Peek at my week {12-1-13}!

What are your plans for the week? I love this linky because if I am looking for something extra, this is the place to go! Unfortunately, this four day break flew by and without leaving me time to do ANYTHING. On Black Friday our family got hit with the stomach bug....we still haven't recovered from it. My papers are staying in my school bag ungraded and I am starting to Lysol down the house. Hopefully this week will be better. 

First, if you like FREE you'll want to be around here Monday, I am SUPER excited to be a part of I'm Lovin' Lit's Scavenger Hunt, I can't wait to participate to win the amazing prizes and I know you will love them too!



Second, I'll be participating in the TpT Cyber Monday Sale, so fill up your carts and get shopping!

Third, this week we are taking our summative assessment for our second unit in ELA. Over multiple days, students will be creating research based questions, researching the questions, and developing a deeper understanding for the book, Faithful Elephants. Have you ever read that book? OHMYGOSH, if you haven't get some tissues and read it! When you know WHY the events in the text had to happen, the book is even more meaningful! 

 

And last, but not least, we will be celebrating two birthdays this week! My son was born on my daughter's second birthday, so yes, my children are exactly two years apart! So far, this has made for an exciting December 6th! :) 

 

Wohoo Wednesday! TPT Sale coming up...Time to fill up my WISHLIST!

Have you heard about the TpT sale coming up for Cyber Monday & Tuesday? We are giving a 20% discount and TpT is giving a 10% sale. Somehow it evens up to being 28% off. Sounds good to me though because my TpT store Wishlist is overflowing! There are so many cute Common Core related products for the winter that I want to test out in my classroom, I am having trouble planning out just when to do it all!

 The first thing on my wishlist that I am going to be grabbing at the sale price is the *Mid Year ELA Review (Snowman)* from Emily over at I Love My Classroom! These adorable task cards cover all types of sentences, subjects & predicates, types of nouns, pronouns, and verbs.  I don't know about your class, but my 4th graders could ALWAYS use extra practice on these topics, plus the adorable snowmen are just too cute to pass up on.

Next on my wishlist is Ms. Jivey's "How Santa Got & Lost His Job - A Common Core Aligned Literature Unit!" As soon as Jivey put this out I added it to my wishlist and the books to my Amazon cart. I'm a sucker when it comes to any books "Santa" related because I can always reuse them at home with my kids. So I just ordered How Santa Got His Job and How Santa Lost His Job and am so excited to read them with my class. This unit also comes at a great time because I am always reinforcing the "Refer to Details from the Text" standard in my classroom. 

One item that should be on your wishlist this winter is my new mini unit on "The History of Gingerbread!" This unit was a lot of fun creating and even more fun completing. I first created this for substitute plans when I was going to be at an inservice all day, because the work is easily understood, not considered busy work, and actually relates to standards I need to teach and complete. When going over the worksheets with my students we talked about more traditions, which led us to researching and writing informative articles on our own family traditions for the holidays. From here we compared and contrasted different traditions and even wrote a compare/contrast written response. I was able to assess my students multiple times while they were engaged and really learning. By allowing them to research their own traditions it was an easy way to differentiate the lesson, create groups, and allow students to go above and beyond. I hope you will check this out and test it in your classroom! 

I hope I have inspired you to fill your wishlist for the winter months because sales like this don't come around too often! Have a wonderful THANKSGIVING and enjoy the long weekend!

I also wanted to jump on the party with Molly for her fun Thankful Linky!

Don't forget to leave feedback on your previous purchases so you can get credits toward your Cyber Monday and Tuesday purchases!!! Now don't just sit there... go fill your wishlist!! :)

Workshop Wednesday: Strategies & Ideas to Get Kids Writing PLUS an awesome GIVEAWAY!!

Today I am linking up with my girl, Jivey, for Workshop Wednesday! The topic is strategies or ideas to get kids writing. 

My advice is to get the students in the habit of doing lots and lots of writing, and then set aside a different time to re-visit selected pieces. I do this a few ways. I start out in the beginning of the year by making it a daily routine to complete a ten minute quick write. Quick writes are not judged on spelling or grammar, but instead promote writing stamina. At the end of ten minutes the students count the number of words the wrote, write the number at the top, and circle it. Hopefully the number improves throughout the year. I get the ideas for my quick writes by using a month writing calendar that I created.

 The calendar works great because 

• The boxes aren't numbered...so it can be used year after year
• The prompts are different and promote creativity as well as thought
• There are a few "free choice" activities each month so students can choose to elaborate on an entry or write what is on their mind. 

After the students record their number of words I always call of a few students to share their writing. Usually everyone volunteers and wants to share, so I try to pick different students each day.

A really cool new idea that I can use this year is sharing student work by simply making a copy! My district just received new copy machines that have an email function. When making copies I can simply press a button and have the document emailed to me. In class I can show the document on the Smart Board and mark it up. Not only do the students love adding this technology into the classroom, but they love having their work shown on the big screen. I allow students to come up to the board and use the Smart Board pens to mark up sections of writing (circle the introduction in red, underline the example of text evidence this student used in paragraph two...etc.) This is a great way to collect student writing samples so that students can analyze someone else's piece. Hopefully from here they will be sure to focus on big-picture issues like staying on topic and organizing information into paragraphs before they look at capitalization or word choice. Then students can start applying ideas from the discussions to their own work.

With the CCSS having so much emphasis on collaboration between peers, I often have the students meet with me and/or their peers while using checklists and rubrics to examine their own writing. They end up learning so much independence from this process, and they eventually get over the idea that they can just crank out a piece and call it a day without doing some revisions. I create rubrics for all writing pieces. I allow the students to give input so they can understand how the piece should be set up and where their grade comes from. I also make rubrics with a student score as well as a teacher score. By having a student go through the rubric to grade their own work before passing it in, it will give them another opportunity to double check their work.  This also helps parents see how their child was graded when the work is eventually sent home.

I hope you found some of these ideas helpful! I can't wait to read more ideas to get kids writing!

Now it's time to show my appreciation to you! THANK YOU for following my blog, leaving me motivating comments, and letting me know I am not alone in this crazy job of teaching.

A bunch of bloggers have joined up to say THANK YOU.  Thank you for following us.  Thank you for your support, encouragement, and friendship.  We have learned so much from you.  

So we wanted to say thank you with a Gift Card Giveaway.  

Simply fill in the rafflecopter below and you have a chance to win one of 3 prizes. 

(You can fill in the rafflecopter on any of our blogs, it's all the same one.) 

3 lucky winners will win a $25 gift card to TPT.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!  

Tried it Tuesday: Weekly Parent Newsletters!

It's time to link up with Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried it Tuesday and with Technology Tailgate for Techie Tuesday! I love these link ups and often find so many new ideas to test out.

This year my goal was to get better at keeping parents informed. I thought of sending home a newsletter, but didn't want to recreate the wheel each week. Because of this, I created a Power Point file with TEN editable newsletters. It's supper easy and convenient because each week I just click in the precreated text boxes and type. I save the newsletter as a PDF and send it off to parents.

Another great tip is creating a parent group in email. I could take you step by step on how to do that, but I have a school email program called Novell GroupWise. If anyone also uses that and would like directions, please email me, I'd love to help. My parent group is listed as ~Parents2013. When I type that in the address section it automatically emails all of the parents. If you didn't want to send it by email, you could always print the newsletter and send it home with the notices at the end of the week. The parent response has been awesome. Most of the times I have parents press "reply" and thank me for keeping them in the loop and involved in their child's education. 

I also add a picture collage page. I simply pull out my cell phone and snap some pictures during the week of projects, great handwriting, proud students, smiles, and even some at recess time. I email the pictures from my phone to the computer, drag them onto power point to create a college, turn the power point into a pdf and attach that to the email as well. The parents love seeing their child at school and in action. I know being a parent I love communication and pictures from my child's teacher (even if she is only in pre-school) so I'm sure it goes for most parents. 

If you'd like to check this out and try it check out the Editable Newsletter Bundle on TPT. 

It has great reviews and one buyer stated, "This is a must have file for any teacher K-6. The templates are beautiful and you will easily be able to send home good news or post it on your school site!"

I love positive feedback. Thank you! :)

To start you off, I created a FREEBIE for a November themed editable newsletter for you to test out and try! Please let me know what you think! :) 

Good luck! I hope this was helpful! :)

Want to know a little secret? Check back tomorrow for your chance to empty or put a HUGE dent in your TPT wishlist!!! :) 

Halloween Festivities...I've been BOOED!

Are you able to celebrate Halloween in your school? Today I am linking up with one of my blog buddies, Gary, aka ScrappyGuy, for his linky on celebrating Halloween in school. We have an awesome PTO at my school and they just held an after school pumpkin painting party for the students. There was a huge turn out. They also bought pumpkins for the teachers to "decorate" for a school wide contest. The pumpkins were due back to school on Monday and there was some serious competition! 

This a adorable minion came out to be the winner! The students all voted this afternoon and the winning teacher's class gets a prize.

This is Robyn's white painted witch pumpkin!

So creative!

These were my favorite!!! How awesome are these m&m pumpkins!?

This was my attempt! I will say it looks much better at night all lit up! It took me forever to carve this thing too! At least my students were proud of me!

See much better looking when it's lit up!

Some other fun pumpkins! 

We have a very creative teacher staff! Can't wait to see what the prize turns out to be!

Thursday we are having small Halloween parties in classrooms with treats and spooky parent read books. We are also doing some fun curriculum related Halloween activities and the students will be allowed to put on their costumes at the end of the day! A ton of the teachers are dressing up together! Stay tuned for pictures, I can't wait!

I totally borrowed this idea from my BBB Joanne and I am THRILLED with the results! 

My NEW favorite bulletin board!! The students wrote from the perspective of a spider begging not to be crushed! Their writing was adorable and impressive! 

Take care teacher friends! 

The temp is dropping down to the low 30's tonight here in CT! Brrrr!

Freebie: Opinion Writing, SPIDERS, and a FLY....OH MY!

While working our way through opinion writing I've came across some great ideas from my fellow BBBs. One of my favorite ideas came from Jivey, who also got inspired from Joanne. Both of these ladies are amazing. Last week I started an opinion essay on the topic, "What state would be the best to live in?" The students were able to use our new class set of Chrome books for research for one day. Unfortunately, that was not nearly enough time to research, but we had no choice because the Chrome books were taken away for NWEA testing. I was inspired by the season, the blogs mentioned above, and this awesome book, The Spider and the Fly! Have you ever read it? It is perfect for the fall, creepy enough for Halloween, and amazing from the literary perspective. The word choice is fabulous and the illustrations are creative and captivating! It is the perfect length for a quick read aloud that inspires the students to want to know more. This led us to our next opinion piece (Idea totally borrowed from Jivey) Are spiders harmful or helpful? Right off my class took a vote and I was NOT shocked to see that all but one student felt that spiders were more harmful than helpful. After finding some nonfiction text for my students to read, creating a way for the students to organize their notes, and a student/teacher opinion paragraph rubric (we use rubrics for EVERYTHING), I was ready to go. We had been working on opinion writing for a few weeks and I was SO happy to see that students were finally getting the idea. Because of lack of time, we were not writing a five paragraph opinion essay, instead we were using text evidence to write one paragraph with an opinion, reason, text evidence, and concluding sentence. They came out GREAT! I was so proud of my students. I am now excited to go and try Joanne's new idea she just posted about. This will make an awesome hallway bulletin board!

A student's t-chart created from the nonfiction article.

If you'd like to try this out with your class, click here to download your own copy FOR FREE! I included the text (which I did not write), the t-chart, the question and response page, and the rubric. If you decide to try it, let me know how it goes! :)

Workshop Wednesday: Opinion Writing & Storms

I am excited to be back into my routine and am able to link up with Jivey for Workshop Wednesday. When I found out the topic of the day would be on opinion writing, I was thrilled. It is exactly what we are working on right now. I've been stalking Jivey's amazing blog lately because her class is also working on opinion writing and she has the cutest ideas.  While finishing up our first unit, we have been discussing natural disasters that can really mix home life. Last year, here in Connecticut we were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. In our latest edition of StoryWorks magazine,  there is an amazing article that really fit into our unit. From here we developed our lesson to tie into our reading and writing standards. If you don't have a subscription to StoryWorks and still want to try this out, don't worry, I have provided the links to both articles, just click on the pictures. 


So today we started off the lesson by reviewing close reading. We looked at my favorite bulletin board in the classroom, my Close Reading board (You can find the posters in my TpT store or by clicking on the picture!) We then read the first article Deep Trouble while it projected on the Smart Board. While we read the article we did a close read of the text together. I was lucky enough to have our amazing Reading Specialist, Kara, in the room during the lesson, so she created a T-Chart to organize the information as we completed the close read. We used a lot of chart paper, but it was so useful. The students were very interested in the article, but it was also scary for them since it hit "so close" to home. It talks about the rising sea levels, global warming, and pieces of the world just sinking into water in the future.

I was happy the students had strong reactions because it lead to great discussion and reactions. When we finished this article today, the students went back to their seats to close read the next article on their own, Surviving Hurricane Sandy. This was even more realistic to the students since we all experienced it. Since the storm hit just last year, they remember what happened to their families, neighbors, and relatives. The students read, highlighted, took notes, and created their own T-charts in their notebooks.

They didn't all finish today, so we will continue tomorrow. Tomorrow they are also going to write an opinion response using notes from both articles answering the question, "Should coastal cities and towns continue to prepare for massive storms?" This should *hopefully* lead to an excellent response from the students. It's a really interactive lesson, that touches on a ton of skills, strands, and standards. I am excited to read their responses!

Tomorrow I will be posting about another opinion writing lesson we completed this week and how awesome it turned out. I am also including it as a freebie! :)

Have a great week!