of great book suggestions to add to our summer reading lists!

Well done second graders!  You are all fantastic readers!

Laura Numeroff Author Study

Last week in room 8 we enjoyed just about every "If You Give a ..." story written by Laura Numeroff.  

                            

After reading several of the books the children really started to grasp the pattern Laura Numeroff uses  to create her sweet and creative stories.  So we just had to write our own!  They were turning out so great that I decided we would truly make this an authentic learning experience and send our stories off to Laura Numeroff.

And, if we were going to send our stories to Laura Numeroff we would have to write letters to go with them.

We are all so anxious to receive a reply!

If you give a teacher a book, chances are she is going to have a meaningful project to go with it!  Thank you for inspiring us Laura Numeroff!