Welcome to the first of four days of Air & Weather freebies! Today's focus is all about clouds! CLOUDS Living in the Pacific Northwest, clouds can be found almost every day in the spring, which is why it's the perfect time to teach this unit. One of the first things we do is fill out the first two columns of this KWL chart about clouds {courtesy of Kristen Smith}: Once I have gathered data about what students already know, we move onto gathering more information. Some of my favorite cloud books: The Cloud Book by Tomie de ... read more
Air & Weather Freebies
One of my favorite units to teach every year is the Air & Weather unit. Our district uses the FOSS Science Kits and I love how many hands-on activities there are for kids. However, over the years I have added a few extra activities to use during this unit and I wanted to share these activities with you. In this series of Air and Weather posts, you'll find activities for clouds, songs & poems, games, art activities, and more. Enjoy! Air & Weather - All About Clouds Clouds are a fascinating part of the weather ... read more
Geometry Games and Ideas for 1st & 2nd Graders
I was busy developing my new Geometry games pack, but I needed a break. So I hopped online and scoped out Pinterest and Bloglovin'. I got a little distracted by some amazing art projects online that I could easily tie in with our Geometry unit. Some of these even lend themselves to writing and science, too! Here are a few that caught my eye:{sources}Queen of the 1st Grade Jungle (Watercolor + Foil)Art Projects for Kids (Cubes in Space)Broogly (Mondrian)Rdannen Portfolio (Colorful Geometric Shapes)Babble Dabble Do (STEM ... read more
Mother’s Day Cards
The dilemma arrives year after year....what will my students make for Mother's Day this year? In the age of Pinterest, it's hard not to get bogged down and feel the pressure of one-upping the previous year's gifts. However, I am emotionally and physically exhausted this year. Have I mentioned that I'm almost 8 months pregnant, too? I needed to streamline and simplify. If you're anything like me, keep reading to see what we made this year. I knew I wanted to make cards. I also knew I wanted to include 2 key items: a recipe for a great ... read more
Walking Water
We have been working on making predictions in science. Last week my students had a great opportunity to make a prediction, make observations, and practice measurement skills. The students watched water walk. Here's how it works. You will need the following materials:2 clear cupswaterfood coloringpaper towelsomething to prop one cup up higher than the other (we used dictionaries)Put a few drops of food coloring in the bottom of one cup. Add water until it is close to the top. Place the water filled cup on the higher ... read more
Photos of Our Measurement Mania!
We have been elbows deep into our measurement study for almost 2 weeks and we still have a week to go. I've mentioned in several previous posts that we have had to start introducing some Common Core Standards now for fear we will not get to them in our new curriculum.I created this pack to help my grade level team with our measurement unit. Below I will show you several of the activities in action with 2nd grade students. First up was introducing measurement tools and how to use them (this is not included in the pack):You can ... read more
Graphing in 2nd Grade
Our 2nd grade team has been working hard at introducing graphing to our students. Our district is piloting a new curriculum this year. Since we got a very late start with using the program, we know we will not finish teaching everything before the school year is over. We looked ahead and are tacking the measurement strand. For the past 2-3 weeks, we have focused on graphing. The majority of our time has been spent on bar graphs and pictographs (the students will be exposed to line plots soon).Our focus has been on ... read more
Scavenger Hunt for Nonfiction Text Features
We have reached the halfway point in our nonfiction text features study. It was time to slow down and see if students could identify the features within a piece of nonfiction text. I have a subscription to Time for Kids (TFK) magazines for 2nd grade students this year. A collection started piling up in October and November. I wanted to save some of the magazines for our nonfiction study. I'm so glad I did!First, we reviewed our anchor chart (you can see part of that chart here). Then I made a quick ... read more
Captions, Labels, Tables, and Graphs
In the past two weeks we added to our Nonfiction Text Features hunt by identifying captions, labels, tables, and graphs in our texts. Here is a current pic of our anchor chart with all of the updated features: Here's a close-up of the pages attached to the chart. Each of these pages matches the ones the kids are putting into their scrapbooks.Second graders often get captions and labels mixed up because both features are found near photographs and illustrations. Here is how I try to distinguish between the two for my ... read more
Gobstoppers Experiment
We have been making predictions in science. I have been using a unit from Kristen Smith. I thought this would be a great addition. I saw this idea on Pinterest and followed the idea to its source: Steve Spangler Science and knew it would be a perfect addition to the unit.Keep reading to find out how to see this:A couple of days ago I explained the experiment to the students and allowed them time to make predictions. Many thought the Gobstoppers would rotate around the bowl, switch places with each other, or ... read more
