Listen to Reading - Old School Style

Our Listen to Reading station during Daily Five time received a throwback this week!  Grade Twos started using cassette tapes that read along to books!  They were so excited to learn how to use the Walkmans and helped each other with troubleshooting as needed.  

Listening to Reading allows the Grade Twos to follow along and hear fluent reading.  The books are short enough to finish them during a 10-15 minute station and then they need to remember to rewind the cassette for the next student.  

If all else fails and they can't get it to work, listening to a story on the IPads on the Raz Kids  is another choice!  

Words Their Way

Our class has been working on the Words Their Way program to study phonics to help with both sounding out when reading and spelling when writing.

Spelling has always been a difficult thing to teach and I like this program because it can differentiate depending on the needs of the student.  Right now, we are all working on the same group of words but as the year progresses. students will be put into different groups depending on which type of words give them trouble.

Here is a video that shows the Word Their Way process in another classroom.

Vowel Sounds Spelling

We've taken a break from working on No Excuse Words in Spelling, but there is still "No Excuse" to spell those words that we studied incorrectly!

Our currently focus has been on special vowel pairs that have the same phonetic spelling in many words but often you need to choose between two possibilities.  The first group of words are spelled using OI or OY.  There were several YouTube videos to help think about the words but the one posted below was our favorite:

We also used a website during out Daily Five time at Work on Words called Sandcastle Spelling.   The British accent of the clam can be a little confusing sometimes but the kids enjoyed the challenge!

We will continue this practice until Christmas break, including ou/ow, oo/ew/ue and "Super E" will make a special appearance.

Dinosaurs

Parents of Grade 2-3 class, did you hear about dinosaurs coming to life in our classroom last week?  These photos don't come close to showing the IPad app we used to bring the pictures that you can see on the table to life!  It is another example of Augmented Reality, like in our Dot Day activity. 

Our theme topic for the next few weeks will be dinosaurs and this was a great way to get everyone excited and Ready to Learn!  Our Literacy Time will focus on reading, writing and researching about these prehistoric creatures.  The content or knowing how to say the names or facts about them is not my goal here but many skills including using phonetic clues to sound out the names and reading fact books have a purpose when there is a topic a child is interested in learning more about.
I believe when children see a purpose for reading and writing, they are much more motivated to work at their level and break through to the next one!

No Excuse Words

You might have heard about our "No Excuse Words". Four words per week are added to a cumulative list that we practice the spelling of daily. Therefore there will be "no excuse" to spell them wrong! One part of the day where we focus on them is “Working with Words” in Daily Five. These are words that students need to be able to spell without sounding them out, usually they don't follow traditional spelling sounds and rules. We think of tricks together like - Big Elephants Could Always Use Some Exercise - to help spell "because".
Each week we will introduce 4 new words that the students need to try their best to master and I will do a checkup each Fridays to see how they are coming. These words will be written in the agendas on Mondays so you will be able to work on them at home too.

Here are some fun ways to practice No Excuse Words at home:

1. Rainbow Words- Write your words and trace over them in 3 different colors.

2. Ransom Words- Cut letters out of newspaper, magazines, or write them out on paper and cut them, then glue them together to build your words.

3. Hidden Words- Write your words and find hidden words in your words. Ex. that – hat – at

4. Shaving Cream Words- Write your words out in shaving cream.

5. Tracing Words- Trace your words in sand, on felt, in the carpet, using your finger.

6. Word Hunt- Search for your words in books/texts or around the house. Write your words as you find them.

7. Font-abulous- Type your words in 3 different fonts on the computer.

8. Chalk Talk- Write your words in chalk. You can do this activity with a dry erase board and marker too.

9. 3 Way Words- Write your words three ways, really big, really small, and in your best handwriting.

10. Trace & Spell- Have someone write your words neatly. Trace the words spelling out each letter in the word.

11. Pretest- Take a pretest. Check over each of your words. Write any incorrect words 3 times each.

12. ABC Order- Write your words in abc/alphabetical order 3 times.

13. Cheer & Spell- Cheer the spelling of your word.

14. Body Letters- Spell each of your words while making each letter with your body

15. Travel Spelling- Spell your words out loud in the car, while riding your bike, or while taking a walk

16. Sing & Spell- Sing a song or chant your spelling words. Ex. Peo-ple, peo-ple

17. Magnetic Letters- If you have magnetic letters, use them to build your words.


Week One words - October, they, when, because


Week Two words- could, would, some, said

O Canada!

Our first Social Studies topic is Canada.  My objectives during this unit will involve having students become more familiar with this great country of ours.  Students will be able to name some symbols of Canada, provinces and capital cities.  Complete mastery of being able to memorize these places is not a reasonable goal for every member of our Grade 2 and 3 class but some students may be ready for that and enjoy the challenge!

Below is a video that sings about some Canadian symbols that can be found on Canadian coins.  It's another catchy tune so be prepared to hum it for a while afterwards!

We have also spent some time learning the words to O Canada in English ( some of us may have been singing the wrong ones all theses years in the morning) and next will be learning the words in French!

Part of this unit will involve studying interesting and unusual place names in Canada and the origin of those names. Please take some time to discuss with your child about places that you’ve visited or where family live and try to find how that place was named. If your child writes down what you find out, s/he will be ready for our class discussion, likely next week.

Daily Five in Grade 2 and 3

Parents: Have heard about the “Daily Five”? We have been working with all parts of the Daily Five for a week or so now. They are Read to Self , Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing and Word Work . The Daily Five is a popular Early Years Literacy Block method that allows the teacher to work with individuals or small groups while the rest of the class works independently on activities that will improve their skills as well. You can read more from the teachers who started Daily Five here.

 Currently we use Raz Kids on the IPads and computers for Listen to Reading but we will also be using TAG pens, MP3 players, and Kindles at this station later in the year. Word Work is a place to the spelling words, right now  all the words start with 'qu". The Work on Writing Station is a journal where they can write about things they do or make up stories.  The Read to Someone station had an exciting addition yesterday, reading text messages on Cell Phone Sliders!

Students choose which station to visit first but we make sure they have been to all five before doing one twice. The board pictured above in our classroom helps keep track, especially when we don't get all five finished in one day and need to carry some over to the next day.


Ask your child about their favourite Daily Five!

Quilts

This year, we are starting off  with a theme about quilts.  A theme gives the class to learn in depth about a topic and connect our learning together.  We will read books about quilts, make them with geometric shapes in Math class, create paper quilts in art class and more.  We have read The Keeping Quilt, The Bear Paw Quilt, and The Quilt Story so far. 

 

Spelling with the theme started with thinking of words that start with qu and writing each on an index card.  The discussion turned to words with "qu" in them like equator and earthquake.  (Also how the word "choir" sounds like the others but is not spelled that way.)  The words were then put in a pocket chart and the next activities will include sorting them to the vowel sounds and looking for ending that make new words.  We will expand our vocabularies by talking about what the words mean and illustrating them.  I encourage the students to talk to their families about qu words and keep adding to our collection.

 

Quilts will also fit into our first Math study of Patterns.  We will make repeating patterns in a row but also make increasing and decreasing patterns and use symmetry to make 2 sides the same.  Keep watching this blog for more about our Quilt Theme!

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Mysteries

 Who doesn't love a good mystery?  We are reading mysteries in Grade 2 and 3 currently.  Most of these students have fluent reading skills but many of them struggle to understand what they read.  This takes practice and when the reading is not yet fluent, that is more difficult to do.  The mystery genre gives a chance to work on not only saying the words they see, but thinking about the details as they read.  Looking for clues and judging the suspects is a fun and engaging way to work on comprehension skills.

Students were placed into 4 groups and they had a chance to choose their own group name.  Then they were given a copy of the same Cam Jansen  novel to read together in a Guided Reading Group.  My Grade 11 helper, Meghan and I take groups in turn to read together and discuss what is happening in the story.  Students are asked not to read ahead but to stay with the group so that everyone can make predictions together.

We are also still working on our cursive writing and have been learning some of the particular vocabulary words that go with the genre.  These two goals are combined in daily discussion and cursive practice for about 15 minutes.

I have been also reading some Dr. Quicksolve mini mysteries aloud to work on listening comprehension. You can find similar online activities here and here. 

There are several great mystery series at a beginning chpater book reading level that I encourage the students to be reading on their own.  Check out the links below for

Jigsaw Jones

A to Z Mysteries

Baily School Kids

and to those of my generation Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys!  Parents may want to find some of these series for summer reading.  Check out the local library.   They have a great selection of books for beginning chapter book readers!

Daily Edits in Grade Two and Three

This week we started a new routine in our Literacy Time.  We call it the Daily Edit.  I write a message on flipchart paper full of as many errors as I can.

Students use small notebooks to copy the sentences and correct the errors.  Then we go through it as a group and discuss how they knew it was wrong and what would be right instead.

This example needed capitals on names and spelling errors corrected.  There was a run-on sentence as well and two options were given.  Students might have chosen to use a period and start a new sentence but the idea of connector words for short sentences was discussed as well.

Today the Daily Edit was projected onto the Smartboard instead.  Besides saving paper, doing it this way makes it bigger font and easier to read.  The next activity was writing in the T.W.A.S. (This Week At School) journals so this helped gather ideas for writing.  I was able to break my "all time high score" and made 20 errors this time.  Can you find them all?

Literacy Center Ticket #3

 

We are continuing to practice our Reading and Writing every day in Literacy Stations.  The ticket in the photo above lets us keep track of the center we have finished and where we are working next.  Most days, we are able to do 3 Literacy Stations during our ELA time. 

 

On the laptops, we use Max Write or Max Show to write about a topic that interests us. We save the writing on memory sticks and can continue it next time we visit that station or start a new one.

 

We use a website called Wordle to type a list of words on any topic we choose. Then we click Randomize to have the program pick a font and style for the words. If you type the same word more than once, Wordle knows to make its size bigger. We can work on spelling and keyboarding skills at this station.

Grade 2 and 3's need to learn to write full sentences.  Our student teacher, Miss Caldwell, works with us at one of two Sentence Building Games.   

Ms. Simms went to a technology night in Brandon where she found out  about the Trailer feature on IMovie.  It is neat because the main work is done to create a movie.  We will take photos and videos with the IPad and then make them into a movie.  Stay tuned to our blog for the finished products!

 

We have Fill in Posters called All About Me and When I Grow Up. Our class was having some trouble with journals because many of us can't seem to find a topic to write about. Ms Simms hopes these posters will help with that problem.

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Reading to Yourself and Buddy Reading are stations on this ticket too. They are both important.  Many of us are ready to move onto reading chapter books now and choosing a book that interests us at our reading level is crucial.  Ms. Simms is working with students one at a time on this while everyone is busy at centers.
We hope you liked hearing about our Literacy Centers!  Which do you think you would like the best?  Tell us in the comments!

Literacy Center Tickets

When we work on reading and writing in Grade Two and Three, usually we are not all working on the same thing.  We have small groups so the teachers can work with a few kids at a time at their own level.  We did Daily Five for a couple of months in ELA time and also some Literacy Rotations or Stations.  Now we have tickets where we keep track of which center we have been to and which ones we have left to visit.  Everyone has favourites but we know it is important to visit all the centres to practice the skills we need.

Here is our first ticket:

Puppet Pals is an exciting app on our IPads.  Would you like us to blog about it someday?