Bee-ing Awesome!

My ELD class continues to amazzzzzzze! We have been delving into all things Bee and have learned so much about these amazing creatures. I shared that I had a bee hive in my tree but was sad one day to see the hive just moved on - hopefully to greener pastures.  We learned how important bees are to humans and spent some time focusing on their features and attributes. My students decided to create their own books about bees and today we worked on how to draw bees accurately.  Their illustrations are bee-utiful! Ok. Enough. On to the awesomeness...

Tellin' Stories

This afternoon my ELD class began sharing the magical chameleons stories they finished writing recently. About half the class was able to share today and - Oh.My.Goodness - the stories were amazing! There were swords, zombie queens, nachos... you name it. Because my ELD class is comprised by students from all the 2nd grade classrooms, the kids were a little hesitant at first to read their stories, out loud and proud. Their inhibitions faded fast, though, and they became expert storytellers! I'm so looking forward to hearing the rest of the stories!

Magical Chameleons

Thanks to the gorgeous pictures and article in the latest National Geographic magazine, my ELD students are enthralled with learning all about these amazing creatures! 

We took a break from non-fiction learning, though, and began planning stories about magical chameleons!

 We thought deeply about the character traits, problem/solution, and other characters. Then, on Friday, we did a directed draw to illustrate a chameleon. The students are just now finishing their drawings and then will finish their stories, too!

Technology Skills

We may not be doing SBAC in 2nd grade but we are learning skills we need to have in life and get prepared for 3rd - when we DO have to take the test and keyboard quite a bit. 
It's been a little slow because my students don't have this technology at home. But, today my awesome kiddo's began typing up their reports - after choosing pictures to print for their covers last week.
For all, this is the first time they've typed, Googled for images, and printed a report and they are so completely excited about it!

ELD

With my ELD class we are researching animals and writing reports. They are working in pairs or triads on this project. 

I love how easy it is for kids to get the hang of new technology so quickly. Most of my students don't have a computer or printer at home so this was the first time they conducted research, found pictures and printed them on their own. They were so excited! I had some on desktops, some on ChromeBooks and one on an iPad. So proud! 

Here are a few who have finished their reports so far...

Next - typing a whole report!

How To Writing

I love my ELD group!

We just finished a unit on How To writing and decided to make some helpful posters explaining how to play some playground games!

They had so much fun trying to write with clarity and precision to explain these games and were awesome when it came time to make their presentations!

ELD Smarties!

In ELD today we are finishing up our unit on Pilgrims and they are beyond ready for their test tomorrow. So ready in fact, and so fantastic, that we decided to create our own tests for the rest of 2nd grade! 

The kids were given very little direction but they had a lot of PK (prior knowledge) about tests so they were off and running! The tests look fabulous!

These kids are amazing!

ELD - Taking It Off The Map!

I am so impressed with the students in my ELD group this year. Today we complete a Bridge Map (Thinking Map) about the different homes that the Native American tribes had and then we "Took it off the map" and did some writing! 

Wow! These students did an excellent job determining what they knew from the Bridge Map and why it was important to know it!

ELD - End of Week 1

So our first ELD week comes to a close! Holy Moly! These kids should be hired by Parker Bros!

I love how this one included a square to send someone back to the beginning! These will be used with the game cards they made earlier in the week.

Most are still working on finishing the instructions for their History and Time games but since we have our first Student of the Month assembly tomorrow, it'll have to wait til Monday!

ELD Time!

ELD is so much fun! It's a great chance to get to know the other 2nd graders because I have kids from each of our four 2nd grade classes for ELD.

This week we studied vocabulary, did a Thinking Map and wrote about an important event in our history and today we started making our very own social studies game! 

My awesome 22 are doing some close reading with their social studies magazine and then making some game cards. Some of the questions and answers they came up with are FANTASTIC!

I'm seriously impressed!

Tomorrow we'll work on creating a game board, we will talk about rules and write some instructions! 

Then.... maybe we'll let another ELD class play our game!