Seed Ideas: Strengthening Narrative Writing One "Seed" at a Time

We have been hard at work on narrative writing. We've been reading A LOT of mentor texts, generating ideas for writing, and working on narrowing our big ideas into smaller "seed" ideas. 

I used Our Tree Names Steve to show my kiddos how events in a narrative are ordered {sequenced} to form a clear beginning, middle, and end. I also love this book because it really grabs their attention and I can show them how writers use emotions and feelings to hook their readers.

These two books are great for showing students how to write about small or seed moments. Don't you just love these books?!

After looking at the difference between a big idea and a seed idea, and generating ideas on a heart map and various other graphic organizers, I had my kids choose a special memory to turn into a seed idea. We made this anchor chart...

What I loved about having them write their ideas on Post-Its is it really helped me to see who was grasping the "seed" idea and who needed a little more help with narrowing their topic. I read each idea aloud and had my students tell me if that idea was too big or a seed idea. The ones that were determined to be too big, had to try to narrow their idea further before adding it to the chart.

After all of them finally picked a seed idea, I had them cut and paste these apple/seed cutouts into their writing journals. They wrote their seed idea on the apple and their details on the seeds.

{Obviously this is my example. Ha!}

Next week we will work on organizing and adding to our details before we start writing our rough drafts. 

If you'd like my seed idea mini unit, you can check it out on TPT here. 

Phew! It's always busy, busy, busy in second grade! I'm off to grab dinner! Have a great night friends! Tomorrow is Friday!!

Five for Friday

It's Friday! PTL! It's also the end of the third week of school. I can't believe next week will be the fourth week of school! That means we are already halfway done with the first nine weeks. Crazy! 

I'm three weeks in and this is my first Five for Friday link up this school year. I've been slacking, but y'all know there's no tired like teacher tired at the beginning of the year! Can I get an AMEN?!

Let's get started, shall we?!

I'm just loving my classroom this year! I love, love, love the red and navy nautical theme! I'm usually the one that changes their theme each year, but I like this one so much, I think I'll keep it! You heard that here first! I'm going to count on you to hold me to that! You can find my classroom tour here.

This week we did a little good fit book lesson, from the CAFE book, and y'all the kids just ate this one up! I told them that I needed them to help me choose a shoe to run in after school. I pulled out my hubby's shoe first. They thought that was just ridiculous! We talked about how that shoe may not be a good fit because it was too big. Next I tried on one of my little girl's tennis shoes {not pictured}. They thought that one was even more ridiculous! We talked about how that shoe was too small. I then pulled out my high heels. They helped me realize that I could not run in my high heels even though they fit perfectly. :) Finally, my tennis shoes... well those we decided were not only a good fit, but also fit my purpose. Thank goodness right?! We then read Goldie Socks and the Three Libearians {that book is just too stinkin' cute} and talked about how to choose a good fit book.

We also talked about the difference between a nonfiction text and a fiction text. My kiddos sorted books by whether the book was nonfiction or fiction. Then we made a Venn Disgram, as a class, to compare the similarities and differences between nonfiction and fiction. You can find that Venn Diagram here if you would like to use it too!

I have to write.everything.down! I was having a difficult time with planning for some reason and I finally sat down and made a schedule for myself. My schedule only really makes sense to me, but I needed it bad! Here's a look at my planning and copying schedule...

 I know it's so silly that I had to actually make a plan for planning... Ha! Does anyone else do this? I keep my "planning plan" right next to my teacher table on my homemade bulletin board. This way I can quickly see what I need to do to pull myself together!

To review making tens, and to preview the concept that 10 tens equals one hundred, I had my kids do a fun little activity with snap cubes this week. This is not my original idea, one of my fabulous teammates found this idea floating around somewhere and shared it with us. 

You have the kiddos place one snap cube in each of their pockets. Then, as a team, they work to make as many tens as the can with their snap cubes. {I have my kids broken into table teams and they work with their table for most group activities.} Once each team has made as many tens as they can, I ask them to bring me their groups of ten. Then I ask who has leftover cubes and I have them combine their leftover cubes with the leftover cubes from other teams to make tens. Then we talk about how many tens we made and how many are leftover. At the end of the week {I kind of got off track. That's why my days are all over the place. Ha!} I showed them how to take our data and create a bar graph to show the number of pockets our class had. 

The kids really got into it! They tried to wear more and more pockets each day. I even heard them telling each other to make sure to wear something with a lot of pockets the next day! Too funny! Having fun and learning is a win, win. My teacher heart is happy!

Well I think that was the longest Five for Friday post EVER! Have a happy weekend friends! 

Show Off Your Space {Linky Party}

I'm linking up today with Courtney from Swimming Into Second for her Show Off Your Space linky party! 

I've gotta say this room is hands down my favorite room I've ever decorated. I'm in love with my theme {nautical} and the colors {red and navy} in my room. I just know this is going to be a great year! When you love your space, it just makes you feel good! Right?

looking towards my door

looking from the opposite side

my teacher area

Unfortunately this year my hook up for my DocUCam and docking station are in the back of my room, so I had to convert this little area in front of my sink into my technology area.

computers and anchor chart wall

focus wall for each subject, student book buckets, extra supplies, literacy and math center storage

carpet area

Each group of tables has their own bookshelf. This is where my kiddos keep their Math, Social Studies and Science workbooks, a crayon basket, pocket dictionaries and thesauruses, and a trash bowl. In the bucket on top of the bookshelf, every group has hand sanitizer and tissues at their table.

word wall and math manipulative storage

classroom door

Like I said, I love.my.space! I hope you do too!

Monday Made It

I'm linking up this week with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It! 

I have exactly one week... yes only.one.more.week... until I have to head back to school for pre-planning. I'm officially in back to school mode! 

My Monday Made It today is a couple of crafts I've been working on for my classroom. 

I'm using the frame to write reminders on. The letter G is for decoration.

mesh wreath for my classroom door

I'm using this trash can to store anchor charts that I want to keep.

Can you guess what my theme is?! What theme/color scheme are you using in your classroom? Head over to 4th Grade Frolics to see other Monday Made Its and to link up your latest projects!

End of the Year Theme Days

Hopefully you're like me and have been soaking up every little bit of precious summer! This post is a little late, but I was thinking you could maybe tuck it away for next year. :) Also, feel free to pin any pictures so you can be sure to find them when you go to plan end of the year stuff next year.

At the end of the year, my team and I plan theme days for the last week of school. I love theme days because I find that my students stay engaged in "school stuff" even though summer is so close they can taste it. Speaking of taste... Why yes, we do use a little food to keep up the engagement! Food definitely helps!

Even though we all do the same theme on the same day, we don't all necessarily incorporate the same activities into each day. So here's a peek into what I specifically do in my classroom...

Lazy Day at the Beach... We spend our beach day lounging on towels and reading outside on the field. We also chow down {both teachers and students, ha!} on popsicles. Of course you know with kids they can't just read outside all day, so I created stations back in my classroom to keep them engaged for the rest of our day and still stick to our beach theme. The best part, in my opinion, is that I found beach sounds on YouTube and I played that through our speaker system. The thing with stations is that they can get quite loud, but my rule was we can't be louder than the music. Here is the link to that YouTube video if you want to use beach sounds to add to your beach day excitement. Here is a look at my stations...

Froot Loop Graphing

Beach Puzzles

Summer Bucket List

Sun Craft

Beach Ball Craft

Since each student works at their own pace, I made a packet with printables from my Lazy Day at the Beach unit for them to work on while they waited to move on to the next station.

You can find my Lazy Day at the Beach unit here.

Cool Campout Day... For this theme day, we laid on blankets and read by the glow of the "campfire". We also made s'mores and worked on activities from my Cool Campout Day unit. Again, I found camping sounds on YouTube and it was the perfect background noise for reading. Here is the link to that YouTube video.

You can find my Cool Campout Day unit here.

Friendship Day... Our kiddos spent a good chunk of time signing yearbooks on Friendship Day. We also made Friendship Mix, Friendship Bracelets, and Friendship Necklaces, and worked on activities from my Friendship Day packet.

If you would like my Friendship Day unit you can find that here. The recipe for Friendship Mix, along with the Friendship Bracelet and Friendship Necklace templates, are all in my unit. What I love about this product is that I have included activities that would be perfect for the beginning of the year too! Next year, I will be incorporating the friendship theme into the first week of school. I may even make friendship mix the last day of the first week back as a special treat!

The other two theme days we had were Game Day and Movie Day. On Game Day, students brought in board games, not electronics, from home and took turns playing each others' games. It was so much fun to watch my kiddos playing games that I played as a kid! Movie Day is pretty self explanatory. We save that for the very last day because our kiddos aren't allowed to bring anything with them to school, so we just relax, watch a cute movie, and munch on popcorn {Pre-popped is the way to go!}.

Here is an example of the letter we send out to parents regarding our end of the year theme days...

Feel free to use the wording to help craft your own letter!

I'm off to enjoy this nice summer night! Hopefully I can can stay on top of blogging this summer!!

Oh yeah, all my end of the year units are on sale just in case you want to stock up for next year!!

Volunteer Gifts

I had two amazing room moms this year and I wanted to do a little something to thank them for all of their help. I bought two cups that I found at Michaels, which are the perfect cups for summer lounging by the pool, and filled them with Lifesaver mints. I then created a little tag and attached the tag using curling ribbon {I think that's the official name for that stuff, right!?}.

Cute, simple, and sweet! If you'd like the tag for your volunteer gift, you can find that here.

Font by Cara Carroll

Graphics by Krista Wallden