Tips and Tools for Parent Volunteers

Welcome back to another week of:

This week Missy from The Dirt Road Teacher has an awesome FREE product to help you effectively incorporate parent volunteers into your classroom.  She offers great ideas and different forms to make the process as easy and productive as possible.

CLICK HERE to download Missy's Classroom Volunteer Management product. 

Here's a sneak peek at the Volunteer Contract included in this FREE product. I love this item because it establishes boundaries and sets guidelines.


Here is a to-do list. All you need to do is fill in prior to your volunteer arriving.

And if you don't follow Missy's blog or TpT store, I highly suggest you do! She's a wonderful teacher and is always offering some great suggestions or ideas.  

Don't forget to come back next week for another round of Tips and Tools  from a fellow Primary Peep!

Math Planning Tools for Back to School

I'm so excited to announce that I'm the first to post in a NEW blog hop (I can't believe they trusted me enough to be the first blogger to post).  This blog hop is organized by a group of amazing teachers that call themselves the Primary Peeps -- and I'm one of them. Each week throughout the summer, a different blogger from our group will blog about various tips or tools to help you to prepare for the upcoming school year.

So, without further ado . . . the tool I want to share with you is my 1st Quarter Math Planning Pack for 2nd Grade.  This product is FREE and packed full of goodies for anyone who teaches 2nd grade math.  CLICK HERE to download this amazing product for free.


So why is this product soooo amazing?  Let me show you...

The first thing that makes it awesome is I have done ALL the planning for you.  I have included the Common Core standards, activities that will teach the standards and extra information that is very valuable.  In addition to the daily lesson plans, I've also included a quarterly pacing guide to help you easily view the specific standards taught throughout the entire first quarter.

The daily math sheet is my ALL TIME FAVORITE part of this document. I copy it on cardstock and also laminate it -- one for each student in my class. My kiddos complete this sheet every day as part of their morning routine. This sheet incorporate NUMEROUS skills that are taught throughout the quarter. I have seen so much growth in my students' math abilities and I attribute most of the growth to this activity. In order for your kiddos to truly establish a firm mathematical foundation, it's essential for teachers to have their students practice foundational math concepts on a daily basis. And this sheet does exactly that.

I don't want to ramble on and on about this product, I want you to CLICK HERE to download it for FREE and check it out for yourself.  However, here are some other things included in this product:

Send this letter home to parents at the beginning of the quarter so they know exactly what their child will be learning in math.

Use this checklist as a way to keep track of students' progress. Once they've mastered a skill, sign your name and give them a smiley face. At the end of the quarter, each students' checklist will give you valuable information about their abilities.

Post these cards on your wall so students can see exactly which skills they are learning in math. These cards are phrased with 'I Can' statements to help students easily discuss what they are learning.

And this is only the beginning of the great products I have to help you effectively teach math all year long!  Head over to my Teachers pay Teachers store to check out my other products.

Here are all the FABULOUS teacher bloggers who make up Primary Peeps. If you're not familiar with them, you MUST check 'em out (each and every one of them).
 
Remember, we will be posting new tips and tools EACH WEEK for the entire summer.  I can't wait to see what Missy from The Dirt Road Teacher decides to share next week. 

Free Math Worksheet

I'm linking up with The Teaching Tribune to share a FREE math worksheet.

I just created this worksheet to use next year. This sheet is a 2-in-1 because the top half requires students to complete subtraction problems and the bottom half turns their work into a bingo board.

CLICK HERE to download this worksheet for FREE.

The top part requires students to complete subtraction problems (within 50) using a number line, their fingers, or a hundreds board.  Once the work is done, they cut out their answers and glue them on the MATH-O board. When everyone is completed, play MATH-O and have fun.  

You will need to randomly call out letters (M, A, T, H, O) and then one of the possible answers (sorry, no answer key included). Since there are only 15 answers, it shouldn't take too long for someone to earn MATH-O.  

Enjoy, and if you use it, I'd love to hear how it goes. 

Wrapping Things Up

Only 3 more days. We're soo close but summer still feels so far away. I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the Five for Friday (or should I say Saturday) Linky. 

I realized my kiddos were having difficulty subtracting with zeros, so I made these task cards. CLICK HERE to download them for free.  

 I also taught them this really cool trick. 

It's difficult to subtract with zeros because you have to regroup, so if you need to subtract from 700, take 1 away to create 699. However, you must KEEP THE DIFFERENCE THE SAME so since you took 1 from 700 you also need to take 1 away from the other number. Then subtract. Since you kept the difference the same, your answer will be the same as well. 

 

We also worked on different shades of meaning for verbs and adjectives. I introduced it by showing them four different shades of blue. They quickly caught on to the word "shade" and easily applied it to different verbs and adjectives. 

These cards come from Teaching and Tapas Charades of Meaning product. We had a blast with all the different activities in this product. Click on the picture below to check out the product -- it's fantastic. 

We also completed one of my favorite writing activities. I give my kiddos this prompt on one of the first days of school and I collect their papers. I hold on to them until the end of the school year and I have them complete the same writing prompt (they always forget that they did this at the beginning of the year). When they turn their papers in this time, I surprise them with the beginning of year version. We compare the two pieces of work and discuss how much they have improved as writers over the year. I have them bring the two papers home to share with their family. This activity brings so many smiles and sense of accomplishment -- I'll do it every year.

I've always wanted to use arrow cards to teach my kiddos place value. I came across this great blog post from Tara at the Elementary Math Maniac blog (she actually did a guest post on Kids Math Teacher blog -- which is where I found the info) and she wrote about using magnetic arrow cards. MAGNETIC arrow cards --- LOVE IT! So I made one set of magnetic arrow cards and slapped them on my white board.  I have stayed away from paper arrow cards because of the management aspect (I just think it would become too much).

I went to Wal Mart and bought a pack of magnetic paper that contained 3 pieces ($6). Then I used a ruler and permanent marker and started creating.  I cut them out and added color around the edges (red for the hundred cards, yellow for the ten cards, and green for the one cards).  I'll take a pic of the completed cards and post it on Monday. 

This is totally random, but I came across this on Pinterest and it has been wonderful. If you're a praying momma, it's a must have. If you want to be a praying momma, it's a great resource to help you get started.  I've been using it to pray for my own children AND my students.

CLICK HERE to download your own copy for FREE. 

Still Plugging Along

We only have 8 more days but we're still working hard. I am amazed with the growth most of my students have made this year, but I'm also freaking out because I keep finding new things that they haven't mastered yet AND I don't want them to leave me without knowing these things. Anyways, I'm teaming up with Doodle Bugs' Five for Friday Linky to share 5 things we did this week. 

We finished life cycles this week. I love teaching animal life cycles, but I'm also always so excited when the unit is over. I think it's because we go full force into animals and that's basically what we talk about, write about, read about, and do math about for an entire month.

This year we spent a good about of time on the frog. I found this cute poem/song from Super Teacher Worksheets. The best part is that it's FREE -- you don't need a subscription to grab this goodie. CLICK HERE to download it. 

I created this worksheet to go along with the poem. It touches on several Common Core Reading Informational Text Standards that we've already learned this year.  This was a great review for many of my students.  CLICK HERE to download the worksheet. (border is from Krista Wallden.)

We also spent some time on folktales this week. We've already read fables and fairy tales, but somehow skipped folktales.
We started by reading Anansi the Spider and made predictions about what we thought the book would explain. We wrote our predictions on post-it notes and stuck 'em to the board. If you don't have a copy of the book, CLICK HERE to watch it being read.  

We also read two different versions of Stone Soup (ok, to be totally honest with you, I never knew Stone Soup was a folktale . . . did you?). I had one of the original versions (I also didn't realize how many different versions of this story exist) so we read it and then watched a second version on PBS Kids' website.

Y'all NEED to check out this website, especially the section Between the Lions  because they have 13 short videos of different fairy tales and fables. Each one includes closed captioning too so the kiddos can read the words while they watch.  CLICK HERE to check them out. My kiddos could watch them over and over again -- ALL DAY LONG. 

 

We also wrote (I should say attempted to write) our own folktales. THIS WAS HARD, but they actually had a lot of fun. We had some good laughs when some of the folktales were read. 

 We folded a large piece of white paper in half and everyone wrote this on the front cover. 

Then on the inside, each student wrote their own folktales. Some students wrote one folktale that included lots of details and other students wrote several short folktales. 

We're also still working on adding and subtracting 3-digit numbers with regrouping. I tried to switch it up a bit and gave each pair of kiddos a deck of cards. Each person was required to make a 3-digit number with cards, then they put the cards next to each other and added the numbers together. Nothing fancy, but it got the job done.

Each person completed the work on their own paper. When they were done, they checked to see if they got the same answer. If they did, they moved on to a new problem. If their answers were different, they reworked the problem to discover the mistake.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Memorial Day Ideas

Are you looking for ideas on how to incorporate Memorial Day into your plans? If so, I highly suggest having your students watch the Reading Rainbow episode The Wall. In this episode, the book The Wall (by Eve Bunting) is read and LeVar visits the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC.  CLICK HERE to watch the episode (it's 27 minutes long -- whoop whoop).

After the video we'll discuss the overall tone of the story and provide reasons for our answer.  We'll also take out our United States maps and find where Washington DC is and compare the location to where we live (this will reinforce the map skills we've already learned this year). 

I also checked out all of Eve Bunting's other books from our school library. I'll show each book and read its title, then I'll tell my kiddos that if they enjoyed this book, they'll probably enjoy her other books as well.  I'll set the additional books in a basket and let them read the books when they get time. This is a simple way to expose your students to a wide variety of texts.  

I also think it's important to review Veteran's Day and discuss the similarities/differences between the two holidays. CLICK HERE for a worksheet that compares the two holidays -- this worksheet is actually found within my product Spend  a Day Teaching About Veterans Day.  

And last but not least, Super Teacher Worksheets has a FREE reading passage with questions available for download. CLICK HERE to get it.  They have it marked at a 4th grade reading level, so I plan on reading it with my 2nd graders.  Not that you can read the text from the picture, but this is what it looks like:

At some point, we'll also discuss what our traditions are for Memorial Day and we might write a letter to a member of the military thanking them for their service. I'll also encourage my kiddos to teach their family about the true meaning of Memorial Day.

Do you know of any other great Memorial Day resources? I'd love to hear about them.