Guest blogger: Casey from Second Grade Math Maniac

Two days till my birthday, people. Two days. Until then, I'm out out the clear blue sea, sitting by lovely water, drinking tasty drinks with little umbrellas, and using a crowbar to pry my hunnybun out of our cabin and away from the TV.

Unless you have seen otherwise on the news. Keep in mind, I scheduled these posts in advance, and it is entirely possible that, at this point, I am being held hostage by pirates, gallantly fencing them with a ruler with one hand, and holding a paper bag for my hunny to hyperventilate into with the other. Or I could be bobbing along on a small orange floatie in the middle of big blue ocean, signaling for passing planes with my hand mirror. You may know things about me now that I didn't know then.

Given that I'm potentially experiencing these high levels of trauma, I am incredibly thankful for Casey at Second Grade Math Maniac. She's written an awesome (and fun) post  that is sure to be useful to you with your new naughties next year.



Hi all! This is Casey from Second Grade Math Maniac! Thanks Chrissy for letting me guest post today! :) 

Do you ever feel like this?:

You were supposed to imagine that you were the teacher in this scenario. I know that this is how my students feel some days. Well, before I worked as a teacher I worked for this amazing organization:

Let me just say that almost EVERYTHING I know about classroom management I learned from the Y. It was an AWESOME experience and something that I would HIGHLY recommend for a teen who may want to become a teacher one day. 

One thing I learned from the Y that I use on a DAILY basis are "Attention Getters". These are cute call and response phrases that let the students know you are about to say something important.

I use them both during instructional AND non-instructional blocks. They save me a lot of time and help my classroom have an atmosphere that encourages fun. I have used these phrases with kids ages 4 - 12 and they are effective with ALL age groups.

These work better for me than Give Me 5, 1,2,3 Eyes on Me, Class . . . Yes, or any other tactic I have tried. You have to use something that the kids WANT to respond to. 

Every kid wants to shout out Noodle Soup, and that's the truth.

Happy Blogging. :)

Guest blogger: Krista from the Second Grade Superkids!

Happy Fourth of July to my American readers. It's also fourth of July in other places, but I don't think you care much about that.

I'm so impressed to see so many posts about instruction over the summer. I have had a bit of a turbulent summer (something I will surely blog about in the next couple months) and am struggling to think about instruction right now. Especially because right now, I should be  on a boat! A BIG BOAT! Far, far away. Thinking about nothing.

Nothing.

Oh, the blessings of time.

Anyway, in order to help me think about nothing, Krista from the Second Grade Superkids has generously volunteered to guest post for me today. You won't be disappointed. This is a valuable instructional post. You're gonna love it.

Rockin’ Readers Theatre!

Hey all! I’m Krista from “The Second Grade Superkids”, and I am so excited to be posting for Chrissy while she is off enjoying her vacay!

Do you all use Readers Theatre in your classrooms? If not, you should! Readers Theatre is a wonderful way for students to build their fluency and expression while reading. Not to mention, it gives them the opportunity practice presenting something that they have worked on in front of an audience.

In my classroom, my students do two large Readers Theatre presentations each school year (combined of course with smaller ones that I like to disperse throughout my guided reading time with them). Our first presentation is around the time right before winter break. I tend to do the same plays each year for these – “The Mitten” by Jan Brett and “The Gingerbread Boy” by Paul Galdone, and then depending on how many students I have that year, I may add in another winter themed play. The second big presentation we have is at the end of the school year. For this one, I generally snag copies of Readers Theatre texts from our book room that are on my students’ current levels. You can find multiple resources online and wonderful reference books filled with plays as well if you do not have these available to you.  As I teach in a dual language classroom, my students usually participate in plays in Spanish and in English and this gives them the opportunity to continue to build their literacy skills in the second language. Not to mention, Readers Theatre is a wonderful means of fostering comprehension and vocabulary skills for our language learners as well!

Once we have practiced our plays, created our masks, and props etc. I invite a few other classrooms in our building to come be our audience. The kids love performing for their friends, and it is a great opportunity as well for other students to see how much fun reading can be! Once the students finish their presentations, we always ask our student audience members for constructive feedback. I ask them to share with my readers what they believe they did well and what they could possibly improve upon to make it even better the next time. I am telling you- it never ceases to amaze me how spot on and observant the students are.

For our final presentation, all of the students’ parents are invited to attend. Once finished, I ask the parents to stay and spend time reading with their students. This is always one of my favorite activities of the year as there is just a flood of productive, reading activity taking place in my classroom, and it is just the most beautiful sight! The students LOVE it, and it gives the parents the opportunity to not only see what their child is doing in the classroom, but also to be a part of their education!

Some great resources I have found for Readers Theatre in the classroom include:

1. 25 Just-Right Plays for Emergent Readers by Scholastic (this comes in Spanish too!)

2. Fabulously Funny Idiom Plays by Scholastic (great for ELLs)

3. Non-Fiction Readers Theatre for Beginning Readers by Anthony Fredericks (great content based passages for grades 1-3)

4. Readers Theater by Evan-Moor Educational Publishers (these come specifically for each grade level)

5. Readers Theater for Building Fluency by Scholastic (this is a great teacher reference text)

What texts do you use for Readers Theatre in your classroom? What types of presentations do you do? I would love to hear about it!

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Guest blogger: Natalie from Teachery Tidbits!

So I'm gettin tanned (hopefully) and drinking tasty things with umbrellas (definitely). But never fear- Natalie from Teachery Tidbits has stepped in to do a guest post about some great resources that you definitely want to know about for your classroom. I think my favorite is Wordle, and I'm completely hooked on my word cloud that Natalie made for me. Keep reading to find out how to make your own!


Hey yall! Natalie here from Teachery Tidbits :)

When Chrissy said that she needed some guests, I jumped at the chance! I love being able to share some ideas and freebies with a new audience :)

Today, I wanted to share some awesome new websites that I have come across lately. I hope that you guys will find them useful in your classroom!

First up is Wordle. Ever heard of it?

Wordle in this awesome website that creates word clouds. What I like most about this site is that you can type in any url and it will make a word cloud from that site! You can also type in words, and it will put them together for you.

Here is the one that was made from my blog...

Awesome right? Apparently, I use the word 'yall' waaaaay too much :) It also looks like I am obsessed with lunch...ha! But that is actually because my last guest blogger talked about lunch choices. I am also pretty stoked that the word 'freebie' is so prevalent :)

Here is the one that was made from Chrissy's blog...

Look at her dominant words: love, kids, read, book...

Can you tell the Chrissy is an amazing teacher???

This website is so much fun to play around with. You can customize the word clouds by changing the font, colors, and direction of the words.

How can you use this website in your classroom? Here are some ways that I envision using this with my littles...

*Spelling words
*Adjectives
*Characteristics of historical figures
*Gifts (for students OR parents)
*Classroom decor

There are soo many other ways to use this cool resource!

The next website I wanted to share with you is Class Tools.

This website lets you create your own games, quizzes, activites, and diagrams. It has tons of templates to choose from! You can create your own resourses, save them online, and print them off.

My favorite thing about this website is something they have called FakeBook. It allows students to create a fake Facebook page! I imagine using this to help study historical figures. Students could choose a figure, create their profile, write some of their favorite quotes, add their work history, update their status, etc.

I mean, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would put as his status???

Vampires, beware!

Ha!

I cannot wait to use this website with my kiddos next year!

I have a ton of other resources that I am currently investigating, so come on over and stop by to check them out!

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