On the Hunt for The Cash Caper!

Do y'all ever feel like you need a good hook {I mean a reeeeally good hook} to "sell" your kiddos on a lesson? When kids come to second grade they have been taught how to identify and count coins before.   As with most concepts that have been previously introduced in the younger grades, I have some kiddos who get it, some that don't get it, and some kids who fall into every nook and cranny in between when it comes to money. I needed a really good hook to get my kids excited about learning about money, AGAIN! That's how "The Cash Caper" idea came to be. I don't know about you, but my kids love a good mystery! One look at this guy and they.were.hooked.

Once I had sold him to them really good {dramatically, of course} the real fun began! Our second grade money standard doesn't have us learning about identifying and counting coins, but they are expected to solve money word problems. Before we began that, I wanted to know exactly where my kids were with money concepts. I had them complete a coin bubble map to show prior knowledge of each coin.

They wrote prior knowledge in green. After the lesson, they wrote new knowledge in blue and crossed out any misconceptions in red. {BTW… I think it's so cute how hung up they got on the color of each coin. They had to have the EXACT color written down. Ha!} Once I knew my kids could identify the coins, I had them show me what they remembered about counting coins, making a dollar, and showing coin combinations in different ways. Everyone needed a little refresher on these concepts! After a lot of modeling and practice, the kids that continued to struggle were given additional practice activities to work on with me during Guided Math. 

What I love about this pack is that I was able to incorporate adding up to four two-digit numbers {also a second grade standard} into our money unit too! Here is a little snapshot of one of my kiddos building her own pizza and adding up the toppings to find her total…

She even added her numbers using decimals! That makes my teacher heart flutter!

We also practiced a lot of different kinds of word problems involving money and wrote a lot about our mathematical thinking in our money reflection journal each day.

Here's a peek into this unit…

I also included coin manipulatives, both big and small. The small ones can be used by the kids and the large ones can be used as a giant whiteboard manipulative {Just add a magnet to the back!}.

If you're interested in this unit, you can find it here! It's on major sale for the next 24 hours! 

Author's Purpose for Informational Texts

We've been hard at work in second grade learning about author's purpose. At the beginning of the year we learned that author's write to persuade, inform, or to entertain {P.I.E.}. We made this little flip book to help us remember...

If you'd like a copy you can grab that here. On each page we wrote what it means to persuade, inform, or entertain a reader. Next year, I will also write examples and features of texts that are written to persuade, inform, and entertain. 

After a quick review of author's purpose, we began to look closer at one piece of the P.I.E., writing to inform. We talked about how authors write to inform by writing to answer a question, explain a procedure, or describe a topic. 

My fabulous teammate came up with a quick foldable {large piece of construction paper folded into thirds} to use to help our students keep track of why authors write to inform. 

She made hers into a "Informational Text Toolbox". I just told my students it was their guide book. 

We looked at various examples of informational texts throughout the week. Here is what we used for writing to answer a question...

writing to explain a procedure... I also used driving directions from our school to a museum that we went to for our second grade field trip as an example. 

writing to describe a topic...

As I gave my kiddos a preview of the texts, I had them hold one finger in the air if they thought the author wrote the text to answer a question, two fingers if they thought the author wrote to explain a procedure/process, and three fingers if they thought the author wrote the text to describe a topic. We really had some great discussions about what in the text led them to think the author wrote to answer, explain, or describe. I had my kiddos write notes in their foldable. They wrote what it means to answer, explain, and describe, examples of texts, and a few features of the texts that will help us to figure out the author's purpose.

Please excuse the mistake in the top picture. My kiddos actually corrected me. They were all like "Mrs. G., it's not cat to kitten, it's kitten to cat." Ha! Teachers make mistakes too!!

Next week they will go on an "Informational Text Author's Purpose Hunt". Each table group will get a set of books. They will have to explain what the author's purpose was for writing each book and what features from the text helped them to determine the author's purpose. If you want a copy of this you can grab that here. I'm also including a "Authors Purpose Hunt" for P.I.E. if you're not quite to informational text purpose yet. The other thought I had with the hunt was to have my kiddos look around in the Media Center to search for texts, but I simply don't have the time this year to do that. I'm struggling to get everything all in before the end of the school year. Ya feel me?! Only five more weeks! AHH!

{Freebie graphics from Krista Wallden and fonts by Kimberly Geswein and Cara Carroll.}

New Look!

Oh my word! I'm so excited about my super cute new blog design! I first worked with Kassie when she designed our family blog The Story of Our Lives. I absolutely loved it and loved working with her! She is amazingly talented and really works with you to create just the right look! I knew I HAD to have her redesign my teaching blog too! So here it is… what do ya think? 

I figured since I'm so excited to share this new look, I would offer up one of my FAVORITE products for free for a limited time only. By limited, I mean until I go to bed tonight. Ha!

This is one of my favorite products because we seriously use it eve.ry.day. It's a great way for me to get a quick look at what my kiddos are grasping and what they need a little more help with. 

It's free y'all! Head on over to my little shop and grab it! While your there… please leave some sweet feedback and follow my store! I'd also love for you to leave a comment here to tell me what you think about my new blog design! Happy Friday friends!!

A Little Fraction Freebie

Just droppin' in to share a little fraction freebie. In second grade, the CCSS states that students should be able to partition shapes {rectangles and circles} into halves, thirds, and fourths. I whipped up this quick craftivity to give my kiddos another opportunity to reinforce the partitioning concept. Who else thinks partitioning is a difficult word for second graders to understand? They get the splitting or dividing concept, but the word partition leaves my kiddos saying *huh?*. Anyways, I digress, back to the freebie.

So, I had my kids cut out their circle and rectangle and glue one on one side of the construction paper and the other on the other side. They glued the math prompt below their shape and filled in the blanks. After the fact {Dang, I hate when that happens!}, I realized I should have written the math prompt in a way that kids could use the word halves, thirds, or fourths. I'll do it that way next year, but I did include that version of the math prompt in my freebie to y'all! 

Not only did they practice partitioning their shapes, they started to pick up on more advanced fraction skills. I told my kids that if they share their pizza, cake, or whatever, that means they have to give themselves a piece, then write down the names of the other people they would share it with. My kids noticed that if they divided their shape into fourths, they could only share it with three other people because they kept a piece for themselves. So, we then started to talk about how they took one fourth of their food, and they only had three fourths left to give. I love when their observations lead into deeper conversations about whatever concept we are learning about! Love those little smarties of mine!

If you think you can use this in your room, go and grab it here! Happy Saturday friends!

Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs for her Five for Friday linky. I don't know if I like this linky so much because it's fun, or because I'm always happy when Friday rolls around. I think it's a little of both! 

1. This week we wrapped up our Gingerbread unit. I know, I know, I'm a tiny bit late doing this, but I just couldn't fit it in before Christmas and it's just too much fun not to do it. Plus, it fits in really well with our fairytale study. I had my kiddos retell the story beginning, middle, and end style. They did so well with this! It made my teacher heart happy! We also put together these cute gingerbread girls and boys from The Bubbly Blonde. Go grab you a copy and tuck it away for next year, or use it now if you wanna be a rebel like me. Ha!

2. We also wrapped up our Jackie Robinson study. Jackie Robinson is one of our state's second grade social studies standards. In case you didn't know, Jackie Robinson was born in the great state of Georgia. We used Just Wild About Teaching's Baseball Stars unit to write about Jackie Robinson. I gave them three white circles with lines. They used the sentence starters "Jackie Robinson had…", "Jackie Robinson was…", and "Jackie Robinson wanted…" and wrote one sentence on each circle. 

"Jackie Robinson was a baseball player."

"Jackie Robinson had patience." 

"Jackie Robinson wanted to help all people come together."

3. Teach Dream Inspire is now on Twitter! Come follow along @teachdreamin! 

4. This isn't new, but I'm also on Instagram. You can find me @TeachDreamInspire.

5. I continue to be amazed by how awesome my team is! I seriously don't know what I'd do without them {especially after a full moon kind of week like this week}. Ya feel me?

Literacy Centers

I'm stopping by for a quick post about how I run my Literacy Centers. I have between 25-30 minutes for Literacy Centers towards the end of the day. Since the time is so short, my kiddos only visit one center a day. I have five centers set up, so by the end of the week, they have visited all five {fingers crossed…some loves forget what they've already done and do a center twice in a week…sigh}. They keep all their papers in a folder and turn them in at the end of the week.

Here are my centers…

Word Work

I have a table set up that my kiddos go to for this center. Here I give them a choice of two activities that they must do with their spelling words each week. After they finish an activity, they may write their words on white boards or build their words on a cookie sheet using magnetic alphabet letters. The key for me is to have everything at their center that they may need. This way they do not have to get up once they get to their station {well, except for Xtra Math…I'll get to that in a minute}. Here is a closer look at the word work activities that they must complete.

You can find these activities, and some more, in my little shop for FREE!

Work on Writing

I have another table set up for this center. Here my kiddos grab their monthly writing journal and get to writin'. I let them write about whatever they want because I usually give them topics to write about during our writing block and I wanted them to have this opportunity to let their creative juices flow. I do give them writing prompts, picture cards, word cards, writing mats, etc… just in case they are stuck. Again, they have everything they need for this center at the table {dictionaries, sight word dictionaries, pencils}. 

You can find these monthly journal covers and lined papers here.

Picture of the Day

I use the amazing Jen Jones Picture of the Day pack! My kiddos love it! I project the picture on my SMARTBoard and give them a recording sheet and they go to town making their observations and inferences.

Reading

This center is set up in my reading corner. I have a basket of books that I check out from the Media Center, or if they're lucky {HA!}, I let my kiddos pick one book a piece to check out for our reading center. When they do this, I make sure to remind them to choose good fit books! That includes picking books to meet our purpose for this center, which is to respond to reading. This means the books need to be sort of short because they only have 25-30 minutes at this center. The reading booklets are from the fab Amy Lemons.

Guided Reading

This is my meet with the teacher center. I pull one group a day back to my table and we usually read a book from our reading series Good Habits Great Readers and do an activity to go along with the book. This week, we have been working on main idea and details in nonfiction text.

Back to Xtra Math… I love, love, love {Did I mention love?!} Xtra Math. It really helps my kiddos develop their math fact fluency. Better yet, each kid can do it at their own pace. I have this going as a sixth center I guess you can say, but since it goes pretty quick, I let my kids leave their center when it is their turn on Xtra Math and then they return to their center when they are finished. My kids have done really well with discreetly telling the next person it is their turn {it really helped that Xtra Math has a video to show them how to do this}. The only center my kids cannot leave is Guided Reading. If you haven't checked out Xtra Math, do it!! I don't think you'll be disappointed! 

Well… I think that about covers it. There is my Literacy Centers in a nutshell.

and oh yeah… TGI almost Friday. That full moon thing this week just wasn't doing it for me!

Staying Organized {Freebie}

If your anything like me…you're majorly a tiny bit OCD… especially when it comes to organizing! I needed something to help me tackle the two main tasks, I feel, that I spend the most time on each week. Planning and copying are the most time consuming parts about being a teacher. I actually like to plan {call me crazy}, but I loathe copying. I needed a better system than just making a series of to do lists each week, so I created this weekly checklist…

I believe {fingers crossed} this will keep me organized each week and keep me from wondering "Did I already copy that?" or "What am I missing?". As you can see, I made a checklist for the subjects I teach. I have a planning checklist and a daily copies checklist. I also included a weekly copies checklist for those copies that I consistently need each week like word problem booklets, spelling lists, homework, word work activities, bucket filler slips, etc… Then, I also put a weekly prep checklist in to check off things like pre-created anchor charts, laminating, craftivity examples, books I need to checkout from the media center, etc… Finally, there is a little reminders section for, well, reminders. 

I also made a blank one with just lines for y'all…

If you can use this, you can grab a copy here! 

Have a wonderful rest of your Sunday! I fully intend to watch The Globes tonight including all of the Red Carpet festivities!