Five for Friday 8.8

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs for Five for Friday for some summer & getting ready for school randomness...

[one]

First, I'm so excited to be averaging between 25 and 30 miles a week for the entire summer!

For those of you who don't know about my blog title, I ran track & cross country in college and created the blog as an undergrad assignment... my running addiction + reading class assignment = teacherwillrunforbooks!

I've been wanting to get fully back into running for a while (I kinda gave it up for a bit after college... at which point I'd been competing since 7th grade!... 10 years!). Every time I try to get back into it I run for a month or so then stop for a while, then run for a few weeks, then take a few weeks off... you get the idea... Well I've been faithfully running now since the end of May (faithfully meaning 5-6 days a week) and I'm feeling better than I can remember for a LONG time. Sorry for the run rant but I'm just so excited about how great it feels to be making a comeback :)

[two]

The laminating has begun! I haven't been able to get into school to print out any of my new labels, tags, posters, etc. (I left my keys at school & now they're waxing the hallways ugh!) but I bought a cute birthday wall set and laminated those babies so they last me at least 2 years!

[three]

I've been working on my first grade set of morning work & have the set completed! Click above for the full year bundle. Links to the individual 10 week sets in the description! Be sure to check out my TPT store for the second grade sets too!

[four]

As you may or may not know I live a mile from the ocean and have been continuing to love my summer life lounging there! Loved the pretty clouds this past week!

[five]

Not the best picture, but we get tons of wineberries on the golf course we live on (I didn't know what wineberries were until last year, basically small raspberries) I made a delicious berry cobbler/crisp type dessert... it was CRAZY easy... I found the recipe searching through pinterest, check it out here.


2 more weeks of summer!!! Going to be spending a lot of those 2 weeks in my room... pictures to come next week for sure! Have a great week both those of you back at school and those of you enjoying what's left of summer.

Five for Friday & Freebie Friday!

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching for Five for Friday & Teaching Blog Addict for Freebie Friday!

So as I promised myself I still have yet to step in my classroom in July... and with July being almost over I think I will leave July successfully completing that goal! [unless of course it rains because then I won't be able to help myself but spend the day in my classroom]
HOWEVER, this promise to myself has not in any way shape or form prevented me from doing work for my classroom. This week I worked on a few [eventually to-be TPT products] things for my classroom as well as completed some TPT products. This brings me both to #1 & the freebies

[one]
I'm a fan of the chalkboard type look lately. I know it takes a lot of ink, which is why I'm not going completely chalkboard themed this year, but I made these fun schedule cards & numbers in chalkboard theme that you can grab for free just by clicking below!

[two]
I also created these tags for my students' writing & work folders. No names on them yet because my list is in my classroom and I promised myself no July classroom time & PowerSchool isn't updated yet to this year's lists... so I'll wait a week for that!
If anyone knows how I can make these available & editable for other teachers but still follow the rules & regulations of fonts/clip art I've purchased & used here, I'd love to learn how!

[three]
I have my first set of First Grade Morning Work available in my TPT store. It covers the first 10 weeks of school and has been checked out by a couple first grade teachers I know who gave it the stamp of approval. It's discounted through next Friday!

[four]
While organizing my files for next year I found a TPT product I had started & abandoned. I decided to pick it back up and finish it... This product provides tons of addition and subtraction flash cards. The addition cards go up through adds to 20 facts and the subtraction facts go from 0-12 facts. You can also print them back to back with the fact & answer on the back. It's discounted until next Friday, so go check it out!

[five]
And lastly... I'm trying to get my Whole Brain Wednesday off the ground, so please go check out this week's post all about Brainies!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful weekend :)

Five for Friday: Summer Goodies!

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs for Five for Friday with some fun stuff I've been working on for next year & summer fun!

[one]
I'm so excited to have 20 weeks worth of morning work ready for my second graders next year. They are in my TPT store split into 2 sets, weeks 1-10 and weeks 11-20. I hope to have the rest of the year done soon too! They are both on sale until Sunday at midnight $7 $5 each.

While we're on the topic of morning work, I'd love to share my love/hate relationship with morning work & would LOVE to hear how you feel about morning work.
My experience with morning work is this... the same kiddos always get to school early and/or on time and the same kids always get to school on the last bus/late. I think have the kiddos that eat breakfast at school and need to be reminded "take a bite then write" for at least half of the year and never seem to get quite all of their morning work done.
I try to stay on a tight schedule, starting our morning meeting shortly after morning announcements... but there lies my issue with morning work...
I LOVE it because it can be meaningful reinforcement of what students are already learning, offers time to work on grammar, parts of speech, and all those other 'little' things you're always trying to fit into the rest of the day...
However I HATE it because it's always the SAME kiddos who aren't finishing their morning work because they get to school late, can't eat and work at the same time, etc. And too often it's those kiddos who NEED that reinforcement that morning work allows for.
I'm thinking this year, as our first Daily 5 rotations, kiddos who aren't done with morning work will have to finish it before making their first rotation choice.
Anyway, that's just me... what's your opinion on morning work?

[two]
If you missed this week's Whole Brain Teaching Wednesday, go check out the 2 ways you can use "Switch" when students are teaching their partner.

[three]
I hate to post to yet another one of this week's posts, but Mrs. Jump's Book Talk Tuesday is another favorite linky of mine and if you haven't heard of Gail Gibbons for fabulous nonfiction literature, you should check out my post about How a House is Built and also check out Gail Gibbons' other fabulous nonfiction selections!

[four]
I had a "puppy day" this week while my hubby was at a turf conference. Our dog Bogey as you may know is a turf dog which means he goes to work with my hubby on the golf course every day. Since he wasn't running around on the course all day, he got to spend time with me at the pond... I think he had fun though :)

[five]
One more summer fun moment for this post... last week I saw Bruno Mars in concert and had a great time with one of my best friends (who I see wayyy too little of!) He seriously puts on a FABULOUS show (despite being so very far away)!!! ANDDD tonight I'm off to Justin Timberlake with the hubby! The 2 sets of tickets were birthday presents (back in February) and I've been waiting patiently (okay, not so patiently) for the concerts to arrive!!!

Update & Book Talk Tuesday

So excited to link up with Mrs. Jump again for Book Talk Tuesday!

But before I get started... 2 quick updates...

#1 If you didn't check out Whole Brain Wednesday last week, go check it out here... part 2 of *gasp* losing the clip chart! Trust me, this was SUCH a hard thing for me to do, but I can't wait to see the positive effect in my room this year *fingers crossed*

#2 I am SO excited to have finished my [first 10 weeks of second grade] Morning Work Journal. Now that I have the format, the rest of the year will be following closely behind as well as a 1st grade version!
The journal includes number sense, editing, parts of speech & more! It can also be used in 1st and 3rd grade classrooms depending on your level of students. I'll talk more about my love/hate relationship with morning work on Five for Friday this week, in case you're interested!

It's discounted this week $7... $5!, so go check it out and be on the look out for the rest of the year & a year-long bundle!

Now onto Book Talk Tuesday... This week I've decided to share How a House is Built by Gail Gibbons.

I will admit this was not my favorite book to read aloud, however it is a part of our Gail Gibbons author study for nonfiction writing and I was BEYOND pleasantly surprised at the student writing that exploded after reading this together.

If you haven't read any Gail Gibbons books before she has LOADS of nonfiction books that are illustrated. For this reason, her books are great mentor texts to model how students can write and illustrate nonfiction pieces rather than thinking they need to use photographs as is the case in most nonfiction books.

How a House is Built goes through the steps that various workers take in order to build a house from the ground up. It is very informative and a few of my kiddos were excited because they had recently had a house built and they remembered the names of some of the contractors.

Reading Level: DRA 24
                         Guided Reading: M
                         Lexile: 570L

Resources:

Web Resources:

•  Meet the Author: Reading Rockets interview with Gail Gibbons
• Monthly Lessons: This resources doesn't have this book specifically but it has 12 other Gail Gibbons books with great lesson ideas/activities.
• More activities: This resources also does not reference this book specifically but it has many other Gail Gibbons books with great lesson ideas/activities.
• How to build a house: This lesson focuses on students understanding the process of building a house and uses How a House is Built within the lesson plan.

Vocabulary: There are TONS of vocabulary words to choose from such as surveyor, operators, carpenter, etc. I would suggest pre-reading and choosing 5-10 words to focus on since this book is very content-heavy.

Activities:
Before Reading: Create a KWL and have students identify what they know and want to learn about houses being built. Students can create their own like the one I created below, click for a copy.

During Reading: Have students identify nonfiction text features while you read aloud. Ask them what they notice about these text features compared to within a typical nonfiction text. Talk about how a book can be nonfiction even if it does not have real photographs. Nonfiction texts always having photographs is a common misconception students have about nonfiction.

After Reading: Have students write their own "how to" piece. To differentiate for different levels of writers, have students choose how many steps their piece will have by cutting out the procedure/order words from the below worksheet, pasting them down, then writing out the step. This allows for lower students to write a piece with simply first, next, then and last while high flyers can use words multiple times in addition to words such as after that, later, second, third, etc. Students can then rewrite or type their piece to publish it.

I hope you consider using this book and other Gail Gibbons books to spark students into writing nonfiction pieces. This particular book make my kiddos write really great How To pieces. I helped with the "research" part, finding loads of nonfiction texts on the topics they requested but they did the reading, organizing and writing... it was very impressive for my 2nd graders :)