Mario

Wow!! What an end of the year!! We had 2 full days and a half day. So of course I had to keep my kids engaged and learning and active.

I was able to watch a periscope about a week ago with Hope King's fantastic idea about Super Mario. Basically you can do this with ANY content!!

I used it for reading. I printed off passages from NewsELA and then put together a packet with reading comprehension skills. We had level 1 which was asking and answering questions, level 2 summarizing, level 3 authors purpose and so on. Day one my kids had a blast! They came in excited and ready to go. They dove into those passage and worked so hard. I am so proud of how ready they are for 3rd grade.
The 2nd day we did the same activity with different rules. They had to have deeper questions. They are had to explain all of their thinking. They had to read more difficult passage's. They were FRUSTRATED. It took them 45 minutes just to ask and answer questions because my co-teacher and I kept sending them back asking them to clarify their questions or give better answers. It was awesome because they didn't quit. They buckled down with their partners and read and reread their articles looking for information. I was so impressed with 2nd grade.

I can't believe how well they did! I love that they were so engaged and that they were ready to do something difficult and do it well.

It is the end of the year and I have been incredibly blessed by this group. I cannot wait until next year and doing second grade again.

Year 4 is a wrap!!

Love,
Stephanie

Vocabulary Review

It's almost the last day of school. I think I can.... I think I can...

We as a class are done. Like a real family who has been together for 8 hours each day for 176 days... we are driving each other crazy. With all the changes next year (Im not coming back, the location of the school is changing, 2 families are moving away) my class is struggling to maintain focus and be present. Instead, they are trying each other's nerves and crying at random.

I suppose if I am honest- I am kind of feeling done also. I still have a massive amount of packing before I leave for the states and I question my decision to try to take everything daily.

So in an effort to make things better, I decided to pull out a classic favorite. 

TWISTER!

We started playing twister sometime after a vocabulary PD that I was involved in. I love Word Nerds and try to read it once a year. This book makes me smile with all of the research and engaging ideas. This year I have wanted my classroom to be all about engagement... 

So the way it works is I collect about 4 vocab words from the students that we have talked about that week. Each word gets a color. Then I call out the body part and the definition. They usually have a powerpoint cheat sheet with the colors and the words but its a great vocabulary review! 

It is such a fun way to review our vocab words and they love watching their friends get all tangled up!  

With that, I am going to go encourage my little loves to be kind to each other and have a blast these last few days.

Love, 

Stephanie

Asking and Answering

There are no words to describe how much I love Daily 5 and Cafe.

Today my kids and I talked more about questioning. 

Now questioning is something that happens naturally. But because they are second language, they stick to the easy questions like who or where. Today we tried to go more in-depth with questions like how or why. This was a challenge on multiple levels. First, the questions caused quite a bit of thought. Each student had to stop and think about how they knew the answer or a terrific reason to answer the why questions. It was amazing. I modeled the strategy using the book spoon.   

 

Then they had to ask and answer questions on their own with their Judy Blume book. Finally they found a partner who they don't usually talk to and ask and answer questions with each other. It was a great class time!!

They are having  a blast and this last full week we are trying hard to review and make sure we are solid with all of our reading strategies because it in true teacher fashion- I have stolen an idea from the fabulous Hope King. I am totally planning a Mario themed end of the year reading game. we will be playing it for the last 2 days of class and I am PUMPED. I have shared the idea with both 2nd grades and we have started practicing using NewsELA articles in History, Writing and of course, Reading. I can not wait to see their faces when they walk into the room on Monday. And by walk I mean crawl through the tunnel I am planning.

This last week I am making it a point to celebrate students, their thoughts and answers and them in general. We have started new chants to show how awesome we are as a class. Initially I was really into it, but it took some time for my class to be on board. Even still we have had a blast once they go into it celebrating ourselves and our awesomeness! It is something everyone should do. 

With that, I am off to go and celebrate for a little while longer.

Love,

Stephanie

Teaching Well

Its the end of the year. I still want to teach well.

I have so many emotions. I go from excited to bummed in a matter of minutes. I go from pumped to scared literally at any points of the day. I love my students and the music classes I get to teach... and then I realize I get to teach 2nd grade only next year.

And I have mixed feelings about that! Not because of the stress or the pull of wanting to do it all well, but because I am sad about leaving all of the precious little ones that shape my life and my teaching.

We have had a busy week for only 3 days. It's been a GREAT few days though! I have been doing a Daily 5 and CAFE webinar and WOW! We did prediction and main idea with supporting details. CAFE lays everything out with a book for the teacher so this has been an amazing resource.

I texted people Tuesday and said I was so sad no one came to watch that class because it was excellent! We start on the floor and sang our Main Idea song to the tune of "NO". I wrote an emoji post a few weeks ago that include this song so my class was so excited about singing about it!
{Check it out at Emoji English }

Anyway, Daily 5. We read the book Stephanie's Ponytail.

Which because they call me by my first name, I had them hooked. They even said "Your hair is always in a ponytail!!" We talked about main ideas and how a main idea is what the story is about. Then we asked the question "If this event is taken out of the story, would the story continue and be okay? Or would the story change? If it changes than we have found a supporting detail!" I read the story aloud and then we did a quick turn and talk about what we thought the main idea was and how we knew. It was EXCELLENT.

We then went back to our desk to work on main ideas and supporting details in our chapter book Freckly Juice. But that quick lesson and strategy was the BEST lesson I have done so far.

I still have 7.5 days left at school and a mountain of paperwork to do!

Happy Almost Summertime,
Stephanie