Monday, October 27, 2014

Monday...You Win!

Oh my goodness!  Do you know that quote, "The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry"? I felt like that was my whole day today.  I keep an old-school lesson plan book just for me (the grade level takes turns typing lesson plans) and today, I was so glad I write in pencil in that thing!  We had a faculty meeting after school during which I sat erasing and changing things around....YES!  I was listening!  It's called multi-tasking!!

It somehow slipped my mind that I had to start giving my district's reading benchmark test this week. SO many things got moved to tomorrow...and boy are we tackling some tough skills this week.


Today was introducing Main Idea and Key Details.  As you can see, many of my friends still need sentence starters when answering comprehension skill questions. (Side note...I will be SO glad when I finally get my Epson projector.  I love making charts, but I am going though serious amounts of chart paper right now!)


Tomorrow we will start on my Main Idea mini-pack which will be in my store by the end of the week.  It includes graphic organizers, a Main Idea Scoot game, Scarecrow non-fiction passage for close reading, and a scarecrow main idea creativity.  I think my friends will enjoy this!


Ya'll, thank goodness for Pinterest.  I found a pin a year or so ago that led me back to this post with the great idea to use Pete the Cat to help teach common and proper nouns.  My friends love all things Pete, so this was a big hit. (Side note...I would also like to take the time to apologize for the poor picture quality...I have GOT to dig around and find my real camera.)


One thing that took no time at all the work in to the day, was a page from my Halloween Handwriting FREEBIE.  My friends did a great job, and after starting our day with this, were even more conscious about their handwriting for the rest of the day.  Go pick this freebie up and be sure to leave some feedback love!  I am almost done with an autumn themed handwriting pack that will be posted soon.



Another thing I used today that my friends loved was my Wonders Unit 2 Roll & Read.  Today I used it during Intervention.  If you use this curriculum, be sure to check this out!



Last, but not least...it is Red Ribbon Week which means more dress up days!  Today was Sock It To Drugs Day (Silly Socks).  What do you think of mine?

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

Over the summer, I always make a list of things I want to focus on and make better for the next school year.  One of the things I am really trying to focus on this year is writing.  It is something I have always taught, but I just felt like I could do a better job.  Little did I know that my new class would really struggle with writing.  It felt like a while before the majority were writing complete sentences consistently.

I found that they needed a little more guidance to get from graphic organizer to rough draft.  Enter "Guided Rough Drafts".  I am creating organizers that help guide their rough draft writing.  An example of one of these can be found in my newest store freebie!

 Click the picture to download from my TPT store!

We started learning about Expository writing with "How To Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich".  My kiddos had a BLAST making PB&J's at 9 in the morning!



I hope you will check it out and PLEASE, pretty please leave feedback!


Thursday, October 16, 2014

What I Did Right!

I am linking up with the amazing Angela over at The Daily Alphabet for What I Did Right!

Sometimes it is the most simple activities that really make it click with my kiddos.  We are working on commas in a series this week.  I had some little sweeties that just still didn't get it.

Enter Comma Sticks!

It was so spur of the moment that I didn't even take a picture, but basically it is two tongue depressors with a large comma drawn on each one with a Sharpie.  I had sentences written on my easel that needed commas (Mom cooked pizza hot dogs and burgers for the cookout.).  The kiddos would then grab a comma stick in each hand, read the sentence out loud, and punch forward with a comma stick when they got to a spot that needed a comma.  It was like magic!  Something about those simple sticks really helped my strugglers get it.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

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