Wow, things got crazy! Plus, Mentor text linky!

Things got really crazy one day when plans
were messed up by things out of my control.
Luckily, I had Jivey's unit for "Knots on a
Counting Rope" handy! The activity
included about having the kids write
about color turned out truly amazing.
Some of their pieces could truly be
published as legitimate poetry.

So, things have been really crazy lately. I'm sure it's the same for everyone else...unless you're one of my lucky Southern friends who are already on summer vacation! (What?!) We still have 13 days of school to go!

So, I apologize for never making Tunes Tuesday happen this month. I think it is going to go on hiatus for the summer and be back in time for the new school year. I will continue to sporadically post some lifehacks throughout the summer though! So be on the lookout for those!

I originally planned to share about all the craziness in a Five for Friday post...but then Friday and Saturday were crazy too! And stretching it Sunday seemed like a little too much... But I figured I'd throw in a couple of fun pics! If you're interested in Jivey's unit, find it here! It's a really great book, with some amazing examples of personification and figurative language! But that's not even the mentor text I'm sharing! Keep reading to see those!

First, I have to give a quick update on my trout! In case you missed it, I've been raising Trout in the Classroom this year! (well, really Trout in the Hallway...the tank is too big and noisy to keep in my room) We hatched the trout from eggs and raised them to be 2-3 inch fingerlings. It was finally time to say goodbye, so last week I drove them out to a nearby stream and released them into the wild! That's my buddy Dave pouring them in after we acclimated them to the temperature of the stream. Bye little trout! We'll miss you! *Sniff*

So...I wanted to share a few books as part of the Collaboration Cuties' Mentor Text Linky for Social Studies. 

I know we're used to thinking about Social Studies as things like American History, etc. but when I taught the primary grades for the first 10 years of my career I knew social studies truly as the name sounds. We were learning how to be appropriately social, how to treat each other, become good citizens, etc. My school still has a big emphasis on this in every grade level, and so today I'm going to share three books that get back to Social Studies at that more basic level. (I know we're supposed to focus on one, but I couldn't help it!)

Ian's Walk is narrated by the girl pictured here. She's annoyed and aggravated by her brother's unusual habits (he is a child with autism). He likes to watch the fan, smell brick walls, etc. At one point, he goes missing on their walk. That moment of fear the sister has when he is missing makes her realize how much she loves him despite his strange habits, and she spends the walk home allowing Ian to do the things he likes, and trying to experience them with him instead of being annoyed by them.

Because of my district's size, we have some schools that have autistic support classrooms, and some that don't. My school does host one of these classrooms, and as a result it is very common for most classes in my school to include one to three students with autism. I have always loved working with these students, though it is true that some of them present unique challenges, and occasionally these challenges can impact the other students in the room. This book is a great reminder that while students with autism might behave differently sometimes, the value they add to our lives as people, along with the unique opportunity to see the world differently that they provide more than makes up for the challenge.  

Speaking of differences, The Sandwich Swap is a great book that highlights how the differences in people are what makes the world more interesting. The two girls pictured are best buds, but each think that the other's sandwich at lunch looks disgusting. (One has a PB&J and the other has Hummus on Pita) A fight ensues, but in the end, they taste each other's sandwiches and discover that what they initially thought looked strange (because it was different) actually turned out to be delicious.

One of my favorites in this same vein of social studies is The Invisible Boy. If you've taught even one year, then surely you've had that one kiddo in your room that just seems to blend into the background. He or she is quiet, doesn't cause trouble, but doesn't excel necessarily either. This book is for them. I like how it kind of brings attention to the kids like that in your room... not just for the kids, but as a reminder for us teachers too. Even in the book it is mentioned how the boy is sometimes invisible to the teacher. With everything going on in a classroom it is sometimes too easy to let kids "fall through the cracks" on a social level. I think the book also lends itself well to a frank discussion with the kids in your class about why it's important that we don't allow kids to be left to become "invisible."  

So, I'm hoping to get my act together and share some more about some of the cool things we've been doing lately, and some of the cool things we've got coming up! It's going to be an exciting last month of school! And if you're a lucky one who is already out (I know you probably go back before me! So, HA!), I hope everyone will keep in touch and keep reading over the summer! If you're like me then your "teacher brain" probably never really turns all the way off!

Must Read Mentor Text - Max Axiom

Howdy all! I'm linking up with the Collaboration Cuties today for their Mentor Text Linky. Today's topic is Science, which is perfect because I have a couple science related posts coming up soon. Tunes Tuesday's topic this week is Science, so be sure to come back then for even more science-y goodness!

I'm going to share about a set of educational graphic novels. The main character is named Max Axiom. There's one for just about any topic in science. Max is a superhero science teacher that explains how the science in each graphic novel works. 

There isn't really a made up plot or storyline beyond the fact that Max is teaching about science, but he does use several super powers throughout the series similar to those of the Magic School Bus (shrinking down to size to see a cut get infected, traveling at super speed, etc). 

Here Max enters the human digestive system!

The facts he relates throughout the book are all true and at a perfect level for upper elementary kids. The bright colors, and comic style format is a great way to get readers engaged. 

In other news...

If you didn't win in my giveaway, no worries, the giveaways aren't over yet! My BBB Jivey just announced her 1500 follower/Birthday Giveaway! I've donated my Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes Novel Unit. So if you're reading this that means you've already earned an entry! And it would be pure foolishness for you not to go and follow the other amazing contributors!

See you tomorrow for another "Lifehack for Teachers!"

Tried it Tuesday + some giveaways!

Hi all! I'm linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried it Tuesday!

My class finally finished our informational writing unit. We've been working really hard on some heavy duty writing as part of my Biography project. So I though it'd be great to do our poetry unit as a little bit of a break before delving into opinion/persuasive/argumentative writing.

I know, I know, April is poetry month. But so be it. We are taking our big state tests at the end of this month and I didn't want to do persuasive when my kids' brains were fried. Also, I have my kids submit an anthology of their poems to my school's SLAM Fair. That's our Science, Literature, Art, and Music Fair at my school, which is a really well attended parent night. So I wanted to have plenty of time to get that ready.

So, we started this week off by having the kids work on the cover for their anthology. While it's not a true form of poetry, I think it's fun to have the cover be a Wordle made up of words that the kids feel relate to them. It's kind of like a stream of consciousness piece!

Today we wrote acrostic poems. Now...I've taught acrostic poems to kids for years. But the bulk of that experience is back when I taught 1st and 2nd grade! I've never taught them to 3rd and 4th graders until this year. I have to say that privately I've always considered the acrostic poem to be the lamest of all poems. I'm really used to teaching them like this, almost acronym style:

Thoughtful

Energetic

Artistic

Caring

Helpful

Engaging

Respectful

In first and second grade the kids can barely spell the words they want to use, so you end up with O standing for Osome(awesome) and stuff. It ends up being aggravating to the kids when they want to use words that won't fit, and it ended up being aggravating to me because I don't believe instructional writing time is a time to be obsessed with spelling...especially poetry. And isn't one of the main points of poetry to express emotion of some kind? I never felt like the acrostics my kids produced really did that. So my history with acrostics hasn't been pretty. 

I decided to choose to have a new mindset when it comes to acrostics. I wanted to make the focus of writing them change from just fitting the formula of what an acrostic is, and focus more on the expressing of emotion. AND my intern found a great example of how they can be written as full sentences! So I started the lesson by reading Spring by Steven Schnur. (There's one for the other 3 seasons as well!)  

Then I asked for a word from the kids and of course I got "BURGER." We talked about how the words we choose to write these poems will be more meaningful as part of our anthologies if we choose words that mean a lot to us, but Burger would be fine for the example. I think the poem we came up with turned out great. If nothing else it expresses some humor. I especially like that we have referred to burgers as "edible treasures." And I have to say that both my kids and I have some newfound respect for the acrostic poem! My change of mindset really helped me frame the lesson better for the kids, and their poems were better as a result. 

In retrospect, I really think I could've been pushing those 2nd graders to do this years ago! Sigh! 

So, did I fool you or did you guess that my Tried It Tuesday is really that I tried changing my mindset about something, not just teaching acrostics! 

But anyway, in other news...

Have you heard? My one year blogiversary is coming up on Saturday! This little blog of mine will be a whopping one year old! Woohoo! I'm having a giveaway to celebrate of course! A $50 Amazon gift card and 17 other wonderful prizes from some of my favorite bloggers are up for grabs! Be sure to stop by!

And now you should rush on over to Fifth in the Middle because she is gearing up for her March Madness Giveaway, which begins later this month! She's having a pre-giveaway giveaway! What?! 

See you on the 8th! I'll end up with 4 lucky winners, but everyone who stops by will get a little something...hint hint, wink wink! And you might just want to "Like" me on Facebook so you're sure to get notified about some Flash Freebies that'll be happening that day!

Five for Friday - December already?!

It seems like I was just writing my post for November!

It's been a bit since I've been able to make time for a decent blog post. I have had so many half-written in my mind...but I suppose they only count when I actually type them up to share!

So I'm going to link up to Doodle Bug's Five for Friday and try to cover it all in one post!

1. Vacations

This week was a short one, but a doozy. We had Monday off because it was the first day of hunting season. Last week we had school Monday, a snow day on Tuesday, and a teacher planning day on Wednesday. So needless to say when the kids walked in the door Tuesday morning they were not totally in school mode. I fear it'll only get crazier seeing as Christmas break is just 10 school days away! 

2. Language Arts this week

We finished Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes pretty quickly, and have moved on to reading The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I love this book, though I know it's not everyone's favorite. It's about two kids who run away from home to go live inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That's where they discover a mystery to solve. The book provides a lot of opportunities for teachable moments, and has some great vocabulary.

My mentor sentence activities came from Trouble with Trolls. It's always fun to read a Jan Brett book and point out all of the hidden things, and side pictures. Mentor Sentences are still going really well. I've even turned on some colleagues to using them. My favorite part of the week is Thursday when we write our imitation sentences. The sentences my kids are coming up with are awesome. 

We've moved into informational writing now too! So, Jivey basically writes one out of ten of my lesson plans, because I heard about this book from her blog too. Haha. It's called Animals Nobody Loves, and is great because it packs a lot of interesting information about some unique animals into just a couple paragraphs per page. Because we've only just begun this unit of writing, we mostly used it to talk about the differences between narratives and informational writing, and the idea of choosing "expert topics" to write about. It's surprising how many kids want to write their first piece on something that they know almost nothing about. One of our first projects for informational writing is to brainstorm a list of Expert Topics and Sub-topics. 

I have a product in my store that I've just updated with a couple more cool things. It includes a poster about Informational Writing, a graphic organizer to help kids work on formulaic writing, and my brainstorming organizer. Check it out! Just two smackeroos!

3. If I Had a Million Dollars Project Based Learning

My kids started a new project based learning project this week! They really loved the Zoo Design project we did a while back (from Matt over at Digital: Divide and Conquer) and I really love them having a go-to project to work on as one of their math workshop centers!

So today at the beginning of math I played the song "If I had a Million Dollars" by the Barenaked Ladies, and then explained that the kids would be given an imaginary million to spend. There are rules of course. They have to buy a house, a vehicle, and set aside money for college. After that they get to go wild! We spent some time on zillow.com today and every kid found a house they would be happy with in the city of their choice. They're excited to see how far they can stretch the million. I think the real compliment was when a kid came over from his class (I teach kids from all the different classes during math time) during indoor recess today to ask me a question so he could work on the project some more. 

I put together the materials I made in a small packet, and have the packet available in my Teacherpayteachers store for just $2.00! Click here to go check it out! 

4. Centering Activities

This year I am part of a team of people in my school who are working on instilling both a growth mindset and mindfulness into our students. As part of that I've begun doing "centering" activities with the kids. These can be as simple as turning the lights down low, sitting in a circle, closing our eyes, and listening to soft piano music while thinking. Today I had the kids sit in a circle with me, we shut off the lights, closed our eyes and I rang a Tibetan singing bowl. When the kids couldn't hear the bell anymore they had to clasp their hands together. 

I borrowed one of these from my teaching bud down the
hall. It's a Tibetan Singing Bowl.

I think the kids really enjoy doing the activities, which serve as a great 4-5 minute brain break, though I have found that some of the activities don't mesh well with one of my students with autism. I'm eager to keep experimenting though!

5. Japan

This week we finally started our Japan Unit! We had a fun activity where I placed artifacts from Japan at centers around the room and the kids rotated as they tried to discover the items' uses. They also were asked to determine if the artifact is unique to Japan or if we have something like it. This activity led to a great class discussion afterwards.

I also read "The Way We Do It In Japan" to the kids. It's a great book that meshes narrative and informative writing. It's about a boy whose family has moved from America to Japan. A lot of great comparisons are made throughout the story.

And that was some of my week! What great resources do you know about for teaching Japan? What about Informational writing? Do you take time to get your kids centered? Any great tips to share? I'd love to hear them!

November already?! - Five for Friday

Surely I'm not the only teacher out there thinking this, right?! The memories of setting up my classroom and anxiously awaiting meeting my kiddos for the first time are still fresh, yet here we are...November! Time flies when you're having fun though I suppose!

And today I thought it'd be fun to link up with Doogle Bugs Teaching's Five for Friday linky! It's been a full week since I have last blogged, so there's plenty to share! It's that whole time flying problem again!

1. Best Idea Ever:

Today is actually a district-wide in-service day for elementary teachers! Whoever thought up having a professional development day the Friday after Halloween deserves a prize. I love Halloween as much as the next teacher, but the lack of routine and all the excitement of the day makes me need a nap! 

PS - I will never wear this costume again. Questions like, "Are you a penguin or a fly?" got a little bit old. Haha. I'm a SPIDER! Geez people! ;)

I'm actually presenting to a small group about using Social Media for Professional Development today! This someecard sounds like a joke, but it's actually true! Where would I be without blogging, Pinterest, Facebook, or Teacherspayteachers?! Seriously though, sharing ideas and finding great ideas and products is one of the best benefits of reading teaching blogs. I think I could easily say that I've gained more insight from reading the blogs of my colleagues than all the trainings I've been sent to in my 13 year career combined! Props to all those teachers out there who did this job pre-internet is all I have to say! 

2. New Read-aloud beginning!

We just finished up our reading of Fake Mustache by Tom Angleberger, so on Monday we'll be starting a new favorite of mine, Gooseberry Park by Cynthia Rylant. I've read other works by Cynthia Rylant, but had never read this one until it was recommended by a colleague this year. As an avid reader of children's lit, I was kind of surprised I hadn't heard of it. If you're like me, head on over and read the summary here.  I think it'll be the perfect book to read as Fall gets colder and colder. Even better, when I pre-read it I was able to find a ton of opportunities to address my CAFE strategies with the kids! Our next book will be the ever-popular "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" to go along with our Japan Unit. 

3. Baby Trout are on the way!

We'll be raising Brook Trout, which is
Pennsylvania's state fish, and the only native
species of trout in the state! I'm learning already!

Well, eggs really...but still! I've worked really hard to get my trout tank all set up, and the eggs will finally be arriving Tuesday afternoon. I've been learning more about trout care than any one man should know...Who knew that caring for trout was so complicated anyway?! I'm really nervous that something will go wrong and we won't have any survivors! I'll be sure to keep you updated on their progress!

4. Science Mentor Text for Animal Adaptations

I picked up this fun book at my school's recent Book Fair to go along with our Ecosystems Unit. We've talked a lot about biomes, producers, consumers, etc. But we're finally getting to the really fun stuff...adaptations! This book presents a variety of different animal teeth and shows how those animals use their specialized teeth to survive. The illustrations alone would keep the kids engaged, but the information presented is great too! I think it's best to read some selections from the book, and then let the kids explore the rest of the book later. My intern is required to teach three science lessons this semester, and she is teaching them next week. They're all about animal adaptations, and I know the kids are going to love them. 

5. Two Random Non-Teacher Things

I recently invested in one of these Ninja blenders, with the cup that can be blended right into, and I love it. I used to drink a smoothie every morning for breakfast, but fell out of the habit because I just got sick of cleaning the blender every morning and the time it took to make them. Now I throw some stuff into the cup, put it right onto the blender base, hit the button for like two seconds, and then switch out the lid. Rinse the cup when I'm done and it's ready for the next day! I'm usually so busy in the morning that I won't take time to eat breakfast, so having a smoothie in the morning now is like a treat. It's really been brightening my mornings!

Speaking of bright... Please tell me that all of you other teachers out there are also dealing with this newest fad? The fun loom/rainbow loom bracelet thing has gotten out of hand. This kiddo has this many bracelets on both arms. It's all the kids want to do at recess. And I have like 20 tiny rubber bands on my floor every day after school. I keep telling myself it's better than those silly bands from a couple years ago at least. Those the kids had to take on and off all the time, (to see the shapes of course!) and at least these they just leave on!

The real question? Why couldn't I invent this?

Til next time!

Tried it Tuesday - Zoo Building!

Oh boy! I've become one of those slacker bloggers...sigh.  ;) Seriously though, I think I've fallen into the trap of working myself into temporary burn out. Sometimes I need to sit back and accept that not every cool idea needs to be done this year with my kiddos...

Speaking of traps, check out my class's Venus Fly
Trap! It's an attempt to cut down on our fruit fly
problem, which is caused by terracycling
juice pouches for the school.

Every time I've finally gotten myself to the point where I'm a good week ahead of the game in school, I notice all of the "home life" things I've been neglecting. It never ends, right?!

I definitely need to find that balance between working on school stuff, my personal life, and going to bed at 1 AM. Right now my time allotment is way out of whack leaning towards the teachery stuff. And I think it's time to come to terms with the fact that I'm not young enough to stay up til 1 o'clock every night anymore. I need to spend more time on "me things" too.

I'm so lucky to have such a great bunch of kids this year! They've made my transition into 3rd/4th a lot smoother than it could have been. One thing I love about the multi-age class is that I get to keep all of my 3rd graders next year as my new 4th graders!

But..on with the show:

I'm linking up with Holly for another Tried it Tuesday! This week we started regrouping for Math. I have taken on teaching the fast-paced, gifted learners group. We have a lot of those in my district, so my math class has 27 kiddos in it. That's a whole lot of kids that need constant challenge in order to be kept engaged. My plan is to do a lot of project based learning along the way. 

Matt over at Digital Divide and Conquer has a great project based product for teaching Area and Perimeter (and great practice for a bunch of other skills too!) that I am starting with this group. It basically tasks the kids with building a zoo and meeting multiple parameters while doing so. It comes with a lot of extension activities too, which I really like. There's also an entire set of the papers that allow a teacher to differentiate for a lower level group! We're also currently studying Africa, and this'll be a great way for me to hit some of that with the animals in the zoo. 

I love the fact that this product comes with everything ready to print and use, and that it can be done to different levels. For example, if a student finishes building the zoo, there are sheets to have the student "zoom in" on one of the animal enclosures, or write a quiz about their zoo. Definitely go check it out! At just $4.50 I'd say this is pretty much a steal. 

My mentor texts this week have included I Need My Monster (which goes along with Jivey's Mentor Sentences), Fake Mustache, and Galimoto.  We're a little more than halfway through Fake Mustache right now, which I use as our text to model our CAFE strategies. This week in reading we are focusing on recognizing character traits (personality and physical) and visualizing. Some of the activities in my Fake Mustache Unit have made planning for this week easy-peasy!

Galimoto was our writing mentor text, where we're focusing on having a bold beginning for our narratives. It also ties in well with the Africa unit I am teaching in social studies. It's the story of an African boy who goes along trying to find wire so he can build a "galimoto." The kids slowly discover what that is, so it's good for predicting and inferring as well. But we focused on the first page of the story, where the author begins by telling us the things this boy has in his possession. It makes you want to know why he has those things and what he's going to do with them. He wasn't introduced right away, and the setting wasn't discussed initially. It is a different way to begin a story, and it hooks the reader. I challenged the kids to write a piece with a bold beginning after we read the story.

I figured I'd throw in some of my favorite Halloween books too! Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich (and Takes the Cake) are both hilarious books full of rhyming short stories, comics, etc. I usually read a little each day to the kids just for fun starting a week before Halloween. Monster Museum is a funny book of poems about the different monsters. Vunce Upon a Time is the story of a vegetarian vampire who also likes candy, but has run out right before Halloween. I use these stories to reinforce the skills we've already introduced, but we read them mostly just for fun.  :)

And if you haven't already, it's not too late to start up some Monster Battles in Math! I recently finished my Multiplication Facts (tables 0-12) battle tournament. I also have multi-digit addition and money addition tournaments. The multiplication tournament has a totally different set of pairings and a different winner than the addition tournaments! Each tournament comes at the ridiculously low price of $5! We actually completed our tournament already and the kids LOVED IT. They want to do another one later this year!

In other news, my BBB Jess over at I Heart Recess is having a giveaway! I've donated my Roll and Draw a Monster activity! Go enter if you haven't already!