Saturday, February 22, 2014

For the Love of Editing with a FREEBIE!



We actually had a full week of school this week!  We did have a 2-hour delay, but a whole week!!!   Which meant we were able to wrap up our opinion writing and get started with editing.  I don't know about you but editing for my little second graders is a toughy!  There are so many steps to the process, so it's hard to remember all the items on the editing checklist.  I decided my littles needed an easy way to remember what to look for.  I started using the acronym C.U.P.S.  Many of you may have heard of it, or even used it.  For those of you who are wondering...
C:  Capitals, U:  Understanding, P:  Punctuation, S:  Spelling.  
Easy peezy, Right!  When I introduced this to my littles I saw little light bulbs going off over their heads!  Finally, we could get past the understanding and get down to applying!  We took our opinion pieces and began editing one step at a time, and all together.  Using a cute little PowerPoint and mini-posters for each student, more about that late;), I started with C:  Capitals.  We went through our writing and looked for all of the components of capitalization:
1.  Do all of my sentences begin with a capital?
 2.  Do all of my proper nouns begin with a capital?
3.  Do all of the alone letter "I' begin with a capital?

Next, we went through our writing looking for all of the components of understanding:
1.  Do my sentences have fluency?
2.  Are my details organized with a beginning, middle, and end?
3.  Does my writing have enough details to help my reader understand?
To help with this part I broke out the whisper phones!  These are great for helping students edit for understanding.  Each student read their writing to them selves in the whisper phone which helped them to spot sentence fluency issues.


Then, we looked for all the components of punctuation:
1.  Do all of my sentences end with punctuation?
2.  Does my punctuation match my sentences?  Questions have a questing mark, statements have a period, and exclamations have an exclamation mark.

Last, but certainly not least, we looked for all the components of spelling"
1.  Did I underline words I wasn't sure of?
2.  Did I use my word wall to check these words?
3.  Did I stretch out the sounds of these words?
4.  Did I use a dictionary to look up the correct spelling of these words?
We went through each of these one by one as a whole group, after I modeled with my own writing.  It took us three days to understand what each meant, practice, and apply it to our own writing.  So worth the time!  Students received little bookmark style posters that I taped on their desks so they can have easy access and be reminded of this process!  You can find the posters for each part, the mini-posters for student desks, and a check-off sheet students can use and turn in for all of their writing here FREEBIE: Editing with C.U.P.S.  I would love to hear your strategies for editing, so please comment below:)

Thursday, February 20, 2014

New Look!

I am loving the new blog design I received today from www.simplycreativeshop.etsy.com!  Check out their shop on Etsy for cute, reasonably priced blog templates and accessories!!

Friday, February 14, 2014

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My "Snow Day"...

Okay, so the reason for the quotations is because school was called off for snow today but...there wasn't a flake of snow until 3:30! I was so excited to see my littles today!  I had found the best valentines EVER during my last minute trip to the store last night!  I was so excited to find them because my entire room is Dr. Seuss!
I even added some personalized alliteration!

What I did with my day.... WRITNG!!  I am participating in the National Writing Project and have accumulated so many wonderful resources!  These are just two of my favorites and "go to" resources for writing!  
The first is The Common Core Writing Book by Gretchen Owocki!  I just love this book!  It has helped tremendously with meeting the Common Core Writing Standards for Writing!  Get your hands on this book!  It is a must have!  I am currently using it to develop my second unit, Narrative Writing in Second Grade.  I have already created a unit called Opinion Writing in Second Grade using this book and my followers on TpT have loved it!  
The second book I have been diving into is Writing Circles by Jim Vopat.  In it he talks about a great way to get your students interacting with their writing, and doing all that accountable talk:)!  There is so much to it, but to summarize it's a way to give your littles time to write choosing their own genre and then sharing it in their own writing circles where they can peer conference!  I can't wait to implement it in my own room!

Thanks for stopping by:)

Saturday, February 1, 2014

My Newbie!

I am so excited about my new product!  My kiddos love engaging games and centers to practice their skills.  I created Puzzle Maker to help my littles practice parts of speech.  They get to interact with the concept by matching puzzle pieces by synonym, antonym, adjectives, nouns, and verbs!  Whew!!! It's so much to know in second grade, and that's not all of it.  Hopefully this activity will get them engaged and learning!  You can find Puzzle Maker at my tpt store!




Hello Teacher Friends!

I am so excited  to begin my blog!  I love to connect with teachers all over to talk and get inspired!  I can't wait to begin chatting!  Us teachers need to stick together;).  Be sure too follow my friends at Party in PrimaryWebster's Little Dictionary, and First Grade Nest!