Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs!

     It is all about Dinosaurs this month in my second grade classroom.  Rawrrrrrrrrrrr!  Our unit began right after we returned from Spring Break.  I introduced the unit with a very sorry looking "egg" made out of a brown paper bag (I just can't bring myself to paper mache anymore).  Inside was a triceratops puppet.  We had done some inferring previously during our read alouds, but I think we need to keep working on that strategy (as you can see from some of their answers after each clue). 

The idea for this chart was inspired by one Deanna Jump posted on her blog.

     After discovering our unit of study we dove into it by reading Professor Potts' book, Uneversaurus.  This is an excellent book that explains how we know what dinosaurs looked like even though no human has ever seen one.  After reading the book we used our imaginations, bubble wrap, white butcher paper, sponge rollers and yellow, magenta, turquoise and black Crayola tempera paint to mix colors and create our own dinosaur skin.  The kids loved this!  We then traced one of three dinosaur patterns onto our skin to create our own version of a dinosaur.

     This week we are also learning about fossils and did a mini dinosaur dig in the classroom.  Again, my students LOVED this!  A couple of years ago I found a great replica of a T-Rex skeleton at Costco of all places.  I layered the "fossils" in a clear tote with potting soil and let these budding scientists have at it.  My class is small this year (15 cutie pies) and two were absent today so I broke them into 3 groups.  We had "diggers," "recorders," and "washers."  Each group rotated through each job.  In order to give everyone a chance to discover a fossil I had to stay on top of the rotation of the first two groups.  By the third group they were on their own.  I love standing back and watching kids discover and learn without me in the way.  The "washsers" started trying to figure out how to assemble the pieces.  They kept encouraging the "diggers" to keep digging for fossils they thought they still needed.  Then there was a whole conversation between the "recorders" about how archeologists don't always find all the bones they need to assemble the skeleton.

     It was pretty exciting...to say the least.  Stay tuned for more of our dino discoveries.

Smilebox

     I have been experimenting with various slideshow programs recently.  Here is a slideshow I made using Smilebox.  They give you a lot of choices with their free subscription.  I have also used Animoto and like it when I don't want to put very much text.  It took me about 5 minutes to make this slideshow.  Most of my time was spent choosing which photos I wanted to use.

A slideshow design by Smilebox

Homemade Finger Paints

We have been on Spring Break this week and I have finally had some time to explore the homemade art recipes from the PreKinders Blog . On Thursday my 3 and 6 year old sons helped me make some homemade finger paints. We had a lot of fun and couldn't believe how cool the colors turned out!  Here are some pictures and some insights we had while making the paints.

Here we are mixing the flour and cold water together.  It took a little time to get all the lumps out.

As the flour and water began to heat up on the stove it got pretty lumpy.  I thought I had ruined the recipe but it was just the beginning of the solution coming together to make a thick paste.  The recipe said to keep stirring until the paste became clear.  Eventually my arm got tired from stirring the thick paste so ours ended up opaque rather than clear.  

We divided up the paste and then did some color mixing with Schilling Neon Food Coloring.  The boys LOVED this part!

Here are the paints we made.  We had enough for 7 different colors, but I ran out of plastic containers.  I purchased the containers at the Dollar Tree and they came with lids which was handy.

Here are the artists at work and some of the finished products.  We painted on white construction paper and let our paintings dry over night.  The paper curled quite a bit on the paintings that had "thick" applications.  We put them under heavy books to flatten them out.  Next time we get the paints out we will paint on poster board.  The paints dry with a glossy sheen which we liked very much.  After 3 days the paints were still usable. 

Thanks a Million!

I have a quote on my refrigerator uttered by Abraham Lincoln that says, "Whatever you are, be a good one."  I don't know how many times I have stood at my kitchen sink and read this thinking that he had no idea how many things a modern day woman would be trying to be "good at."  That the quote is noble, but unattainable.  And then a split second later I think, what a DUNCE!  Pull yourself together woman.  Your first world "problems" pale in comparison to what this man faced!  But, it was reading this quote on March 16th that put my Slice of Life posts on hiatus.  I stood in my p.j.'s at one o'clock in the morning staring at the fridge.  In that moment I realized that I was trying to do to much and was not being a "good one" in multiple departments.  My children were running amuck, my husband was starting to growl a little, my house was a mess and I was not rockin' it in the classroom.  I was tired and it showed.  My short lived adventure into this wonderful community of writer's was intoxicating and keeping me up way past my bedtime.  I had to make a choice.  I couldn't quite figure out how to be good at making my posts, reading posts (I could never just read 3!) and getting enough zzzzzzzzzz's.  I mentally boxed with myself  for a few days for being such a loser.  It was just 31 days right?  Eventually I admitted defeat and came to grips with the fact that I would not be able to continue the challenge.  I will spend some time trying to figure out what I can do differently next time, and hopefully, be a "good one" when it comes to the challenge next spring.  I learned so much and the experience has invigorated my teaching of writing in the classroom. A special thanks to all of you who shared your writing and encouraged me with your comments.

Photograph by Will, age 3

Lost

     So I was standing in the hall today waiting for my son to get out of school.  All of a sudden a great lead to a story about sitting in the snow while my 3 year old napped in my lap in the middle of a ski run popped into my head.  I reached blindly into my purse and felt around for a pen.  Check.  Then I searched for a piece of paper.  I was sure there would be a pad of post-its in there somewhere.  Nope.  No post-its.  However, I did find my checkbook.  I pulled it out.  Nothing fancy.  Just the checks.  I flipped it over and scribbled down my thoughts.  When I was finished I looked up to see one of the other parents smiling at me.  "Paying bills?" she asked.  I giggled.  "No, just had a great idea for a story.  I didn't want to forget about it."  I dropped the checkbook back in my purse just as my son came bounding out of the classroom, all smiles.


     Hours later I sit here at my desk.  I have spent two hours cleaning my classroom and am ready to sit down and write my slice of life.  I walk over to my purse, open it and start digging around for my checkbook.  Oh yeah, I had taken it out to write a check for Eli's t-shirt.  Hmmmmm.  I find myself back at my desk.  No papers to shuffle through.  No checkbook.  No lead.  Bummer.

Ah ha! Momments

Ah ha! moments I have had since participating in the Slice of Life Writing Challenge.

1. Being part of a writing community is f-u-n, FUN!

2. Positive feedback from my peers inspires me to write again and again and again.

3. Sometimes I can't think of anything to write...until I read what somebody else has written.

4. Making personal connections to other peoples stories is cool.

5. Taking risks as a writer is exciting.

6. It is easier to teach and inspire young writer's when you walk the walk and talk the talk.

Second Grade Spelling Tools

     Second grade writer's need tools.  Practical tools.  When I am writing, whether it be an email, note to parents or my SOL I either have a dictionary handy or my web browser open and ready to search for that word whose spelling escapes me.  I try to point this out to my students regularly.  When I make a mistake or know I am not certain of a words spelling I bring it to my students attention and model how I go about fixing or learning from my mistake.  

     Here are a few of the tools I have found motivate and encourage second grade writer's to move past their fear of misspelling words (which seems to stop them dead in their tracks so many times!) and get down to the business of putting their incredible stories on the page.

1. I teach students to break the word into syllables and write one syllable at a time.  I also encourage them to write a word three different ways (using the different letter combinations they know for making the same sound) and choose the one that looks best.  I have a cute poster I made with these strategies on it to remind students to use them.  Of course it is on my work computer so I will have to post a link to it tomorrow.

2. I give students a form called "I'm not afraid of my words!" to keep in their writing folders.   When they have a big "juicy" word they are trying to spell they write it in the left hand column of their paper.  When I come to conference with them they show me any words they tried to spell and then I write the word correctly in the right hand column.  Afterword we discuss the smart things they did as a speller and the part they have to work on for next time.  I believe this is a Katie Wood Ray strategy.

3. An office.  Students can grab an "office" anytime they need one.  The office has the first 100 sight words they learned in first grade, long and short vowel sounds, beginning blends, word families and our second grade sight word/vocabulary word list which includes number words, days of the week and months of the year.  

What kind of spelling tools do you provide your students?