Reader Response {Freebies}

Happy Fall, Y'all!

My adorable pumpkins are falling in love with books.  That's one of my favorite parts of teaching 2nd grade - seeing my little guys discover their love of literature.  So here are a few freebies for reader response.

After reading a fiction book or story, any of these poems can be written about main character.

Poetry Pattern Book Reports


This book investigation can be wonderful as an enrichment activity and it's amazing to see what your students can create!  It is designed to be used with a nonfiction book or article.

 Book Investigation


My students use these spinners, and they LOVE them!  All they need is a pencil and a paper clip to make the spinner.  I tell them to spin it and write the answer to the question in a notebook or on a piece of paper.  If they land on the same question more than once, I instruct them to simply spin again.

Comprehension Spinners


To be used with a fiction piece, this Book Scavenger Hunt is a student favorite.

Book Scavenger Hunt

Enjoy!

Double Bingo {FREEBIE}

My cute, little chimichangas LOVE to play Bingo together.  Here's one that can be used to practice addition facts ~ doubles +1 to +12.

What you need:

• Double Bingo game board
• Double spinner
• paper clip and pencil for spinner (see picture below)
• two colors of game markers

 Double Bingo Game Board

 

 Double Bingo Spinner

The directions for how to play are at the bottom of the game board, but once your students start playing bingo games, they will quickly get the hang of it and will be successful without needing instructions.  On the spinner, I've included some before, during and after thinking prompts.


This bingo game can also be played with number cards (#s1-12 and two or three cards for each number) instead of using a spinner.  Just cut off the bottom of the game board and verbally tell your students how to play.  They just shuffle a stack of cards, place them face down and take turns selecting a card to double.

Enjoy!

Complete It

Here's another freebie to help our tater tots practice identifying complete and incomplete sentence as well as writing with capital letters and using correct punctuation.

The materials that you'll need are simple:

• Complete It cards (4 pages for a total of 20 cards)
• Complete It direction tent

Ahead of time, cut out the sentence cards and fold the direction tent in half if you want it to stand up.  (Dog-ear one corner to make it stand up without splaying.)
Complete It Direction Tent
Complete It Cards




Enjoy!

3 Freebies and an Apology

{sigh}

So, it's been a while since I've blogged.

{sigh}

Would you please accept my apology?

{grovel, beg, plead}

My spring and summer got a little a lot crazy, and my time for blogging got put on the back burner.  I had so many incredible opportunities this spring & summer, and I learned bunches!  Hopefully over the next few weeks, I can share my experiences with you here.

Well, school has started, and it is going to be a fantastic year!  My energetic little green beans are keeping me on my toes, and I'm so excited to go along this journey with them!

To make up for my lack of blogging, here are a few freebies you might find adaptable for your classroom.

Savvy Sentences
Skill: Identifying words needing capital letters and when to use a period in a sentence

As you know, I don't do traditional worksheets.  Since the ultimate goal is for students to be able to write sentences with correct conventions, I created this station which is a spin on Super Sentences.

Print these sentence cards on cardstock, laminate for durability, cut apart, and voila - you've got yourself a literacy station that's meaningful.  The direction tent can be printed on cardstock, folded in half and if you dog-ear one corner, it will stand up without splaying out.

There are 4 pages for a total of 24 sentence cards and they are editable.

Check out this poster on capitalization using the acronym M.I.N.T.S.  So clever!


Monitor Comprehension Bookmarks
Once again, I'll be using the Comprehension Toolkit with my students.  I ♥  it so much because of the results I see and hear.  These bookmarks can be used as bookmarks or can be glued into notebooks as a part of a mini-lesson on monitoring comprehension.

This Word doc has 2 bookmarks on a page.

See, Scan, Analyze
My last freebie for you came from reading Developing Visual Literacy in Science K-8.  The authors use this thinking process to help children develop the ability to reflect metacognitively about what they see.  (Great book if you ever have the opportunity to pick it up!)

I've used the See, Scan, Analyze two ways.  1) Show students a photograph and have them see, scan and analyze it using the structure of observations, inferences and emotions.  2) Give students an object to observe and follow the same structure.  While we are making our observations, inferences and emotions, we are having a rich discussion and asking lots of questions.  I encourage them to draw pictures too in the boxes.  They love doing See, Scan and Analyze.

I hope your school year is off to a wonderful start!  Best wishes for a fabulous 2012-2013!

Leaving Tracks of My Thinking

My 2nd graders have been so busy practicing their reading strategies, and I am so proud of them.  It is so exciting to see them THINK while they are reading.  This year we have been utilizing The Comprehension Toolkit by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, and the results are truly amazing.

Recently as we worked on leaving tracks of our thinking, we focused on making text-to-text connections.  My team and I also wanted to challenge our budding readers to compare and contrast two different genres of text, so we read a fiction story on one day and then a poem on the next day.  For this reading experience, the key to picking out the poem was to choose one that had story elements.  It worked out perfectly and we were able to reinforce the elements of a poem at the same time.  Score!

On each day, we filled out this page where we did some parts together, some parts in pairs and the rest individually:

Then on the third day, we used each page above (previously filled out) to complete the page below as we compared (similarities) and contrasted (differences).  Again, we did one similarity and difference for each together as a whole class, one in pairs and then they tackled one on their own.  It completely stretched their thinking and they LOVED it!  I forced them to think of similarities and differences that were somehow related.  That's what made it challenging and a lot of fun.

In the rounded rectangles in the "Story" area is where I asked them to draw and color a picture of their favorite part of that story/poem.  In the shaded "My Connection" area is where they made a self-to-text connection for that story/poem.

I was blown away by some of the ideas my kiddos generated and I can't wait to do this again!!

Roll-a-Word {freebie}

OK, friends...let's be honest here.  We've made it 100 days!  Our mid-year assessments have been completed or we are hopeful they will be finished very, very soon.  We are counting the days to Spring Break, not because we want a week off (but let's face it...by then, sometimes we desperately need it), but because we get to break out our super cute spring outfits.

And it's at this time of the year that our kiddos might be getting a little restless.  OK, "might" is a little mild.  I know in my classroom, my little baby bears are showing signs of academic unrest with some of our routines.  So, I decided to create this fake game activity which might help spice up their Work with Words life.

Hopefully, this will keep them on their toes as they practice their spelling words.  Used individually or maybe working with a partner, I can envision this being used in a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th grade classroom.  If you have some firsties (first graders) who need a more rigorous spelling practice, then perhaps this will meet their needs.  The only materials you would need to provide besides this printable are two number cubes.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!  Enjoy!

Today's Number {freebie}

One of the math routines in 2nd grade is Today's Number where our kiddos compose and decompose numbers in various ways.  At the beginning of the year, we spend a lot of time doing this routine together and working through the different ways that we can show Today's Number.

About this time of year, my students are getting really good with this routine and can apply many ways to show Today's Number on their own.  It's so exciting and makes me such a proud math mama!

This handy dandy little card can be included in an interactive math notebook so that when your students are doing this math routine, they can easily reference the different ways they can show Today's Number.  (There are two on a page so you can save a tree.)  :)

If you need something to show parents or to take a grade on, here are a couple of options for something to use outside of a notebook:

This one has two boxes labeled "equation" allowing students to use any operation.

This one has one box labeled "equation using addition" and one box labeled "equation using subtraction." 

I hope your little math monkeys enjoy doing Today's Number as much as mine do.  I allow my kiddos to choose their own two-digit numbers, and for some students, I encourage them to use three-digit numbers.  (For any that do three-digit numbers, I tell them to show only the tens and ones for the tally marks.)

Enjoy!