Second Story Window

TogetherBox Discount and Giveaway

We recently had the chance to try out a new monthly subscription box for the whole family called TogetherBox. Every month they send a box of supplies for several hands-on activities you can do with your kids. What a fun idea, right?

We got to try the Balloon themed box. Adelaide LOVES balloons so she was excited just about the bags of balloons (note to self: buy balloons for bribery). I love how nicely the supplies are packaged and their branding is simple and sweet. (I really love a nice logo.)

We chose to do the Balloon Ninjas. Addie helped draw the faces on the balloons and Jacob hung them up with the provided string and tape. Neil was super excited just to watch the balloons dangling from the ceiling! We had a little trouble getting the marshmallow launchers to work without collapsing from the strength of the balloon but with some trial and error we got one that was strong enough. Addie loved to shoot the marshmallows but had absolutely no skills when it came to actually hitting the balloons. After awhile she was bored of trying but, surprisingly, Jacob and I couldn't stop playing! It's family fun and aggression therapy in one! (I kid, I kid.) The only annoying thing about the activity was cleaning up all the marshmallows that had ricocheted off the ballons and surrounding furniture. But Addie thought it was a pretty fun game to find them so I guess even that wasn't bad.

And since we had balloons already blown up, we played around hitting the balloon and trying to keep it off the floor. So simple but we wouldn't have thought of doing it if we hadn't already been using the supplies. 

I love that the activities in this box covered a lot of play areas including arts and crafts and even science. Pretty much everything you need is included in the box. The only thing I can think of that we needed to round up ourselves was a pair of scissors!

We can often be lazy about playing with the kids so this box was an easy and fun way to make us stop and really play with the kids. If you do a weekly family night or game night, I think this would be perfect for you. One activity per week and this box should have you covered for the whole month! 

TogetherBox has generously offered a code for $10 off your first box. And the first person to sign up with our code will receive an extra box for free! Use code story when you sign up! The code is only live for 3 days, so act fast!

Disclosure: I was given a TogetherBox to review but this is not a sponsored post. All opinions, as always, are my own.

2nd Grade Cumulative Around the Room Math Review

At the end of my first year of teaching (a ridiculously long time ago!), I was confronted with the ugly fate that all poor teachers face: THE TEST.  Realizing that my kids weren't completely prepared, I grabbed a stack of colored paper from the work room and wrote out some questions for them to work on.  One afternoon I posted them around the room and let the kids get to work.

Two things happened.

1. They LOVED it!
2. I knew where I to focus my review efforts.

I put those hand-written papers in a file and used them for many more April reviews.  Last year I updated things for the common core.  I uploaded the pages to our TPT store, but I forgot to blog about it.  I guess that's a good thing, because now I get to show you the original black and white version (for the color-printer impaired such as myself) and the pretty rainbow version.

Regardless of which one you print, the idea is the same: you put up the questions and the kids walk around and answer them.  You could use this as a regular "Scoot" game (especially if you print multiple pages per sheet), but I like to have them around the room for a few reasons.

First, walking around for math always feels like a treat.  Second, some of the questions take longer to answer than others.  If there's a traffic jam, I can redirect the kids to less crowded areas.  Also, this way I don't have to coordinate lots of seat switching.  I do have to remind them to check the question number before writing their answers, but most of them can do it pretty easily.

So every kid has an answer sheet.  It takes about 40 minutes for them to visit each question.  It helps to have a fast-finisher activity for those little dears that race through it in 20 minutes.  After most of them are finished, I gather up the questions and we go through them one at a time and discuss their answers.  This gives me a way to see where I need to target our remaining math review activities (although, with the spiral review in the Morning Work Book I have to say that there usually isn't much that needs revisiting). 

The 30 questions cover most of the 2nd grade math core.  I didn't include the standard about knowing all math facts to 20, because this isn't the right way to assess that.  There are one or two others that I didn't do as well, but the biggest pieces are all here.  Of course there are lots of different questions relating to understanding and using place value.

Geometry, even and odd, arrays, and fractions also get their turn.  And there are several questions tied to Measurement and Data.

You can get your own math review pages in our store.   The set includes 30 common core aligned math questions in black and white or color.  Each question is labeled with the core standard it addresses.  There is a student answer sheet.

I also created a cumulative review skill sheet for students to complete independently.  It's also included in this set!

**UPDATE**

As of March 25, 2014 the file now includes a 60 slide PowerPoint that includes 30 question cards and 30 illustrated answers.  This gives you even more flexibility in how you use this in your classroom. 

One way to use the PowerPoint files is to complete the activity as it's outlined in the post: hang the question cards around the room and give students a chance to work.  When everyone is finished, send students back to their seats and turn on the PowerPoint.  You can go question by question, asking for student discussion and then revealing and explaining the answers.  This is an invaluable way of solidifying the students' understanding.

Where it's feasible, the answer slides show a possible strategy for finding the answer.  In the picture below, the example is of an open number line.  It's not the only way to find the answer, of course, so this will lead to some great math talk in your classroom.

If you're looking to save paper, don't post the question cards around the room.  Instead distribute an answer sheet--or whiteboard if you don't need a written record-- to each student and display the first slide of the PowerPoint. Give students a chance to work and then discuss their ideas.  When you're ready, switch to the answer slide so students can compare their solutions.  Easy peasy!

In our TPT store you can download a 4-page sample.

Back to School: Nicole's Classes Review & Giveaway [Closed]

Recently, Heidi and I were given the chance to take a class at Nicole's Clases. Nicole's Classes offers online courses in photography, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and more. For ages we've had it on our list to take an Illustrator class and this was just the perfect opportunity to do it.

Alma, our instructor, is an insanely talented illustrator and designer. She is one of the designers of our favorite app, Make it Pop! Her work is so inspiring that I found myself wanting to learn everything about Illustrator as quickly as I possibly could.

The reason we wanted to learn Illustrator is because it's one of the best programs (maybe THE best program) for creating vector graphics. You can do lots of things in Photoshop, but it is not the best program for making your own graphics. If you've ever wanted to design graphics, Illustrator is the way to go

Illustrator 101 covers all the basics of the program. In 4 weeks we covered so much information, yet I never felt like it was too much information to tackle. Alma gave us assignments to practice the tools we learned each week. That pen tool started out as my enemy but has quickly become my best friend!  Heidi had no Illustrator experience when we started and I had only a small amount. We both were amazed at what we were able to create with the tools Alma taught us. Illustrator can be intimidating but I promise you that if you dive in, you will be amazed at what you can learn. I have a long way to go but with Alma's help (and maybe some more of her classes!) I will be an Illustrator pro before long.

One more thing, I highly recommend picking up the textbook as well. I found it a useful reference while working and now refer to it often. It is an incredibly useful and organized book with a ton of information packed in its covers.

Also, be sure to follow the Nicole's Classes Blog. They have amazing tutorials over there and tons of inspiration.

Now that the kids are back in school, it's your turn to take the time to learn something new! Nicole's Classes has generously offered a spot for TWO of you to take one of their amazing classes. You can choose any class from this list. Enter the giveaway using the rafflecopter widget below. (If you have trouble getting the widget to load, please click the "a Rafflecopter giveaway" link. Sorry!)

In addition, they are offering a 35% discount on classes and textbooks, good only until Friday 8/24/12 at midnight PST. Use code 2SW35 at checkout to apply your discount. Thank you Nicole's Classes!

Disclosure: Heidi and I were given complimentary access to the Illustrator 101 class. All opinions, as always, are our own. We only share what we love!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

This giveaway is closed. The winner are Cassity and Ali!

Testing Review- Easter Eggs

End of year test reviewing can be overwhelming. How can you help the students remember everything you've learned in class all year? Heidi gave me this tip my first year teaching: Make it a fun activity!

Heidi took the questions from the state test review to create this activity. In Utah the test review question website is called Utips. If your state doesn't have test review questions you could write your own based on your state curriculum, in the style of the end of year test.

She formatted the questions into strips of paper that we folded up. We put one question and a piece of candy (Starburst, jelly bean, etc.) into a plastic Easter Egg. We like the ones that have the tops attached so you don't have to spend time looking for the matches.

I've used these eggs for review in a few different ways.

1- Pass out eggs to students. They read the question to themselves and choose the correct answer. Call students back to check their answer. If they picked the correct answer, they can eat their candy. Obviously, if they choose the wrong answer, give them some tips to try again. I always help them until they find the correct answer and get to eat their candy.

After being sure that each of them know the correct answer, I have them quiz each other. I usually have one half of the room stay at their seats while the other half of the room quizzes them. I challenge them to quiz as many people as they can in 3 minutes, for example. Any student who doesn't have somebody asking them a question has their hand in the air to indicate that they are available to be quizzed. It sounds a little chaotic but it's not bad. My students have always loved doing this.

2- Another way I use them is having the students all sit at the carpet. I call them up one at a time to read their question outloud and call on another student to give the answer. After answering a question they get to eat their candy.

I prefer the first method if we have time because every student ends up hearing and attempting to answer most every question. And the student asks their question many times and gets very familiar with the wording and answer. The problem with the second method is that not every student listens to every question. If Billy answers the first question and gets to eat his candy, he's not necessarily going to listen to any of the questions after that.

I filled the eggs up with new questions and more candy every afternoon after school so they were ready to go. I tried to use the eggs for an activity every day for a few weeks if possible.

Normally I don't like to use a lot of candy in my classroom. The reason I feel okay about using it for this is that I don't want the students to have negative feelings about anything to do with the end of year test. So if giving them a little treat when we work on reviewing for the test will make them excited about it, I feel great about that! I always let them suck on a Jolly Rancher during testing too, as something special to look forward to each day.

These are just a couple of ideas for doing test review in your class. We'd love to hear what you do in your classroom to prepare your students for the "big bad test!"