Fun with Telling Time!

We have been spending a lot of time working on telling time and the kids have gotten really good at the hour and half hour.  

When we first looked at the clock, we talked about the hands and I did this neat way of teaching the hands to the kids that came from teachertipster.com

Then we learned this cute little rhyme by teachertipster.com.

After learning the rhyme and practicing with some clocks, we moved to our desks and drew the clock.  Then we used licorice to show various times.  They were excited to do this because they knew that if they worked hard and followed directions, they would get to eat some licorice at the end. 

Next, we played our connect four game to practice telling time.  

Then, we played our I Have Who Has Game to practice telling time.

Finally, we used played scoot to practice telling time.

The kids are now doing great at telling time and we had fun learning how to tell the time!

Have a great week!

Dollar Deal Day Has Arrived!

It's another great deal this summer!  Today is the dollar deal day!  Go on over and save on these 2 items that are priced to $1 just for today!

Our 2 top sellers are picked for this deal today:

1.   I Have, Who Has Game-Telling Time to the hour and half hour

2. I Have, Who Has Game-Diphthong ou, ow

Make sure you grab them while they are only $1 and check out all the other awesome dollar day deals today!  Be sure to search #bhbflagdollar for all the great deals going on!

Have a great day!

Five for...Well, Sunday!

Good morning!

We had a short school week last week with an inservice on Friday and then we will have another short week this week with PT comp day on Friday. 

Anybody else feel like short weeks are longer??? 

I don't know if it is because I'm trying to cram so much in or what the deal is, but I'm always completely confused what the day it actually is (my kiddos corrected me at least five times on Thursday for saying Friday) and completely exhausted by the end of the week! Ha!

Anyway, let's jump in to this week's photos for the Five for Friday linky from Kacey at Doodlebugs Teaching.

1

Last week, we reviewed telling time to the hour and half-hour. This week, we'll work on telling time to the five minutes. Games and practice pages from our Telling Time Mega Pack make planning easy! :-)

2

I also introduced the kids to Showbie this week for the first time. I love this app! While I don't go completely paperless in second grade (I think it is still important for them to learn how to WRITE on paper), I do like to put things on Showbie that are good review but simple enough they seem like a waste of copy paper!

3

Our math games from Dealing with Math Homework from Teacher's Clubhouse are always a hit. We practiced this new one and they loved finding the missing addends!

4 and 5

 Yesterday, was regional cross country for my son and then we rushed back for sub-state volleyball for my daughter (and the team I help coach). My hubby was ready to make a quick wardrobe switch to support them! ;-)

The entire cross country team PR'd! It was great to see them run well. My niece will move on to the state meet next weekend.

The volleyball team won their sub-state tournament, taking their record to 38-2. We will play in the state tournament next weekend. Here's a picture with a bunch of the fans that showed up to cheer us on (my daughter is #14). :-)

Have a blessed Sunday and a great week!

Hotshots, Whacky Watches, Counting Races and More!

Hey there! I hope you're having a great weekend.

I spent 6ish hours at the school today. Ugh! 

But I accomplished so much, I can't be too upset...

Dinner's in the oven, so I can finally prop my feet up and relax blog for a few minutes. ;-) I'm linking up with Doodlebugs again.

My students were rocking our HOTSHOTS this week. They were so excited that our "Number of the Day" is in the thousands now!

I am absolutely loving these this year! We only do them 2-3 times a week, so I've been able to jump ahead as needed for the skills we're working on. Seriously...my favorite thing Kristi and I have created.

 

 

Thanks to The Teacher Idea Factory we had counting races this week. Tons of great ideas in the post I've linked for whole group math games. Check it out!

We worked on telling time again. This time to the minute. These Whacky Watches were a hit (she has them to the 5 minute too)! My kiddos love using QR codes and I love that they can check their own work. ;-)

 

On Thursdays during Daily 5, I always try to allow some game time in my groups. This week we played "I Have...Who Has...?" I think we should be playing more! The kids love it. They become familiar with our sight words from our reading series. There really is no downside. I've got to make time to play it more often--especially for my lower groups. If you're looking for some games, we have plenty in our TPT store.

 

And finally, this is what awaited me this morning. I just had to get out of there yesterday...no focus...even if I did only have a few minutes before having to leave for our basketball game anyway.

I was able to get it all cleaned up (no pic, but I promise I did) and get all of my reading copies and plans done for the next six weeks. I also took a bunch of those online classes we have to do (think bullying, slips and falls, etc.), cleaned out my e-mail box, and made some parent phone calls!

 It feels good to be caught up!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Five for Friday - Join Me for "Fun Friday"

Happy Friday! 

Around here that means "Fun Friday" which is often just too much "fun" for me. ;-) My husband is always teasing me about it…the kids are pumped and excited for "Fun Friday" every week and at some point in the morning as I get ready I will sarcastically say, "It's Fun Friday!"

Why is it so much fun (for them)? 

Well, let's just say we break away from routines. 

I love routines.

I thought it might be fun to invite you along for today's "Fun Friday" for my Five for Friday (thanks DoodleBugs). 

We usually start Fridays by practicing our spelling words on a whiteboard with partners for a few minutes before taking our test. So exciting!

Then we do a shortened version of Daily 5. The group on Time with Teacher usually gets to play a game while I'm conferencing with other kids. This week they played our "I Have…Who Has…?" game. They love to play these…we have one for each unit and as you may know an insane amount of them for different phonics skills in our TPT and TN stores. This particular group is so quick with the words that they get to time themselves and see if they can "beat their time." 

After Daily 5, I send the little kiddos off to recess. Teachers do not have recess duty this year. Whoop! Whoop! This was sort of a trade-off because we don't actually have a plan time during the day since we teach our own specials. Technically, our plan time is before and after school. 

After recess, we have MTSS (maybe RTI where you are at) groups. 

When they get back, we have a little time to work. All of their work must be finished if they are going to do "Fun Friday."

Math on Fridays is usually a game day or a test day or both. Today was game day. We played "Scoot!" using our "I Have…Who Has…?" game cards to practice telling time to five minutes. Click here for an explanation about how I easily turned these cards into a "Scoot!" game.

We also played "Connect Four" to get even more practice!

Both of these games are from our Telling Time Mega Pack if you're interested.

In the middle of math, we take a lunch break.

After math, we do an activity as a reward for STAR homework (idea from Amanda Madden). Today we went outside for extra recess because we have been stuck indoors for weeks and it was finally in the 50s today! I hope parents forgive me…as the information letter about STAR homework says we will earn learning game time.

Then we came back in and the "fun" really begins. I announce Dojo points for the week and the students sign up for their reward. 

Then the kids choose their "Fun Friday" activity. Some of the favorites are board games, legos, write/draw on the whiteboard, painting, and play-doh. Think indoor recess activities. I totally stole this idea from Kristin at A Teeny Tiny Teacher. This 20-30 minutes of "fun" gives me a few minutes to get some things done for next week. It's definitely a win-win. The kids earn a fun reward for working hard, and I get a few minutes of prep time…unless I decide to sit down and do a puzzle or something with one of my kiddos which is my kind of "fun." :-)

Thanks for joining me for "Fun Friday!" Have a great weekend!

Telling Time to the Hour and Half Hour, Sight Word Olympics, & Extra Fun Thing!

I think, I'm a little like Crystal this week and have a few random things that I am posting about.  We will start with the telling time to the hour and half hour.  We have been working a lot with this because it seems like they get the hour down and then when you introduce the half hour, everything becomes confusing.  So, we have been practicing a lot!  We did a hands-on

activity with telling time to the hour and half hour that I found at A Heart Teaching.   In this activity, we made a human clock and the other kids had to tell the time that the students were showing.  They were very careful when it was half past the hour that they showed the short hand in between the numbers.

We then practiced with the Telling Time I Have, Who Has Game that we have at TPT.  They loved playing it and I started timing them to see how fast they could get.  Each time they were faster and got so excited!

We then used the I Have, Who Has cards to play a few games of Scoot.

Finally, they partnered up and played our connect four telling time game.

After all of this practice, they are getting much better at telling time-YAY!

Next, we have started Sight Word Olympics that goes with our Pathways to Reading Program.  It is just a fun way for the kids to work on and learn their sight words.  They were given a list of sight words to practice on and had to read them in 2 1/2 minutes without sounding them out and missing any of them.  Olympic Judges (myself and our Title 1 teachers were the Olympic Judges-which one of my boys thought an actual JUDGE was going to come in for it :-) ) come in now and then to test them.  Well, we did the first testing of it and I had a few pass it and earn a blue ribbon.  They were so excited and now the others keep asking when the Olympic Judges will be back because they have practiced extra for that blue ribbon!  :-)

Finally to our Extra Fun Thing.  On Fridays, my co-teacher and I do an extra fun thing where students get to participate if they get all of their work done for the week and their behavior has been good.  My co-teacher and I switch every week.  One week, she does the extra fun thing with the kids that earned it and I take the workers etc. and the next week we switch.  My co-teacher had the extra fun thing this week and she is very crafty (I'm not at all crafty).  She did sand art with them and they absolutely loved it!  All of the kids sand art turned out really neat!

I'm a K-state (KSU) fan, so this was of course one of my favorites!

Hope you have a great week!  

Daily 5 Progress and Math Rotations - Five for Friday!

Happy Friday! 

I tell you with Labor Day off this week, I had my days all messed up and strangely it seemed like a longer week than normal. Short weeks are always like that for me though!

So here's what we've been up to in 2nd grade:

We went over Check for Understanding again before we started practicing Read to Someone. We only have one thing left for next week - Listen to Reading. 

These kids are rocking out the Daily 5! Don't hate me, but we were doing 15 minutes of Read to Self the 2nd day!!! Thank you, dear first grade teacher! :-)

Today I even tried some math rotations...

This is group is playing our I Have...Who Has...? Time to the Hour and Half-Hour game. It is our all-time best seller and I can understand why--great for 1st grade and the beginning of 2nd grade! :-) Also available in our Telling Time Mega Pack. 

This group is working in their Interactive Notebooks. They are loving these things and so am I! The students are so engaged--all of them and all the time. These pages come from the math INB pack I'm working on, but I'm kid-testing (and teacher-testing) it before I list it. :-)

This group is working with pattern blocks. First they had to cover some shapes on a paper from Saxon and then I let them explore (play) the rest of the time.

These two are practicing one of the card games from Dealing with Math Homework. I have had a great response on what I'm calling STAR Homework (idea from Amanda Madden). I've adapted it a bit for me, but the kids and their parents are loving playing these math games and the new style of homework in general.

Don't forget to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

Have a restful weekend!

It Works, It Works!

So...in my last post I told you about wanting to do a telling time activity "scoot" style. My kids (and I) have fallen in love with this fun review game--and as you know we LOVE "I Have...Who Has...?" games. I had just printed all the games in our Telling Time Mega Pack on cardstock and laminated them so I thought...why not use those cards for "scoot?"

I'm all about easy, so I took a table I already had made with my students' names (it had first and last hence the reason for all the black in the pics - sorry). I added a column to the right for their answers. I then put the cards on their desks. As they stopped at each person's desk, they read the clocks (ignoring the "Who has _____?" part) and wrote the times next to that person's name.

Easy peasy! No need to add a number or letter to the cards.

So if you have any of our (or anybody's) "I Have...Who Has...?" games give scoot a try!

It works! I have one kiddo who was really struggling, but after reading 23 clocks he was starting to get it. Hooray! Maybe we'll play it again...and again. Ha! ;-)

P.S. We might finally have the possibility of a snow day tomorrow! ;-)