It's Feeling More Like Fall!

Ahh...it is finally cooling down!  Yesterday I rocked my new mustard colored deep v-neck sweater to our neighborhood block party.  It felt sooo good to wear skinny jeans and a sweater, drink a little cider, and sit around a bonfire.  Bring on all things fall!

This week we are diving into beginning of the year assessments.  We have a math assessment, three writing prompts examining narrative, opinion, and information styles, and the SRI!  (Did I mention, it's only second grade?!)  To help my little ones along, Monday and Tuesday of this week I am reviewing narrative writing before administering the 3 day (yes, that's right! 3 day!) narrative writing assessment.  The first day of the assessment, the students brainstorm their topic and use a graphic organizer to sketch and write a few details about the beginning, middle, and end of their story.  On day 2, the children use their graphic organizer to begin writing their narrative piece on lined paper.  The third day, students edit, revise, and write the final draft of their piece.  We use a district created writing rubric to assess their work.

We are only 5 days into the school year and I need to review components of narrative writing before we dive into the assessment.  No big deal;)  I created a short unit using Brian Lies (pronounced "Lees") amazing book, Bats at the Library.  In the unit, I included a Narrative Writing anchor chart to display in the writing center.  I plan to post some of the students' narrative writing pieces with the anchor chart as samples.  I also created a graphic organizer to record the beginning, middle, and end of the story as well as a chart to keep track of interesting words in the story.  Head on over to my Teachers Pay Teachers store to download the unit for your classroom!

{Bats at the Library Narrative Writing Unit}

Click the link below to get a free copy of the Interesting Word graphic organizer!

{Interesting Words Graphic Organizer}

I hope it's cooling off where you live!  Make it a great week!

~Nichole

Do You Wonder....

Do you wonder what it would be like to be 7 or 8 again?

I find myself thinking this often as I watch kids skipping down the hall, whispering about sleep overs, and  talking about the yummy graham cracker and chocolate frosting snack their mom packed in their lunch.  Ahh....the simple things in life;)

All of these musings led me to create a "Day in the Life" journal for my kiddos to record what it's actually like to be them for a day!

Each sweetie documented 7 different events in their day beginning from the time they woke up until they went to sleep at night.  During the school day I stopped them several times during the day, set the timer for ten minutes, and let them write about what they were doing, seeing, thinking, and feeling. Each child recorded the time of the event, wrote a paragraph, and included a quick sketch of the event.  Then...we moved on with our day!  And, in order to capture their after school lives, the kiddos completed a 5:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. journal entry to round out the day.

After collecting information about their days, the kids published "A Day in the Life of..." stories in either a storyboard, comic strip, or timeline.

I have included the journal here for you to use in your classroom!

Click {HERE} to download the Day in the Life Journal!

You can download Comic Strip Paper here!  It's different than the one featured in the photo below:)

I hope this activity helps you get through the next few weeks with your kiddos!!

I am definitely experiencing Spring Fever in my classroom!  

Counting down the days until to June 8:)

Happy Monday!

~Nichole

Flat Stanley is Coming Home!

Hello!

I hope this post finds you happy and enjoying the sunshine!

It's been a crazy week (and it's only Tuesday!)  My baby girl is sick and I spent my birthday on Sunday and Monday trying to love her back to health...she stayed home with my hubby today.  I'm hoping she's on the mend soon!

But...I did want to take a minute and share with you all of the great pictures that are coming back for our Flat Stanley project.

Our Flat Stanleys are making their way back to our classroom.  Check out our bulletin board!

As you can see, the majority of Stanleys traveled within our state of Michigan...some strayed a bit further to Las Vegas, Port Charlotte, Colorado, Florida, Rhode Island, and Montana!  One Stanley even went to Canada for a day trip:)

The children each mailed one Flat Stanley to a family member and took a Flat Stanley home for a week and recorded their adventures in a journal.

I quickly realized that I would run out of room if I put up ALL of the pictures we received, so I created a binder with a page for each student to put additional letters and photos in their own page protector.  Now, the kids all want to use the Flat Stanley binder during Read to Self!

Here is a picture of the students' journals they created with their own Flat Stanley.

This is a photo of the Flat Stanley binder with all of the pictures and letters sent to us from family and friends.  The kids also put their journals in this basket.  It is a popular Read to Self or Read to Someone selection:)

That's all for today!  I hope to post an Adventure Journal for you in the next few days;)

Have a great night!

smile:)

~Nichole

Flat Stanley's Travel Journal!

Our Flat Stanley Travel Journals are complete!  I copied them back to back (you'll have 3 pages in all), then asked the wonderful lady at the copy center to staple them into booklets right down the center.  Each child will have 5 days of journaling and spots for photographs of their adventures with Stanley.  I intentionally left the back blank so students could add another photo, drawing, or journal entry if they desired!  More pictures to come of the kids' finished projects after Spring Break.  (Which is in 5 school days...not that I'm counting!)

 Click {HERE} if you love Flat Stanley and want to document his travels!