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!

Saturday Spark Student Motivation: Writing and Singing Songs with the Class: Freebie!

Hello Everyone!  Today, I am linking up with the always amazing, Joanne, from Head Over Heels for Teaching for Spark Students Motivation Saturday. A few years ago I started a tradition of writing songs with my class when learning new material. I realized my class was a bunch of right-brain students and luckily I was more of a right-brain teacher myself. If you want to know what type of teacher you are, check out this article from Scholastic, it explains it all. 

I know I am a right-brain teacher because teachers with right-brain strengths generally prefer to use hands-on activities over a lecture format. With the right-brain preference of seeing the whole picture, these teachers incorporate more art, manipulatives, visuals, and music into their lessons. They tend to embrace Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences. They like to assign more group projects and activities, and prefer a busy, active, noisy classroom environment. The classroom of a strong right-brain teacher will typically have materials and books scattered all over. 

We started with a fun topic, Junior Achievement. Does anyone teach a Junior Achievement program? We get parents volunteers and community members and now teach the whole program in ONE day. I actually like it. We call it JA in a day. I used this song to pre-teach my students, so they wouldn't be clueless and get more out of our JA day. 

Everyday at recess some of my girls would sing their favorite new songs to me so I got a sense of what type of music my students were into. Luckily I am still a teeny-bopper at heart and sing along with the radio...every chance I get! I started by picking a song that had a repetitive chorus and had a very catchy tune. What fourth grader doesn't like One Direction, That's What Makes You Beautiful? (It's important if you are trying this out to find the Karaoke version of music because your words are obviously going to be different!)

Next, I wrote key words on the board and groups of students looked up definitions. When we had our research we (mostly me, but I led them to the ideas) started writing our song. The fourth graders loved this so much, it went viral in the school and all the classrooms were learning and singing it. Some teachers wanted to kill me, but others loved the idea. Kids taught their friends on the bus, at after school activities, and I even received parent emails telling me if teaching doesn't work out I should go into song writing. hahaha The exciting part is that the students REALLY learned the material! 

If any of this fits in with your curriculum you are welcome to download the song for free by clicking on the above picture. If I can find my other songs from over the years, I will post them another day. I will be trying this soon with my new class. 

Have a wonderful weekend friends!

Five For Friday: Busy Week: & Giveaway!

Today I am home with my two sick kids linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! My one and three year old were up all night with sore throats and fevers. At our double doctor appointment this morning, they both tested positive for Strep! The one year old also has a sinus infection and staff infection causing a rash all over his body. Seriously??? This is what we get for the first full week of school/daycare! The doctor said it was the first case of the season for her. Yikes. So since it's nap time for the kids, I have a few minutes to link up for this fun linky.

First up this week is a proud mommy moment. We signed a birthday card for Grandma and check out what my three year old did on her own! This was the first time she wrote her name all by herself and I was so proud of her. I mean "Isabella" is pretty tough to write for a three year old!

In Writing this week we worked on a super fun intro lesson to opinion writing. As a treat I brought in little packs of Skittles, Sour Patch Kids, and Chocolate Bars. The students were able to pick a type of candy to work with during the lesson. In front of them they had a blank opinion plan and a sticky note. While tasting the candy in front of them, they had to decide on their favorite color Skittle or Sour Patch Kid. If they had chocolate (my poor friends with braces) they chose their favorite type of chocolate bar. On the post it note, the students had to write two reasons to support why they liked the "yellow Skittle" or whichever they chose. Next, they took their plan and post it to a group of students who picked the same color of the candy, so all the "Red Skittles" met together. They discussed why they liked the Red Skittle the best. Some students said it reminded them of strawberries and strawberries reminded them of summer time, the red was sweet like sugar, or just red was their favorite color.  Each group worked to complete a plan together. From here, the students wrote a first draft using their opinion plan. I was so impressed with the quality of conversations in the groups, the brainstorming, and the writing. I know this was a very surface level opinion writing lesson, but it certainly grabbed their attention, allowed them to have fun while working, and showed me they were all able to choose, plan, and draft an essay! Things can only go up from here!

I am getting ready for Open House next week and I came across this great sign to add to my Power Point presentation. Sometimes parents don't realize how important it is to make sure their child reads every night. I think this will be a perfect hand out to explain the concept of reading every night.

My friend, Gary, AKA Scrappy Guy, has just reached (over) 100 Followers, and he is having an awesome Friday Funday, including a Remember When Linky! Make sure to go check it out, and check out my post from back in April, when I made it to 100 followers! Welcome to the blogging community Gary, we are happy to have you as one of our friends! :)

Last, but not least is one of my favorite ideas of the week. If you know us from last year, you know we wrote about using Mentor Sentences to teach grammar. Well at the awesome TpT BTS Sale, I purchased Mentor Sentences for the whole year. I started them this week and just in time for my BBB, Jivey, to come out with FOLDABLES to go with each week of Mentor Sentences, she is calling this new product, a Interactive Language Arts Notebook Unit. I am new to foldables this year, but absolutely LOVING them. My students LOVE cutting, gluing, and coloring. They don't even care that they have to do work in order to be able to complete the "fun stuff" in the lesson. It's actually like a light at the end of the tunnel. So Jivey came up with this new product to focus on one skill a week that is taught in the Mentor Sentence bundle. This week because it was September 11th, we read The Man Who Walked Between the Towers. First of all, that was an amazing book and brought on our September 11th talk, but the discussion this week during the Mentor Sentence time was awesome. I was so proud of what my students already knew and how they were learning from others. This week we focused on compound sentences and conjunctions. We were supposed to do the foldable for the The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, today, but I am out with sick kids. Yesterday, we did a different foldable made for Fireflies (hence the Jar with fireflies in it), but was quick and worked on compound sentences as well. I can tell my students and I are going to love working with this packet throughout the year. 

I know this was a long post, but I had an amazing week full of fun learning and wanted to share it all!




Have a fabulous weekend friends!

Writing Workshop Wednesday: Opinion Writing

Do you like my alliteration in the title? Smooth, huh? ;) Today was a loooonnnnggggg day. Even though I am over prepared for the school week by having amazing lesson plans that I create with Robyn, I just felt like this day would never end. Of course having the classroom above 92* and no air conditioning made it even harder to focus. By noon, the hallway floors were so wet from kids coming in from recess dripping sweat, that people were falling on the floor and I am not even going to discuss the smell! YUCK.

Anyways, I am happy to be sitting at home with my AC cranked up to link up with my BBB, Jivey!

We started off the year with opinion writing. Last year I purchased a great resource that I finally was able to use.  Included in this resources is a perfect example of one of my favorite essays to write, "My Favorite Restaurant." When teaching opinion writing in earlier years, we used to have the students pick their favorite restaurants and write about them. We would encourage the students to choose local restaurants, rather than chains, and would send the essays to the restaurant. We often received thoughtful letters back and sometimes gift cards. One teacher was even invited to dine with her class for free at the restaurant a child wrote about! I don't know why, but we haven't done that lesson in a few years. This year I hope I can get to it, but right now we are just starting to learn about the genre. We started the lesson by using the prewritten favorite restaurant essay as a mentor text. We then read it together, in partners, and individually. As a class we worked on putting the components of the text into the plan (basically backwards writing). It sounds simple, but was a great first lesson for the kids to see how important a plan can be and how it is actually the frame of a good essay!

They are excited to write a similar essay in the future, but instead of starting with that topic, we are doing something REALLY fun tomorrow. Instead of spoiling it (of course I will be blogging about it) I will just tell you it has to do with Skittles, Dum Dums, and Sour Patch Kids. Yum! It will definitely make for a fun and interesting writing class.

Tried it Tuesday: My first FOLDABLE & FREEBIE!

Today I'm linking up with my BBB, Holly from Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried It Tuesday! I am super excited for this post because if you read my post from yesterday, you read how we just started our interactive notebook. After seeing other posts from amazing blogging teachers using interactive notebooks, I felt like I was missing something. I mentioned wanting to create some foldables, but I had no idea how. Sweet Bethany from, Hunters Teaching Tales, emailed me some tips. Since I am working on inferences in the classroom, we talked about a graphic organizer type of foldable that would be fun and helpful. I whipped one up in about two minutes and was so excited to test it out with my kiddos today. (Click on the picture if you'd like a free copy!) :)

If you've been keeping up with my blog, you know we are studying how literature can teach us what we have in common with one another. We are focusing on homes, families, and traditions. Another one of my BBBs, Jivey, recommended an amazing book Knots on a Counting Rope. Being only the first week of school with my little ones, I found the book very deep and great for inferencing. Many of my students have no background knowledge on Native Americans so some things went right over their heads. I was happy I read it slowly because it started a ton of great conversations with talking partners.

When it came time to stop and infer I had a lot of hands go up. Some of the ideas were totally crazy, but others made sense. The part that really surprised me was that the kids didn't get that the little boy in the story was born blind. We used our inferring skills at that point and it finally made sense. Now that I just gave away most of the book to you, I won't spoil it anymore. We actually made inferences throughout the whole book and used the Note & Notice strategy "Again and Again" I was very proud of my class for working so hard today. I will end this with a direct quote from one of my students, "I love that you are letting us color and cut out for reading and writing! It makes me love reading MORE!" That leaves me :) !!