Dictionary Skills

Last week I blogged on the Virginia is for Teachers site with some activities that my second graders are working on with dictionaries.

Second graders begin to use the dictionary to learn how to use guide words. Gulp. Sigh. And alphabetize to the second and third letter. This is such a hard skill, especially since first graders are only expected to alphabetize to the first letter. So since I have now taught a combination first/second class for two years, I have been able to expose my first graders to more challenging content and get them ready for next year by doing more alphabetical order.

Click on the image or here to read the whole post!

It's Christmas!

Thanksgiving has come and gone. It's hard to believe how quickly November passed by! We had a different kind of Thanksgiving this year, as we headed to our nation's capital for several days and enjoyed visiting the memorials, monuments, and Smithsonians.

December temperatures are here in central Virginia! We went from warm to cold! Our Christmas parade was on Sunday evening and as my husband and I waited, the rain came! It was quite chilly, but we had a great time talking while we waited for our daughters on the float from our church.

Thanksgiving Centers

Like you, we have been busy working away! I love this time of the year! We broke out our Thanksgiving centers and have been having a lot of fun. Hang on for a lot of pictures! 😀

My first graders have been working on geometry and these activities were a lot of fun!

This first one is a freebie from Mrs. Plemons Kindergarten. Use pattern blocks to create the turkey feathers! We had a recording page to draw our feathers and count the blocks we used.

Halloween Mash Up

What a crazy week! We have been super busy with reading novels and researching about spiders, along with beginning our money unit in second grade and finishing our skip counting unit in first grade.

This week we broke out all of our Halloween centers and went to town!