Did you know? (with LOTS of FREEBIES)

Did you know that January is National Braille Literacy month?

I didn't either... until I started doing some research on Helen Keller. We are studying her in our reading series and shockingly the kids are super into it. We have done a lot of non-fiction this year, but we haven't focused on specific people for past research so I am excited to start reading biographies and autobiographies.

So, as we are learning more and more about Helen Keller it seems obvious to expose my second graders to Braille and give them a little taste of reading with Braille. I found a wonderful kid-friendly site about Braille called Braille Bug. This site includes info about Braille (Louis Braille, history and games) and also links to the Helen Keller Kids Museum Online (which has some awesome pics and descriptions of her life).

I am definitely about to print out some Braille names for all my kiddos. Here's mine:

Click the picture above to do your name!

You've more than likely seen a few other posts I've made on Pebble Go. Well, Pebble Go just happens to have a great biography section (that I will be all over during Black History Month!!) and there is a section on Helen Keller. So, I've made a guided Web Quest for my kids to do during some tech time. If you don't have time for tech (or access to it) I also made a Text Reference page on Helen Keller. My kids are tackling Text Referencing as much as possible.

You can click the pictures above to get your free copies of these activities. (If you are in Journeys, like me, I am hoping these will be helpful to you!)

During our research on Helen Keller we are building a timeline of her life and learning what makes an event in some one's life significant. Because of the significant interest in this topic we are extending our unit on biographies and autobiographies and we are going to write our own autobiographies. We are starting with a bio-poem. If you haven't heard of a bio-poem before, it is a great way to get the kids thinking about their life.

Above are the guidelines for a bio-poem. Click the picture and you can download this for your kiddos. So, we are going to start with this poem and then in our writing journals we are going to write about different things in our life. I made up some labels to help the kids organize their pre-writing in their journals. 

Each child will receive all these labels and we will work on filling out their writing journals in an organized way! You can download these by clicking the picture above (compatible with Avery 5160 label). 

I hope to post more this week about how much progress we make in this and other topics!

 Have a great week!

back in the swing....

I don't know how all you bloggers out there do it!

I have been super exhausted since school started! Thank God for TPT and all the fabulous resources out there....My energy level seems so depleted, and I feel like my creativity has gone down the tube!

I have been back in school for 4 weeks and I am finally finishing up my hallway display that I had been putting off since I envisioned it.

Here is my inspiration:



I am in love with this chicken wire idea and it seemed pretty inexpensive...

My plan was to buy some yardsticks and connect them to make a huge 10' x 3' frame (that just happens to be how big the roll chicken wire is!).

My first problem was: how do I connect these yardsticks? The guy at home depot helped me out and we decided I should use paint stirrers glued to the back at the connecting spots. It added a little bit of stability.

I wanted to paint the yardsticks with glitter paint (who doesn't love some glitter paint?!). Then I used my staple gun to glue down the chicken wire.

All in all, constructing the frame and adding the chicken wire took 3 afternoons (after school).

Then, I hung it in the hall with some of those command hangers.

I was UNDERwhelmed. Ever have one of those pinterest projects that goes wrong? A few others told me they really liked it, but it wasn't fitting into my vision! I didn't even take a picture of it (that is how much I didn't like it!)

Then, I decided to cover the yardsticks with some border.... Now.... I LOVE it! It isn't exactly as I envisioned but it is adorable and so useful! I still get to use some glitter by using glitter clothespins to attach my kids' work.

You might notice that I hung some informational posters about dog breeds this week! Last week our story in Journeys was an informational text about "Dogs". The kids loved reading that story and we decided to do our first research project of the year! I paired my kids and each pair chose a dog breed to research. Our breed choices were initially came from Pebblego.com.

**Sidenote: If you have never used pebblego...Check it out! I think our district subscribes to it, and it is fabulous! If you go to the site and look into I believe there is a free trial on the site.

This site provides A LOT of information on a never-ending list of topics! From animals (which are broken down into groups!) to presidents and first ladies. This site is a must-use for research projects!!!! How to use Pebblego:

We started off our research by learning how to use the site. I did an example project about the bulldog (I couldn't find any corresponding books on bulldogs so that worked out well!) Each group picked a dog that they could read about in a book and on pebblego.

We ran into a little trouble though... 2 groups ended up choosing books about dogs that weren't on pebblego, so we did a little Internet exploring during their computer time! (Animal Planet's website is awesome!!)

Each group had reading time and computer time to find information about their animal.
I made a graphic organizer for the kids to guide their research. Then, the kids transferred their info to a big poster display.

The kids worked super hard for 3 days, then on Friday we invited another second grade class in to ours to be our audience. Instead of doing a whole-group presentation we put 4 kids from my class and 3-4 from the other class together.

The other class prepared interview questions before coming in to ask about our dogs after the presentations. It was awesome! The kids were excited about the presentations and about the topic! I can't wait to do it again!!!

This project could still be done without pebblego! The graphic organizer and the headers for the posters are located at this dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1uk566dopqyzql2/dogproject.pdf

Now, I am thinking of a way to make things interesting for this short week too... but, first I think I will take some time to relax!! I hope you do too!