Help Wanted

I'm watching Starsky and Hutch, drinking Diet Pepsi, and doing report cards when I realized, wow, I've really neglected my blog this year. 

It's been a crazy year! Last week I presented a literacy workshop and I think it went really well. I discussed what a literacy rich environment looks like, how to conference 1:1 with your students, and our district assessment requirements. 

I also put my resignation in about a month ago. If you know of any districts (preferable public school) in the Albany, NY region hiring for next year, I'm on the market. I am struggling with the thought of not having my own classroom next year, but it's time to move on. 

So last week we finished my matter unit and one of my cutie pies wrote this on her test: 

The arrow says "I couldn't think of anything else!!" This was definitely the highlight of my week. I'm still laughing about it. 

On Friday I played a little April Fools trick on my students since it fell on a Sunday this year. I gave them a spelling test and most of them didn't even notice until the very end that it said something vertically: 

They thought this was hysterical!! It says "there really is no spelling test today. April fools ha ha ha"

We also made ice cream on Friday for our snazzy snack and end of our matter unit celebration. The recipe can be found here. It was so much fun and it was actually really tasty. It was made in a Ziploc bag and they just ate it right out of the bag. It shows a chemical change. 

My friend Laura over at Love To Teach does a weekly blog post about freebies that she finds. I like this idea and I want to share a couple of my finds last night. 

This first freebie is data binder materials. This must be very time consuming BUT I can definitely see this making me a better and more accountable teacher. There will also be no surprises when report cards come around. 

This next freebie is a poetry unit. I hate poetry :( I'm just glad April is a short month and I only have to teach it for 2 weeks. Hopefully this freebie makes it go a little more smooth for me. 

Have a great week!! Since I teach at a Catholic school we don't have school Thursday, Friday, or the following week. I plan on working on a magnet unit so if there is anything you would like to see in it, let me know :)

What's the Matter? Giveaway

Wow, break went by fast. Today I buckled down and got some work done. My "What's the Matter?" unit is up and running! I haven't done a giveaway in forever, so why not! The whole mini-unit is all hands-on and concludes with a unit test. So, how can you win it you may ask? Easy. Of course you must be one of my followers, but I also want you to head on over to my Colleague's  new blog. She teaches across from the hall from me and she is goooood. Follow me, Love to Teach, and my TpT and that's 3 chances to win. Don't forget to write 3 separate comments. I will choose a winner Sunday around 10 a.m. eastern time. Good luck :)

P.S. Don't forget to follow me on Facebook and stalk me on Pinterest (addicted? maybe!)

100th Day and then some!

Today was the 100th Day of school!! It's funny because last year it fell on Valentine's Day with all of our snow days. Not this year. 

 This is the 3rd year I had my students make 100th Day t-shirts. They love it. It's so much fun seeing what they come up with too!

 This is the second year I did pizza fractions. It's basically an all morning activity and the kids love it. This is how I manage it: 

1. I broke my class into 3 groups of 4. 

2. They sponge painted a large pizza pie cut from poster board. 

3. They put the pie aside to dry. 

4. The students had to figure out how many toppings each student in the group needed to color to equal 100. 

5. Each student colored 25 pizza toppings which can be downloaded here.

6. They cut out the toppings and then combined them in a bowl. 

7. They sorted the pizza toppings and created fractions on scrap paper.

8. They then had to add up the numerators to make sure they did indeed equal 100. This was a great exercise. 

9. After they checked their work they got sentence strips to write the fractions onto. 

10. After lunch the pies were dry and they glued their toppings on. 

11. We finished up the day by having a pizza party! SO much fun :)

Thick and thin questions!

January's Snazzy Snack! Yummm. So fun and easy. 

Non-fiction text features anchor chart. Each day we added something to the chart then they tried it out in their journal with a topic they chose. We're building up to our big planet research project in March.

Thank you to everyone who has purchased my Solar System Unit and left awesome feedback. My students are having a BLAST with it. I hope yours are too. 

This month we have been doing a lot with inferencing and this is my way of assessing them. If they make an inference while they are reading then they write it on a sticky note and stick it on our inferencing chart. This has helped me SO much with lesson planning because I'm really getting a feeling for who understands it and who doesn't and what I need to focus on. 

Whoooo that was a long post :) Happy Friday everyone. 

Solar System Unit!

My Solar System Unit is done! I started the unit a few weeks ago with my kiddos and so far they're having a blast with it. 

We did the crater labs today and my students had a blast. Their thinking was very in depth too!

Phases of the moon flip book!

Planet lap book

Here is what is in the unit:

Moon KWL Chart
Crater Lab 1
Crater Lab 2
Phases of the Moon Flip Book
Layers of the Earth Dessert
Layers of the Earth Labeling Worksheet
Layers of the Earth Graphing
Layers of the Earth Graphing Questions
Planet Lap Book Overview
Planet Lap Book Organizers
Report Graphic Organizer 
Review Sheet
Assessments

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??

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.

Columbus Day Mini Unit

I am taking the Friday before Columbus Day off because my husband is coming home from DC that weekend :D Anyways, it's always difficult having a sub because I feel like I just throw busy work together. So I decided to make a few Columbus Day activities which then turned into a mini unit. It includes math, science, social studies, and ELA activities. I figure I will use these throughout the next couple of weeks in math centers and for homework then have the sub finish the unit up on Friday. You can download this unit here. It includes:

Sailboat tangram template

Tangram template

Tangram answer key

Bump- 2 dice edition

Bump- 3 dice edition

Capture Ye Gold math game

Need VS Want work mat

Need VS Want picture cards

Need VS Want magazine collage

Fill in the blank difficult version

Fill in the blank average version

Fill in the blank easier version

Fill in the blank answer key

Christopher Columbus word find

Sink or float experiment

Sink or float experiment blank

3 writing prompts

I hope this makes teaching about Columbus Day easier for you :)

Talk to you all soon! I have the most amazing class this year (brag moment)!!

A Busy Week of Learning and Fun!

I was thrilled to hear that my students' favorite part of the day was the St. Patrick's Day Unit that I created and they absolutely love the math centers from that unit, so I'm keeping them for another week until my Easter Unit is ready to go!

Here is the latest phonics graphic organizer. My kids went crazy over this guy!

The clouds add a nice touch to the classroom. We're studying weather right now. 

A few weeks ago the students learned about symmetry in math. I had them create symmetrical paintings just by squeezing paint onto cardstock then folding it in half. Then for writing I had the students write a story about their painting. They were incredibly creative! I told them short stories, but I still got some 6 pagers which is fantastic ;) They were enthusiastic about this project!

Water Cycle!

So here it is!! I don't have much wall space in my room, so it's an interactive trifold bulletin board! My students absolutely love it :)

The right hand side has a description of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection. The terms in green are on velcro and the students have to stick it onto the correct location. 

Students will be able to explain the water cycle by using their bracelets! 

You can get the bulletin board printouts (not the scenery. that is card stock),  3 labs, an assessment, and the water cycle bracelet, on sale for $2.00 here!

P.S. Didn't I work hard on this??? <3

Disclosure: Fiancé not included!

P.S.S When I started blogging a few months ago I didn't think 198 people would ever follow me!! 2 more followers and I'll host a giftcard giveaway :)

Sneak Peak-- Science Labs

I teach science club at my school and one thing that is really lacking is quality science activities/labs for the K-2 range. I've decided that over winter break I am going to put together a science packet with my top 10 favorite science experiments and design labs to go with it. Each experiment will contain a teacher's manual, student lab, and another lab designed for emergent learners. Let me know what you think. This is one of my all time favorites!! If for some reason you can't see the embedded google document above, click here to download it for free. Please remember to vote/leave feedback if you download it!

Tomorrow we're celebrating the 100th Day AND Valentine's Day! It will probably be a crazy day but so glad they fall on the same day this year. Look for pictures in the near future :) 

Sun Graphic Organizer

I'm always trying to come up with fun ways to display information. We just finished our "sun and earth" unit. I had the students sponge paint a circle (the sun) and as we learned facts about the sun they wrote them on paper strips (rays). It really brightened up the room and is more creative than just writing it on the white board!