Sunny Days in Second Grade: common core

Showing posts with label common core. Show all posts

It's finished! I don't know if I work like a turtle or what, but this project has seriously been in the works for about six months. I promised it would be ready for the start of the school year and I think I made it just under the wire!

I get lots of questions about how I create my materials for tpt. The answer to that question would require a whole blog post on its own, which is exactly what I'm planning on doing. I actually took pictures of the progress of this pack with that post in mind. I think it's fun to see how things work behind the scenes and it might help some of you all considering branching out to tpt, so be on the lookout for that soon.

Ok, so for the final product. I chose 20 third grade CCSS that were applicable to a pencil/paper word work tasks and arranged them in an easy to read format that spirals in depth throughout the year. These are the 20 skills that you'll find on the third grade edition of my Common Core Weekly Word Work:

They are presented in the same format week after week, although as the year progresses, the difficulty of each task may change slightly. For example, for the first part of the year, multiple meaning words are addressed like this:

And later in the year, the same concept is addressed like this:

The 20 questions for each week are spread out over two pages, in this format:

I'm often asked how I use these in my room. Really, there are so many possibilities. I usually start out by introducing a few boxes a day, doing each part together over a week, until my kids understand what is expected in each part. There are certain boxes they can probably tackle independently right away, like alphabetical order, spelling, and phonics. Others may need more instruction and guidance, like multiple meaning words and quotation marks. Once the kids get the hang of these, I usually use them as morning work, homework, or a center. I allow the kids to collaborate and use reference materials, and then we review them together because the point for me is to deepen their under understanding and practice these skills.

I'm always amazed at how well they start to do on some concepts sometimes months before I actually explicitly teach the skill. They pick up so much just by being continually exposed to it throughout the year, that by the time the formal lesson comes up, they already have a basic understanding. I also love that they are constantly reviewing some of those other skills that we sometimes assume they can breeze though but still get tripped up on, like fact and opinion and reference and research skills.

This pack comes with 36 weeks worth of work (2 pages for each week, just like what you see above) and of course, all answer keys.

I do also have them for second grade, which you can see below and find HERE:

And I also have my first grade friends covered! You can see the first grade version below and find it on tpt HERE. (This one has a slightly different name, but its the same concept)

Each of the sets on tpt include a free week in the preview file, so you can check it out and see how you like it. I've already been asked about a fourth grade version and I really do want to work on that, but it most likely won't be in the very near future. Sorry!

Any questions, just ask! Thanks friends :)

SunnyDays

There is no clear theme to this post, hence the title. Mash up sounds all cool when other people use it to describe things, so I thought I'd give it a whirl although I'm pretty sure I'm using it in the wrong context. I usually try to tie things together with some kind of unifying theme, but that is just not happening today. And it was actually holding me back from blogging, so here I am Themeless in South Florida. Figured it beat Blog Post-less is South Florida...

So to start with, I've been doing some school shopping. I purchased these stools from Ikea for $5.99. They're called Marius if you want to look them up and they come in white, black, and this funky blue which is what I got. I'm hoping to use these at my reading table. I have permanent indentations in my shins from the kids swinging their feet under the table. I'm hoping these stools keep their feet on the ground. We shall see. Either that or I'm going to have to start coming to small group in full catcher's gear. Here are the stools:

Which will hopefully eliminate my need to dress like this:

I'll let you know how that goes. A cooler, crafter blogger than me might take those stools and wrap the legs with chevron washi-tape or sew little pillows for their little tushies, but we're going to go straight-up industrial Ikea in my room with these bad boys.

I also bought these from Really Good Stuff. I could have bought a designer purse for the amount I paid for a class set, so if you have them and don't like them, please don't tell me.

I bought those book boxes because I finally actually read The Daily 5 for myself. Everything I know about D5 is from reading other posts and seeing it in other people's classrooms. My husbands's school did a book study on it and he brought his copy home. I picked it up, started reading the first few pages and was hooked! Last summer, I read Laura Candler's Power Reading Workshop and implemented many of those strategies, which have similarities to D5 so I'm already in that mindset, which wasn't that far off from my core of beliefs to begin with. So, in short, I'm super excited to be a Daily 5 girl now, and I have the book boxes to prove it!

I also tried to hit up my local Targets to find some of the cool Dollar Spot stuff that everyone is sharing all over Instagram that I totally don't really need for any specific purpose, and this is what I found. This is two different Targets!! And I even went back to one of them the next night and still found it empty but I was too sad to even take a picture. Now I know how Old Mother Hubbard feels...

As for my TpT worky-work, I finished another set of Common Core Essentials for 2.NBT.3, which covers counting and representing numbers up to 999 in various forms. Here's a peek at what's included in it. You can click HERE to get it on tpt.

The feedback on these have been music to my ears - thank you my friends! I am definitely continuing the series. The next one will most likely be Operations and Algebraic Thinking, since we'll need those before the rest of the NBT standards. Currently, I'm taking a teeny weeny break from these and working on my third grade CCSS version of my Weekly Word Work because I promised so many people I'd have it done by the start of the new school year. I'm sticking to my promise, I promise!

Now this next thing, you're totally going to dig. It's a collaborative blog specifically 2nd and 3rd grade!

Nice right? I'm so excited to be part of this amazing group. So check out the blog and be sure to enter our grand opening giveaway here!

And to cap off all my randomness, a few days ago I asked you to come up with another caption for the following picture:

So many of the entries actually had me laughing out loud, but the clear-cut the winner of my caption contest is...

Congrats Suzanne! Just email me with anything from my store that you might be able to use and I'll send it your way!

SunnyDays

I buy a ton of amazing resources from TpT. Seriously, I'd be lost without it, not even speaking just as a seller. But I've found myself running into the same problem over and over. I'll buy an awesome pack of activities that revolve around a particular theme, like a holiday or something seasonal, and then find that I can't use all of the activities because they don't really correlate to what I'm doing at the moment. This is more of a problem in math. I can't put out a center that has them working on telling time or geometry when I haven't taught it yet and then when I am teaching it later in the year I don't want to pull out a center with pumpkins all over it!

So to remedy that, I've started a new series of products called Common Core Essentials. Each pack has activities that are directly correlated to one single Common Core standard so you can be sure that you'll be able to use every piece of the pack when you're teaching that standard, whether it's November or May. They're meant to complement whichever math curriculum you're using, but they're not directly aligned with any certain series.

I have two finished so far and I'm hard at work on the rest. I'm a little obsessed...
I began with the NBT standards because that's what we usually start with. So here's a peek at the first two. Set one is for 2.NBT.1 (which is now technically 2.NBT.A1.1a, 1b, 1c <--no kidding! The standards are slightly renumbered, but more on that in a few days)

And here's a peek at the set for 2.NBT.2. A lot of the elements are similar, but there are a few differences to keep things fresh for you and for the kids, and because different skills just need to be approached and practiced differently.

You can find both in my store at tpt. 2.NBT.1 is HERE and 2.NBT.2 is HERE.

They're also both in my blog shop here as well.

My next set of EZ Prep centers is just about ready too. Pretty productive for my first week off! I'm such a nerd. I have always had a real love of creating my own teaching materials, long before my involvement with tpt, so spending my summer working on things like this is actually so much fun for me. I'm going to fit in some reading for pleasure, some relaxation, and some travel. We're actually headed to Texas next week for the big ISTE technology conference. Can't wait to see someplace besides Florida! I'm not the best flyer. It's actually been about 7 years since I was on a plane...but dang it, I'm going to get over this and enjoy this trip! See y'all soon!

SunnyDays

My best selling items on TpT are my CCSS Assessment Packs. Not to toot my own horn, but the feedback I get on those packs always humbles me - in a big way.

Mixed in with all that yummy feedback, I've gotten some questions and suggestions. A couple of people mentioned that they weren't sure of the purpose of the posters for each standard. A few of you even suggested that they'd appreciate them more if they were in kid-friendly language. Guess what? I totally agree! Here's the first of the major updates I made:

The other thing that many people asked for was a second test for each standard so they have a pre- and post-test. Well, I did ya one better. The pack now includes THREE assessments for each standard! Now you can have a pre-, post- and extra practice page. I also made a few minor adjustments to some of the original assessments. Just little things I noticed could be a bit better after using them with my own class.

Another tweak I made was in the checklist. Originally, the checklist spanned two pages. I also noticed that when I punched holes to add it to my planbook, I was cutting into the standards. So I shrunk it down, fit it on one page and moved it over. I print one page for each kid and just jot down the date in the box. I also keep all the assessments in the same binder to have some proof. You know how that is these days with RtI and such...

And just as before, the new assessments all have answer keys.

I like when the answer key matches the page, so that's what I did with these.

So, what does this mean for you? Well, if you already purchased the original pack for $8 which you can see here, you will be getting all of these upgrades for FREE once I upload the new version. All you'll have to do is go into the "My Purchases" tab and download the revised copy after Sunday.

If you have not yet purchased it, I'm going to give you some time to get it at the $8 price as well. Once I list the new version, I'll be raising the price to $12.50 to reflect the revised content and additional assessments. However, I won't be doing that until late Sunday night. That means you can buy it now at the original price and then download the new version after Sunday which is chock full of new content!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

I thought this was a perfect post to link up to this new linky! Stop by and see what else is new!

P.S. If you're looking for a similar assessment for first grade, click here and for third grade click here!

SunnyDays

I have been super busy at work in my little teacher workshop (which also doubles as my dining room table) on a few new projects that I'm excited to share with you!

First up is my March Printables Pack. I started making these back in October and they've really evolved! This month's pack is full of all things spring and St. Patty's Day. I've included some of the same activities that I've gotten great feedback on, like the calendar page and wall of words. There's also a fun writing activity and addition and subtraction practice which should mirror what second and certainly third graders are doing right about now. In total, there are 19 pages of printable goodies for you! Each page has the CCSS for 1, 2 and 3 as appropriate right on the page to help you with planning purposes and of course all answer keys are included. It's on sale through tonight. Just click HERE to check it out.

And now for a project that I have been working on non-stop, every day, all night and each weekend day straight for at least the last month. It's an updated version of my Weekly Word Wizards. I changed the name to Second Grade Common Core Weekly Word Work for a few reasons. For one, I wanted it to be more obvious to people what they were looking at. Word Wizard sounded fun to me and I had the cute little wizard graphic, but it wasn't very descriptive. Secondly, I've had to make a second set of Word Wizards without the wizards because the element of magic involved in the wizard was not acceptable at some schools. That was actually surprising to me at first, but I can understand it and I really didn't have a problem making a modification like that.

I would also get lots of questions about what grade level the Word Wizards were for and if they were Common Core aligned. Truth be told, the original set was made before CCSS was the big buzzword and although lots the skills were the same, the way they were presented needed to shift more in line with common core. For example, the way prefixes and suffixes were addressed in the Word Wizard sets was just to have students identify which part of the word was an affix and which was the base word. In this new set, it's presented a bit differently. For example for prefixes the students are asked, "Which word means to read again" and they are given the choice between reread and unread. Some CCSS were not addressed at all before, like non-fiction text features which now appear in this set. And some skills weren't quite so necessary anymore, like antonyms and synonyms. Here's a list of exactly what is covered in the new and improved Common Core Weekly Word Work:

If that's hard to read, just download the preview.

It's in there too along with a free week to try with your class.

With my Word Wizards, I created and released them one set at a time. Every few days I would get an email or question about offering them as a bundle. So this time, I decided to complete the entire set at once and release it as a yearlong unit. I guess doing this midyear isn't great timing - but I've also had a few people ask me about making enough to use daily, so this might help a bit in that area. It's also priced as a bundle. Listed individually, they would be $5.75 for a nine-week set, totaling $23 for the year. This set is listed at $19.50.

If you've been using my original Word Wizards, this might be a nice way to kick up the intensity for the end of the year. The format is the same, so students should be able to transition to it easily enough. I'm working on third grade now and fourth is looking more like a summer project at this point. If you've been using the first grade versions, I think those will be getting a facelift too, but since they are already CCSS aligned, the content won't change at all and you'll be able to just download the update when the time comes.

Any questions, just ask! Have a fantastic work week ahead :)

SunnyDays

I'm back from my happy place. It was very, very happy as usual. Good news is that I'll be going back over Memorial Day weekend, so I'm not even that sad about having to come home! Unbelievably, I can go in next week and start getting my room ready already. How did that happen?? I still have a few more weeks before we officially go back, but man this summer surely zoomed by!

So, on to a cool idea I'm really hoping will work well when I'm back into the teaching groove. This was an activity from my Common Core training last month. I don't think the actual activity was meant for us to do with the kids, it was more of a way to get us up and moving around the room as participants of the training, but I really liked the activity and think it could work with the kids.

It's sort of like a jigsaw cooperative learning method. First, our table group was presented with a piece of chart paper and four separate problem solving activities on small sheets of paper. For the purposes of this training, they were from various grade levels. We had to fold the chart paper into fourths and then glue each one of the four smaller sheets onto it.

Then, we individually worked on the problem that we ended up sitting in front of. I got a fourth grade fraction problem! (bad seat choice that day...)

The next part scared the bejezzus out of me when I pictured it happening in my actual classroom. We RIPPED the paper apart! I'm sorry, but scissors will be used when I do this in my room. Can you imagine them trying to rip this into four equal parts? Raise your hand if you can see it looking more like confetti when they were done ripping. Yeah, me too.

Then the fun part. We had to walk around the room with our piece of the paper and find the other members who also had the same problem. Then we compared our answers and looked at the different problem solving methods we used. You can see in my page above, I had the wrong answer! *hanging my head in shame* BUT the cool thing about me having the wrong answer, was that another member with the wrong answer tried to explain why her answer was correct -but in the middle of her explanation, she realized her mistake. Then someone who had the right answer explained to us both how she came about it and it was a cool pictorial representation that made it so easy! That's right about when I fell in love with this strategy.

I don't know if I'd try this in the first couple of weeks of school, but after you have your routines and structures in place, I think this strategy could really become a staple. This might also be another great way to use task cards. My brain is spinning with different activities that I might be able to use with this strategy. I'll keep you posted :)

And in other news, my ELA Common Core Assessment Pack is done! Feel free to check it out here if you're interested.