9 Sentence Story Writing {Writing Fiction}, Bricks4Kidz, and Just Be Respectful

First of all - thanks to all who made purchases in the TpT 3 Million Strong sale!!  I am super excited about the two packets I bought!

Captain's Log, stardate 9522.6: We were very busy writing our stories this week.  My students were a little hesitant at first but as time passed and they developed their stories - masterpieces were born from tiny, sparkly ideas!!  Since I am teaching Grade 2 this year and they were already familiar with 3 Sentence Story Writing from last year,  I decided to take their experience and make Level 2: 9 Sentence Story Writing!  Click on it to check it out!

Here is just one of the activities I created to go along with the packet.  

Here are some of the super, awesome stories my students produced.  I am so proud of them.  The are literally amazing in their creativity!  The sentences and flow are pretty darn great if I do say so myself!!

Story #1

Story #2

Story #3

Happy story writing!

On top of all that, oh me oh my - so glad I made it through report cards, Career Day, Choose Respect Day, Grade 2 Community Worker interviews with iPads - thanks Mrs. O for all of your hard work :)

Here is one of our hardworking Educational Assistants being interviewed by some budding reporters!

Also, Bricks4Kidz came for our in school field trip (one of my students won it by guessing the correct amount of legos in a jar - Hurrah!).  Here is a pict of the Bricks4Kidz field trip.  We made windmills that attached to little battery packs - so cool!

At this point we connected them altogether and created some serious wind power! Yeah Bricks4Kidz!

I received my iPad Minis this week too thanks to Just Be Friends and the friendship video some of our students made - it ended up being the Grand Prize Winner.  Check it out!!!!  

Here are two of my kiddos with our iPad minis - I'm not sure who is more excited - me or them!!

Finally, here is my class working on their Just Be Respectful Badge - we made a banner and talked about how good manners are respectful.  I displayed it in the hallway.  We also made up friendship handshakes!  The Just Be Friends program has excellent ideas with ties to curriculum - super easy to use for teachers and excellent for friendship building within school communities!

Have a great weekend - we deserve it!!

Easy Plasticine Olympic Sport Sculpture Art and 3 Million Strong TpT Sale

Have you heard about the news?  Three million teachers are part of Teachers pay Teachers! - helping each other provide quality education resources all over the world.  Check out the sale this Thursday and Friday!

Here is my own St. Patrick's Day activity pack you can pick up for a steal!  What luck!!

It includes a little game that practices those wily # partners of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.  They have been giving my 2's the runaround lately.  I am bound and determined they will have them memorized!

Now for some easy art!!  Hurrah!!! We made plasticine sculptures of various winter sports - perfect for the Winter Olympics - it would be kind of cool to do this as part of a study based on the Paralympics that are beginning now!

This little figure skater is doing a nice deep lunge:)

What you will need:

small paper plates

different colours of plasticine

placemats for desks and easy clean up

glue sticks for rolling pins

toothpicks for reinforcements

First, have students put their names on the bottom of their plate.  Have them soften and roll their chosen colour of plasticine for the bottom or ground of their sculpture.  Explain that they must stretch it out over the entire plate bottom so that no plate is showing.  

Next students must build their sculpture with a sturdy enough body so that it does not fall over - demonstrate how to stick toothpicks in the middle of each body part - especially when connecting any limbs - to ensure sturdiness.

Encourage creativity.  Discuss adding small details to make the sculpture interesting - try to avoid big mounds of unrecognizable sporting mania:)  Show how adding eyes, and stripes on the pants, etc. will make the sculpture eye-catching and appealing!

Check out this gnarly snowboarder - I love the slopes she has got going on - definitely shreddin' some pow!

We usually have the parents and other grades by for a little museum - the kids write about their sport.  They love this but we will not be doing that this year - this week the Grade 1's are having their Career Day on Friday so that will be enough!!:)

Hope your Monday was super!

Easy Valentine's HeArt - Hee hee

Time for another installation of Easy ART!  This is starting to be my favourite blog inspiration.  Ok - so my student teacher found this idea on pinterest to use hearts to make different animals.  This might be the easiest, cutest, most enjoyed art ever!!  She decided to read the class Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister first.  Then she taught the class how to make the fish.  What I think is hilarious is how much the fish resemble each of the students that made them:)  Hee hee!!

So cheerful!!  

What you will need:

brightly coloured paper

heart tracers

felts

glue

googily eyes

Here we have a lovely angel fish!  Shimmer and float!!!

Directions: Have students make their big body heart first by folding their paper like a hot dog  Have them draw an ear shape (I always get them to feel the outside of their ear to get an idea of what half a heart is like.)  Next, have students used tracers to create other hearts for the tail, lips, and fins with different coloured paper.  Add details with felts for texture and Voilà!!  Magnifique!!!

Apparently this one is a fighting fish!!

I call this one the triangle head fish!

This can only be a puffer fish!  Watch out for this one!!

The best part is I heard one of my boys say, "What a cool idea!!"  I told him to tell my student teacher!

Also, I have just finished my newest set of plays/ Reader's Theater packet!!  I had so much fun writing them once again and the last set of Nativity plays were such a hit with my class I had to do more!!

Plus I found these cute, cute graphics from Teaching in the Tongass!  There is such talent in graphic design out there!!

Here are the colourful print out version to paste onto popsicle sticks!!  Insta-puppet!!

Happy Valentine's Day next week all!  Turns out it is also our 100th Day of school!  EEEEEeeek!!!  Minor panic attack....and I'm done:)

Be sure to check out last year's post for more good ideas!