Valentine's Day Descriptive Writing & Freebies!

We're (my colleagues and I) are crossing our fingers, putting spoons under our pillows, crayons on the window sill, etc., in hopes of a snow day. One local forecaster has declared that we're in a Snow Dome, which means that everyone around us get snow, but not us! I've been teasing my students, telling them that they are not doing their snow dance. I feel like tonight might be our last chance. Oh well... 

So, my Facebook page is up and running. I've been giving away a freebie a day each day this week. If you're in need of some new resources for your classroom, take a look!  

Grade 2 Hullabaloo

Today's adventures included a descriptive writing activity from my Hearts! for second grade kit on TPT. The children decorated a heart, and then wrote a descriptive paragraph about how it was decorated. After that, I collected the hearts and gave random children a paragraph to read and replicate. Here's the final product. The top left heart is the original design; the lower right design is the replicated one. I was so impressed with their ability to describe and replicate! 

Cheers!

Susan

Facebook Giveaways Every Day This Week!

I'm now on Facebook! I'm giving away a product every day until Friday! Today's giveaway is my 100th Day of School kit. All you have to do is comment with your email address, and I'll send it your way! Click on the image to visit my Facebook page.

I hope your Monday was marvelous! We're wishing for snow, but not having much luck. Everyone around us has or is getting it. We'll keep hoping! If you're having snow days, I hope you're safe, warm and enjoying the days!

Susan

Grade 2 Hullabaloo on Facebook

The Beginning of a Heartfelt Valentine's Week

Every year, at the time of Valentine's Day, I always run out of time to involve my students in all of the activities I have in my files. So... this year, we started early! Our math lesson included a review of data analysis and graphing with a heart glyph. Look at these beautiful glyphs that my sweet second graders created!

The action leading up to the final product had the children illustrating, labeling, and then tallying and graphing one of the four features on the glyph. 

If you like what you see, you can preview this file on TPT. There are two versions; one for grades K-1 and one for grade 2.

We also wrote letters and valentines to a classmate who moved to England! How exciting for his family! We are communicating by email and snail mail. It's always fun to get his letters; the children love to look at the stamps and postage markings. Our letters will be arriving just in time for Valentine's Day (hopefully)! 

Continuing with our valentine-infused day (complete with CCSS correlations!), we made valentines for the son of a coworker. Hunter (#hunterstrong on Twitter) suffered a spinal cord injury during a high school wrestling match back in December. He's making progress while in a rehab clinic, and we wanted to cheer him up with a pile of valentine letters. These cute frog valentine graphics are the freebie of the week from Scrappin Doodles if you're on the mailing list. If you aren't, sign up, here!

I hope your Valentine's Week is filled with love and laughter!

Susan

P. S. You can now find me on Facebook! I'm planning a freebie winner a day, beginning TODAY (8th) until February 14th! Just like, share and leave your email address in the comments along with your choice of one product title from my store. 

A Spectacular 100th Day!

Wow! Our 100th day has come and gone, and we're rolling right along. The children were so excited to celebrate the day, even though we didn't assign any special home projects like our kinders and first graders do. Our day began with a great video on YouTube. It's called Jumping for 100 Seconds. One hundred seconds is a long time to jump! (Great way to burn up some energy on a cold, inside recess kind of day!) 

After cooling down from our jumping, we brainstormed other things we might be able to do for 100 seconds. Their ideas were priceless! Someone said he could stare for 100 seconds. Someone wanted to clap for 100 seconds. Others were more ambitious and said they could do X push ups in 100 seconds. We used this prediction sheet from my 100! Not Your Ordinary 100th Day of School Kit. I have a preview at the link with freebies included.

The children partnered with a friend. One friend did their activity (jumping, push ups, staring, etc.) while the other counted. Then, they switched roles and did it again. They're getting very good at predicting! What fun, engaged learning! 

The NEXT activity was Where will 100 steps take you? With predictions written, whisper phones in hand (because we all know that counting is really difficult with a bunch of children counting at the same time), we started our trek to find our 100th step's location. These predictions were all over the place. Most didn't quite end up where they predicted, but it gave them a better idea of predicting. They marked their 100th step with an arrow form taped to the wall. They checked their accuracy by counting the steps BACK to the classroom. 

My favorite activity was Design Your Own $100 Bill. Now, I have a class filled with pleasers. They want to follow directions to the letter. For this one, I said, "There are no rules." I want you to create a colorful, creative $100 bill. Of course, hands shot into the air to ask all those "Can we...?" questions. I held my ground and said to go forth and be creative. The results were so adorable!  They followed up with a written description of how they designed their money. 

It was one of my favorite 100th days of school. If you're preparing to celebrate your 100th day, I hope it's filled with fun and excitement! 

Susan