Place Value

I don't know about you guys but I LOVE Sundays!  Don't get me wrong.  I like Saturdays too, but my family is very busy on Saturdays.  It almost seems like it is another day of the work week.  We have soccer games, football games, and dance rehearsals on Saturdays.  But on Sunday, we have one thing to focus on.  Our family!  We begin with a carefree morning of quietness, coffee (husband not me), breakfast and lounging around.  Then we go to church and enjoy a morning of worship together.  Then we head home for relaxing, football games on TV, Sabbath rests (my personal FAVE), and playing.  Today we even baked cookies together.  This evening we will headed to our small group meeting with our dear friends.  We have the best time.  PLUS...I don't have to cook.  Each week two couples share the cooking responsibility for the whole group.  It is just a remarkable day.  I don't want you to think that it's all play and no work.  I definitely work, especially on school and TPT stuff.  And I still find a few minutes to make it to the gym.  But it just feels different!

So as I have been planning for the week, I thought I would pop in a show you what we're up to this week.  PLACE VALUE!  Aren't we always working on place value?  I'm being dead serious.  I literally feel like it is ALL.THE.TIME.  There is always lots to cover so we try to make it as fun as possible.  It is also a skill that is great practice through application in games.

So this week, we will be breaking out the Web Themed games that specifically cover 2.NBT.1 and 2.NBT.3.  I hope you pop over and pick up your own copy too!  I also have lots of other ones as well that cover Place Value.  Let's be honest, it is one of the most important skills we teach as second grade teachers.

I am also excited to be pulling the pumpkins out and teaching through pumpkins on Thursday!!

 Make sure to stop by and pick up all the Place Value packs available to you.  As always, the first comment picks up a copy of your own for your classroom.  (And as an added bonus, If you have a blog and post about your class using this packet, please send me the link and I will let you choose ANY product from my TPT store for free!)

Happy Halloween Week!

Place Value Perfection

What a week!  This is going to be one crazy year if last week has any indication!!  Let's just say that both Heather and I have characterized our week as "teaching first grade."  Yes, first grade.  This isn't the typical first graders coming to second grade and we just don't "remember" what they're like at the beginning of the year.  This is like kindergarteners coming to first grade.  It is B-A-D y'all.  Now, trust us when we tell you that we were warned from the first day of school LAST year by all of the first grade teachers that "they were coming".  I have spent all of this week reviewing short vowel sounds.  Well, back up.  I have reviewed what a vowel is, and then what sound they make when they are short.  YIKES!  Toward the end of this week, we began analyzing our words their way lists.  I have the full spectrum of ability levels.  I have two who know NO sounds and will be beginning on the picture lists.  Then I have two who made it all the way through the primary list and 3/4 of the way through the elementary list.  So they are on the final 3 spelling skills and all in between.  My grandfather grew up going to school in a one room schoolhouse.  I spent three weeks with him this summer and we talked a lot about that one room school house.  He truly believes it is the best way of learning.  I thought a lot about those conversations this week.  Even though I don't have different ages like he did in a one room schoolhouse, I do have all of the levels of one.  It is exhausting.  I am tired.  However, more than ever before in a school year I see my PURPOSE for these children.  It is clear as day.  I will not let the negative get the better of me on this year.  I will see the good in everything and be the best I can be for these little ones who have SO MANY NEEDS!!!!!!!  So that brings to me to place value.  They don't know it.  So this weekend I hopped on the place value train and started making some games.  I think we are going to need them and I am hoping that you will too!  There are two card games with levels of all sorts.  Use them all.  Use what you need.  Use it throughout the year as they improve.  It includes a value challenge game which is played like war.  It also includes a concentration game with numbers in standard form, expanded form, base ten model, and number word.  I hope it helps your classes build that number sense that is so vitally important!  First comment gets their own copy free!

Building place value perfection!

2.NBT.1-4 through pumpkins

Halloween is over....I'm exhausted!  Between Halloween and a full moon - our kids were just a tad hyper crazy INSANE!  Then I got to come home and take my own children for what felt like an endless walk around my neighborhood to get candy.  I am recovering though and thought I would share the fun activities Juli and I did with our classes to keep their minds off Halloween.  We did a variety of things with pumpkins to teach a lot of Common Core objectives.  In math we focused on 2.NBT.1-4.  We used a GREAT unit from Sunny Days in Second Grade to have the students complete a Pumpkin Investigation. Once we were done predicting, measuring, and recording data, we moved onto cutting those pumpkins open.  We also used these items from Abby over at The Inspired Apple.  The kids loved everything we did! They kept saying how much fun they were having and I didn't have one child ask me about how much longer until they could go trick or treating.  I had grand visions of plotting the seeds on graphs using bar graphs and line plots, but we ran out of time. I think next year I will use smaller pumpkins. Before I show pictures of work I have to show a picture of my cute little trick or treaters:

               How cute are they?! Okay onto pictures that actually relate to this post:

   This is a picture of Juli's kiddos doing the predictions and investigations. We gave each group a pumpkin so we  each had about 4 groups per class.

Another one of Juli's crew doing the measurements. Everyone actually got along and worked together nicely - very little arguing!

Trying the pumpkins seeds - roasted and salted ones - not the ones we just dug out of the pumpkins!

      Graphing the results of the pumpkin seed tasting. Most liked them - I was surprised!

   Each child filled out one but I also made big versions for the hallway shown above.

      I also made a big version of this for the hallway but the kids each had their own to complete.

Examples of student work....they did awesome! After we did this, we sorted the seeds into groups of 10 and counted by 10s. Each group made their own pumpkins patch and then we compared the pumpkin patches.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and learning took place on Halloween - SUCCESS! If this looks like something you would be interested in doing with your class, you can follow the links above to Sunny Days in Second Grade and The Inspired Apple.

I am going to close with my new anchor chart for Subject and Predicate. I am hoping that leaving it up all year will help my class actually retain this information.

Thanksgiving Place Value

November has arrived.  I LOVE and hate November!  The reasons that I LOVE November?  My birthday is on Veteran's Day and my first daughter was born on Thanksgiving Day!  I also love Thanksgiving as a holiday.  I have descendants that were on the Mayflower so I love the history of the Pilgrims and teaching my kids about Plymouth and the first Thanksgiving!  I also think it is just wonderful that we take the time to acknowledge the things that we are thankful for.  We sometimes focus on the negative and the things we want and don't have.  We all have so many things to be thankful for so I really like that about the month of November.

Those are great reasons to love the month of November so how could I hate November???   Well, we don't have a full week of school in November at all!  I am a very structured person who thrives on consistency, much like children!  Short weeks for me always seem to make me feel "off" and I don't like feeling like that.  It also interrupts our routines so then my kids are all off!!!  Another reason is that National Board Scores are almost always released in November.  I have worked on it for 2 years and now I await the scores to be released for the 3rd and final time.  It is a funny thing that you work so hard on it until March, then you submit and sort of forget about the scores being released.  Then November hits and the thoughts, dreams, and dread begin!  So, hopefully this time when the scores are released I will a wonderful reason to be even more Thankful!

In the meantime, here is a fun little pack for you as you get ready for Thanksgiving. Do your kids, just like ours need more practice on Place Value?  I have updated my Passing with Place Value pack to have a Thanksgiving Theme!  Make sure to head over to my TPT store to check it out!!

 

 Happy November!

Quick Hello!

Happy Tuesday!

I am just popping in quickly to share a new product I made this week focusing on place value.  Those tricky little Numbers and Base Ten standards (NBT) are keeping my kids in full- fledged work mode these days.  I am just so thankful that the Common Core allows us to slow down and teach things so much more in depth than we have had in the past!  Since we have Halloween coming up, I thought a web themed pack would be fun.  Here are two games that will help with you with standards this year.  Hop on over to my TPT store!  On a completely unrelated note, did anyone notice how many followers we are up to?  99.  Yep friends, one away from 100!  Heather and I are working on a fun little giveaway to celebrate our almost 100 followers.  Hopefully we will be meeting that BIG mark soon!

Happy Tuesday!

Back to School Countdown- 2nd Grade!

So, I thought that I would share with you some of the things that I have been getting ready for the school year to start in my classroom.  At the start of the school year, PlaceValue is a HUGE focus for our new second graders. One way that I like to focus on place value is by showing the different ways to display a number. This is a big skill for the common core and sets the stage for the more difficult skills that come throughout the school year.  I decided that I would make some place value practice for us.  My husband is a HUGE soccer fan, so it was only appropriate to make a Soccer themed Place Value pack.  I am excited for us to use it this coming year and I hope that you'll be able to use it as well!