I had so much fun teaching in the second grade. My cooperating teacher was so helpful in guiding me. I am going to greatly miss this bunch of students. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the second grade.
This week has been great exploring our science unit called Monarchs, Milkweed, and Mexico and our math unit on time, which are the two subjects I have been leading. I have been also working on different behavior management techniques, such as when I need to get students' attention, initiate transitions, and remind of procedures. Two particular highly effective strategies I have been employing are using read alouds and different songs. I also have used several songs to teach concepts and skills. Using songs is a great differentiation for students with a high affinity to the kinestetic/bodily and musical intelligences; I have found that this tends to be most students. The best thing has been that the kids are finding learning fun and meaningful. Making this authentic connection to the material or learning in general helps for solidifying student engagement and retention of material. Here are a few songs that I have been using:
Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one. Today we celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday and Read Across America. In the morning, we began with me reading The Lorax aloud. Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! After lunch, the fun continued with reading One Fish, Two Fish followed by a math activity based on the story and incorporating continued work with US coins. We gave a price to the one fish, two fish, red fish, and blue fish. The students then decided what fish they were going to put in their fish bowl by counting coins and adding up the cost. They then drew their fish selections and wrote the total at the bottom. This was followed by having some pink ink (pink lemonade) while the students worked on a Dr. Seuss activity pack. We then make the Lorax mustaches pictured above while Mrs. Ly read There's No Place Like Space and Summer. To finish the day off, the students had Cat in the Hat parfaits while watching a Cat in the Hat video from learn360. The students and Mrs. Ly reported that this was the funnest day in 2nd grade so far. I look forward to having more fun days in the weeks ahead. :) Below is the template I created for the Lorax mustaches and the One Fish, Two Fish game that I adapted from MamaMiss's blog, which was originally a counting game. |