Fun Games 4 Learning: Turkey Math Games: Get Your Mod Podge On....Journal Covers

Raise your hand if you are ONE exhausted teacher!!! Trust me, both hands are shooting straight up right now. It is amazing what we have to do to pull off the beginning of the year and it always seems to get the best of me! BUT...we have been having a BLAST in second grade and I must say...I am pretty certain that I have the most fabulous class EVER! They are precious and so excited about school and learning which is any teacher's dream.

I am hoping to have time in the next few days to post all of our beginning of the year activities that we have been doing over the past several days! Until then, I did want to share a quick little activity that we did today and it is so darn cute! I seriously thought of this idea at about 10:00 p.m. last night and had to make a quick Ingles run for magazines! Thank goodness it is less than 1 minute from my house! Oh...the life of a teacher! :)

Student Journal Covers

This year, it is my goal to motivate my students to become creative writers. I want them to incorporate their own voice like never before and strive to make their writings unique and interesting. So, to inspire the students, I allowed them to tap into their creative side by creating journal covers. I gave each student magazines to begin cutting out things that either inspire them or things that represent their personality. We used Mod Podge to attach the clippings. Let me say...it was a total HIT! They loved, loved, loved this activity and were begging to begin writing in their journals. {I had to explain the importance of allowing the journals to dry first!} This was also a great "Get to Know You" activity. I allowed the students to show off their journals and explain why they chose each clipping to represent their personality and interests. I hope this allows the students to really take ownership of their journal and create powerful writings filled with creativity!!!