Earth and Sun printable

I love teaching about the solar system, but before we get into that, we always spend a few weeks learning about the Earth and Sun. I put together this little supplemental book for the students to keep track of what we are learning about. Feel free to download it for free. Happy new year!! Next month we head into the solar system. Any fun activities or websites out there??

Procedural Writing and A Toast to the New Year!

I hope everybody had a great holiday! Today is my designated workday which will consist of drinking diet coke, and eating cheeseburgers, pizza, and wings while I lesson plan! Mmm!

Anyways, my first order of business was preparing a couple of writing activities for the month of January (I'm curriculum mapping today!). In January we work on procedural writing. The first thing I do is bring in bread, peanut butter, and jelly and we do a "how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich" tutorial. The kids really see how important it is to be accurate with their explanations. I put together a packet of 4 writing assignments here and you can get them for 75 cents. Bargain! I end the month by doing a "how to blow a bubble" project which you can read about here. This is a super fun way to end the unit. 

If you missed my post last year, you can see it here and read about what I do with my kiddos after the holidays. They write "toasts to a New Year." Adorable.

Oh, and how do you like our Grinch Day celebration?? It was SO fun. 

 Shirt made by my husband!

Look at all that green food!! Pickles, yum!

Christmas activities!

I KNOW you all must be as busy as I am because it is certainly THAT time of year. I know I"m feeling it at my school. Anyways, I'm doing many of the same activities as last year, so if you missed my December post last year you can check it out here!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Well snow is in the forecast and I'm not going to lie.... I would LOVVVVE a snow day or even a delay! December is just all kinds of cah-razy! Here is a peek at what's been going on in 2nd grade. 

The kids wrote what they wanted for Christmas inside of their "gifts." Super adorable. This template and many more ideas are in my Winter Bundle packet on sale through Sunday. 

Welcome to our Gingerbread house! I LOVE those big candy canes. Dollar Tree! Woot.

Isn't the tree delightful?! I have to work on wrapping their gifts. I got these AWESOME calendars at Michaels for $1.00. 

Christmas stockings! Another Dollar Tree goodies. 2/$1.00!

Adorable rug from Target! $2.50... A cozy corner in the classroom library. 

What's new in blog land? It's been SOOO quiet on my blog lately. Do people still read it?? :X

Let's Get Organized!

First off, I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My husband is home for a few days and we celebrated our first Thanksgiving together as husband and wife. 

So while the husband was out shopping this afternoon, I looked over at my teacher bag and thought to myself wow I gotta get that under control. Everyone who knows me thinks I'm an organizational queen, but I'm a closet hoarder and it's mostly because I'm lazy. This is how I've been organizing my life.... 

Not very impressive is it? 

I decided to try out a binder. We'll see if I can keep it clean. 

cover

 The front has a pouch that contains my pocket calendar and pens. I also have a portable hole puncher so hopefully it will encourage me to use the binder. 

The first section is for my monthly curriculum maps. No more scrounging around because it's right there!

Next up, lesson plans. What am I teaching in science today? Well, let me just flip over to the lesson plan section and find out ;)

My meeting notes had a special place before... the garbage! Then I would forget dates or events that we discussed and get angry that I threw it away. Not anymore. I have a special section just for that :D

In this section I plan on putting the interest surveys that my parents filled out in the beginning of the year. These forms contain phone numbers, email addresses, and emergency contacts. Right now they are in a file in my cabinet, but I need this kind of information to be a little more readily available.

The back contains a folder for misc. things and I PROMISE it won't become another clutter folder and it also has some scrap paper. If you look at my folder on the very top of this entry you'll notice it was my file cabinet/notebook. No more writing on the covers of my notebooks! I have paper now :)

So I'm hoping this works out. We'll see. How do you organize?? 

Also, on Monday my TpT store will be 30% off. Use the code CMS28. 

Winter Bundle

Ok friends, my Winter Activity Bundle is up and running and is on sale all through November. I'm super proud of this one. Lots of great goodies! 

But...Becky, it's yours free, so email me durntm@gmail.com :D

Winter Unit Giveaway!!

I had a burst of creativity so I've been working on a Winter Unit. I am hoping to have it finished by Sunday. It will consist of many goodies integrating all subject areas. In the mean time, how about a giveaway. It's been FOREVER since I've had one! You can have up to 3 entries. 

Entry 1- you must be a follower. Post that you follow my blog and what you love most about winter!

Entry 2- blog about my giveaway on your blog then post the link. 

Entry 3- like me on Facebook and post that you are a FB follower

The giveaway closes Sunday at 8PM Eastern time. I will choose 1 winner. If the comments exceed 100 then I'll choose 2 :)

Have a great 3 day weekend! 

Let's Play Catch Up!

Hello blog world!

First quarter report cards... CHECK :) Mental breakdown... CHECK... 3 day weekend... ALMOST THERE.

Here is a little peek at what we've been doing in second grade.

In reading we have been working on literary elements and sequencing.

We did a mini unit on the 3 little pigs and different versions of the story to learn about literary elements and compare and contrast. The kids LOVED the different versions. An extension could be to have them write their own version, but in November I'm pressed for time and they are already working on a pretty darn cool writing assignment (look forward to a future post about it!)

Today we did a sequence wheel using Fancy Nancy's Late, Late Night. The kiddos adore Fancy Nancy (which is a fancy word for LOVE). I'm going to have them make their own tomorrow using a brad so the wheel moves. Here are directions for making a story wheel.

Next up.... Social Studies!

We have been learning about Election Day. To understand things a little further the kids worked on a Candy Campaign. I randomly paired the students and they drew a type of candy out of a hat. Their assignment was to convince the school to vote for their candy by creating a campaign ad. Oh My Sugar they were adorable. I received so many compliments from other teachers and parents because they REALLY got a lot out of this project.

In case you can't read the ad..."We love skittles because there a bargan at Price Chopper. We love Skittles because there chewy and they make your stumick rumble for more. The s on it means really sweet and super. Never eat any other candy then Skittles. Trust us there the best. You people better not eat any other candy then Skittles."

Is that not hysterically awesome?? I don't know about you, but I'm convinced that I want some Skittles right now!

Grah, and I forgot to take a picture of our Veterans Day poster. We made a big poster to thank the Veterans since my school is hosting a breakfast tomorrow. Basically it is the hand print turkey seen below but huge with lots of hands and their red, white, and blue and the center says "Mrs. Leander's class is thankful for Veterans." I'll try to remember to take a picture. It came out great!

I struggle with the second grade science curriculum because it's not very hands-on, so I am constantly trying to find ways to make it interesting. Anyways, we are studying habitats so we started the unit off with the Woodland Forest. We learned the different parts to the forest and where certain animals can be found. The art work is all me, not my husband! I've become very independent this year.

And lastly, I got these from Oriental Trading. They make the room POP!

Have a great week and don't forget you can find Second Grade is Splendid on Facebook.

My classroom on Debbie Diller's Blog!

I nearly died when I saw that Debbie Diller posted the classroom pictures that I submitted. I idolize Debbie Diller!!!! You can check those photos out here at Debbie Diller's Blog. 

'Tis the season for report cards and parent-teacher conferences, so needless to say I've been drained. I have (or had) great intentions of putting together some Thanksgiving math centers and activities but we'll see what I get accomplished! 

Here is a fun anchor chart that I created for writing. The kids get excited anytime I try to be artistic :D

Subject and Predicate Printable

My second grade kiddos have been working on subject and predicate which can be pretttty tricky! To make it a little more understandable, my students made subject/predicate puzzles. Then they took their subjects and walked around to each desk and made silly sentences with the other students' predicates. The kids LOVED it. You can download the freebie here.