Wacky, Tacky the Penguin Fun!

We've been have a wacky, very tacky, time of it with Tacky the Penguin this past week! You may remember our fun from last year...Well, we're back at it again not just because it's such an awesomely funny story, but because each year, grades 2+ in our district have several genre units we are required to teach. Our second grade units are about teaching tolerance through fantasy stories and then a nonfiction unit follows on that same topic too. In the fall, we use Stellaluna and then do a nonfiction unit on bats. It works out beautifully and the students love the variety of activities during our units that we throw in as "extras"!  The story is OFF LIMITS as a read-aloud in any other grade as a district policy so unless the students have the book at home, it is exciting and new to them which is great! What is NOT in the genre unit on Tacky is everything I have to share with you here! 

One important thing we do is to work on vocabulary for the story. This year, I posted vocabulary cards as an around the room activity and then hung them on the whiteboard on display for the week. 

We also made these cute Tacky friends and hung them up. Each shirt and bow tie pattern was copied on scrapbook paper. 

Each child in the grade has a copy of the book, so we can do repeated readings and work on fluency. We had great fun with character voices for the songs and chants! 

We did a lot of comprehension work in a packet that I created for the children. Here we sequenced the events and wrote about character traits.

The class completed a variety of graphic organizers similar to Venn Diagrams and Thinking (tree) Maps because that is a school improvement goal. The other pages have story questions similar to those asked on the DRA test.

Then there were plenty of things we did just for fun! We invented a new companion for Tacky and also wrote about some other tricks that Tacky might be good at! The students loved sharing their tricks with the others at their table group.

When it was time for a brain break, we picked from these cards. The class favorites were the penguin march through the hall and singing some really DREADFUL songs together with a strong country twang. The class thought this was just the best!

On Friday, we had a Wacky Tacky Day. The students dressed in their worst mismatched attire and accessories!

I wasn't quite as tacky as the kiddos who really got into it... but I wore some totally crazy floral leggings and borrowed a tuxedo shirt and bow tie from my son's closet. I pretended to be Perfect who is starting to appreciate the benefit of letting loose every now and then! 

The kiddos were also allowed to bring their companions to school!

A few hunters joined us too.

In the afternoon, the students watched the documentary/movie,  March of the Penguins, which they absolutely loved! It is a great intro to the nonfiction unit on penguins as the second half of the genre unit begins.

Our Tacky week and wacky day were such a blast! If you are interested in the penguin crafts, worksheets or activities, you can find them in my Tacky the Penguin Unit .

It would be so tacky for me to show how much fun we've been having without inviting you all! 

You can have a Wacky Tacky Day in your room too!

 Just send home this little note!

 Click on the picture to download a copy!

:)

Tacky the Penguin Story Activities

Every January, our grade level does a fun thematic unit plan centered around the story Tacky the Penguin. I few years back, I created a packet of activities for our kiddos. I've been wanting to add to it and finally got around to doing so. I can't wait to put the activities into action when we return to school. 

Here's a peek at just a few of the many pages inside:

The item has had a complete makeover including all of the fonts and graphics. Newly added to the file is a Tacky with a shirt craft, interactive notebook flip-flap pages, room to write graphic organizers, some poetry pages and more writing and word work activities.

 I 'm pretty sure my class is going to love this, especially the penguin project! I can't wait to see how these look on our bulletin board! 

 Maybe you LOVE Tacky the Penguin too or want to add some new fun to your penguin unit plan! If so, you can read the full item description and see this packet at my TPT store {here}.

Have a Lovely, Perfect day!

Classroom Printables for the New Year Linky

Happy 2014 everyone! I hope that this new year brings all of you good health, good times and everything that you wish for!

The new year is the perfect time to reflect and make changes both personally and professionally! I am so excited to start some new activities and routines with my second graders! 

It's great when students can be up and moving about, working independently and engaged in fun and motivating activities. It is a lot to manage correctly, so that is my goal! My focus is to include more of these types of learning activities for the rest of the year.

I made this new Scoot activity to go along with our upcoming penguin theme! The kids will be scooting around from desk to desk working without seeing it as work!

Many teachers have trouble accessing a colored printer, so this one is made in black and white and color! 

 I think they are going to love it! I can just imagine them parading around the room like little penguins!

There are also many printables in this Tacky the Penguin pack you might like to go along with a winter penguin unit! Kids just love wacky Tacky!

See this post for more on Tacky and a freebie too! 

Click on the images for each if you'd like to read more in the store! 

You can pick them up on sale right now! 

Graphics from the Pond, Glitter Meets Glue Designs, Kimberly Geswein Fonts

As much as I am not a big fan of dittos, often there just needs to be that piece of paper to hold the students accountable for their learning, to assess strengths and weaknesses, and monitor that the learning goal has been achieved for documentation purposes.

I think it is crucial to spend time teaching my students how to work accurately and efficiently on pencil and paper tasks, because the majority of their learning activities in the upper grades still take that form.

Sending home that piece of paper also helps me to communicate regularly with parents about the learning activities that the students are participating in during the school day! I cannot always trust that parents are asking or that 7 year old students are explaining it well! :)

As so....I LOVE printables that are meaningful pieces of paper not busy work dittos!

Link Up!

I found a great linky for some fantastic COLLECTABLE PRINTABLES, I call them, at Positively Learning!

 Head on over and check it out when you have a chance! 

I linked up a pack that I use for student accountabilty for independent reading and small group instruction. This pack, geared toward younger learners, and my best-selling Reading Comprehension Companion, are my go-to printables for Daily 5 CAFE Menu and Guided Reading.

 All of these printable pages come in a printer friendly black and white version too! You can view more of the description here.

I can't wait to get down to business in the classroom, work on my goal and watch my kiddos blossom in the new year! 

Tacky the Penguin and a Tacky Freebie

This week we started one of my favorite reading units~ Tacky the Penguin! I made this packet of activities to add to the unit that I know my kiddos will have a lot of fun with!

I'm so excited to use these with my class! I think they'll enjoy the Tacky brain break cards the most!

That's just a sample of what is inside. Click here to read more!

Here are a few freebie pages from the set that I hope your students will like! Click on the picture to download it from my dropbox! 

 Have fun with them!