second grade Archives - Page 3 of 3

How To Catch The Easter Bunny: A Fun and Engaging Easter Activity!

March 18, 2022 teachersbrain education, Teaching Tips

Easter is right around the corner and that means it’s time to whip out all of the fun pastel and egg-shaped decor and stock up on Easter candy to hand out to your students. It’s also time to start brainstorming Easter activities to do in the classroom to celebrate.

There is always the traditional Easter egg hunt or coloring eggs, but when I was in the classroom I tried to think outside the box so I could get my students truly engaged and give them a unique Easter classroom experience.

I came up with an Easter activity that would give students the opportunity to create an Easter Bunny trap!

I created a digital resource that would make this activity a simple, no-prep, no-mess option!

The interactive and editable Google Slides allow students to copy and paste movable parts to design their own Easter Bunny trap. This gets students thinking creatively and critically to come up with their own unique trap.

Then, they will write a narrative, persuasive, or opinion paper about how they plan to catch the bunny. This activity is perfect for engaging students in creative thinking and planning.

Make it even more fun by adding all the student’s work to a new slide show with the music provided while in present mode to have a bunny trap design contest. You can also print and display them in your room or make a slideshow with the student’s finished products to view virtually. Music is provided!

Included with this Easter activity you’ll get:

12 background slides for students to choose from to begin designing
4 slides with movable parts for students to use to design their own bunny trap (You can edit some images, remove or add images)
6 slides for students to brainstorm, organize thoughts, and write a story about their trap
Black and white slides for students to digitally or handwrite stories. (narrative, persuasive, or opinion writing included)
A Google Form to have a Favorite Trap Design Contest

If you love this activity but can’t do it virtually with your students, you can also print it out and complete it that way! This resource can easily be adapted to do in person, digitally, or sent home to complete with the child’s parents.

Check out the video tutorial!

Looking for more spring and Easter activities for the classroom? Check out my post here!

How will you be celebrating Easter with your students? Let me know in the comments?

Valentine’s Day Escape Room Students Will Love

January 15, 2022 teachersbrain education, Winter

One of the latest trends making waves in the education world (and in the outside world too), is escape rooms. If you don’t already know, escape rooms are a game where people (or in our case students) work together to solve clues, puzzles, or complete designated tasks in order to “escape the room” in a set amount of time. Sounds fun, right?!

These games are so exciting because they are very immersive. The interactive aspect really makes you feel like you are living the story of the escape room!

In the classroom, escape rooms can include puzzles or tasks related to the skills you are working on in your lessons. This makes it an educational activity for students that feels like fun, not work!

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, I wanted an escape room that had a fun and festive Valentine’s Day theme while still being an engaging way to work on skills in the classroom.

So, I created this Valentine’s Day Escape Room!

This Valentine’s Day mystery requires little prep and includes detailed directions, 3 clues to solve, a video hook, and set-up photos to help you put it all together. The set-up checklist will help you ensure that everything runs smoothly for the activity.

To start, students will watch the video hook or introduction to learn about their mission. Then they will be tasked with solving 3 clues using comprehension skills. If you find that any of the activities are too easy for your students, there are additional activities included to differentiate. Students will practice teamwork skills while solving clues to help learn about holiday vocabulary and number patterns.

The clues will help them unlock the box and claim their prize. For prizes, you can use candy, homework passes, or bookmarks. Whatever you choose!

The supplies needed are simple. You’ll need a box , some surprises to put inside the box (homework passes and bookmarks are provided), pencils, 6 large file folders (or regular folders), candy hearts (paper ones are provided if you don’t want to use real candy) and magnifying glasses (2 or more).

This activity is so engaging! It’s so fun to see how excited students get to put their detective skills to work so they can solve the clues.

What are your favorite Valentine’s Day activities for elementary? Let me know in the comments!

Why Escape Rooms Are Great For Elementary

September 25, 2020 teachersbrain education

You probably already know that escape rooms have become hugely popular in primary grades recently. They’re exciting, unique, engaging, and make your students think! What’s not to love? They’re perfect for any grade in elementary.

If you haven’t heard of this before, you may be wondering what escape rooms are.

An escape room is an escape game where your students have to work together in real life to discover clues, solve puzzles, and complete tasks in order to escape. But how do you do an escape room with 5 and 6 year old kindergarten students?

It may seem obvious, but you don’t actually need to have expensive locks, fancy boxes, or big prizes. My escape rooms meet standards, don’t need locks, encourage 100% engagement, and get kids to work together in teams to help each other open any box and escape their room. The activities and puzzles are grade level appropriate so they will be just challenging enough to be fun.

My escape rooms have 3 to 5 tasks for students to solve in order to get their next clue. They also have video hooks to build anticipation. You can make it fun by letting them escape the room and go to recess, the library, or really get the excitement up with a cookie party!

Escape rooms make a GREAT Holiday activity, especially. The Christmas Escape will add to your students learning all about Holidays Around the World!

Students find clues, solve puzzles and work as a team to help save the holidays while Santa is on a VACA! It has a fun video hook!

“We loved doing this! I didn’t have a wooden box or real keys! This resource provided everything but the treat at the end! I highly recommend and will be purchasing more!”

— Patricia T.

There is a digital escape FOUND HERE if needed.

The Halloween theme will add a spooky and fun twist.

This Halloween Escape Room is for kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade students. It includes step-by-step instructions that will guarantee student engagement while your students work together to find the missing classroom pumpkin that was stolen by the werewolf.

Check out this escape room Halloween Mystery video to hook them in!

Want to see this Halloween Escape Room in action? Check out this fun video from The Magical Teacher to see how she used in her classroom for a thrilling Halloween mystery.

The MOST POPULAR Escape the Room is the Sight Word Mystery Escape! Students work together to solve mysteries all involving sight words. This escape is EDITABLE, so you can tailor the words to meet your needs.

Do you use escape rooms in your classroom? Let me know in the comments!

Looking for more Halloween activities, check out my post here for Halloween crafts and center ideas!

Reading Comprehension Strategies

June 5, 2020 teachersbrain Reading, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

Learning to read is a huge accomplishment for students. Going from needing help with books to being able to read it by themselves is a big deal! Sometimes, however, actually comprehending what they are reading can be a little more challenging.

It is important to know how to read, but it is even more important for them to understand what they are reading. It is not only an absolutely necessary life skill, but it can open up a whole new world and encourage a love of reading.

Here are some strategies that you can use to help your students achieve reading comprehension and fluency.

Find books your students will love. Finding the right book can make all the difference when students are learning to read. Books that they will enjoy will inspire them to put in the work and understand the words they are reading.
Read aloud. Encouraging students to read out loud can get them plenty of practice reading and it can also help you identify where they might be struggling.
Use metacognitive strategies. These can be great for increasing reading comprehension. For instance, pausing while reading aloud to ask the student to vocalize their thoughts can help them to understand what they are trying to comprehend.
Reread sections that are confusing. Making sure to revisit difficult sections until they understand is important. It can help better identify where they are struggling and work together to understand.
Use a ruler or finger to follow along. Helping students stay on track while reading can help them follow along with the story and decrease the risk of confusion.
Write down words you don’t know. Writing it down and working on it will help them better remember it in the future.
Discuss what the child has just read. Having a discussion can help the student think through what they just read and also help you point out areas they might be struggling in.
Recap and summarize the main points. This will be great practice for students working on their comprehension.
Reading passages and answering questions. Find some fun and engaging reading comprehension activities for your students to practice with.

Great news, I created some fun activities to help with this!

These reading comprehension activities are perfect for helping students get more practice and achieve fluency. They are set up through Google Classroom so they are distance learning friendly. These include written instructions, listening options, drag to complete the sentence activities, word families, and 20 reading comprehension passages and questions.

This option is perfect for Kindergarten and 1st grade.

This option is perfect for 1st and 2nd grade.

Want more information on reading comprehension? Check out my post here to learn more about my strategies.

Do you have any strategies for helping your students with reading comprehension? I would love to hear in the comments!