Sometimes rounding can be a little tricky, especially when you are rounding to different place values.  Here are some fun games and other resources you can use to practice.


Remember, we use rounded numbers to help us estimate.  Rounding gives us more manageable numbers to work with.

Just click on the name of the worksheet to go to the page where you can download them for free.

Rounding to the Nearest _____. by Have Fun Teaching

Rounding to the Nearest _____ by Super Teacher Worksheets (only a couple of these are free)

Rounding Worksheets by Kids Know It Network

Soft Schools Rounding Game

This is a good game for beginning rounders.  Round to the underlined digit.


Half-Court Rounding

This basketball themed game has several different levels-- rounding to the tens place, rounding to the hundreds place, and rounding decimals.  (Students can choose their own levels.)


Glowla's Estimation Contraption

Round the numbers to estimate the sum.  (You may want to have a piece of scratch paper handy if you're not too confident in your rounding abilities just yet.)

As our school administration likes to tell us, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a day ON, not a day off.  Our children are so fortunate to live in a society that, while definitely not perfect, has come such a long way since Dr. King's time.  Dr. King's message of acceptance and compassion is an important one to revisit and stretches far beyond the civil rights movement. 

Here are some resources you can use to learn more about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Reading Rockets website (one of my favorites for reading resources!) has a fantastic list of books to read on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  From biographies of Dr. King and Ruby Bridges to stories of people striving to improve their communities, there are books here for a variety of interests and ages.

Click HERE to go to the list.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  You can find the best resources on the Teachers Pay Teachers website, and many of them are absolutely FREE!  (You will need to sign up for a free account to download files.)

Here is the link to all of the FREE Martin Luther King Day resources.  You can filter the results by rating, grade level, etc.

A few of my favorite free resources:

Martin Luther King Jr. Poster Activity FREEBIE

Martin Luther King Jr. Vocabulary Cards Freebie

Martin Luther King Jr. Facts and Opinions (Freebie)

Martin Luther King Day MLK Foldable Pack *Freebie*

If you live in the Pittsburgh area, there are a couple of activities you can do for FREE on Monday, January 20th:

The Carnegie Science Center is offering free admission and free parking to everybody on the 20th.  It seems that they are even throwing in an Omnimax movie!

The Pittsburgh Glass Center on Penn Ave. will have free glass blowing demonstrations on Monday.  They are also offering several mini workshops for a small fee.


The Schenley Park Ice Rink (in Oakland) has free ice skating from 1pm - 4 pm on Monday.  They will also have educational activities and art projects available.

You can see a more complete list of activities in this Post-Gazette article.

Monday, January 20th is an in-service day for teachers, so students have no school.  You are more than welcome to work on your curriculum that day, but why not take a FREE field trip?

The Carnegie Science Center has completely free admission and free parking on the 20th!  This even includes an Omnimax film.  You can click here for more information:

http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/events_detail.php?eventID=1794&dateYear=2014&dateMonth=1&dateDate=20

My goodness, this weather is crazy!  I hope you are all staying safe and warm at home!  One of the advantages of cyber school is that you never have to go out in the cold if you don't want to.  :)

While I was checking your spelling tests, I thought I would look for some fun ways to practice your spelling words.  I stumbled across a teacher's blog called All Students Can Shine.  She has some wonderful free resources, including these fun Spelling Tic Tac Toe activities.  They are helpful for both your spelling and sight word practice.  Enjoy!

Welcome back to school!  I hope you had a fun winter break.  I hope you aren't buried in snow today!

In honor of the snowstorm, I decided to round up a few books about snow that you can read online totally for FREE.

http://www.wegivebooks.org/collections/featured

The snow-themed books they have here are:
The Mitten by Jan Brett
The Hat by Jan Brett
The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett
The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
Snowmen at Night by Mark and Caralyn Buehner

One of the crafts I love to make in winter are paper snowflakes.  They are pretty, but boy do they make a mess!  Luckily, I found a cool website where you can make virtual snowflakes.  They're much easier to cut and are mess-free.

http://www.thekidzpage.com/freekidsgames/games/snowflake-maker/

I hope to see you all at our RAMP session on Monday, January 6th at 3:00!

I hope you all had a relaxing winter break!  What a way to welcome us back to school-- hopefully the snow did not hit you too hard.  

This month's topic is Reading Comprehension Strategies.  In second grade, students are still learning how to read, but third grade is generally the pivotal year when students start to read to learn.  Here are some links and an article with tips for aiding your student in reading comprehension:

Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension (on the Reading Rockets website)
I LOVE the Reading Rockets website.  It offers very useful, easy-to-understand advice.  This particular article suggests study skills such as graphic organizers and summarizing to boost comprehension.

Comprehension Strategies (from the Busy Teachers Cafe website)
This website offers a list of six strategies along with MANY links to other resources for each strategy.  There is a ton of helpful information here, but it may take a while to explore it all.

Reading Strategies article
This article details critical reading strategies, as well as offers instructional strategies you can use in teaching your lessons.  Click the link below to download it.