Stellaluna

Who doesn't LOVE the precious story about Stellaluna?!?  Knocked from her mother’s safe embrace by an attacking owl, Stellaluna lands headfirst in a bird’s nest. This adorable baby fruit bat’s world is literally turned upside down!  Love this story and the theme of friendship.

We used the Big Book version of this text all week for Shared Reading.  
   On Monday, I read the book and we focused on new vocabulary.  As much as I can with new vocabulary, I try to get the students up and  using  their bodies to help them remember the new words.        
   On Tuesday, we read the book again and I had the students work on fluency.  The girls read the text for Stellaluna in the character's voice and the boys read the bird's part.  
   On Wednesday, since we have been studying adjectives, the students described how Stellaluna felt at the beginning, middle and end of the book.  Great way to describe how character's feelings change as the book evolves, as well.  I got the idea from this beautiful lady here.

I really love the inferencing that one little angel did with the middle part of the book.  She said Stellaluna felt small inside.  I asked her why she thought that and she said that when "Momma Bird was yelling all the time at Stellaluna that it made Stellaluna feel like she couldn't do anything right.  If I was Stellaluna, I would have felt small inside."  Wow!  

On Thursday, we talked all about finding the text evidence to support our answers.  What a fun, engaging, interactive way to get these little babies prepared for next year's STAAR test!  (I never thought I'd see the day that I was putting in a plug for the STAAR test, but there you have it!) ;P

I gathered up as many copies of Stellaluna as I could find and split the students up into collaborative groupings.  I gave each group 2 of their adjectives on a piece of paper.  They were then responsible for searching and finding the textual evidence to support their answer.  The "scribe" wrote the answers down for the team.

I really love collaborative groupings.  It is such a life long lesson to learn to work together as a team.  To learn to distribute responsibility and listen to others' ideas.  

Afterward, the group selected an "orator" and they read their findings while the rest of team showed the page where the text evidence was found.

I cut out what they had written and taped it next to their adjectives.  I love to fill my room with student work, so this will eventually make it up on the wall for the students to re-read and reference.

On Friday, we watched the Reading Rainbow version of Stellaluna and had a special snack of mangos!  Awesome learning was had by all! :D

First Week of Math

I love me some Amy Lemons at Step into Second Grade.  Because I am brand new this year to 2nd grade, her blog has been a life-line for me!  I'm planning on doing everything Amy does!  She's a Texas teacher and a rockstar up there with my Cara Carroll and Reagan Tunstall!  :D

I can tell that Amy really likes to teach Math.  She comes up with some amazing ideas to get kidos engaged in a fun, interactive way!  Love that about her!

We used her great ideas on Tools vs Toys.  The kidos loved sorting the items and it really has struck home with them.  Not that I haven't caught an occasional little one building a tower with his base ten blocks but for the most part they have been really good!  :D

We also used her AMAZING idea of Silent Puzzles!  Wow, that was a big challenge for us to do the first week of school but we did it.  Collaborative grouping is such a great way to engage learners.  You really see leadership that bubbles up to the top or the followers that just do whatever someone tells them to do or the one that wants to only work by themself.  It's all very telling to me.