Create-an-Animal & Create-a-Plant {freebie}

With the craziness that this school year has brought, my blogging goal for October was to post at least twice this month.  Well, I have just a little more than 24 hours to meet my goal, so mission accomplished.  Yea, me!

One of the objectives in 2nd grade is to identify the basic needs of plants and animals.  And if you've been following me for a while, you know that I am not the type of teacher who likes kids to regurgitate information in the format of a worksheet.  So I designed an activity where my students could apply their learning of the basic needs of plants and animals while being creative.  I also wanted them to include what we've been noticing in nonfiction texts...all of those awesome text features.  Just click on any of the images below to get the free download for this activity.

The border I used came from a freebie from www.traceeorman.com.

Here are just a couple of examples of what my little zoologists and botanists created....

The name of my plant is the Double Bubble.  My plant needs are sun, water and air.  My plant lives in Australia. 

The name of my plant is the polka-dotted plant.  It is found where the oak tree {lives}.  My plants needs water, sunlight, and air.

Snap-a-doodle doesn't need a shelter to live.  But, they have snap mouths to protect themselves.  And that's why they call it a snap-a-doodle.

My kids LOVED creating their plants and animals!  In fact, several of them asked for another blank diorama to create another one!!

Phonics Chants {free printable}

Ok, ok, ok....so it's been over a month since I've posted here.  Believe me, I know!  The start of this school year threw my team and me an unbelievable curve ball, and we are just now starting to come up for air.

So, here's a little something I threw together tonight for all of my incredibly faithful followers, my tremendously wonderful friends who have continued check my blog and leave such sweet comments.  I'm so sorry that I have been incognito.  I literally have been working nonstop on "school business," church stuff and training for my marathon since August 15.  Today was the first day that I took a nap, and even though it lasted for only one hour, it was GLORIOUS!

My freebie for you today is a set of 16 cards that can be used anytime you want your kids to chant words.  In 2nd grade, we have some "phonics charts" or word charts that contain rows of words that follow a phonics rule of the week.  There are about 5 words on a row and 4-5 rows on a chart.  We usually display one chart via the projector each day, and we ask our kiddos to choral read the words.  And that's all fine and dandy, but come on now.  Let's make that a little more fun.  So, some of these chants are my original ideas and some of them are ideas that I've tweaked from traditional word wall chants that I found from other websites and blogs.  So {here} ya go...enjoy!  Happy reading!  Oh, and if you have more ideas to add, please leave a comment and I'll make more cards to add to this set.