five for friday (feb. 20)

long time, no see!
I've been insanely crazy lately, but I am so thrilled with all the great feedback I am getting about the VIP Table and how y'all are tweaking it to fit your needs! That is what this blog land is all about! I love it!
We've had quite the week here in NC as far as weather goes.
Mon-early dismissal at 12:30
Tues-no school (icy conditions)
Wed-No school (cold day)
Thurs- 3 hour delay
today-3 hour delay
I know people up north think we're crazy for cancelling school at the thought of snow, but we seriously do not get snow! We get ICE! and that's about it!  I personally love that our district calls school by dinnertime the night before. It gives time for families to plan. We used to have it called after a "special driver team" drove the roads in our county and school wouldn't be called off until 6 or 7 in the morning! that sucked! So there's my soapbox defending NC!

Anywho, I'm linking up with Kacey for Five for Friday to get back into the swing of things!

We got so much done on Monday, Thursday, and Friday. I think having less hours in the day leaves much less down time for me! I'm like a drill sergeant! And boy we got everything done I had planned for the whole week!

I posted this on Instagram Monday! So true!

We didn't do anything for Presidents' Day, but here's a few blog posts I have done in the past.

Monday we finished up time, introduced graphing and surveys with my Penguin Hunt, and wrapped up our Saint Valentine unit!

Both of these are fairly rigorous for my kids. I LOVE this penguin hunt! I know it doesn't look like much, but it is and then some! There are 20 grammar/language questions (all aligned to CC) for students to answer. But they ALSO have to put a tally on which penguin in on each card. Then we gather at the rug, check our work, and make a tally chart of the types of penguins we found. Next, students complete a bar graph (which they are already familiar with) and then I introduce a line plot. It's so much goodness rolled into literally two sheets of paper! I like to give you a bang for your buck! (or three bucks as it is!)

and this baby is loaded with history, nonfiction, character traits, locating evidence, and recall with a fun quiz! I included a flap book, powerpoint that matches the text and is beautiful thanks for some amazing ladies who made clipart just for this unit!, as well as lots of follow up comprehension activities! and there's also a Saint Patrick version!! 

haha, choice B...#starwarsreference

Happy Friday!!

Christmas in July Day 3:unwrap an inference!

Merry Day 3 of Christmas in July!

Today my Unwrap an Inference is half off! I LOVE these activities!
I made a Valentine version and am working on a few more! They are interactive and challenging!

so how does it work?

There is a read aloud for you to..well, read aloud!

it's all about a gift exchange mixup! and boy are there some OVERreactions 

there are character cards with a short bio about each charactergift cards for each gift givenemotional reaction cards (show the dramatic reactions when kids got the wrong gift!)4 different assessment options-match the wrong gift, match the right gift, match both, and a text clues sheet (cvarying difficulty)gift tags for each gift (with kid names to use for matching which gift goes to which kid)

I know you'll love it!

and here's what's coming up!

Monday Made it and a SHOE SALE!

It's my FIRST Monday Made it of 2014!

I have noticed a troubling trend with my summer.
I get an idea
I start working on it
I think if something else
I start working on it
I remember something I started in October
I start working on it
and the result is...

a full desktop! haunting me!

My first made it is something I actually made early this month for my students. We needed a new EOY reading assessment that matched the higher expectations of state testing. So I made one. I had planned all year on making one. And guess when I did it? the week of! no surprise there! But those little boogers worked so hard on this test! I go all out too. Go through my memorized state testing speech (because I have given it no less than 20 times!), pull desks apart and turn them backwards to prevent little fiddlers from fiddling. Big deal!

and it is not cutesy either! Because state assessors and I are not on the same page when it comes to layout! I used a basic font and all! But I love the result. You can get a better look here.

my next made it is my fav because it was a child request! Somebody saw his brother had a LEGO Store VIP card and really needed one too! Luckily Mom can remedy this! (and I cannot resist Drewbie's face)

Glitter meets Glue has the best minifigure clipart (personal use only so I wasn't comfortable sharing the cards), but here's how I made them! I do everything in powerpoint. One day I may grow up to a big girl program, but not yet! 

I googled the size of a credit card (that may get me on the watch list somewhere, but it's all good), and that's the size I made the rectangle outline. Then added text using KG Defying Gravity and KG Happy Solid fonts, plugged in and cropped a little LEGO dude, print, laminate and wa-la!

So official!

so this is not technically something I made per se, but a guy that works with hubs did! And I love shoes, so I am sharing!

I LIVE IN flats! I used to actually wear heels to work! ha! But this wide footed, bare footed Southern girl loves some flats! But I have wide feet, so I am picky! LOOK AT THESE! Hubs works in hosiery aka socks. And his contact in China created these shoes for his wife! they are socks INSIDE flats...what?!?! WHen hubs first told me about them, I was like yea whatever, Chinese people have tiny feet, they won't make a size 9...wrong! ok, his wife probably has little feet, but they do make size 9! 

aren't they awesome! And they are having a summer sale! The price isn't bad anyway, I paid almost 300$ for my teiks...but I paid 39$ for these and they are way more comfy! and washable!

you can see some great pictures on their IG too! and I'm not even getting free shoes for talking about them!

Happy Monday! I hope your week is awesome!

Summarizing Amityville

Linking up up Fraturday again with Kacey!

So this week was super long.
Probably because spring break is still a week away! sad face
But I do have jury duty Monday and sad to say, but I little bit look forward to the break!
1. Our board is entered in the Spring Contest over at Tristro! Yippee! I love how this board turned out!!
Vote for us! pretty please with a cherry on top! that means DON'T pin it! Click the picture, then pin it! =)

2. Our comprehension skill for the month is summarizing!
Now this is one I actually enjoy.
Probably because I teach it with this...

I love this pack!! I love the graphics! Make me happy

I used the problem/solution chart Thursday and Friday with Frog and Toad. We are reading nonfiction this month with a ficus on life cycles, so we brought in good ol' Frog and Toad as our fiction pairing

I think it's funny seeing the SWBST {or somebody, wanted, but, so, then} all over. Our former district literacy coach is making some sweet money off that! She actually came up with it {or at least made it what it is today}. She sold it, along with "think clouds" to a publishing company you may have heard of...starts with Hougt and ends with ifflen...and made bank...needless to say, she's no longer working with out district! You can visit her here

Anywho...it's all in here...

to sum up a theme I like to use the ABC Summary sheet. I gave the kiddos the hour during guided reading groups to fill in as many vocabulary words on the alphabet chart about frogs as they could. 

Then, afterwards, I gave them 10 minutes to roam the room and get as many different words from their friends as they could. 

Our winner had 57 words...all had to be correct as well.

A few that made me especially happy-"metamorphosis" {because I haven't done anything with that word except mention it-we are starting our insect unit after break} and "Harlequin" because we read an article from Read Works called Vanishing Frogs. It was about the Harlequin frog that is now endangered. Love!!

see how engaged and BUSY!

the rest of the post has nothing to do with education, so read if you like!

4. One of my bestest friends and teammies lost her granddaddy this week. She also happens to be middle Lamb's teacher.
So she had a sub Thursday and Friday.
Friday's sub was new to me. He was from NY. So that makes him instantly interesting to us little country talkers in NC!
Then I found out he's from a little town you may have heard of...Amityville...Seriously! He taught there, grew up there...LIVED there. ugh
Now trust me when I say I know the hauntings were purely for money, but I cannot quit thinking about that house with the little windows.
Guess what, that's not the real house. THAT house is in NJ. The Amityville house is gorgeous...

real house

movie house...ugh...

5. I just bought this to read during my day, week, morning, month, whatever! of jury duty...I haven't watched any Game of Thrones on HBO. But I'm giving it a shot. 

I will admit I tried reading Pillars of the Earth. While very intriguing  I found the constant violence  and manliness of it a little tiring and never finished it. I'll try again some day!

can I share the most wonderful FREE reading resource ever!?

Not kidding
It rules my lesson plans!
READWORKS.ORG

The following info is my own opinion. As much as I love the site-no one is paying me! But feel free to! haha!

holy moly mother of Jehoshaphat!
This site has it all. Everything is common core correlated. Everything is research based, Everything is sorted by genre, skill, strategy, level, lexile, or grade. And why do I love it even more...All I have to do is print and read it! Seriously!
Today we worked on using explicit info to answer questions. I have used this site for the past 3 weeks at least 3-4 times per week. The lessons are precise and straight to the point. The text is engaging. The text is complex.
so go and register!

and SO here goes my little tour of a selection I am using next week with dental health.

and I'll even prove that I am using it!

So enjoy your journey through the site! I still find goodies each day! 

And Looky Lou!

Only 4 followers to go until that ginormous giveaway!

Honey made a boo-boo!

Oh, I screwed up big time!

So, many of you may have seen or even posted these posters in your classroom

{clicking above takes you to my webpage-not to TpT}

I’ve had them posted on my school webpage for about six years…Well, a few months back I figured, hey-I’m seeing them all over the place and should add them as a freebie on TpT. And guess what!? TWO, two of them have glaring errors! I repeated words on Story Structure and Synthesize! Ekk! How does it take SIX YEARS for somebody to tell me!>? Why can I simply not edit my own files! I also made the in Printshop that fyi, has no spell check! No more! Never again!

Since I’ve had bloggy buddies check over my work. I am so embarrassed! I mean-THE Amy Lemons {yea-I pinned it, whatcha gonna say about it! =} has them posted in her room-and they have errors!

So my point is-IF you have them, please go download the NEW ones {I also updated Author’s Viewpoint and added Main Idea per requests}

and if you don’t have them-well-GO GET EM!

great schema Intro, purple pets and sticky notes

Here’s an idea from a workshop I attended awhile back, but it’s worth sharing. We discussed teaching kiddos about how connections are made and new learning become permanent. The presenter had a drawing of a brain with different areas from our experiences. So this is how the lesson went.

1. Introduce the topic to be discussed-we did pumpkins

2. Ask what they already know. For instance I said I knew pumpkins were a fruit.

3. Ask how they know that-I answered that I’d read it in a book.

4. Put glow-in-the-dark puffy paint ($2 at  Wal-Mart) on the area of the brain that says books.

5. Repeat until most of the brain it painted in. Take a restroom break and tell the kids that when you return, you will show them how making connections lights up our brain, or creates more synapses.

When the paint dries it glows in the dark! It was awesome and a moment kids would remember. Of course, you wouldn’t want to do it repeatedly-but what a wonderful intro!

Here’s a picture of her brain with paint (I did not take a picture of it in the dark!)

Our poem of the week is My Neighbor’s Dog is Purple. I love using it to refresh them on mental images, but more importantly teaching how they change as we get new information. I got the idea from Deanna Jump. And yes, these are related! Based on their schema, they draw a dog {Chihuahua, German Shepherd, etc}. They color it purple. It’s what the poem says. THEN you read the 3rd stanza

My neighbor's dog looks nasty,

it has a wicked smile....

before my neighbor painted it,

it was a crocodile.

Now our mental image takes a left turn! I also use the Green Giant poem she recommends. Our counselor uses the same poem for listening skills. She reads it aloud, they listen, then draw and see how many details they can remember. It’s a good one!

And yet one more thing…we finally started our story map stickies this week.I know you’ve seen this poster. It’s a goodie and all over Pinterest, but I love Rebecca’s. I use it as a predicting activity. This also requires a little schema and background knowledge {and common sense}.I write the author, title, character names, a phrase for the problem, solution, theme, and one or two events. I hand out the stickies to whomever I can reach without getting up from my comfy butterfly chair, and they place them on the poster where they think they go. Of course we usually have to change a few. I remember last year someone placed Eve Bunting on the “problem” section! haha! Anywho, it’s a great little part of my weekly routine!

One more day this week. We have Friday off! Woot woot! And it’s Mr. Lamb’s b-day. I actually get to have lunch with him! Lucky guy!

PTSD {People tryin.to.move.on.after Seuss Day}

So Read Across America week has come and gone. Dr. Seuss celebrations are over
Now what??
Well, I have really tried to e-x-t-e-n-d things this year. We were still doing Dental Health this week…
I don’t mean to drag things along, in fact, I hate it
But between Pinterest and Blogging I just find too much I wanna do!

SO to carry along with Seuss and cover Questioning, and Summarizing, and St. Patty’s…
We read Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? and introduced Questioning {real questioning, not constant blurting from 7 year old minds questioning} with Schlopp.

I thought this was the perfect segue into how thinkers question all the time.
We had Schlopp last Friday, so Monday I asked what their questions about the food were before they ever saw it, after seeing it, while eating, and lingering questions. I did finally give in and admit the ingredients. I guess some figured out I didn’t really go to Who-Ville…
We’ve also done this on stickies while previewing One Dark Night from the basal, while reading Grandfather Twilight {my personal fav for questioning} and will read the Sweetest Fig tomorrow-any VanAllsburg book is a constant questioning fiesta. They are good for lingering questions.

After reading Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? aloud {which I’d never read before and had to practice first!} we brainstormed 3 reasons we are lucky then wrote stories to hang with our Lil’ Leprechaun Cuties from First Grade Fever. And boy will some tears fall from mommas’ eyes when these go home! Precious!! You can get my I am Lucky to be Me writing paper on TpT here…but I won’t share the bulletin Board heading since I remade them from Lesson Plan SOS blog.

 

 

Yes, did I mention we just wrapped up dental health…I am adding this activity to my toofy packet! The kiddos wrote facts they learned from our nurse on big teeth and we made a big ol’ mouth in the hallway! cute! Our lip got a little ripped and I really contemplated adding a lip ring…

Are you ready for a little St. Patty’s fun tomorrow. We went ahead and wrote our Snazzy Snack recipe today to save time tomorrow and I left little pots of gold for each kiddo for a morning surprise! Can’t wait to share pictures! {fyi-I fixed 2 grammatical errors in my St. patty’s minibook, so redownload if you purchased!}