Cause and Effect

So, I think we finally have main and idea and details mastered! PHEW, that only took a few weeks. We were finally ready to move on to cause and effect.

We started with an anchor chart introduction. I combined a few that I saw on Pinterest to make this one.

We also watched this short clip.

One of my favorite books to introduce this topic is The Wonderful Happened. It has such a nice ending.

We also love Amy Lemons, I don't think we've ever mentioned that before... Or maybe we have 37 or 38 times. She has some great cause and effect activities that we love to do each year with a Bad Case of Stripes, Play Ball Amelia Bedelia, and If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. 

-Amy 

Main Idea and Details

This week has been all about main idea and details!

We always have a hard time hitting this concept home. I just think it's a difficult concept for second graders to "get." Does anyone else feel like that? .... Or maybe I just don't do a good job of explaining it?

This year I tried to revamp my kick off. We started with an anchor chart.

Then I displayed a clip art picture of a birthday party on the Smart Board. We completed a thinking map together. It was super simple but a great visual and something everyone could relate to.

Before the lesson I prepped a baggie of restaurant, store, and entertainment logos from our community. There were 6 for each.

I put the students in cooperate groups of 3-4 students. Their job was to explore the images and try to figure out the main idea. They were excited to sort and their conversations were great! Once the groups had time to work we shared what we figured out.

We've read a new book each week and discussed the main idea and details of each. We love Amy Lemons' craftivities so her MI&D activities have been put to use this week!

I was inspired by her stuff and made this cute jellyfish!

We would love to hear about your favorite lessons and activities for this concept! Please share. :)

- Amy

And it's Sunday.

What do you get when...

1. Your parents call the whole family together.
2. They give everyone a beautifully wrapped box to open.
3. Inside the box you find sand, seashells, and 23 letters.
4. They tell you, you have to unscramble the letters to figure out the surprise.

A trip to Sanibel Island!!!

December 27th our family is off to the sun! [Which will be awesome especially because the weatherman is calling for snow (yes, snow) this week.] It's even more exciting that this trip will be Baby T's first trip on an airplane, her first time to Florida, her first time in the sand... so many firsts! It's great that we get to share these firsts with my parents, grandma, brothers, and sister-in-laws.

Speaking of Baby T, here's a picture of her and I [and Jack] from Halloween. She was the cutest ladybug I ever saw!

Tina, Lindsay and I have been busy creating some new reading strategy packs. What I love about this is we are really digging deeper into our classroom read alouds. Each day the students are working with a different strategy for a book or topic. We've done Room on the Broom and Together We Gather, Now Get Lost. This week we are diving into nonfiction, all about turkeys! We've uploaded Room on the Broom to our TpT store already! Look for the other two soon.

Guided reading is in full swing! My kids this year are really struggling to decode words independently, or at least attempt to decode them. They just come to a word they don't know, stop, look at me, and wait. What's up with that??? So I made a strategies card that we keep right in front of us. I love that it's a visual reminder of the strategies and that the students are responsible for picking a strategy to use. You can grab it free! Take a look at it in action...

I printed out both cards, glued them to a piece of black construction paper and laminated them.

It's already 10pm. Where do these weekends go! I guess I better go get a start on grading my math assessments.

-Amy-