Expert Writing Projects

I'm featured this morning on the Who's Who and Who's New Blog! Here is the post that is featured!



We have been working on informational/expert writing this month. The kids are loving it. My basis for this writing is that the students write about something they already know a lot about (hence expert writing). The students aren't necessarily researching the topics they choose, they are just practicing informational writing about something they already know about. That way, they are focusing more on actually how to write information at this point and not necessarily worrying on researching. I did have a few kids that wanted to look up more about their topic and of course, I did not deny them that opportunity, but it wasn't. required. I told them they could read more to become an expert on their topic.

We started by creating a shared anchor chart with a list of possible topics that we are experts on. Then, each student created their own personal lists in their writing journals. After narrowing down a topic to start with, students started writing everything they knew about that topic. They saved the lists because the goal of this writing unit is to write multiple expert books.

We are lucky enough to have iPads in our classroom. We have one iPad per two students. I decided to publish the students' pieces by using Keynote on the iPads. This app is very easy for my students and is basically the same as PowerPoint. So, if you don't have iPads, but do have access to PowerPoint, that would be fun for the kids too! They love it!!

To get students ready for creating their Keynotes, I created slides on paper that they could fill in as their rough draft. Students picked which slides would go well in their projects, wrote their information, and created a small book. I didn't require them to write about an animal, but I noticed that a lot were, so I made many of the slides with titles to go along with their popular topics of animals.


Good news, here are the templates I used for them. FREE in my store!

After I conferenced with them to proofread and edit, they were able to start their Keynote. In the end, I was able to print their keynote as a PDF and make into little booklets.

My students love, love, love this and I definitely plan to do this unit every year now!

Here are some pictures to show you the steps we took and our finished, published projects on display! 

 

Join me for a Spring Blogger Meet-Up!

Mrs. Ehle's Kindergarten Connections: Join me for a Spring Blogger Meet-Up at the French...: Hey bloggers (and blog stalkers!)... looking for a weekend of fun?   The French Lick Resort and Casino in French Lick, Indiana, has graciously offered to host us for this meet up! Check out the link above for more information!

Sweet Second Grade Savings

Happy weekend everyone!  Your favorite second grade bloggers are back, this time with sweet savings for you.  We have gotten together to form a dollar sale linky party!  Each blogger will be adding 2-4 products to the link up below that will be on sale for ONE DOLLAR now through Sunday night.  Come Monday morning, all of the products will go back to their regular price, so make sure to grab them while you can!

At the end of this post, you will find previews and links for all of the items on sale for one dollar.  Click on the links below and you will be taken directly to the TpT store where the products can be found to add to your cart.  We hope you can find everything you need for the upcoming month(s).  Happy shopping!

Snow Day Folders

Stuckey in Second and Tales From the First Grade have teamed up to bring you a fun blog post about our SNOW DAY FOLDERS!

         

My teaching neighbor (Abbie from Tales From the First Grade) and I decided that after all of our snow days we have had in January, we would create some Snow Day Folders to send home with our kids for these (now) dreaded snow days! The first few snow days were fun, but now we are quickly realizing that we have had too many and our kids are experiencing that "after summer decline" in the middle of January!

Each of us are going to share how we made our folders. Allison's are for 2nd graders and Abbie's for first graders!

For 2nd grade, I decided to make the folders something "fun for them to open" by stuffing them full of learning goodies, then tying them shut with a ribbon. Maybe this will get them excited to actually open the folders and DO SOMETHING on their snow days?! Only time will tell....

   

 

I wanted to have a mixture of reading and math materials in my folders, so I dug out some of my favorites that I have recently purchased! I knew these items would be great practice for my second graders at home!

 

 

 

Here are links to some of the items that I filled my Snow Day Folders with:

Plural Nouns with Pablo the Penguin by Meet Miss Parker

 

Mighty Math Common Core Assessments by Angela Nerby

(I decided to use these as at home practice!)

 

Text Evidence Reading Passages by Miss DeCarbo

(I put the fall passages that I have in the folders, since I'm using the winter passages in my small groups right now in the classroom!)

 

 

 Here is what Abbie has to say about our Snow Day Folders:

We have had so many snow day it's scary!  After talking with  my friend Allison  we decided to make snow day folders!  These folders are for days we don't have school.  Inside the folders are packets of extra work, reading log, and coloring page.  I really pumped the kids up about the packets.  Explaining all students who completed a packet and returned it after a snow day would get a special prize.  To excite the students I made a fun snow day cover with the message "only open if we are closed!"  I made 5 packets for each child's folder.  Inside the packet I used work pages from Molly Lynch tpt store, a few pages from a coloring book, a reading passage, and a reading log ticket.  I am hoping this will help my kids keep up during this wild winter!  

Snow Day Linky! ($1 Sale!)



Well guess what? Here in Indiana we have another SNOW DAY. Surprise, surprise. It's actually a cold day. The wind chill was -26 degrees when I looked at one point this morning. I did actually run to school for a bit to get things done for next week. However, they are calling for more snow this weekend and we are kind of planning on a probable snow day on Monday too! YIKES! Today is our 7th snow day this year. As of now, our last day will be June 5th. Not as bad as it could be, but our winter isn't over yet!!!

I'm participating in this SNOW DAY $1 Sale Link Up that Jessica over in Literacy Spark started up. Guess what? She's in TEXAS and having a snow day! Amazing!

Here are my dollar items that I'm linking up:

 

Literacy Centers packet 4-1 (5 centers included!!!!)

 

Literacy Centers packet 4-4 (5 centers included!)

 

 

Please see the bottom of this post for links to the other blogs that are participating in this DOLLAR SALE!!! You won't be sorry! :)

 

Do you want to participate and link up your item?

 

Here are the rules:

• Choose TWO of your TpT items to put on sale for $1 for today only
• Create a blog post showing the two items
• Add the button above  as well as these rules to your post so others know how to participate
• Choose "get the InLinkz code" down below above the place where you link up.  Copy and paste this code into the HTML section of your blog post.  The link up will now appear on your blog as well.
• Link up and advertise!



Snow Many Freebies!

Well, we are all looking for something free. As I was going through my store yesterday trying to find which items to mark down for our $1 Snow Day Sale {that was Monday}, I thought, I should really make sure everyone gets all of my other freebies!!!

Here is the link that shows all of my free items in my store. Most are {in my opinion} average "freebies". But there are a few that I want to let you know about that are really BIG freebies!

First of all my Unit 1 Week 1 Treasures Resource packet. Huge. Even if you don't teach Treasures, I am confident that you can use some of the centers that are included. Just check it out and leave me some love!

 

 

Also, for a limited time {this week}, I have my newest Winter Literacy Centers as a freebie! This is in celebration of my TPT Milestone achievement. Again, if you download it, please follow my store {you'll want to for future products and more freebies!} and leave me some love!

 

 

Here are some other smaller freebies, that are just fun for January!

Penguin Two-Digit Addition/Subtraction Game

 

Penguin Doubles Game

 

 

 

Also, here are three sheets that I use in my literacy workstations every single week! They can be used with any book or set of words! To me, these are priceless sheets because I use them so often!

Read & Retell Accountability Sheet

 

Sight Word Accountability Sheet

 

Buddy Read Accountability Sheet

 

I hope you can use some of the freebies that I've listed and you'll share my goodies with some of your teaching friends! Be on the lookout for new things posted in my TPT store in the near future. I'm so full of ideas right now!!!

 

Indiana SNOWPOCALYPSE Dollar Sale! {Blizzard 2014}

 

Well, here in Indiana, like much of the country, we are experiencing some crazy weather! What about you? It has snowed at least 12 inches today. I haven't even heard a real number, I just know that my husband keeps going out to shovel every few hours and now the wind is picking up. I can hear it rattling the windows! They called school off for tomorrow earlier this afternoon, which is unheard of in our district! (To call it off so early!) Soon after they called school off, it was announced that our city/county is under a state of emergency and there are no vehicles allowed on roads except for emergency vehicles until 6pm Monday! Literally everything is shut down.  I suppose that's why school is shut down. LOL

Anyway, I am part of this LOVELY group of Indiana teacher bloggers and we all decided to put together something fun for the big SNOW DAY tomorrow that most all of us are experiencing in Indiana. What about other states? Another day off? Lucky us!

We are each marking something awesome in our stores down to $1!!

Please be sure to FOLLOW each of these Indiana TPT stores for future goodies. These ladies always have fun stuff!

First, here are MY dollar deals! {Today only!}

 

 

Winter Main Idea Center

 

 

See the links at the bottom of the page for all of the other Indiana teachers that have linked up with dollar deals!

Plus, I wanted to sneak this bonus in here! Sometime this week TPT is going to be announcing that I have this freebie up in my store as a milestone celebration! Get it now! {Limited time freebie!}

 



Happy Snow Day!