My sweet girl and I went out on a shopping spree--we went to 10 places! I can't believe she tolerated it, but we made it! I got a LOT of my back to school shopping finished. I am so excited that I might possibly be able to FINALLY link up with Made it Monday. :) We'll see how tomorrow goes...
So...I have been thinking about Week 1 of school, and we are going to be working on Following Directions during our Language Arts "block." We will NOT be going into the Basal at all. We will work on preparing our beginning of the year writing sample, doing a Developmental Spelling Assessment to set up Spelling Groups, but of course, doing some fun projects to get to know each other.
In Whole Brain Teaching, Rule #1 is Follow Directions quickly. We will be practicing this by making a lady bug glyph I found in Mailbox Magazine a few years ago. I like to make a few cute projects to hang up for Grade Level Meeting Night where we talk to parents about curriculum and procedures. I also found a few new "projects" on TPT that we will be trying out:
Students will create this giraffe craftivity to go along with a writing prompt, "Reaching New Heights in 2nd Grade." They will write about what they hope to learn and learning goals for the year.
School Year Time Capsule--from Lisa at Fourth and Ten
We will create a time capsule where students will write about themselves at the beginning of the year, measure how tall they are, then we will store away our time capsule until the end of the year. Students will complete the same activities and see how they have changed and grown.
Germ Unit: Teaching Students How To Prevent the Spread of Germs by Erica Bohrer
I also want to start our Writing Portfolios. In the past, this hasn't been as "organized" as I would like, but this year I am keeping better track of this. I am hoping that Hope King's My Year in Writing will help me to achieve this. I usually just let them decorate a file folder, then I keep all their writing in the folder throughout the year. I always take a picture of the kids in the first week of school to glue on the inside of the folder, then I take another picture at the end of the year.
Some of my favorite First Week Read Alouds are:
Don't Squeal Unless It's a Big Deal: A Tale of Tattletales by Jeanie Franz Ransom and Jackie Urbanovic--obviously about Tattling. Cute book with a good message.
Skippyjon Jones, Class Action by Judy Schachner--a great beginning of school year book about how to deal with a bully Skippyjon Jones style.
How to Lose All Your Friends (Picture Puffins) by Nancy L. Carlson--We write a class book after reading this book.
A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue by Julia Cook and Anita DuFalla--another tattling book
My Mouth Is a Volcano! by Julia Cook and Carrie Hartman--this is about interrupting.
Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud and David Messing--this is about how everyone has an imaginary bucket inside of them that you can fill by doing good things for others and how that makes you feel great inside.
Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun: Having the Courage to Be Who You Are by Maria Dismondy and Kimberly Shaw-Peterson--this is a sweet story about a little girl named Lucy who gets teased and how she deals with it.
Hurty Feelings by Helen Lester and Lynn Munsinger--this is a new one for me, but another book about dealing with bullies.
Also throughout the first week, we will be practicing some of our daily procedures and routines, like Calendar Time (more on that in a future post), and how to complete Spelling Homework using our Spelling Notebooks. This year, I am going to also be doing a Poetry Notebook, so we will practice that as well. I like to practice how to do homework in the classroom to hopefully alleviate any questions that may arise at home.
So there you have it! It may seem like a lot, but since we don't have Resource/Specials for the first two weeks of school, I like to have a lot of activities in my arsenal to use. ::)
What is your favorite back to school activity??
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