More From Chewandswallow {Weather Unit}

Is it just me or is it so hard to believe that we are zooming through the month of September?!? Geezzeee! Maybe it is because I am having WAY too much fun with my sweet little second graders. The past two weeks, it has been ALL about weather. We have been hard at work creating, researching, and learning about all things weather. They ask daily..."Can we PLEASE learn about weather all day?" They are loving it! Here are a few of the little projects that have been keeping us busy this week. I have more to share...so keep your eyes open for more Chewandswallow.

This week, we created four weather tools that we will observe outside for two weeks.

We also made up movements and motions for each tool to help us remember what they are called and what they do to predict the weather. I WOULD definitely try to explain them to you...BUT...you would get totally lost! Maybe in the next week, I will become savvy and move into videos! Ohhhh....the possibilities! :)  

We began by creating a class barometer to identify the pressure of the air each day. This was definitely a class fave! 

The makings of a weather vane.

Our anemometer {say that five times fast} will help us identify the wind speed.

It looks like we are prepared for a week of storm chasing and weather predicting!

You can find all of the directions for these fun little weather tools at:

If you haven't seen this site...it is such a fantastic resource. This week, the students will be using this site to research different types of storms. They will also be creating class presentations to teach other groups about their findings.

This week we also completed a few quick writes. I try VERY hard to include a daily writing into our science and social studies time. My philosophy = if they can write about it and explain it..they know what they're talking about = teaching success! Our favorite from the week: a little activity inspired by Cara Carroll over at the first grade parade. I saw her "What is a Scientist?" activity and modified and adapted it a bit to work right in with our weather unit.

Our sweet little meteorologists! It is hard to see...but they all were able to design their own rain boots! So cute! I also used their pictures for the face of our meteorologist.

Poster Inspired by Cara Carroll.

Raindrops are removable for student interaction during writing.

When they needed to spell a "weather word", they would remove

the raindrop to help them out a bit! The raindrops are taped to the poster.

A Few of Our Writings:

{Warning...writings have NOT been edited! :) We typically do not edit these writings each day. I focus on editing during my writing conferences and look for them to apply strategies during other writing activities!}

I can't wait for our research this week. The students are ready for their assigned "specialty areas" in the land of Chewandswallow! More to come!

On a little side note: I apologize to all of you who have emailed and have not heard back from me yet. I promise to get back to all of you within the week! 

I typically do not share personal information on my blog, but this weekend and past week has been a very sad week for our school system. One of my cross country kids {I have mentioned my team before} took her precious life last Tuesday. She was such a beautiful person inside and out and we have spent the weekend remembering all of the great times that she has given us! I strongly believe in the power of prayer and the Lord has truly given this family peace. If you too believe in the power of prayer, I ask that you remember this family as they continue to celebrate the life of their sweet little girl. So thankful that I serve a God that never forgets his promises!

"For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. —Psalm 30:5"

Happy Sunday Friends!

 

Short and Sweet {Writing Process Posters}

I have been totally inspired by the all too adorable "Writer's Eyes" on Pinterest! Check out Mrs. Phippen's blog here for the original! She has other amazing ideas too!

Then, of course, the queen of all things cute...Cara Carroll created her own little version with these sweet big eyed children!

These ideas were just way too cute to pass up. So, as my students really begin to dive deep into the writing process, I just had to create some charts to encourage my little developing writers that will go perfectly along with the all of these writer's eyes ideas! {Whoa...that last part was almost a tongue twister!}  Click on the pictures below to add these to your collection of writing strategies. Don't forget to visit the two blogs above for their great ideas!

 

Happy Sunday sweet teaching friends! I hope that you all have had time to reflect on all of the many blessings that we are given each day! Proud to be an American!

Welcome to Chewandswallow! {Weather Alert!}

Can I just say that I LOVE science??? I also think that my students have inherited the "science gene" because they just can't wait until we get to our science time each day. This week, we began our four week unit on weather. When I found out that our first science unit was weather my mind immediately went to the land of Chewandswallow! What kid wouldn't love a town that rained food??? Never mind kids...can I move there??? {Seriously...this whole cooking bit every night...not my idea of a good time!} :) So, to get my kids super excited about weather, I transformed our room into this lovely little town right out of the story Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs!  Let's just say...the "flying spaghetti" had them at hello! They were thrilled to see the transformation and even more excited to learn about weather. Thank yooouuu YouTube for some crazy amazing weather intros! Here are a few pictures of what has been happening in our room.

Even poor ol' Clifford was covered from head to toe in spaghetti!

Who knew that yarn could look so much like spaghetti???

Giant meatball anyone???

My favorite! Strawberry Milkshake!

Now for the academics!

We have been super busy learning lots of new vocabulary words. Each day, we add a new word to our list. This little four square method has worked extremely well and the students are really taking hold of so many content words!

{Click on the picture to download}

Clipart Courtesy of Scrappin' Doodles

As I introduce new words each day, the students add our new words to our "In the Spotlight" bulletin board. We review these words each day and I quickly reinforce each term and concept! Definitely have to keep it fresh for these youngsters!



We have also been busy writing our very own tall tales about towns that rain food. Well...my football players decided that a town that rained athletic equipment sounded like a better idea! Hey...if it excites them about writing and ignites their creative flow...I am ALL for it!  We have completed our brainstorming and the students are well on their way to some pretty hilarious stories. I will definitely have to post some for you to read when they are finished! Until then, you can click on the picture below to download our thinking map used for brainstorming.

Clipart Courtesy of Scrappin' Doodles

A Student Version

Tomorrow, the students will be divided into "Expert Groups" where they will research their specialty area! They will be grouped using their "Meteorologist" Badges!

I can't wait to begin creating all of our weather instruments next week! Such a fun unit! Any more fun weather ideas out there???? Let me know!

First Grade Word Work

Alright all of my firstie friends...First Grade Word Work is FINALLY ready for all of you...all 200 pages {no joke}! If you have completely fallen in love with the way that Beth Newingham structures her word study, this unit has it set up and ready to go for all of your sweet first graders! Head on over to my TPT store to pick this up!

Also...a BIG THANK YOU to all of you who have chosen me as one of your top ten! You truly know how to make a girl smile! You are all amazing!

I hope that you have all enjoyed this nice long weekend! :)

Making Up for LOST Time! {FREEBIES}

Hi to all of my sweet bloggin' friends that have been patiently waiting for several of things that I have been DYING to post for all of you! I have just recently received my Scrappin' Doodles license for freebies and so we are good to go!

I have been having SO much fun in second grade but BOY is it a CHALLENGE to create everything {and I mean EVERYTHING} from scratch. I am so fortunate to have the same sweet kids from last year {they are so AWESOME} but I want everything to be new and exciting for them...SO...materials from last year are all a thing of the past! Good thing I LOVE a challenge...right?!? So, as promised, here are a few things that we have been working on in second grade. I also have many more ideas/printables to post...hang tight and I will get them all up here just for you!

Author's Purpose

Last week, my kiddos and I spent several days learning about why author's write books and analyzing text to find that purpose. After introducing the three reasons author's write books, three students took on "the role" of each purpose. They presented their scripts and the class had to decide the purpose of each script and character. They truly got a kick out of this little activity. So much in fact...that we did it...TWICE! :)  After the presentations, we made up little movements for P.I.E. The power of movement with these youngsters is priceless and they remember these words probably better than most adults. I will TRY my very best to explain our little movements to you!

Prior to assigning movements to each word, we analyzed the words for "chunks" or sounds that would help us to remember the meaning of each word.

Persuade: Using "sway" as our key word to help us remember this definition, the students stand up and sway back and forth pretending to change their mind and think about something in a new/different way. 

Inform: In this word, we found the word "In" and we recognized that it also looks a lot like the word "information". As we say inform, we pretend to put information into our brain!

Entertain: This word was a little tricky...but we found the chunk "enter" and pretended to enter into a state of being a STAR! We created a capital "E" with our bodies (hand sticking out above the head, hand sticking out in the middle, and our leg sticking out at the bottom...can you see it??? OK...just checking! HA!) As we created our "E" we used a little spirit finger action and shouted "Entertain!" It made everyone laugh and so the students concluded that we did our job of making everyone "feel" silly!   

I am so sure that I just confused the heck out of you but I promise you...it worked like a charm! :)

After learning the meaning of each word and analyzing text, I split the students up into three groups...each with their very own purpose. Each group had to write about the zoo {Animals = 2nd Grade Science Standard = Science Integration with Writing = YES!!!!}. One group had to write to persuade, one group wrote to inform (this group was a research group) and the last group wrote to entertain (they chose to write a funny story...similar to Madagascar!) I am hoping to get pictures of their writings up for you very soon. They were AWESOME!

These activities were very successful with my students and I now can't get them to stop analyzing text and identifying the author's purpose for writing. Love when they are so enthused!

Click on the picture below to download the posters {inspired by Pinterest} and scripts!

2nd Grade ROCKS! {Song inspired by the Biebs}

Every morning, we begin our day by singing our Welcome/2nd Grade Rocks song. I created this song to really get my students pumped up and ready to learn each day. There has only been one morning that we have not had time to sing {due to an assembly} and y'all it truly threw our entire day completely off! They are so in love with this song that many times, we just HAVE to sing it at the end of the day too! We sing it to the instrumental of "Baby" by Justin Bieber along with imaginary microphones! Yes, I even have some kids doing a little slide across the floor at the end of the song! Honestly...one of the funniest things that I have ever watched. But then, of course, they know it is time to get SERIOUS and get to work! They do a great job with this transition!  Click on the picture below to download the lyrics!

Coming Soon...and a FREEBIE

Next week, it is ALL about weather in science. My room will be transformed into the land of CHEWANDSWALLOW! If you haven't read "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" you may be a little lost here! But...I have decided to center my weather unit around this amazing little story. I am in the process of putting the finishing touches on this unit and I will be posting lots of pictures as well as the unit in the next two weeks! Just so you don't have to wait for the entire thing....here are the vocabulary cards that will be included in my "Cloudy with a Chance" Weather Unit. Click on the picture below to snatch this little download up!

One Last Thing...I SWEAR!

 {I told you...I have SO much to catch up on in the blog sharing world!}

It is FINALLY....FINALLY FINISHED and ready to go!

Wait...Did I hear a "Praise the Lord" or was that just me!?! 

First Grade Word Work will be posted TOMORROW to TPT! So...for all of your firsties

I hope that you are all having a well deserved LONG weekend! Happy Sunday Friends!