How Interactive Read Alouds Changed my Reading Instruction

I have to admit that when my school district made interactive read alouds a focus for our reading instruction this year, I was worried.  I was worried about taking the direct instruction time away from my struggling readers.  I was worried that I would never make it through all of our reading standards.  I was worried the repeated interruptions during reading would cause my students to lose focus and become disruptive.  Boy, was I wrong.

During our interactive read aloud time, my students are more engaged than any other part of the day.  They love sharing their thoughts and connections.  They love learning about each other and finding common ground with peers, building stronger relationships.  They love to dig deep into new vocabulary and ideas.

Research backs this up by demonstrating that the most effective read-alouds are those where children are actively involved in asking and answering questions and making predictions.  Not only are interactive read alouds something students enjoy, but they model  fluent reading, boost vocabulary, improve comprehension and depth of knowledge, build community and the biggest thing of all-motivates students to read on their own by developing a love of books.

One of my goals this year is to make interactive read alouds as easy as possible for my 2nd grade team.  Each week, we pick one book to focus on in order to dig deep into the vocabulary, allow for student conversation and a wrap up activity. I also worked hard to pick books that would be important teaching points for our students such as friendship, growth mindset/perseverance, self worth and social justice. 

I developed a template for each book that includes:

• Vocabulary cards
• Questions that can be printed on a sticky note and placed on the books pages for easy questioning
• Individual post activity

Please follow this link to my Teachers Pay Teachers Page for some of my favorite interactive read alouds.  Please keep checking back.  More will be added weekly!

Using Task Cards for Spiral Review

Who has ever introduced a new math concept and practiced it in all sorts of amazing ways for weeks until your students have mastered it.  Sounds great right?  Let's fast forward 3 weeks and give students some problems from what you taught them a few weeks ago.  All of a sudden there are a bunch of big eyed cuties looking at you like they have no idea what to do.

Brain research shows that without practice, the connections that were made when learning a concept can weaken.  That's why spiral review is so important.  Passing out a worksheet of past problems is a way to do this, but is it engaging? Definitely not!

Task cards are a fun, hands on way for students to practice past skills.  Either hang them around the room to allow movement for those kiddos who need to actively learn, or place them in a basket to use for math centers.  My students look forward to math rotations when they know that task cards are one of the activities.  Not only, do they enjoy the activity, but amazing conversation and teaching happens at this rotation.  Students become little teachers, helping their peers who need it, increasing both students' learning and teaching them the important skill of being independent learners.

Below are some of our favorite task cards that are available on my Teachers Pay Teachers Store:

Students will draw and create equations  while solving 15 mini-mysteries.  Adding to the fun-students check their answers using a secret decoder!

Students will practice using their mental math strategies while finding the missing addends and solving an ice skating riddle.

Bar model review and pirates! What could be better!

Students will practice using fact families as addition and subtraction strategies while discovering treasure!

The hungry alligator will help students master comparing 2 and 3 digit numbers.

Students will use their super powers to practice 3 digit addition with regrouping.

Multiplication heros are needed to solve these fact fluency problems!

Keep the tricky concept of regrouping with subtraction fresh with these super task cards!

Happy Spiraling!

Jazz up your meet the teacher night with some fun themes!

My second grade team has been loving our pirate themed meet the teacher theme for a couple years.  Since our pirate themed scavenger hunt is such an easy way to have our students explore the room, I created some more themes that are all available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  

Sports Themed Meet the Teacher

Have your student allstars explore the classroom while making a home run.  This editable scavenger hunt is an easy and fun way to let your students explore their new classroom. 

After the hunt, some great ideas of small prizes would be:

-Big League Chew Bubble Gum

-Mini Trophies

-Sports Stress Balls

Hollywood Themed Meet the Teacher

Students will love walking the red carpet into their new classroom.  This editable scavenger hunt will will lead the students around the room in style.

After the hunt, some fun prizes would be:

-Movie Star Glasses

-A small Oscar type trophy

-Popcorn

-Red Box Gift Certificates

Ocean Themed Meet the Teacher

Have your students grab their scuba gear and explore their new classroom. This editable scavenger hunt will set the scene for a fun year.

After the hunt, some fun prizes would be:

-sea shells

-sun glasses

-beach ball

-sand toys

Detective Themed Meet the Teacher

Have your students use their sleuthing skills to explore their new classroom.  This editable scavenger will help your student detectives have a blast.

After the hunt, some fun prizes would be:

-mini magnifying glasses

-Notepads and pens/pencils

-Detective badges

-Mystery Flavored Candy

Superhero Themed Meet the Teacher

Have your little superheros explore their new classroom by showing their superpowers.  This editable scavenger hunt will have your students ready to complete any mission that lay ahead.

-Super hero masks

-Plastic tablecloth capes

-Tootsie pop suckers with mini cape

-Pop Rock candy

Getting Ready for the Olympics in the classroom!

Our Second Grade Team is working hard to make the two weeks of the Olympics full of fun learning opportunities!

Every day we will use this bar graph to track the medal count for the USA.  There is a version to use for the whole class or a black and white version for individual students. 

Click here for the link:

Each student is also creating a medal to wear for our opening ceremony parade and then to display in the hallway.  The students will illustrate themselves doing a sport they would choose if they got to be in the Olympics.  

Click here for the link.

Math Centers will be lots of fun with these task cards and partner games.  The partner game package includes games to increase fact fluency for addition, subtraction and multiplication for 

2s, 5s and 10s.

Click here for the partner game:

Click here for the missing addend task cards:

Students will work hard to focus during reading to earn stickers until they reach the gold medal!

Click here for the reading chart:

Stay tuned for more info about our Olympics themed 100th day activities and closing ceremony activities!  Includes fun activities and snacks!

My star students are getting the V.I.P. treatment this year!

This year, I have added a movie star theme to our student of the week activities and the kids are loving it!  Every one of my students will get to see how they are Very Important People in our classroom.

Click here to buy it at my TpT store.

Throughout the week, students create a display at our V.I.P. table throughout the week.

This is what the schedule looks like:

On Monday, they share their V.I.P. poster above.  

On Tuesday, students bring 2-3 pictures or awards to share and display.

On Wednesday, students bring a favorite book to share and display.

On Thursday, students bring a letter written by a loved on to share and display.

On Fridays, students share a special talent they have.

Our pirate themed meet the teacher was a success last week, and tonight I am anxiously awaiting the first day of school tomorrow!

 Directions were posted on the Smartboard in order to help parents know what to do.

Students began the evening at the teacher table where parents grabbed classroom information and the little buccaneers were given a map to explore the room.

Parents filled out this adorable card that asked what they "treasured" about their child plus any other information they wanted to share about their family that would help me get to know my students better.  Click on the picture to go to my TpT store and download the card for free.

The map was the highlight of the evening and a editable version can be purchased by clicking on the picture above. Each student was given a coin and a map.  Students were asked to do three jobs.  Find their desk, their backpack hook and the class library.  Every time a student completed a job, they scratched off the gold scratch-off sticker I purchased on Amazon.  Underneath the sticker were secret words.  

Once they completed the jobs, they had to come to me and tell me the secret sentence that was under the scratch-offs.  Once they told me that "Second Graders Arrrr the Best," they were given their treasure: Rolos and a Ring Pop.

 I loved a similar display I saw and Pinterest and couldn't resist doing the same! Especially when I found the gem wall stickers at the Dollar Store-win!

 In order to display our soon to be pirate themed work, we made a pirate display in the hallway for  the 2nd grade team to share.

I couldn't resist putting my team and myself as captains of the ship.  Whenever we have a hard day, we can go out in the hallway for a bit of a giggle.  Good luck to all of the teachers that are starting off the year tomorrow!  Sleep well tonight as you set sail for a wonderful year of learning!

Perfect CVC Decoding Warm Up

This activity is a perfect reading warm up for my students who are working on beginning decoding skills.  By having students physically manipulate the letters, students stay engaged! If you do not have letter tiles, I have created free paper tiles that come with the practice mat available at my store.

Click here to check it out!

Students place the red vowel tiles on the sheet while saying the sound of each vowel.

Give students 2 blue consonant tiles that are placed on either side of "a."  Students will say the sounds once slowly and then once faster.  Have the student slide down to the next vowel and repeat.  Because they are using the same consonants for each vowel, they are getting a lot of practice differentiating those tricky vowels!

Once the student has completed the column.  Have them go back and place the blue tiles back by the "a."  Have them say the word out loud and decide if it is a real or nonsense word.  During this activity, we focus on sound spelling instead of formal spelling.  If a student says "wuz" is a real word, they write it as a real word, and I discuss that with sound spelling it is a real word, but in our formal writing we spell it differently.  I want my students to build the phonemic awareness they are lacking, instead of getting hung up on proper spelling.

If you would like to give this activity a try with your students, click the image below and it will take you directly to my TpT store.