2nd Grade Math Games and a GIVEAWAY!!

As soon as I heard I was teaching 2nd grade again, I got to work making one of my favorite things to do in my classroom, play math games!! I love when my students say, "I love math!!" and I know the way to hook them is with bright, colorful, and engaging games. 

There are lots of math games out on the market. I have a few from a big curriculum company, but a lot of the time those are a bit complicated and take more teacher instruction than I would like. I want to be able to print off a game, explain the directions once, and then have students play the game independently while I pull small groups. 

I'll be focusing on addition, subtraction, and place value in the first few months of school so I made a Math Game Bundle with fun fall and winter themes; pumpkins, turkeys, penguins, and candy canes!! Oh, and did I mention, it's aligned to common core and has a handy sheet explaining what standards each game meets :)

Here is the link to the product, I hope you find it easy to implement and useful for your upcoming year! It has 12 math games, all linked to common core, all bright and fun. Enjoy!
Math Game Bundle

Oh, and don't forget!! My GIVEAWAY of my Happy Birthday Pack ends tomorrow!! Just like my Facebook page to enter. Here's the link to my Facebook Page and a link to the Happy Birthday MEGA Pack product so you can check out the preview.

Happy Day!

Birthday Pack GIVEAWAY!! Ends Friday

I love celebrating really anything with my students and it's no different on their birthdays!! I also like to sneak in some academic practice too. I've always done Happy Birthday letter writing with my students. My mentor teacher during my student teaching experience so long ago shared this idea with me and I've been doing it ever since! Students LOVE making the letters! They also get much needed writing practice in a fun way and I bind the letter together into a little book which is a fun keepsake. This summer, as I'm moving into a new classroom at a new school, I decided to spruce up my birthday activities with a capital/lowercase letter matching center and an addition/numeral identification math center. I'm thinking these are going to pretty much make me one of the coolest teachers around the second grade hallway! And because I also LOVE bright, colorful, meaningful displays I've included the templates I used to create my birthday bulletin board! I've made all my bags, but can't start hanging them up until August so I'll post my final pictures then. I've pulled all these resources into a Happy Birthday MEGA Pack! As everyone is setting up classrooms, birthday displays are often on that list!! I'd like to help out other teachers make their student's birthdays fun, fabulous, and academic so I'd like to do a GIVEAWAY!! Simply like my Facebook page, Mrs. Grisham's Little Lighthouse Learners  easy-peasy. I'll choose a winner on Friday!! Good luck!


Here's a link to the preview file in my store, check it out! Mrs. Grisham: Happy Birthday MEGA Pack

Digital Chevron Paper Pack FREEBIE

I've been working on my CAFE and Daily 5 stuff for my classroom. Here is a sneak peek! 

I'm really digging the Chevron pattern lately so I wanted to use Chevron Patters as part of my CAFE headers. I know you all love Chevron pattern too so here is a  Chevron Digital Paper Pack FREEBIE!! It has all the rainbow colors;red, yellow, orange, green, blue, and purple digital papers for personal or commercial use. Use them to liven up bulletin boards, worksheets, scrapbooks, blogs and more!

 Happy Day!

Jenn
Fun and Fabulous in First Grade

Bee Themed Classroom plus Bee themed Nametag FREEBIE!!

 After finally getting my classroom somewhat organized Moving into a Messy, Chaotic Classroom, uggh!), I decided to take a break and make some fun but useful items for my classroom. Besides my Happy Birthday Bulletin Board, my most favorite thing so far is my Good BEEhavior Chart. What I love about this chart is that is allows students to easily self-monitor their behavior with a visual reminder. I also love the bright yellow color and the fun, whimsical theme of bees which I've incorporated into my classroom decoration theme (post about classroom decoration/organization to come in late August when I can get back into my classroom, yay!).

How it works:
1) The first week of school I will have each student make a clip with a pom-pom bee on the end. I call them over to my teacher table during free choice time.
2) All students start each day on Ready to Learn.
3) When they show good behavior, they get to move their clip up. It is critical that students do the majority of their clip moving. If the teacher is always doing it, the student will not make the connection between their behavior and the chart.
4) If they are not showing good behavior, they are asked to move their clip-down. Again, it is crucial that the students move their own clips.
5) Clips can be moved up and down all day in my classroom. This allows students the incentive to correct behavior if they know they can clip back up.
6) I have a system of rewards and consequences that go with each level. I have a detailed description of this system in my Good BEEhavior Classroom Management Pack 

In this pack is all the printables you'll need to implement this system as well behavior tracking sheet for student folders, rules posters, name-tags, writing paper, 3 different calendar cover-ups, and good behavior certificates! If you are using a bee theme in your classroom or are looking for an updated management tool, I think this will make a cute and useful addition!! 

                             

As part of my excitement for this unit, I have uploaded my first FREEBIE! These adorable bee themed nametags for your student desks. Just click on the link below to download. Enjoy and Happy Day!

Bee Nametag FREEBIE