Oh My! It's Been Way Too Long!

Hello Friends,

I just wanted to apologize about the lack of posts this year!  It has been a very busy year although I only have 15 students.  I have been trying to create and sell more of my own work and spend some time with my family (two children take up way more time the older they get at least a toddler does).  I also have been putting together a Donors Choose project. Guided Reading and having a good supply of books for students is very important to me.  I usually buy all my own books and never take them from the library. This way the students have them to enjoy even after we are done reading them. I even put them out before so they can gain some background knowledge before we start a unit or topic.

The real cool thing about Donors Choose is that there are donors willing to match everyone's donation!  Just enter the code SPARK at checkout and your amount DOUBLES!!!!

 Hopefully soon I will have my new May activity packet finished and I can post about all the great differentiated centers and activities I will have included. Thanks for stopping by and as usual thank you for the support!

Click HERE to donate:)

When your Sight Words Run Out!

What do you do if a student already knows how to spell AND read all their sight words?  In the past I have given my entire class the same list and just tested everyone at the end of the week on that list. Then the next week we moved onto the next list. BUT...with all my differentiation training I could no longer do that.  SO, this year everyone was tested to see what words they could spell AND write at the beginning of the year.  Then, I assess them on Wednesdays with a quick sentence or two and send home new words or if they still need practice with the old words, the same words again. Now it is half way through the year and I have students that have mastered all the Dolch (that's what list I decided to use) words for all the grade levels. 


So....I was thinking in the past I used to do a vocabulary word of the week with my class and then it hit me that those students that have mastered almost all the sight words can move to a vocabulary group.  I haven't ironed out all the kinks yet but I have been busy digging up and updating my old files.  here are some I have been working on this weekend.

Here are the two books I have made.  One is for all the words that you  introduce. The other is a book for some word work of the word.

 Here are a few pages from the word work book!

Here is the Vocabulary Journal or Dictionary.  I have included several different pages to go along with the journal in case this page does not fit your needs of your class.






I have also made some response pages so students can make connections and expand on the vocabulary words with questions like... Where is a place you might rush to and why?  These pages I am going to use for my assessments.  In the pack there is a poster for the work as well.  I included different styles as well as a blank one!

In my TPT store I have included my example for rush and then blanks of all the materials.  If you would like me to input all your words and create the document I can do that for an extra charge.  If not you can just create text boxes and just add your own words in yourself.

Please let me know if you have any questions and I always welcome comments!

February Centers

New February Centers are coming your way! I would like to give away what I have completed so far for a few hours when I have reached a 100 followers on my Facebook page.  I am almost there!  I have only 5 more to go! Here is a little preview of what I have so far...

The math section is completed and I am currently working on an ELA section that includes centers, books and writing activities.  So head on over to my Facebook page and if you have not liked it already hit like and get ready to get some awesome freebies and read some great posts.  Have a great weekend!

Interactive Notebooks-Tiered!

Sorry everyone, I have been so busy and once again time got away from me,but I have a great freebie for you!  As we all know interactive notebooks are very popular right now. I have been using them for the past three years and love them!  SO...what I did was combine interactive notebooks with differentiation. 


There are two ways that I differentiate my notebook activities.  One way is that I just change the numbers on the same activity.  Depending on the students needs and of course a pre assessment I use numbers that they need to be working on.

Here is an example of differentiating the same journal with different numbers:

The other way I have been differentiating my journals is to scaffold the task level of independence. Some students need different tasks and their level of independence may vary as well.  Therefore, I change the task and sometimes even the numbers for each activity.  This way takes a little more time but may be needed if you have a greater variety of needs in your classroom.

Here is one way I would scaffold the activities level of independence for this task:

In this example I kept the number range the same but changed the task to meet the students level of independence.   Of course you can change the numbers as well as scaffold the tasks activity.

To meet the needs of your students I have included a master of each example, PLUS, a blank one for each activity so you could fill in your own numbers.  Just click on the link below to get your own copy!  Enjoy and I welcome feedback and comments!

 Click here for your copy

A Facebook Freebie

As a thank you for being a follower I am giving you frequent freebies and looks into my work.  Here is something that I have worked very hard on and have posted on before.

Second Grade Dolch Sight Words List 1

These are interactive and fun activities for your students to practice a set of 5 sight words.  I also have sets already posted for pre-primer through First grade.  The Second grade set is almost finished!  You can either by the entire bundle with all the sets or each individual set.  PLUS....if you buy the bundle there are some surprise activities in there!  Please if you have any questions or suggestions feel free to leave a message or email me at any time.

Pre-Assessments, Centers, Guided Groups Oh My!

Let me start off by stating that I am influenced by many people when I write and create!  So if any of this sounds familiar, its because I have done a lot of research and stalking of many, many, many people to get ideas and suggestions from.  I think most good teachers should do that!  Of course we have our original ideas too but many things most teacher do are similar in nature or what I like to call best practices.  So, that being said let me describe some important parts and procedures I have in place for my math block.

First, I start every unit with a pre-assessment.  I usually give the pre-assessment a week or so before the end the unit we are on so I have time to plan my next unit. Here is a example of a few questions from a pre-assessment I have given.

Here I gave the same question in three different levels to see what type of numbers the students need to be working on. 






Then I take the scores and levels of the students and create some fun centers, interactive notebooks, word problem stations, and guided group lessons.

The following are some tiered interactive journals that I have created based on the scores that I received from the pretest.

 Each student knows what number bag to do and if they get that finished they can do another one!

I also have differentiated centers students go to and scaffolded word problems students are working on.  Not all students go to all centers during the week either.  They also meet with me once or twice depending on their needs as well.

Here are a few centers I have for this unit as well...

I added pumpkins with numbers on  them depending on what numbers they needed to work on based on one of the questions on the pre-test.

I have tons of fun coming up with these activities and just finished a greater than, less than, equal to one that is going to be observed by the administrators from our entire district so fingers crossed everything runs smoothly!

Pumpkins! Pumpkins Pumpkins!

The following set has been up loaded to TPT this week and is like my apple set PLUS MORE!





Two differentiated books on the life cycle of a pumpkin
Three differentiated sheets for a life cycle activity

Choice of two writing activities 
**choice is differentiation too
Differentiated would you rather activity

 

These sheets are included as well as well as a senses page and senses poem too!

The following is a peak at some pages from a giveaway I am having for my first 5 followers on my new Facebook page! It is not even on TPT yet!