Five for Friday (on a Friday!)

Hey all, I'm actually linking up on a Friday for a change! Late on Friday, but still Friday!
Also doing a little blast from the past in this post because it's been a while!

A few weeks ago we were delving into our money unit! We love the game Rich Robots! I found it here a while back. It's a great introduction to coins.

More Money, Money, Money! We love Blair Turner's Interactive Notebook! This great activity had flaps that made this sheet into a fun flap book. Check it out here.

For my grad class, I did a co-teaching action research project on topic & detail with one of my favorite co-workers! Here my kiddos are getting serious about topic & detail!

I have a student teacher right now (part of why I haven't posted much, it's actually a lot of work!) but let me tell you, it is making it SO much easier to do reteach! I grabbed a group of kiddos who struggled with subtraction with regrouping and did a little reteach activity today. I got this game from Amy Lemon's I Can Regroup Addition & Subtraction Centers!

Check out my new favorite app Shadow Puppet! My students wrote How To stories and recorded them using this app! It's basically a really fun presentation app. You can do a lot more with it than my kiddos did on their first try, but seriously so fun & such great final products.

Check out one of my favorites by clicking the image above.

Mom Made Us Write This in the Summer

I am SO excited to share about a wonderful book today! Introducing a new series "Max and Maggie" in their first journal-story entitled Mom Made Us Write This in the Summer by Ali Maier. I LOVE stories that encourage students to write and this is one that most definitely will! It even includes a section of pages at the end where readers can start their own journal!
I plan on reading this at the end of the year (this year) to encourage my kiddos to write over the summer and then next year I will read it at the beginning of the year to help kiddos come up with some great journaling ideas about their summer experience. I think I will use my document camera when reading aloud so my students can see how interactive the story is.
I would categorize this story with Gooney Bird Green in it's future importance in my class for writing motivation!

In Maier's children's novel, twins Max and Maggie just started their summer after fourth grade. Their mom, who is a former English teacher, gives them a journal in which they must write throughout the summer. WRITING... TOGETHER... IN THE SUMMER.... yikes!!! They each have to write 12 entries, switching who picks the topic. They are expected to read each others' entries and are allowed to comment on each others' entries (as long as they're polite). The back and forth comments between Max and Maggie in addition to seeing each twin's perspective keeps the reader engaged! Their comments to each other are funny and sarcastic and keep the narrative moving. I guarantee your students will love the uniqueness that the opposing views, different handwriting, variety of doodles and more. Max and Maggie are very likable characters and I found myself wanting to know even more about them!

Journaling books are super popular right now (and honestly, I LOVE them!) and this book is certainly accessible and of interest to students in grades 2-6 which as a 2nd grade teacher is a huge deal for me.

I find that many journaling style books although high interest, are not necessarily as accessible or "appropriate" for 2nd and 3rd graders, so I'm loving the possibilities this series will present for my 2nd graders who can't seem to get away from the journal type books no matter who the intended audience is!

This journaling story is also unique because of the two different views... this truly is a book that boys AND girls will enjoy equally! Not to mention ANYONE with a sibling!!!
Do you want to check out this book yet? You should!!!

Reading Level: This book is very new and has yet to make any lists with DRA, Guided Reading or Lexile levels. I will update this when one of these levels is available.
Everything I read said this story was appropriate for grades 2-6.

Teachers: here are some resources to help you use this book in your class...

Web Resources:

• Video - Show this video of a 4th grader reviewing the story to get students excited about reading Mom Made Us Write This in the Summer
• Character Blogs - Okay so the website for this book is outstanding... it includes character blogs... how exciting for students to be able to interact with the book's characters after reading!?
• Journaling - Yet another source from the book's website... this page offers a set of links for using a journal at home or at school!
• Book Website - All of the above resources are available through the book's website, which has even more for you to look through, so go check it out!
• Facebook Page - go check out the facebook page for this series so you know all about it when a new book comes out! Right now there are create your own journal books available as a part of the series.

 Vocabulary:
As I read, I jotted down any words students might need exposure to ahead of time or could be great words to ask students to create a 4-square for (during reading) and maybe even jigsaw to help ALL your students understand the words. Your need to focus on these words will certainly depend on the grade level & ability level of your students.
All words that I chose are tier 2 words... exceptional, interchangeably, innocent, hysterical, irritated, defiance, sarcastic, excessive, petrified, arrogant.

Activities:
Before Reading: Have students discuss their experience with keeping a journal.. Have you ever had a journal? What did you/would you write about? Would you ever share a journal with someone?

During Reading:

• Choose an entry and have students compare and contrast Maggie and Max's points of view.
• Choose an entry where Max and Maggie have opposing views. Ask students to discuss why they think Max and Maggie have different points of view. This would be a great opportunity to discuss point of view in regards to characters in reading as well as problem solving issues between classmates when there are differing points of view!

After Reading:

• Launch student journals after reading this book!
• Use the pages at the end of the story for students to brainstorm what they will include in their journal and answer questions about their journal.

I really enjoyed this book and I hope you will consider using it in your classroom! You can purchase a copy on Amazon. I see no better way to encourage students to write than using books like this one that are both about children writing AND high interest!

Book Talk Tuesday & 2 For Tuesday

I'm linking up with Mrs. Jump for Book Talk Tuesday

& I'm linking up with The Teaching Tribune for Two for Tuesday. Scroll down for the 50% off products!

 

For book talk this week, I chose When Dinosaurs Came with Everything by Elise Broach

This is an adorable book about a boy is going to just die of boredom on the typical "errands with mom" kind of day... 

but then, this day of errands becomes special because stores everywhere are giving away dinosaurs! He doesn't get a sticker at the doctors, he gets a real life, full size dinosaur! 

Of course, the little boy wants to go on ALL the errands originally planned, while mom is trying to cut their day short before they get too many free dinosaurs. What will they do with the dinosaurs? Can the little boy convince mom to keep them? Find out in When Dinosaurs Came with Everything.

Awards: E.B. White Read Aloud Award

Reading Level: DRA 24

                          Guided Reading M

                          Lexile 380L

Resources:

Web Resources:

• Teaching Ideas: Here are some discussion questions and other ideas to use with this book.
• Lesson Ideas: Check out this site for more ideas including nonfiction connections.
• Printables: Here are some dino printables if you choose to make a nonfiction connection when reading this book.

Vocabulary: errand, protested, glared

Watch this video of Anita Archer doing explicit vocabulary instruction. She's awesome and as long as you plan your lesson out with pre-made sentences (like she appears to have in this video) this is a scientifically research based method for teaching vocabulary!

Activities:

Before Reading:

• Watch the Anita Archer vocabulary video above and consider using a similar method to preteach vocabulary before this lesson.
• Teach about inferences using the Great Garbage Mystery. You can find information about it in the book Comprehension Connection and on this blog post from Simply Sweet Teaching. Students will use what they've learned about inferring to infer during reading.

During Reading:

•  Ask students to make inferences about how the mom is feeling in various pictures (her face lends itself to inferences!)
• Ask students to infer why the boy says he wants a shot at the doctor's office.

After Reading:

•  Character Change: Ask students to tell how the mom changes using proof from the text. Use this freebie from me for students to record their answers.

• Have students write a "back story" explaining why free dinosaurs were being given away on that day. Do this as a guided writing to start the story then have students finish it if you have youngers. Use this dino paper freebie for their writing!

• Ask students to answer in their journal: Would you want a dino? Why or why not?

Onto 2 for Tuesday!

Grab these 2 products at 50% off for the rest of the week!

Calendar Mega-Bundle! $20 $10!
84 pages, every month, birthday & holiday cards for every month. Fits into a calendar pocket chart! Be sure to check out the preview file before you buy as it shows every month!

Back To School Activities $5 $2.50!
Not that anyone is ready for back to school yet, but in case you're thinking about what you may do for fun activities to start the year, this product offers 3 different activities to start of the school year right!

Well that is all for now, tune in tomorrow for Whole Brain Wednesday!

Daily Five Visit Part 2

As you may have already read, my grade level partners and I visited my former across-the-hall-neighbor and one of my favorite teacher friends Mrs. R. last week to see how she runs Daily 5. Click the picture below to check out part 1 of my post which talks about how Mrs. R runs her Daily 5 rotations and what the kiddos do during each rotation.

Today's post will share all the other goodies I learned in Mrs. R's room such as launching Daily 5. I have 7 take-aways in part 2 of our visit to Mrs. R's visit.

[one] I have felt TERRIFIED to lose basically all my wall-space to the i-posters that are anchor charts for each of the Daily 5 choices plus the CAFE strategies, etc. However, Mrs. R. being so very awesome, created the anchor charts during each Daily 5 launch lesson, but when the kiddos met their stamina goal, she replaced the big anchor chart with these small print-outs... Still available for the kiddo's reference, but since they had mastered the stamina and knew what it should look like, it didn't need to be so big and take up so much space.

[two] I loved Mrs. R's visuals for each of the launch lessons for Daily 5. One of the first lessons the Two Sisters say you should teach when launching the Daily 5 is 3 Ways to Read a Book. Mrs. R's version of this lesson created an awesome visual... she's so crafty!

[three] You can probably see in the picture above, the edge of Mrs. R's IPICK good fit books poster, so cute with the visual of the flower, picking a flower... gosh I just love everything Mrs. R. does! I also like her stamina chart better than many I've seen that usually look like a temperature gauge. Mrs. R's room is filled with so many cute teacher-made posters, I love it because the kids are usually involved in lessons that lead to teacher-made anchor charts/posters as opposed to printed out or purchased posters.

[four] Another GREAT anchor chart Mrs. R has was one she made during the shoe lesson the Two Sisters share in the Daily Five book to introduce how to pick a good fit book. The lesson goes along with IPICK good fit books. Disclaimer... Mrs. R would want me to share that the high-healed shoe is NOT hers ;) The picture isn't the greatest, but I loved this visual since I think the shoe lesson is such a cool way for kiddos to think about what a good fit book is. You'll also notice her EEKK! poster for Read to Someone.

[five] In my classroom I use a what? and why? for each of my lessons. I stole borrowed this idea from Mrs. R last year and am actually still using her old what? why? magnets when she printed new ones to match her room better. She uses what? to write very briefly what students will do. I use what? as more of an objective, i.e. you will be able to choose a right fit book. I'm not exactly sure at what point of the lesson Mrs. R uses her why? sticker but I use it [when I remember] as a closure or to set a purpose. Either way our focus is usually why do we need to learn this or why is this important. So anyway, after all that back-story, I LOVED seeing this poster Mrs. R made to go along with the what? why? system for each of the Daily 5 choices. I really should make one of these for the rest of the year because it would be relevant to my kiddos since they are used to what? and why? in my room!

[six] When I read the Daily 5 book, I felt terrible for leveling my books and being sure my kiddos knew which levels were appropriate for them. However, I felt much better when I saw that Mrs. R has her books leveled by colors. She taught all the lessons about choosing books and believes that those are still very important, but she has found it easier for the kiddos to be able to quickly choose books to read and color coding was the way she went about this.

[seven] Mrs. R uses extra time during Daily 5 rotations to hold writing conferences. Although I don't forsee myself using Daily 5 time like this, because I have WAY more time allowed in my schedule for writing, I LOVED her system for when kiddos need a conference and plan to use something like this next year during writer's workshop! So simple, yet I never would have come up with it on my own!

Well that's all for today! I can't wait to work with Mrs. R over the summer to create a reader's log/notebook and hopefully some other Daily 5 (and Whole Brain Teaching) goodies! My grade level team and I were so grateful that she opened her classroom to us we truly learned SO MUCH :) Be on the lookout for our brainstorming of Daily 5 and WBT over the summer!

After School Fun!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Five for Friday...

This week has been busy, busy, busy and on Sunday the hubby and I leave for our honeymoon (6 months after the fact!) Yay for April Break, I really need it this year!

 

Last Friday (after I had already linked with Doodlebugs for Five for Friday, we had a writing celebration. My kiddos had worked very hard to write a non-fiction piece, researching, writing, typing and illustrating so we had to celebrate! Half the kiddos read a section of their piece, then we had a "gallery walk" where the students walked around and could read stories out of each others' published boxes, then the other half got to read a section of their piece.

Remember the Marcy Cook workshop I went to last month? Well, I finally introduced these number tile task cards to my kiddos. If they had started using these earlier in the year I think these cards would be way to easy, but a lot of my kids are finding these as an exciting challenge because there is only one correct space for each of their number tiles and if you put the wrong one in one place you have to practically start over. Some of the kiddos are picking up on putting the "have to" tiles down first (places where no other number would fit) and working from there. So glad I purchased the tiles and cards. I think I may order more cards for next year from her website.

We are working on place value to 1,000 so I went searching for place value games on Teachers Pay Teachers and found loads of FREE games to use for math centers. Here are a few my kiddos have loved and a link to where I found them...

The above picture show a mystery number game, available free from Love to Learn here.

This shows a penguin place value dice game. This game came bundled with a few other games as well. Get it for free from Stephanie Stewart here.

This picture shows a Place Value Go Fish game that can be played with or without recording matches on the recording sheet. Find it free from T is for Teaching here.

As a part of my grad class that I am currently in (Multicultural Literature) I had to do a community outreach project. So I recruited a high school teacher who happens to be a mom of one of my students and some of her high school juniors and seniors. The recruits came after school one day this week and helped as I read The Legend of Blue Bonnet by Tomie DePaola and then did a craft with BLUE popcorn. Find the craft idea here.

The kiddos and high school folks had so much fun, we already planned for another event in May! So excited :)

In celebration of the FINALLY feeling like Spring weather, here are a few pictures