I'm baaaaaack!!!!

Oh-em-gee!! I know, I know... it's been a really long time since I have blogged. But I'm back guys and I am still teaching cute little second graders. We've been back to school from winter break since January 3rd and we have been learning about weather! During our weather unit we learn about different types of clouds. I first started off by reading a book called Little Cloud by Eric Carl. I then  showed my students a power-point on different types of clouds. 

My students and I worked on an anchor chart together and we gave brief descriptions of each cloud type. I had little clouds already cut out and laminated so that the students can identify which cloud it belongs to. 

We then worked on a cute little foldable that I have been seeing all over Pinterest. Students created their own clouds using cotton balls on the outside flap. They identified 4 clouds; stratus, cumulus, cirrus, and cumulonimbus. On the inside flap, my students gave descriptions about the clouds. 

Tomorrow we will work on our cloud mobile. You can find the template to the cloud mobile in my weather and water cycle unit pack from my TPT store. Here's a picture of what we will be doing. 

I missed you all and it feels so good to be blogging again about teaching!

Earth Materials and Natural Resources

One of my FAVORITE parts of the day is Science time! My sweet scientists just finished up Unit 4: Earth Materials and Natural Resources. We did lots of experimenting these past couple of weeks. We began the unit with rocks. I read books on rocks and we talked about properties of rocks. My students get really excited to work on their interactive journals, so we went to work right away.

My students did a little hands on with observing some rocks. They each had a rock to observe and recorded their findings into the journals. 

They used their rock's properties to make a cute craftivity, Rock Monsters. Each monster was unique. 

 We compared salt water and fresh water and did a mini experiment.

We talked about Natural Resources and Man-made Resources. I played this power-point for them so they could have a clearer understanding of the two. We did an anchor chart together as a class, did a picture sort and went on a nature walk to list some natural resources and man-made resources that they saw.

Do you love science as much as I do??

Anchor Charts

I never really used anchor charts and if I did they were just plain old boring. I never realized they were boring until I discovered pinterest. I thought "Man, my anchor charts are blaaah, compared to these!" So the creative person in me said "Move over sista, it's time for the real star to shine!" HAHAHA I really don't think THAT highly of myself, maybe just a little. This year our school mandated that we have anchor charts displayed in our classroom AND it needed to be student interacted. Today I introduced use your schema to make connections strategy from CAFE. I pre-made this anchor chart before introducing it to the class.

I then introduced each connection one by one using several examples and filling in the pre-made anchor chart. This was our end result. 

I made a worksheet so students can make connections when they read to self. Click on the picture to grab yours for free.

I really love how COLOR makes a huge difference and how it catches the students attention. Here is another example of an anchor chart I made during math instruction.

I place the anchor charts on the wall so that students can refer back to them during the week. Once we move on to a new content I switch out the old ones to new anchor charts. Here are pictures of our Science and Math walls. 

Laters,

Mrs. Concepcion