Another National Winner!

Wow! I was recently informed that a student from our class placed first in the Be Kind National Writing Contest! Every student in the class entered this contest  earlier this year a by writing an essay about the kindest person they know, accompanied by an illustration. The Be Kind people said they received many entries from all over the United States but Archana's stood out among the K-2 age division! 

Archana received a whole goodie bag full of awesome prizes along with a set of Be Kind t-shirts for the entire class. Way to go!

Blogging to an Authentic Audience

Last week we learned all about blogging! Click here to view the presentation I reviewed with the class to learn some of the "rules" of blogging along with some important cyber-safety information. 

After learning about blogging, every student logged into his or her very own blog through kidblog.org and started writing and since then we have blogged three times! Kidblog.org is an amazing tool because it includes all the wonderful features of blogging sites like Blogger and Word Press, but makes teacher management and safety very easy. It is incredible that 1st and 2nd grade students are using the same tools as adult bloggers and getting this excellent writing experience, while still remaining safe online.

Be sure to ask your student to show you his or her blog at home! Blogging will soon become a frequent option for the weekly spelling homework. We have several Skype calls set up in thew next few weeks to teach other classes with students in 1st or 2nd grade about blogging. 

Emailing The Future

This week my returning students were excited to receive emails from... themselves! These emails were written last year when they were mere 1st graders and they got to read them this week as much older and mature 2nd graders. 

After reading their emails from their younger selves, students wrote again to their future selves, and this time the letters will arrive when they are in high school! 

We used a fun and free site called FutureMe  to send ourselves emails in the future. Students told their future selves about themselves right now and included information like their current favorite color, what they liked to eat, what they liked to do at recess, etc. Students are looking forward to seeing how much they change by the time they receive these emails! They also asked themselves questions and made a few predictions. FutureMe was a fun way to get my class excited about writing! 

Skype With Mrs. P

  Today we participated in our very first Skype of the year, with the one and only Mrs. P!

She gave us some wonderful tips on how to be a writer. My favorite quote was, "If you can tell a story, you can write a story!" She also talked a lot about the importance of reading and reminded us that, "reading is cool and so are you!"

During our discussion she told us some silly stories and took lots of questions from the class. At the very end she told us about her "Be A Famous Writer" contest. The topic this year is time travel, which just so happens to tie in with our spelling lists from last week. 

We didn't want to say goodbye because we were having such a great time with Mrs. P, but eventually we had to. Once we finally did, we got out our Chromebooks and got to work writing time travel stories using Google docs!

This writing project is something we will continue to work on in class and students are welcome to work on it at home if they choose, too. All the details of the writing contest can be found in the flyer below!

Biography Book Report

Can You Spot Helen Keller, Ronald Reagan and Abigail Adams?

We had a lot of fun presenting our biography book reports and most of the students got really into his or her character!

Can You Spot Thomas Edison, Jackie Robinson and Christopher Columbus?

Watch the video clip below to see exactly who we had in our classroom!

Publishing Our Own Writing Prompts

We have been doing a LOT of writing this year in 1st and 2nd grade! We often use the app Things To Think About for inspiration for a writing prompt or idea. Things To Think About is a free iPad app that offers 100 writing prompts created by students for students. The prompts were created by 2nd through 5th grade students in Jackson County, Michigan. The app itself was built by two high school students in the same county.

My students were very intrigued by this student created project and suggested we might do something similar. Using a Google form each student came up with several writing prompts. We then discussed the prompts and revised them.

When students had finalized their work, they printed their writing prompt and glued it to a piece of paper. Then, they illustrated the paper to match the prompt. 

Once each student had created their own writing prompt, students worked in small groups to photograph the images, crop them, upload them and insert them into a Google Presentation. We made the presentation public so anyone can use our writing prompts! I love doing projects like this with the class because it incorporates traditional skills with 21st Century Learning. Instead of just creating a book of writing prompts for our class, we are now able to share it with an authentic audience - the entire world! Click here to access the class writing prompts! 

National Writing Contest Winner

A few months ago, the entire class participated in a writing activity. Each student wrote a brief essay about kindness, and then illustrated his or her thoughts. I entered all essays in the Be Kind People Project National Writing Contest and one of our very own students was one of the first place winners! Congratulations to Shyla for this wonderful victory! She will be honored at the PVUSD Governing Board Meeting next Thursday. It was so nice to see the joyful and congratulatory reaction of the class when I announced this big news. We certainly have a kind group of students and I am proud of all of them!

Build Your Wild Self Writing Project

Students Pose With the Character They Created To Represent Themselves

After a long week of testing, the class was ready for something fun and creative! 

Students Pose With Their "Wild" Characters

We went to the website Build Your Wild Self and let our imaginations go loose! The site allows you customize a person by using various human features and animal parts. It is fun and intuitive to use, allows for a lot of creativity and it's FREE! First, each student created a character to look like them, and then they created wild characters! 

When they were finished creating characters, they emailed the images to themselves. Then they went into their Google drive and began writing a story incorporating their new characters. Next week we will finish up this project by polishing up our stories and inserting the images into the document to use for illustrations.

At the very end of the day my 2nd grade students reflected on their week of standardized testing. We discussed what was easy, what was a challenge and they gave my 1st grade students advice for next year. The students took the tests very seriously and managed to work quietly at their desks for the majority of the week. I know they were bored and found the test easy, but they did a great job and we are excited to be FINISHED! The results will be mailed to your home during the summer. We took a few minutes to express our joy and excitement in the video below.

7-Up Sentences

You may notice your students referring to "7-Up Sentences."

A 7-Up Sentence is one that is seven words or more, but in class we discussed the importance of adding quality words and not just creating long, run-on sentences. We have done a variety of writing exercises both individually and also working with a small group. 

When we were finished learning about 7-Up Sentences, everyone got to enjoy a refreshing taste of 7-Up as they completed their work.

Puppet Book Report

For our very first book report this year each student read a book by Beverly Cleary. Then, students chose a character from the book and created a puppet of that character.

Students presented a summary of the book through their puppet, as that character. I really enjoyed seeing the unique and creative puppets and hearing stories from the point of view of the character.