Five for Friday

Here I am, and I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching this week for Five For Friday!  

Gallery Walks

I'm loving a good gallery walk this year!

The one above is a culminating activity from our Immigration unit. It's in the second grade CCLS ELA domains.

Each child had Post Its and went through the pictures. They wrote down facts that they remembered from our unit and their thoughts on the pictures. (I did have the Smart Board on with a cheat sheet of helpful vocabulary words for my little second graders!)

Next up, I think that I will try this as an INTRODUCTION for an upcoming unit. Activate a little schema and get the kiddos thinking and EXCITED about what's coming next!

SocksBean

I ordered some fun new necklaces from SocksBean.com!

I'll be giving a couple away to my sisters for birthday gifts, but I'm thinking that I'll keep that last one for myself! 

SUPER CUTE!

And I used a sweet 20% off code from Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd!

(And yes, those are Lucy's feet in the picture. She loves being a part of a blog photo.)

Modern Family.

I've just been really into this show recently. :)

NEW FLAIR PENS!!!

This is an exciting day.

I like to use Flair pens when I'm writing greeting cards for my kiddos. I try to write each child a personalized greeting card and put it in their mailbox a few times a month, and Flair pens are perfect for that!

Plus, they are great for writing little desk top reminders on Post Its for my second grade cuties.

Lucy is always a fun way to end a Five for Friday!

Frolicking outside in her pajamas.

Five For Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching this week for Five For Friday!  And I'm going with a BOARD GAME theme! These are games that I have been LOVING recently, and playing with my friends OUTSIDE of school! :)

Ticket to Ride

We are railroad tycoons laying tracks across the country! Race your friends to complete your routes and earn the most points. This game is addictive, easy to learn and easy to play, and comes in other versions, too!

Sheriff of Nottingham

This game is great for everyone with a love of swindling! Basically, players take turns as the sheriff. Everyone else is trying to smuggle contraband and sell goods at the market. You place your goods (and maybe contraband) in a pouch. The sheriff decides if they are going to check the bag or not. If they check your bag and you had contraband, you pay the sheriff a penalty. If he checks your bag and you didn't lie about your goods, the sheriff pays you. People try to bribe the sheriff with coins, sweet talk the sheriff, lie, and cheat their way to victory!

Of course, the times I've played, the winner was the person who lied the LEAST about their goods. Hmmm. Is there a lesson to be learned here? :)

Forbidden Island

This is a cooperative game. Not usually my style(I LIKE WINNING), but I like it. 

Basically, you are on an island with a group of explorers. You are working together to collect treasure and make it back to the helicopter with all four pieces of treasure.

BUT

The island is sinking!

Win together, or lose together!

Elysium

This is a Greek gods and goddesses themed game! 

I love Greek myths!

Basically, you are collecting Greek families, kind of like rummy. You have different family cards at levels 1, 2, or 3. So you might collect an Athena family set or an Ares family set. You might also collect all 1s, 2s, or 3s cards with multiple families. All of these cards accumulate points for you at the end of the games. Each card also has actions to earn you points throughout the game.

It's fun! And I'm really good at this game.

What games are YOU enjoying?

(As an adult, outside of school, with your pals!)

P.S.

I RELY on the Youtube channel called Table Top. It's hosted by Will Wheaten and basically he just plays all kinds of awesome games with his celebrity friends. If I get a new game, I watch him play it first, laugh a bit, and learn a lot! If you haven't used his youtube channel for learning how to play new games or just finding out about different games, I highly recommend it!

Spark Student Motivation Saturdays

Meg here, linking up with Joanne from Head Over Heels for Teaching, for Spark Student Motivation Saturday!

I set up a new writing station using this gem from Mel D-Seusstastic.

We do SO MUCH nonfiction writing, and the kiddos in second grade needed some help with their creative writing game. These organizers and templates help the kiddos jump right into writing.

....Instead of "thinking" about what to write for 20 minutes. :)

I'm really liking the set up, too! I used file folders stapled on the bulletin board as pockets. The colors go with my classroom color scheme and it's easy access for kiddos! I also put the example writing piece on the outside of the file folder so 1) the kids can see an example and 2) I know what to photocopy more of when they run out!

This has been a hit during Work on Writing time in Daily 5, so YAY!!!

Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching this week for Five For Friday! 

FLASHLIGHT FRIDAY

I still love it.

And so do my kiddos.

We spend 15 minutes every Friday reading in the dark, with flashlights, all around the classroom. It's so popular that one little girl came into my room on the first day of school and brought in her own flashlight because she had heard about it from one of my former students and was excited!

It's definitely a lot of fun!

And even kiddos who don't always choose to read during Daily 5 are pretty engaged during Flashlight Friday!

STICK PUPPETS!

Yep, we used stick puppets earlier this year to retell our Greek myths. It was tons of fun, and some kids STILL pull them out, months later, to retell Greek myths that they really enjoyed. 

GONOODLE.COM

Still love me some GoNoodle. Last year I used it as an incentive to pack up quickly so we could watch a video before the end of the day announcements came on. This year I have a special the last half hour of the day, so my kiddos are dismissed right from special! They don't even come back to the room! So, I throw this up during indoor recess and it's always a big hit. They love taking turns choosing videos to watch.

I even have a few girls who talk Irish Step Dancing classes. They throw up Call Me Maybe and do their class dance! They're teaching the other girls, too!

GoNoodle.

Keeping kiddos occupied during indoor recess all year!

Does anyone else love Trivia Crack?
I do.

It's addictive.

I have the app on my phone and play whenever I get the chance. Play against your friends and get competitive answering silly trivia questions about everything and anything!

And a little Lucy for the road!