Excuses to Motivate!

I think holidays are a great excuse to motivate the kids to want to practice their skills.  In my Teachers Pay Teachers store, I have a whole lot of games to practice skills that are related to holidays.  When I realized how many holidays and special days are coming up, I thought it was a great time to have a Dollar Sale!  The following items (and several others!) are all related to upcoming holidays, and will be priced at $1.00 until Friday the 18th!

 

Come on over to Elementary Matters to learn more about the Dollar Sale!

Thank You Note Freebie

When we left before vacation, we had just had our holiday party and lots of gifts were given to the class.  (Instead of giving gifts to each other, everyone brought in a gift for the whole class!  We got recess games, craft materials, gluesticks, white board markers, books, crayons, erasers, and more!)

My college aged daughter came in to help out at the party, and one of her tasks was to keep a list of who gave what present to the class.  (Just like a wedding shower!)

It's time for the thank you cards!

I made a blank Thank You Note for you to copy.  Just run off the pages back to back to make it into card form.  You can download it on my blog Elementary Matters.

Thank you notes and any kind of letter will work to address this Common Core Standard:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.2b Use commas in greetings and closings of letters.

Enjoy writing your Thank You notes!

Exemplar Texts for the Common Core - Informational Texts

In the last couple of months, I've posted Exemplar Read Aloud Texts for the Common Core , and  Exemplar Texts for the Common Core - Stories.

Today I'm getting to my favorite category of Exemplar Texts:  The Informational Texts!

The Exemplar Texts are books that are recommended for this level because of the complexity and quality of the texts.  Children in these grades should be reading many books of this complexity and quality, these are just examples.

Here are links to some of the Informational Texts recommended for grades 2 and 3.


For more information about the Exemplar Texts for the Common Core see my blog at Elementary Matters.

Don't Be A Turkey!

It's me, Sally from Elementary Matters!

One of the Common Core Standards for second grade math is:

CCSS.Math.2.OA.2 Fluently add and subtract within 20 using mental strategies.

Once they have a good understanding of the 9 more trick, they're ready to play Turkey Nines!  It works like "Old Maid", so they pair off all the addends and sums with nines, and one of your little turkeys will end up being the "Thanksgiving Turkey".  This is one of those games that "even the losers are winners" because there's something about cooking a turkey that makes the little ones giggle.  Plus, they're getting better at that mental math!

When they've mastered the plus nines up through 20, there's a more challenging version of the game to work this standard:

CCSS.Math.Content.2.NBT.B.8 Mentally add 10 or 100 to a given number 100–900, and mentally subtract 10 or 100 from a given number 100–900.

Have fun practicing mental math, and don't be a turkey!  (At least, don't be a cooked turkey!)

You can download these items at my blog, Elementary Matters!

Honoring our Veterans with a Great Resource

Veterans' Day is near and dear to my heart. My husband is a veteran of 30 years in the military. During those years he lost several soldiers during Desert Storm. I can't imagine how difficult it is for the loved ones of soldiers in Afghanistan today. I decided to put together a packet called "Honoring Veterans' on Veterans' Day".

There is a Shared Reading Book called, "What is Veterans' Day?" 2 Reading texts and Comprehension Questions for 2nd and 3rd Grades and 2 sets of Picture/Word/ Fact Cards, 2 Sets of Graphic Organizers and Writing Prompts at the 2nd and 3rd grade levels. Just click on the image above to check it out.

In honor of our veterans I have a few free Veterans' Day activities for you. Just click on the image below not only to access your freebies but find more free resources for Veterans'Day activities.

Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students. Hope you will check out my blog and follow my TpT store.

Election Day - Child Style

I have mixed feelings about teaching Election Day with my students.  Of course, Election Day is an important day in our country.  We are choosing our leaders.  My little second graders certainly won't "get" the Electoral College process, but they do need to understand how an election works.

However, I'm sure you'll agree, this year's election is out of control.  The ads on TV are nasty and misleading.  People are very passionate about this election, and most feel quite strongly for their own candidate and against the other candidate.  There is a lot of anger.  I just don't want to go there with the children. (I don't want to see a fight break out in my classroom!  Kids tend to be as passionate as their parents about presidential candidates!)

My plan is to do some election day activities without getting into detail about any of the specific candidates. I've made the above freebie to practice common and proper nouns.  It has an election day theme, but never mentions the candidates.

New Hampshire has a very special way for the children to learn the voting process this time of year.  Check out my blog, Elementary Matters, to see what voting has to do with these books!

              

November Problem of the Day

Hello, dear friends!

It's Jeannie from The 2nd Grade Surprise.  Common core has came to my school like a lot of your schools as well.  I big  HUGE part of common core for math is word problems. YIKES!  My students have struggled with word problems in the past.  This year we have started a problem of the day.  I have seen such huge gains in their problem solving skills.  I made a November Problem of the Day flipchart to share.  It has a "November" theme to make word problems more fun.  The problems include addition and subtraction skills to 20 and counting coins to $1.00. Click on the picture below to download the flipchart.  Enjoy your Sunday, friends! :-)



Fluency and a Freebie

Hi!  I'm Sally from Elementary Matters.  I've been teaching about a 100 years.  (OK, actually 35) and I love it as much as I did when I was in my 20s.  I'm passionate about how the brain works, and I'm passionate about teaching reading.

These are the Common Core Standards for fluency in second grade:

Click image to download freebie.

2.RFS.4 Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
2.RFS.4a Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.
2.RFS.4b Read grade-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression.
2.RFS.4c Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.

As I look through the fluency standards for all the grades, they are almost word for word the same as above.

The experts tell us that fluency is directly related to comprehension.  Naturally, if a child is struggling to figure out the words in a text, it's going to be tough for them to get the meaning.  If the words flow smoothly, comprehension is more likely.

The experts define fluency with 4 phrases:

1. automaticity in word recognition
2. accurate word recognition
3. prosody, or expression
4. sufficient to permit comprehension

So, how do we build fluency?

• Practice both phonetic patterns as well as sight words. 
• Practice reading phrases and sentences a few words at a time. (Phrasing)
• Practice reading simple paragraphs with expression.  
• Oral Reading with a partner.  (using text of appropriate difficulty... "just right" text! 95 - 100% accuracy) 



Click image for Third Grade Dolch phrases.

• Monitored Independent Reading

Personally, I love having my kids read phrases with funny voices or with certain character traits.  We always manage to have some fun building our skills.

The above freebie is for the pre-primer Dolch level. HERE's a set for Primer Level.  HERE's the First Grade Set.  HERE is the Second Grade Set.  Click HERE for the Third Grade set.  Click HERE for the combination set of all phrases.