Christmas Around the World!

We've been having lots of fun, getting in the Christmas spirit in second grade.  This year my team implemented a Christmas around the World Unit, and each of our 5 classrooms took a country to teach about!   I used this great packet from Across the Hall in 2nd Grade for my country!  Scandinavia!
We read and did the books from this packet, and I added a craft to make Nisse the Gnome who brings gifts to the kids in Norway if they leave him some porridge.  The kids are having a blast and enjoying their travels!

                                             
                                               

 Next week is the craziness of parent gifts, holiday parties, and sing a longs!  Can't wait!

The Process of Writing

My second graders are working so hard to follow the writing process...brainstorm, draft, edit, final copy... rinse, lather, repeat.  Oh wait!  It seems that every year I have a handful of students that struggle with capitals and punctuation!  We spend the first few weeks of school going over complete vs. incomplete sentences, and learning about CUPS!

I use the above process with my students to help them remember what to look for when editing.  I have this poster hanging in my classroom!  We talk about what each letter stands for and we edit some sentences at the beginning of the year.  Capitals and periods, capitals and periods...I sound like a broken record! Wait...Mrs. Driscoll--what's a record!?

As the children are working through their own editing, I give them a CUPS slip to help them be more independent in their editing! As the check their writing for each letter, they can check it off on their CUPS slip.  

Sound helpful??  You can check this packet out in my store!  I have a CUPS editing packet.  It includes this poster, and student CUPS slips.  It also has some beginning of the year activities to practice each skill!

Check it out in my TPT store!

Too Tall Tales!

I love tall tales!  It is one of my favorite things from grade school, and add in the old Disney tall tales cartoons...  It brings me fond memories of my elementary school days.   Common core asks that students recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.  So I thought, perfect way to incorporate tall tales into our second grade ELA curriculum.  Our first grade team works with fairy tales, so we can build on that learning with this genre!
I utilized some A to Z readers that we have in our book room.  Luckily I was able to find a book for each level of my guided reading groups.  We spent our guided reading time, reviewing the elements of a tall tale and each group worked cooperatively to create a poster about 'their' tall tale character. I modified an idea I found at Totally Terrific in Texas and created posters that focused more on the elements I wanted them to be able to pick out that were part of a tall tale.  
Here's how they turned out!  

We also incorporated activities from MANY great packets out their on TPT.   To coincide with our tall tale unit for shared reading I used the book Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa After reading the tall tale Pecos Bill, we used Cowgirl Kate as part of our shared reading.  This book is on the common core stories list for text exemplars.  I also created my newest packet on TPT to go along with this book!  I hope you check it out!