Language Morning Work for 2nd grade: the sets, the bundle, and the FREEBIE!

I'm sure you've been there before. I know I have.

The alarm clock doesn't go off, you're late and don't have time for breakfast, and the car won't start.

The rest of the day is, well, a mess to put it mildly.

When you start the day off on the wrong foot, the rest of it can't be any better.

You know what I'm talking about, right?

It is definitely harder to have a productive and focused teaching day after a rough morning start.



The same is true for your students.

You certainly cannot control what happens to them in their homes as they're getting ready to go to school, BUT you can do something about how they start their school day.

As soon as kids arrive in the morning, you want to get them on the right track immediately. Or better yet, you MUST get them on the right track, or you run the risk of having unfocused students throughout the rest of the day.

You want them to start the day off on the right foot.

Establish a routine that's easy to implement and that engages their little brains from the moment they step inside the classroom.

That's where morning work comes in!

                

                

                

Make copies, have them within reach, and teach kids to grab a sheet as soon as they arrive and are ready to start the day.

"Ok, Lucy, that's great, but what do I do next? Kids arrive at different times and work at different paces. They won't finish the worksheets at the same time."

When the first ones are done with their work, you can have them help others who might be having difficulty completing the exercises. That also serves to encourage stronger bonding among your students.

You can also allot a certain amount of time and tell everyone to stop once the time is up. The unfinished worksheets can be assigned as homework on the same day or at the end of the week.

Would you like to try out a sample?
Then, click to download ten FREE Language Morning Work worksheets or click on the image below.

I've also bundled the sets and I'm offering you two choices: either buy the bundle, which is 30% off, or buy seven individual sets and email me so I can send you the other three for FREE. 

I'm offering the second option because there are teachers who have been getting the sets as I release them. I wanted those teachers to have the same benefit as those who will be buying the bundle now.

Click on any of the images to be re-directed to my TpT store.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me.

Thank you for reading!

Noun or Verb Anchor Chart and a freebie!

It might come naturally to an adult native speaker of English that some words act as both verbs and nouns. Of course, the context will tell you the difference. That's easy for you to see.

Now, think about a young child and/or an ELL student. They might have trouble understanding that a word like "play" can be a noun ("I watched a wonderful play"), but also a verb ("Let's play outside").

Helping them navigate the world of multiple meaning words and parts of speech is not an easy task, but it's a crucial one in getting them to succeed in a world where people are constantly turning nouns into verbs ("Friend me on FB"), and verbs into nouns ("I've only got one like on IG").

If you're introducing nouns and verbs to your students or if you're reviewing those two parts of speech, here's an idea that will get your kids to think about the multiple meaning of words on a daily or weekly basis.

Use an interactive "Noun or Verb" anchor chart like the one below.
Read on to learn how you can use it in your classroom.

Is it a noun or a verb? It can be both! Use this interactive anchor chart to get your students working with the two most important parts of speech: nouns and verbs

1. Once a day (or a week), write a word on a post-it and attach it to the top bubble.
2. Have students write sentences (on two pieces of post-its) in which the focus word acts as a noun and a verb.
3. Gather all the post-its and "shuffle" them.
4. Pick one post-it and read the sentence on it, and have students tell you if the word is a noun or a verb.
5. Attach the post-it on the verb bubble or the noun bubble of the anchor chart.
6. Go through as many sentences as time allows. If you change the focus word once a week, you'll probably be able to go through all the sentences. For example, if you have 20 students, go through 4 sentences a day.

If your students are struggling with the concept, you might have them come up with sentences in pairs or small groups.
You might also brainstorm the sentences together as a class when first introducing the activity, and later move on to the procedure described above.

Sometimes it's hard to remember words that can act as both verbs and nouns, so feel free to use some of the words you'll find in my FREE Noun or Verb No-Prep Printable Worksheets. You can use the printables as pre or post-assessment as well.

And if you happen to be looking for more fun ways to practice nouns and verbs, be sure to check out my Noun or Verb Scoot - 2 sets of 35 Task Cards.

And I'm linking up with the grammar queen Deb Hanson for her Anchors Away Linky Party.
Be sure to check out her anchor charts. They're incredible!

Thanks for reading!

Free Fall-Themed Parts of Speech Task Cards

If you've read my previous post about a pumpkin patch of adjectives anchor chart, you know fall is my favorite season. So here I am back again with more fall goodies.

Here's a FREE set of fall-themed parts of speech task cards for you:

Click on the image above to download it from Dropbox

There are twelve task cards and each card has students identifying the underlined word in a sentence as a noun, a verb, an adjective, or an adverb. It comes in three options: full color, ink-friendly (just the illustration in color), and B&W.

Now, let me ask you a question. How many times have you thought about creating your own set of task cards, but you were not sure of how to go about designing them? I mean, you know the subject, have wonderful ideas, but would just need to get over the formatting issue. Of course, you love all the options the wonderful TpT sellers offer, but you'd like to create your own. With you in mind, I came up with an Editable Task Card Template that you can get for free. All you need to do is subscribe to my FREE newsletter.

Click on the image to sign up!

The cards are:

- editable in Powerpoint: you'll be able to add your own questions and answers, but you won't be able to change the design of the cards. You can also layer clipart on top of them. TpT has wonderful artists and they even offer free sets if you'd like to try it out.

READ: A Selection of 20 free clipart sets: Fall, Pumpkins, Halloween, and Thanksgiving

- B&W: this is to help you save on ink. The cards have been designed to look great either printed on white paper or on colored paper. I strongly suggest printing on really colorful paper and using the colors to organize your sets. For example: you can create a set in two different levels of difficulty, either to scaffold or differentiate, and print each set on different colored papers; you can also print ELA cards in one color, and Math cards in another color, etc.

- for personal/classroom use ONLY.

The task card template is a FREE gift to new subscribers, but that's not all the newsletter is about.

Subscribers receive a new message every 2-4 weeks, and some special announcements in between. The emails include teaching tips, classroom ideas, exclusive promotions, early-release freebies and exclusive freebies. Hope you'll join me on my journey!

Thank you so much for reading and hope you'll enjoy the task cards!

Adjectives Interactive Anchor Chart: a pumpkin patch of adjectives and a FREEBIE

It's actually spring down here, but I love, love fall! I'm sure you'll excuse me if I crash into your autumn celebrations :)

You might have noticed that I love parts of speech and anchor charts so I've got a fall-themed adjectives anchor chart for you today.

It's a really fun one because it's interactive and you can have a different one every day just by changing out the post-its. You can also use it to play an adjectives game that your students will love.

I created a "base" for the chart with amazing clipart by Krista Wallden and Illumismart.

Now comes the fun part!

There are two ways to use this anchor chart.

1. The first way is more traditional, but with an interactive twist. You'd need post-its for this one.
Place a post-it with a noun on the pumpkin patch image and then have students write adjectives on other post-its to describe that noun. Next, they place the post-its on the pumpkins. You'd end up with something like this:

You can place a different noun on the pumpkin patch every day throughout the season. Challenge the students not to repeat the adjectives. That's a whole lot of adjective practice!

2. The second way to use this anchor chart is to turn it into a guessing game. Before class starts, the teacher places the six post-its with adjectives UNDER the pumpkin flaps so students can't see them. Place a noun on the pumpkin patch. The teacher tells students to write six adjectives to describe that noun (on their notebooks or on the answer recording sheet at the end of the post).

The goal is for students to guess as many of the adjectives the teacher used to describe that noun. When they're done writing, the teacher can then reveal the adjectives by lifting the flaps. The student(s) who got more adjectives right (=the ones the teacher used) wins this game. The teacher can also have kids work in pairs or small groups.

READ: Adjectives Anchor Chart - making your anchor charts look good!

If you'd like, you can have students writing on the FREE Pumpkin Patch Adjectives answer recording sheet I've created to go with this activity. If you're going to be playing this game a lot, you might want to make enough copies and insert the sheets into page protectors so you can use them again and again. If not, hand out as many copies as necessary. Click on the image below to download it from Dropbox.

Hope you have enjoyed this post and if you're looking for more adjective practice, check out the following resources on TpT:

     

I'm linking up with the sweet Deb at Crafting Connections for Anchors Away Monday. Click on the image below to check out other great anchor chart ideas!

Thanks for reading!

Nouns Interactive Anchor Chart and Anchors Away Linky!

Since interactive notebooks are all the rage right now, why not an interactive anchor chart?

Here's my take on an interactive nouns anchor chart:

When introducing or reviewing nouns, teachers usually go through the explanation of how nouns name people, things, animals, and places. This anchor chart should be used for that.
The fun part, though, comes from the interaction the students would be encouraged to have with the chart.
Every day, or once/twice a week have students come up and attach a post-it with examples of a category of nouns under the corresponding flap. See the pictures below:

Ideally, they should always come up with new ones. They could also "fill out" the anchor chart with nouns that they find in a book you're reading in class.

You could also turn this into a game and see which team(s) can list the most items.

Let your creativity run free :D

The more the students interact with the chart, the better!

Read: Adverbs Anchor Chart - part 1/2

Read: Plural Nouns Anchor Chart 1/2

Read: Reflexive Pronouns Anchor Chart

Today I'm linking up with Deb at Crafting Connections for her Anchors Away Monday Linky! Click on the picture below to check it out!

Thank you!

Reflexive Pronouns Anchor Chart - Anchors Away Monday Linky and a freebie!

It's been a while since I last posted an anchor chart so here I am today with one for reflexive pronouns. I just love teaching reflexive pronouns! What about you?

As you can see, I've hacked this anchor chart. I can draw, but certainly not as well as Mel (Graphics from Pond). I was lucky to win her August giveaway and I'm already putting my prize into use.

I guess students sometimes find it hard to tell when they should be using a reflexive pronoun. It's harder if they don't really know what subjects and objects are. If they do, the best explanation is to say that they should use reflexive pronouns when the subject and the object of a verb are the same. In other words, the one doing the action is also the one being "affected" by that action.

"Mary cut herself while cooking" means that "Mary cut Mary" and not anybody else. Sounds weird, but that's the best way I've found to make my students understand.

However, you know very well that this is only one of the ways reflexive pronouns are used. There is, for instance, the emphatic use.

"Mary herself prepared dinner" is not about the subject and the object being the same. "Herself" is used to emphasize that Mary was the one making the dinner. Why the emphasis? Maybe Mary is not known for being a cook.

There's also the use of reflexive pronouns with the preposition "by" to mean "alone" as in "Mary hates to go to the movies by herself".

Now, I've got two resources to help you teach reflexive pronouns and I know that those working with the Common Core have a standard just for reflexive pronouns, the 2.L.1c.

One is a Free Reflexive Pronouns Poster, similar to the anchor chart above, that you can download by clicking on the image below:

click to download a FREE poster in color and B&W

The other is my Reflexive Pronouns Scoot, which actually includes 2 sets of 32 task cards. Here's what a buyer has said:

"This is great! I used the tougher ones whole group and the simpler ones for the actual game. Thanks!"

And by game, the buyer meant Scoot - one of the many ways you can use task cards.

click on the image to check it out on TpT

Finally, I'm linking up with Deb at Crafting Connections and her Anchors Away Monday linky. Click on the image below to check it out and maybe link up as well or at least discover more anchor charts!

But, before you go, don't forget to leave me a comment. I love to read what you guys think!

Thanks for stopping by!

Adjectives Anchor Chart Idea AND an easy way to make your anchor charts look good!

I don't know about you, but I wish I could draw and write as beautifully as some of the other teacher-bloggers do!

Anyway, for the purpose of teaching, there's nothing wrong with the way I (used to) draw in the classroom, but, you know, I'm here to share my ideas with you and I certainly don't want to hurt your eyes with my stick figures (nothing against stick figures!).

That is all to say that I've just "hacked" an anchor chart! How have I "hacked" an anchor chart?!
By using clipart and fonts! That way, the "bulk" of the anchor chart looks pretty!

I used the heading and the school clipart displayed in the picture above as the base for the adjectives anchor chart I will share with you today.

This one would be great for back-to-school (and for any other time of the year!) because it will let you assess your new group of students.

You'll be focusing on the knowledge of nouns and adjectives your students have (or should have). You might even throw in some alliteration as well.

Here are the steps:

1. Start with an anchor chart with just the heading and picture on it.

2. Have students come up to the anchor chart and write NOUNS that are related to the image (school). You'll be able to assess how much vocabulary they already have and how well they can spell. You should also be able to notice whether they really know what nouns are. Keep going until all students have added at least one word.

3. Next, have students come up with ADJECTIVES that can qualify/describe the nouns already on the chart. If you want to challenge them more (only if they can "take" it), you might want to work on alliteration as well. Thus, they would have to find adjectives beginning with the same letters as the nouns they're describing, e.g. big bus, colorful crayons, etc.

Here's what it should look like (your version will probably end up looking a lot "fuller"):

4. You might even turn this into a quick writing task by having them write sentences using the pairs on the chart.

OTHER TIPS

- notice that I wrote the adjectives in red and the nouns in green to match the colors used in the heading. The idea is for students to quickly see what words are nouns or adjectives.

- you can create similar anchor charts throughout the year! All you need is to use different pictures at the center of the chart and you can expand it to include adverbs, articles, prepositions, etc.

- you can also assign this as homework and have kids create poster-like charts revolving around a given topic.

This idea could certainly be used in other languages. Here's the French version of the anchor chart:

READ at For French Immersion: 7 Pinterest boards for French teachers

As I mentioned, I used clipart and a cute font to prepare the "base" for the anchor chart. This can be done before class, but the rest has to be done in the classroom because it will depend on the active participation of your students.

The school image is included in My Community Buildings by Poppydreamz Digital Art and the free font is by This Little Piggy Reads.

Check out their awesome Teachers Pay Teachers stores and blog:

Poppydreamz Digital Art TpT store

This Little Piggy Reads TpT store

This Little Piggy Reads Blog

READ: Plural Nouns Anchor Chart Ideas Part 1

READ: Adverbs Anchor Chart Ideas Part 1

Thank you for reading and don't forget to let me know what you think of today's post!

FREE: Singular-plural nouns matching activity - Worksheet Wednesday #4

This is the first time I have two posts on the same day!

If you haven't read the first one for the day, check out my Teacher-authors around the world: meet Lisa from Scotland!

I'm linking up with The Teaching Tribune for Worksheet Wednesday.

The idea is to share a FREE summer-themed one-page worksheet and here's mine:

Click on the image above to grab your FREE copy

This is a singular/plural noun matching activity.

"Where's the summer theme?", you might ask. Well, it's in the choice of words and the ice cream clipart by the amazing Graphics from the pond!

For more summer-themed freebies, click on the image below:

READ: Plural Nouns Anchor Chart Ideas Part 1

READ: Plural Nouns Anchor Chart Ideas Part 2

Thank you for stopping by! It's always wonderful to have you here!

Anchor Chart Ideas - Plural Nouns Part 2/2

Happy Friday! Here I am posting the second part of Anchor Chart Ideas - Plural Nouns Part 1.

On Pinterest, there are tons of plural nouns anchor charts, but I rarely (if ever) see an anchor chart for the more uncommon cases of plural forms, e.g. the plural of nouns that come from Latin or from other languages. So here's my take on it:

Of course, languages are ever-changing and some of the plural forms in the chart above are becoming less and less used, such as "datum". What happens is that "data" has been more frequently used as a singular noun. Or, some words are taking on other plural form alternatives, such as "indexes" instead of "indices".

I don't really see a problem with that. Languages do (and should) transform.

That being said, I don't think I'll be able to use "paparazzi" as a singular noun if it ever comes to that! I haven't mastered Italian yet, but I know how to make the plural of nouns in that language.

One important case to keep in mind is the use of "alumni". "Alumni" is the plural form of the word "alumnus", which refers to a male student. The female student would be an "alumna" (plural: alumnae). When referring to a group of former students of both genders, the term "alumni" is to be used.

A lot of people, though, end up misusing the word "alumni" as a singular noun - "He's a Harvard alumni" (instead of "He's a Harvard alumnus") - or using it to refer to a group of female students only - "The alumni of a prestigious all-girls school" (instead of "The alumnae of a prestigious…")

I've recently read and heard some people using "alum" (singular) and "alums" (plural) to avoid the gender issue, but I don't use those terms myself. What about you?

If you happen to read my blog, you know that I like to offer some chart ideas for teachers of French. So, allow me to post two anchor chart for French teaching:

READ at For French Immersion: 7 Pinterest boards for French teachers

Thank you for reading and have a great weekend!