Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today we started our unit on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by reading one of my favorite books about him and his childhood...A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr. by David A. Adler.  Each year I have a discussion with my second grade babes to try to explain what an amazing hero Dr. King was for us all. It never fails... I always get those same puzzled expressions from my kids wondering why anyone would treat another person differently based on skin color.  It always touches my heart as we discuss the differences in their lives today compared to so many children just a few years ago. 

I always introduce my standard MLK vocabulary words on the first day of this unit:  laws, protest, rally, civil rights, boycott, etc...  but the words that I stress the most on this day are love, compassion, and peace.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the model for those three words and I always lift his name up with examples of these.

As we read books together this week and watch VIDEOS showing the life of Dr. King from a boy to adulthood, the class will keep a timeline of his life in addition to comparing their lives with his. Here are some books that I will share with my class this week...

Tomorrow I will use a compare/contrast sheet for my students to compare their lives to the life of young Martin.

  

Click HERE if you'd like to use these as you celebrate the amazing life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with your students.   I'd love for you to share this with your FB friends or Pinterest followers.  You can watch for future teaching goodies/ideas on my Pinterest boards (http://pinterest.com/sassyinsecond/). 

Have an amazing week, friends!-Yvonne

100th Day of School!

Happy new year, sweet friends!  This one is starting off great for me. I hope it is for you, too!  As I was looking through my units planning for this next month I pulled out my 100th day of school folder.   This day is great fun for all of us!  When I taught first grade we always enjoyed grouping our 100's day collections, seeing how many times we could do things (clap hands, bounce balls, etc...) in 100 seconds, and eating our 100's day snack!  We have a great time in second grade even though the kids are beyond grouping tens to make 100.  We practice skills such as:  Graphing how many times you can do physical movements (such as jumping jacks) in 100 seconds on a line plot, word problems involving 100 cents and making change from $1.00, solving equations on a hundreds chart, measuring items around the school that are 100 centimeters or less, and much more!  I appreciate you guys so much for following me here on Sassy in Second.  I wanted to share some of these ideas with you!  Click HERE if you'd like to download these and use them.

Below are some great books you can check out on Amazon if you need 100's day books!  It is always cool to see who can read 100 books in 100 days as well and celebrate that reading incentive with awards on the 100th day of school!  I'd LOVE a video or a Smartboard lesson on the 100th day of school.  Let me know if you know of anything that would be appropriate for my second graders!   I am looking forward to next week and hope you all have a marvelous 100th day with your kiddies!  Thanks!-Yvonne

Wow! What a Party!

Merry Christmas all!  I am so loving my first day of Christmas break!  I survived the last week of school and can say that my Christmas party with my second grade babes yesterday was awesome!  My room mom did a FABULOUS job of organizing everything and the kids had a ball!  I have some pics here of my parent gifts that we made this year.  I can't take credit for them...one of my second grade buddies was making this with her class and I just fell in love with them and had to make them.  Check out our Santa pots!

You need:     gold, black, and white pipe cleaners,
                   smaller pots (2 per child)
                   red and tan acrylic paint
                   google eyes
                   tiny pink balls for the nose
                   white foam sheet to cut out eyebrows and mustache
                   fluffy boa for cutting beard strips
                   tacky glue and hot glue gun
                   mints to fill the pots

They really were fun to make!  I wish you could have seen my classroom once we cut into those feather boas!  We had feathers flying EVERYWHERE!  The kids loved it!

I want to wish everyone a holiday filled with joy in your hearts!  Have a very Merry Christmas!   I will love my time off with my family but want to share a sample of a packet I hope to finish before the first of the year!  I am planning to make themed based (by the month) Common Core Daily Practice packets each month.  I am almost finished with my January packet that will include math and language arts practice sheets.  Watch for this soon and here is a sample page for you use with your students. 

 Again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!-Yvonne

Gingerbread Fun and a Freebie!

Merry Christmas friends!  I hope you are enjoying your holiday season with your students.  Remember to check out Lory's Page for the 12 Days of Christmas giveaway that is going on.  This is such a fun time of the year for us to work with children but if you are like me you are getting ready for Christmas! I want to give you a chance to grab some Christmas activities at a great price to get you through these next two weeks and as you plan for January.  I am having a 20% off sale on all of my Christmas and winter items that will include my newest unit…Gingerbread Man for a Second Grade Classroom!  My students have loved reading different versions of gingerbread stories and completing the math and literacy activities in this packet.  Today we went to two Kindergarten classrooms and had a blast doing our reader's theatre of the Gingerbread Man.  So much fun!  Check out my preview and I hope it works for you. 

  One of my favorite activities that I do each year with my students is to make stained glass windows.  They are the EASIEST and cheapest Christmas craft idea that you can imagine.  Check out below how to do them.  The templates are in included in this packet.

I've also been working on getting our Christmas party organized.  One of the things I do each year as a gift for my kiddos is a Christmas Coupon Booklet.   They absolutely LOVE them and they are FREE!  If you'd like to use this idea just click here.  Have a wonderful weekend friends!-Yvonne :)

Attention 2nd Grade Teachers...12 Days of Christmas FREEBIES

Merry Christmas!

  I am so excited!  Lory Evans from Lory's Page and Amy Lemons from Step Into Second Grade have asked me to join in on an exciting Christmas giveaway with a group of amazing 2nd grade bloggers!

We are thrilled to announce that beginning December 1st (tomorrow), 12 of us bloggers will wish 12 lucky teachers a very Merry Christmas!!!

Listed below are some of the 12 bloggers that have chosen their favorite unit to give away... not once... but 12 times... for 12 days... to 12 teachers!

That's right... you might win 12 different units created by these wonderful ladies to use in your classroom during the 2013 school year.

We are so grateful for our blog-ships and we want to thank our followers and hopefully develop new blog-ships for the upcoming year.

December 1st is Saturday... we will accept entries bright and early... then announce     the December 1st winner at 10:00 PM Saturday night.

We'll start over December 2nd and continue through the 12th of December.

All you'll need to do is leave a bit of cheer with your email each day on Lory's Page.

Be sure to stop by and follow these amazing blogs... they are always sharing terrific 2nd grade ideas and many freebies.

See you Saturday!!!

Amy

Monica

Denise

Hope

 Yvonne

Anna

Kylie

Kate

Savvy in Second

Can't wait till tomorrow! Have a great Friday night friends!-Yvonne

Cyber Monday Plus Tuesday TpT Sale!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I am off to the grocery store (YES... on Wednesday the day before Thanksgiving) to tackle the crowds and hope everything is not sold out!  Before I head out I wanted to tell you about a great sale coming up on TpT!  Monday and Tuesday (Nov. 26th and 27th) all of the items in my store will be 20% off and TpT will offer an additional discount on sale prices!  Just enter the code CMT12 and you could buy your teaching packets up to 28% off!  I wanted to give you plenty of time to shop over your Thanksgiving break to fill your shopping carts!  To celebrate the sale I've created a FREEBIE Christmas center...Christmas Penguin Prefix or Suffix Sort!  It is a center similar to the those in my new Merry Christmas Common Core Math and Literacy Centers.  I'd love for you to click on the pictures below to preview my centers along with some of my other Christmas fun activities.   I want to say thanks to Michelle (3 AM Teacher) for her great button above advertising our TpT sale!  Have a great holiday and enjoy your days off from school!-Yvonne

Check out some of these great deals from these amazing teachers as well!  

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!-Yvonne

Color Coding for Language Arts!

Hi friends!  Just curious...how many of you have ever tried "color coding" your language arts instruction?  I just finished my newest packet (click here to see it) and couldn't wait to share it with you all! What do I mean by color coding? Well, each student has a complete set of colored pencils that they use to "code" their language arts skills and parts of speech in their writings, class chart stories, and sentences.
When I started teaching I was fortunate enough to be with a very energetic mentor teacher.  Whew...she was wide open "wild" with the energy of a wild child!  I'll never forget her (really...she could have been a stand-up comedian).  She taught first grade and one of her daily routines was to do a morning "chart story" and act it out with her students.  I was amazed at how well this routine of "clapping our ending marks" and "saluting our capital letters" helped our students retain the skills.  I followed her lead and used this technique when I started teaching and taught first grade.  My students LOVED this idea of acting out their grammar skills and following charts for coding their nouns, verbs, adjectives, and more!  Here is a sneak peak of my packet...Language Arts Code, Count, and Tally Tickets based on the same idea but designed to follow Common Core Standards:

 There are sentences and language prompts coded with the CCSS standards.  Each ticket has a writing prompt for students to write in their journals! 

On another note, I've been finishing up my fall conferences and I have LOVED using my Common Core Notebooks with my students!  I have to brag on my students for their first "student-led conferences" and their organizational skills.  I've loved hearing my students share with their parents their evidence of learning the standards and skills checklists.  Wow...it has made conferences so much easier!!! Yes, it was work at the beginning to train the kids with the notebooks but now it is all worth it!  They love writing new standards down on recording forms and filing work samples as evidence.

We are working now on goal setting and weekly reflection tickets.  My students are very familiar with goal tickets because we use them with our Common Core notebooks but I would like to try a weekly reflection/goal sheet.  I found this freebie I really like from some fabulous teachers at "Fab in Fourth" on TpT!  Check out their "Week at a Glance" sheet available for us all to use!  I am starting this with my kiddos this week and hope it will help them with goal setting and reflection of learning for each week in Reading, Math, and Science/Social Studies.  I'll keep you posted and let you know how our "week at a glance" reflection is going.  Thanks to the ladies at Fab in Fourth! Thanks so much friends and have a great week!-Yvonne :)