Working hard in 2nd Grade!

I'm very fortunate to be able to push into our 2nd grade classrooms where I get to see all the kids and all their hard work. Just the other day I walked into one of the 2nd grade rooms and saw this:

Everyone has a task; they're busy working while Mrs. B checks in with individual students. The collaborative learning and independence in this room is fabulous!

Then when they completed their first task they moved to their second task seamlessly and with no awkward transitioning. 

Then I get to the other 2nd grade to see this:

Can you say AMAZING! Every second grader on task and working hard! 

Uppercase Letter Learning!

We continue to work hard, learning and enjoying the uppercase letters! Playing with letters is very important and very hard work for little minds. I would encourage letter play for all Kindergarten students. This is doubly important for those who struggle recognizing uppercase letters quickly. If your child hesitates longer then three seconds when trying to recall the name of an uppercase letter then they need to continue  playing games and working hard. 

I know when we think about learning letters and sounds we automatically think we should be practicing with worksheets. While this is not totally out of the question, it's  becoming more and more widely known that the more play like we can make our 5-6 year old's learning the more likely they are to retain the information.  Some fun activities to try include:

Or you can download my alphabet soup game. 

click image to download game

We've also started rhyming. This is a very important skill to have to help understand word spelling and hearing chunks in words.