Five For Friday!

Wow, friends!  One more week is behind us!  One more week closer to summer!  One more week that we spent time learning some amazing things in 2nd grade!  My kids are one week smarter and getting dangerously close to becoming 3rd graders!

One quick note - my WHOLE store is on SALE today and tomorrow! Click the picture below to head to my store!

I have had such a good time linking up each week with Kacey over at Doodle Bugs that I'm going to do it again!  I had a lot going on this week, so I'm going to narrow it down to my Top 5 in no particular order.

We spent our week in Math learning all about graphs.  In 2nd grade we collect data, organize the data into tally charts, bar graphs and pictographs, explain the length of bars in bar graphs and number of pictures in pictographs, answer one step questions about our graphs and make predictions about graphs.  We used several actives from my new NO PREP Graphs! Click the picture below to see this in my TPT store.

We began the week by creating an anchor chart.  Each student voted for their favorite type of pizza out of four choices and wrote it on a sticky note.  Then, each student put a tally on our chart for their vote.  We organized the tallies and created our bar graph.  We answered questions about our graph and then the students worked in groups to create their own questions about our pizza graph. 

Here are their sticky notes:

(I just compiled them to hang it in the hall so others can see how we got our data).

Here is what our completed bar graph looks like:

Here are some examples of the questions they came up with to answer about our graphs!

At my small group table, we graphed m&ms.

We sorted them, made a tally chart,

organized our data in the graph,

then answered questions based on our graph.

You KNOW we had to eat the m&m's eventually, so we finally colored in our graphs. :)

I am part of our Sunshine Committee.  We try to do little things that will bring sunshine to our teachers and staff throughout the year in a variety of ways.  One of the favorite things we do on campus is called a Crash Cart!  Just like in a hospital when someone is in danger and they call for a crash cart, sometime teachers are in need of a fast boost!  So, we have our OWN version of a crash cart.  It's a cart we push around to each teacher's classroom and give them a little snack to brighten their day.  

Here are the ingredients for a really healthy snack.  :)

 

I made some DELICIOUS popcorn and then covered it in white almond bark, sprinkles and m&m's. If you've never had it before, do yourself a favor and look it up on Pinterest!  It's uh-mazing.

I had two little helpers that made my work SO much easier….or something.  :)

This is a picture of orneriness.  

I also bought some cute Easter themed shortbread and sprinkles cookies and m&m cookies, arranged them cutely on my Texas Tech serving tray and, voila! Crash Cart success.  

How would you feel if someone opened your classroom door and offered YOU this kind of treat! Yup. Day brightener, for sure.

We learned about what creates imagery in poetry this week.  We talked about rhythm, repetition and rhyme.  We read several poems to listen and look for these three things, and spent time listening to poetry with our eyes closed to try and create images in our heads from the words in the poems.  We created this poem tree to remind us of the three things used to help create imagery in poetry.  

The topic: What creates IMAGERY in poetry?

The leaves served as a web - the topic in the middle, and the three things about that topic attached around it. 

(If you are a CAFÉ lover, don't look TOO closely at this picture.  At this point in the year, my walls are FULL and I have temporarily covered my CAFÉ board to hang our tree!!)

Each part of the tree had examples for them to refer to to help them remember what the words rhythm, repetition and rhyme mean.

Light it Up Blue

Just want to give everyone a quick reminder that this coming Thursday, April 2nd, is Autism Awareness Day!  Show your support by wearing blue!

Here are some fun facts according to AutismSpeaks.org

Did you know ...

• Autism now affects 1 in 68 children and 1 in 42 boys
• Autism prevalence figures are growing
• Autism is the fastest-growing developmental disorder in the U.S.
• Autism costs a family $60,000 a year on average
• Boys are nearly five times more likely than girls to have autism
• There is no medical detection or cure for autism

Here's a video about Light It Up Blue:

I wanted to let you guys know that I have been working on several NO PREP! topics and have several up and ready in my TPT store.  You can click each picture below to check them out!

My whole store is on sale today and Saturday, so if you want to purchase one, now is the time!

That is my Five for Friday!  I hope the week treated you well and that you get recharged over the weekend with friends, family, church, sleep, Netflix-binging, whatever floats your boat!

Five For Friday!

Hello!!  Are you just finishing up your Spring Break, about to begin yours, or did you just finish your first week back?  We just finished our first week back from Spring Break, and Monday morning was ROUGH!  I don't know about you, but it's hard on this mommy's heart to go back after being home with my sweeties for a whole week!

These kids are SO goofy.  I have no idea where they get it…NO one in my family is goofy!!

Well, I am linking up with Kacey over at Doodlebugs to give you a little peek into my week.  Here's my Five for Friday.

1. I mentioned before Spring Break that when we returned, we'd be starting division.  Well I am excited to say, division was a success!  I was SO pleased! The key was keeping it completely concrete to begin with, then integrating pictorial models with their counters, and then having them draw their own pictures after using counters.

We did a a cut and glue matching division activity at teacher table.  The students practiced taking a total amount from an equation and then using bear counters to divide them into groups.  Then they looked at their groups of bears and found the picture to match on the activity sheet.  

The mixture of concrete and pictorial really helped them understand the concept behind division.  A few even said, "This was easier than I thought it was gonna be!"  It was a fist-pump-worthy moment.

We also made an anchor chart together.  Each student was given one sticker.  Then we counted how many students were in the room (18) and I chose an amount of groups to divide them into that I knew would divide evenly.  

I drew 3 big circles at the bottom of our chart and one at a time, each student came to the front and put his or her sticker in a circle.  When each child was finished, we counted how many stickers we divided into each group.

Here's the finished product.  I apologize for the picture.  I need to learn to bring my real camera with me to school instead of using my phone!

Here's a picture of the activity we did where the students made equal groups using arrays.  After working with counters so much, they were ready to use pictures to help figure out how to write a division sentence.

Five For Friday!

Multiplication, Division and Snow Days, oh my!

Happy Friday, y'all!  Oh my word, we made it to Spring Break!  Hallelujah!  (If yours is next week, hang in there!  Your'e ALLLLLLLmost there!)  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs for a little Five for Friday fun!  (Or Saturday morning!) So, here it goes…

1.  We had ANOTHER snow day this week and a late arrival, so I played at home with my snow babies!  These are my precious twin 3 year olds that keep me crazy busy and fill my heart up the brim and then some!

 

Me and my #1 fan - my son, Ben!

My beautiful angel, Emily!