Today linking up with my friend Christina from Miss DeCarbo for Wordless Wednesday! My week has been filled with meetings, sessions, and testing. It has been crazy. BUT on the positive side, I am so excited to say that my first ever Professional Development session is complete! I am so thankful for all of the teachers who provide me with my own “Virtual PD” daily. Blogs and teacher friends are a beautiful thing! Have a great week!
I have be crazy busy with my new job back in the classroom {more to come on that soon}, but I wanted to share this fun set with you today! Last week, our skill was to compare and contrast two texts. In third grade, students are asked to compare and contrast the major points in two texts about the same topic. My two coworkers and I were searching for products to use, but we weren’t finding anything that worked for us… Fast forward to the weekend. I decided to create a passage to go along with the book Officer Buckle and Gloria. We wanted the students to be engaged in the topic {dogs}, so we used a fun fiction book that they would giggle at. 🙂 In the past, I have read Officer Buckle and Gloria to kindergarteners and first graders, so I was slightly worried. I didn’t know for sure if my third graders would think it was funny. OH was I wrong! They were laughing and asking to see the flipping dog picture again and again. Reading two texts can be time consuming, but “Just Do It!”. With my on level groups, I read Officer Buckle and Gloria Continue Reading
Today, I must cut right to the chase because I am beyond excited about this new find! I was at a conference in Jacksonville, Florida right before Thanksgiving listening to a 2nd grade teacher talk about differentiation. It was a great presentation, but to be honest, I was thinking “I do most of these things in my own classroom”. That was until I heard her mention “this new DATA COLLECTION APP”. My ears perked up! My eyes flew from my notebook to her face. We are in the age of data, data, data. This is perfection! Really? I can just add my students into this app and log all of my annotations right on my iPhone? NO WAY. Wait what? I can take pictures of their work and add them to each student’s personalized file? This was too good to be true. But it IS true! It’s called Confer. I may seem a little too excited about this, but let me tell you – It is worth it! It’s available in the iTunes App Store or through Google Play for Android. There are currently two versions of Confer. Confer (regular) is the full price version. It is $24.99, which may be Continue Reading
Are you in need of some low-prep activities to get your students through the holiday season? Check out my newest close reading passages! They are perfect for small group, guided reading, weekly homework, and thematic units. All you have to do is simply download and print! If you are not familiar with close reading you can read more about it in my Close Reading Mini Series. I’m excited to be a part of The Primary Gal‘s Unwrap a Gift Linky Party. There are so many engaging gifts for you from some of my favorite teachers. Keep reading for a closer look and be sure to unwrap your gift at the end of this post! I have two sets of holiday close reads: European traditions (7 passages) & Asian traditions (6 passages). Each passage is written at an appropriate text complexity level for 2-3rd grade according to the Common Core State Standards. However, it totally depends on your students. I often used similar close reads with my high first graders, and I have a friend who uses them with her struggling fourth graders. There are two different versions of most handouts within each set. Instant differentiation! Close reading is all about Continue Reading
Hey everyone! I am beyond excited to share this little blog’s brand new look! Thank you SO SO much to Bobbi at Ready to Blog Designs. She is a gem! If you need a great blog designer who is very reasonable and amazing to work with, I highly recommend Bobbi! I started this blogging/creating/TeachersPayTeachers journey this past April during my first year of teaching. I had been *obsessed* with teaching blogs during undergrad and always thought to myself, “When I have my classroom, I am going to go broke!”. I never thought I would be so blessed by this blogging/TPT community. I am beyond thankful for all of the new support and friendships that have grown from this! Once I started teaching, I felt myself being pulled toward certain products on TPT and certain styles of teaching on teacher blogs. You know those few that you just keep going back to? Those few teachers make you want to spend hours making adorable anchor charts and laminating all types of activities! Today, I’m sharing a few of my favorites with you! {Stick around for a fun giveaway!} My ultimate goal is to reach each individual student. This is a tough task, Continue Reading
Hi friends! Welcome to the Holidays Around the Blog Linky! Can you believe it is November already!?!? Crazy. This year has flown by. Be sure to enter the giveaway at the bottom of this post and hop around to other blogs! You can win $170 cash, plus many products from our TPT stores! Christmas is my favorite time of year, so I decided to focus on my holiday unit. In first grade, we study a few gingerbread books during our unit in December. You can see the books below! Click these links to grab the books on Amazon. The Gingerbread Girl The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers The Gingerbread Kid Goes to School Gingerbread Baby The kids just LOVE this unit. It usually lasts one full week. I use many read alouds (like the ones listed above). I really enjoy these specific books because they are not the general Gingerbread Man story. These titles give students an experience with a variation of that classic story. During the week we work on many skills. We compare and contrast characters in stories We look at how the character changes from the beginning to the end of the story. We analyze the differences between Continue Reading
I absolutely love fall. I don’t get much of it {FL girl, born and raised}, but it is my favorite. I incorporate many thematic units from September-December in order to keep the kids engaged and hit all of the necessary curriculum in a fun way. In October, we spend an entire day looking at pumpkins. We write, read, sequence, create, and experiment with pumpkins. We count, practice math skills, plant, and predict with pumpkins. In November, we spend an entire day acting like the Pilgrims and Indians (Colonial Day). We write, read, sequence, create, and experiment with colonial items. We practice math with corn and design maps of the Atlantic Ocean. Pumpkin Day! But today, I would like to introduce you to the student favorite of both themed days – The Taste Test. DISCLAIMER: Please, please, please check your students for allergies before including this in your classroom. Pumpkin Taste Test The idea is quite simple: Just buy some foods, place them on the table, print the graph, and EAT! Let me tell you, the kids have a fabulous time! It is also quite cute to hear all their Mmmmmmmmm’s and Ewwwww’s. Amidst all this excitement, the students don’t even Continue Reading
We use Post-Its for many things throughout the year – from keeping track of AR to using them on assessments. Post-Its are my favorite. Period. End of Story. They are brilliant! Here we are using Post-Its to record our details and sentence ideas for an informational paragraph. So, tell me…How do you use Post-Its in your classroom? Be sure to link back up to read more from other teachers!
Clubs started this week at school. Today after school, I have “The Goop Group” for an hour. These K-2 kiddos will be making a different type of goo each week! Who doesn’t like playing with goo/gak/slime?!?! They are so excited, and so am I! My question this week is: Does your school have after school clubs to focus on student interests? Linking up with Miss DeCarbo for another Wordless Wednesday!
I am SO excited to begin teaching this week. Although I am not in the classroom this year, I do get to teach Character Education as a special to K-5. This only lasts 12 weeks (now until Dec. 19), so I am going to soak in all the lesson planning love I can get until then! Keep a few things in mind that are different from full-time classroom teachers: I teach on Tuesdays, Thursdays, & Fridays only. I have a variety of grade levels on Tuesday & Thursday, but only 5th grade on Fridays. I only have 30 minutes with each class (EEEKKK!) I teach 2-3 classes of each grade level during the week. I have been told that this special is mostly discussion…however, I have added in a few short activities in case time allows. Here’s a little peek at my week. We are focusing on listening skills & being respectful students. This has the links to books, videos, activities, and lots of FREEBIES! I can’t wait to read these books this week! They are just plain FUN. I’m also curious to see what the kids come up with for their Lacey Walker activity. This version is exactly the Continue Reading