ALL things Basketball with freebies!

Are you a basketball fan?  We definitely are in my house, but I also know that my students were all gaga about basketball too.  I am a huge advocate of tapping into what kids are into and taking advantage of that excitement.  My personal kids wanted to learn more about the schools that are in the Sweet Sixteen so I made this ABC order.   

Not too long after I started working on this ABC Order I received a request from Emmie's teacher for a few centers.  So voila!  Here they are!  Okay, really there was no voila.  More like 2 1/2 days of nonstop work! HA!

These centers are a combination of challenge/review to get those kids ready for end of the year assessments.  I also have to say that aesthetically they are some of my favorites yet!

For Math:

Fractions

Money to Five Dollars

Perimeter/Area

Multistep Word Problems

Time to Five Minutes

3D shapes

I am very aware that a couple of these centers are above what is expected of 2nd grade.  I marked 2nd/3rd on TPT for a reason.  These are definitely meant to stretch your on grade level to above grade level students.  You know your students best and you know what they are ready for!

For ELA:

Onomatopoeia

Homophones

Genre Sort 

Parts of Speech in the sentence

BBall Vocabulary

Ending Phonics Patterns (-ble, -dle, -tle)

The Basketball Centers are on sale for HALF off until Friday morning!

You know I can't write a blog post and NOT give you book recommendations.

Have you read Salt in His Shoes {affiliate Link}?  It is one of my favorite books about perseverance.  Kids love Michael Jordan (especially if you show them MJ's TOP 10 dunks on Youtube).

I also LOVE the book Basketball Belles.  It is a fantastic book on its own, but especially relevant during Women's History Month! You can find lesson plans for Basketball Belles HERE.

You can even see a SUPER fast snippet of Storybook STEM in action from Chloe's awesome class. So cute!

You can find a FULL week's worth of lesson plans for Salt in His Shoes HERE!  Amy also has this fantastic graphing freebie for a whole class lesson below.  You can can snag that by clicking on the picture!

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March Storybook STEM and a FREEBIE

Hi guys!!  Brooke and I finished up March Storybook Stem in time for you to get prepped for next month! If you are like me you are getting that Spring Fever itch!!

These fun and high level activities will keep your kids engaged and learning all the way until Spring Break.  In this unit we picked our books and activities based around common classroom themes for March.  We cover St. Patricks day, Weather, Basketball, and Read Across America.   We picked The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco, because it addresses the love of reading and how amazing adventures through books. Bonus points: with this book you get to learn about the amazing creatures- BEES!

Here is a sneak peek into some of the literacy activities:

Math Connections:

And then here are some images to show you what goes along with our STEM activities:

Did you see that Potato Pulley!?!? How cool is that!

And last but not least, here is a passage that I wrote on bees!  The little freebie also comes with a life cycle poster.  Click on the image to head to my store:

Here are Amazon Affiliate links to the books if you don't have any of them yet!

        

         

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March in Action

I am giving myself the award for the World's Worst Blogger!  Y'all don't even know how many posts I have in draft :) Seriously adding the third kid to the mix, made my evenings SO crazy! 

So here is March is super speed before the baby finds the cords now that he is full on crawling!

Library Lion was a HUGE hit with my kids.  We have become such a fan of Rooted in Reading.  It has enough routine for them not to be too thrown off, with enough variety to keep them excited!

We have taken the time in our writing to do quite a bit of "proving" based on the text.  The kids know that Mrs. King will ALWAYS ask, "How do you know that?" or "Why?"

The crafts that Amy makes keep them so engaged that they don't even realize I am challenging them in their responses to reading.  Which brings up a good point!  I am a writer's workshop teacher through and through.  That time is completely separate for me.  I think responding to reading is obviously extremely important, but so is workshop so I keep both of these kinds of writing in my day, every day!  

I texted Amy the other day and told her that the grammar focus in these units has kept me SO much more organized than I have ever been before!  And that Lion non-fiction reader?  It is still floating around my room, because the kids love it so much!

After Library Lion we headed straight into Jane Goodall and the amazing book Me...Jane.  Y'all I haven't gotten through that text once without crying!  To see someone's childhood dream realized the way that this book shows....just amazing!  Here is a picture of the books that I used during several different times throughout the day.  Amy and I are working on a list of supplemental texts to pair with Rooted in Reading, but that won't be ready until this summer!

In addition to being the worst blogger, I am also terrible at remembering to take pictures too!  Katie over at The Homeschool Style on instagram does an amazing job documenting her use of RIR with her son so I snagged one of her beautiful pictures! Everything you see in this picture content-wise if from our unit!

On Fridays I like to change up math and science a little bit.  A lot of times that looks like a STEM project.  I had a parent help me out hugely this week by completely coming up with our project.  I told her my kids were fascinated with the idea that chimpanzees can use tools and that shattered our idea of what makes people "humans." That is before Jane Goodall!  So she brought in tupperware, paperclips, straws, notecards, string, popsicle sticks, and bouncy balls.  All materials that I would have had in my classroom too.  She told the kids that they had to design a tool to get the balls out of the tupperware, without their hands going into the tub.  Y'all they worked for an HOUR on this.  They were so engaged, so competitive, and so everything.  I almost can't even articulate how awesome it is to see kids use their science vocabulary to solve a problem.

Afterwards my super mom and I explained to the kids how important it is in today's job market to be problem solvers!  How STEM challenges push them to work together and communicate.

Here is a picture of my winning team that got the ball out after 53 minutes!

Here is a quick picture of my hallway with our chimpanzee writing!

Phew on to week 3... That's What Leprechauns Do!  Our grammar skill this week has been collective nouns.  My kids have thoroughly enjoyed this skill and the activities!

I love the next little girl's writing because I felt like I could see her love of reading coming out in her writing when she talked about the pack of wolves racing like the wind!  That is the world's best feeling- to see a child's love of reading coming through in their writing!

And last but not least, check out this ADORABLE Leprechaun from the pack.  This little girl's mother is from England, hence the "cheeky" little green guy :).

If you are still around and looking to try out Rooted in Reading check out the picture below and click on it to head to Amy's store!

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March Reading

Happy Wednesday, y'all!  I'm here breathing a HUGE sigh of relief because Rooted in Reading March is officially HERE!  Amy and I have been working on this unit nonstop over the past month, so it feels like a heavy brick has been lifted off of our shoulders! Amy did a really good job of showing what's all included in our unit.  I know I am partial but y'all this one is gooooood!

4 Directed Drawings for your littles to complete.  This is my students new favorite part of the week and I often participate myself!

 4 crafts to go along with each unit:

4 Nonfiction Readers:

 4 Grammar Concepts:  Irregular Verbs, Comparative Adjectives, Collective Nouns, and Articles:  a, an, the

Lots of comprehension activities, printables, and flap-ups

In this month we began a few new vocabulary activities :)

And, you can't forget, that we planned out your reading and grammar for you for the entire month!!!

Here are a few answers to questions we frequently get asked:

Q:  Do you plan on bundling all units?

A:  We haven't decided yet.  For the time being we are only selling them individually.  

Q:  Do you plan on mapping out the standards for each month?

A:  YES!  We are going to release a reading and grammar yearly overview this summer once we are finished with all of the units!

Q:  Are you planning on making Rooted in Reading for other grade levels?

A:  Unfortunately, no.  We are only making this one set for now.  We highly recommend Deanna and Deedee's Guiding Reader's Units for K-1

Q:  Will August and September be released before Back To School??

A:  Yes!  We will release both this summer so that you have plenty of time to prep!

Q:  Will all standards be addressed throughout the units?

A:  All Reading (fiction and nonfiction) and Grammar 2nd grade common core and TEKS will be hit throughout the ten months of Rooted in Reading  (with the exception of phonics/spelling standards)

Q:  Can I purchase just one of the book units?

A:  Logistically, this just gets very complicated.  We are only selling them with the Rooted in Reading monthly unit.

Q:  Do you use this along with your basal?

A:  No, this is the main source of instruction for reading and grammar in our classes.

Q:  When will April be released?

A:  See below :))))

We hope you enjoy reading all of these books with your classes as much as we do with ours!

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