Happy Thanksgiving!

I know people have been posting their thankful lists with a linky party this week, but I have been so far behind reading blogs that I don't even know who is hosting.  So here is my independent thankful list on this Thanksgiving holiday.  


I am thankful for...


1.  My awesome 2 year old son.  He is the cutest, sweetest little boy I have ever met.  And I'm not just sayin' that cause I'm his mama!  Every single day he amazes me at how smart and funny he really is.  


2.  My hubby of 6 1/2 years.  Even though he travels a lot and I give him a hard time about it, he is able to provide our family with so many wonderful things.  (Like our FREE flight to Sarasota last week for my sister's wedding!)  In addition, he and I have been together for so long (10 years!) that we are truly a team and he is my best friend.  


3.  My family, who is in Florida this year for Thanksgiving.  My mom & dad help me so much with my son and I am so thankful to them for that.  This is my first Thanksgiving away from my family-EVER!


4.  My truly awesome coworkers.  I seriously work with the best people in the world.  We all have our students in the forefront and will do whatever it takes to help them learn.  I have contemplated moving grade levels/schools many times, but the one thing that keeps me from doing so is knowing that I will never work with a staff like mine again.  


5.  My super smart students.  I have a group like none other this year.  They work hard and excel.  You should see how many books my students are reading this year!  I have a group of the sweetest girls this year that seriously make me every single day.  


My list could go on and on, but that's my top 5.  I hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving with their friends and family.  


On a side note, my Teacher's Notebook shop is running a Thanksgiving Weekend sale.  All shop items are 20% off!  

Thanksgiving Bingo!

I spent a lot of the day today working on a Thanksgiving Bingo game to use with my extended family tomorrow.  My husband's family goes all out for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  The family is so large in fact that the three car garage is actually transformed into a living room for the months of November & December because nobody's house is big enough to hold so many people!  There are 12 kids in the family (and one more on the way in less than a month!), 9 of which are under the age of 8.  Having so many kids in one place, you all know how important it is to have activities for them to do!  The teacher in me has taken over this year.  Prior to having kids, I didn't really care if the little ones were running all over the place-they weren't my kids after all.  Now that I have a two year old that needs to be entertained, I am taking over the activities!  Because of the time consuming task that it was, I have posted the bingo game on my Teacher's Notebook store, but I'm going to post my blank template as a freebie for all of you!  You can use the blank template by putting Thanksgiving words in random order on the card.  The file that can be purchased through Teacher's Notebook uses picture icons. I know it's too late for all of you to use in your classrooms this year, but there's always next year!  Or, if you have a large family with lots of kids like me, click over to Teacher's Notebook fast!  

http://bit.ly/thanksbingo

Click link for freebie

P.S. Did you know you can customize your bit.ly links?  How cool is that?!  

Yes, I'm Still Alive!

What a crazy couple of months I have had!  It seems my last several posts have been me apologizing for not keeping up with the blogging, and yet here it is again.  I'm soooo sorry, and I hope many of my followers will pick right back up with me.  I haven't even had time to read blogs lately.  My google readers shows 685 unread posts!  The month of November has been crazy in and of itself.  I took some personal days a week ago because I was the maid of honor in my sister's wedding in Siesta Key, Florida.  I came back Tuesday, was out for Reading Committee Wednesday, at school Thursday, and again at Reading Committee Friday.  I have seen my students a total of 3 days in 2 weeks.  Even though December brings the hectic holiday season, I have to say I just can't wait for it because that means I will be with my students in my classroom for three full weeks!  


My followers might recall that the district reading committee that I am on is taking part in the process of adopting a new reading curriculum.  When we signed up last Spring, I don't think any of us knew the undertaking it would be.  We have heard from nine companies.  After each company makes it's presentation, we have a four page rubric to score in grade level, grade band (3-5), then finally in K-5.  While I am very grateful that they are taking our input before just pushing a reading series or basal on us, it has been extremely time consuming and worrisome.  Our final selection day is next Tuesday.  It seems most of us at the elementary level are on the same page, so I'm hopeful it will not be a difficult process.  


This weekend I've been putting together a unit on persuasive letter writing.  Our writing project for December will be to write a letter to persuade someone to buy you what you want for Christmas.  I will be happy to share my Smart Notebook file when I have it finished to anyone who wants it.  I don't know of any way to share Smart files, so you will have to e-mail me.  


I also have a Donor's Choose project out right now asking for 75 nonfiction books to add to my classroom library.  My students love reading nonfiction, and it is something that my classroom library and our school library really lacks.  I have not had any interest in it at all, so I'm starting to get discouraged.  I would really appreciate it if you would share my project on Twitter or Facebook to try to get some interest in my project.  Here is the link:  http://bit.ly/uhrSEM 

Making Connections (& A Freebie!)

Next week we are going to do a lesson on making connections.  We briefly talked about it at the beginning of the year when we started our Reader Response Journals, but I think we need a more in-depth lesson because I'm still not seeing the connections to text that I would like to see in their journals.  I found a great printable at Scholastic called "Read, Relate, Respond."  I thought to myself how great would that be if these were on sticky notes and I remembered one of my favorite bloggers, Kristen, at Ladybug's Teacher Files posted some time ago about printing on sticky notes.  I used her awesome template to create my own making connection sticky notes.  

(click image to download)

It will definitely not be fun to arrange and print 60 copies for each one of my students, but I think they turned out so well that I will!  Once they use the pre-printed sticky notes, hopefully that will get them in the habit of using them for making connections and they will create their own from now on.  Of course, they don't have to write on the sticky notes and just use them to mark the page where they made the specific connection.  (I'm thinking out loud right now....)


I also created a Making Connections thinking stems notes page for students to keep in their literacy binders.  I hope these stems will improve their journal writing.  

(click image to download)

Enjoy the freebies!  How do you teach students to make connections?

Word Work Activities

When I launched Word Work a few weeks ago, my wonderful coteacher encouraged me to only launch a few word work activities, so the students wouldn't feel so overwhelmed with the possibilities.  This was a great idea, especially since I have some inclusion students.  Right now all of my word work activities revolve around the students' spelling patterns.  As the year goes on, I will introduce some vocabulary activities as well.  Here is a word work poster that I created. This hangs above my word work materials.  

(Click to download)

One of the favorite activities is "Value Words."  I like this activity because it encourages some math work as well.  Students are to spell a word that fits their spelling pattern, then add up the value of the word.  To make it a game, it is directed to find the highest value word that fits their spelling pattern. You can download your own Value Words copy here.  


Words in the Read World is an activity where students find words or pictures that fit their spelling pattern in magazines. The stamps include letter stamps and bingo daubers.  Each week, students must also complete a given word sort that will fit their spelling pattern.  


I hope you can find some use for these activities!  Sorry again for the long absence.  I'm going to make it a priority to post at least once a week from now on!

Teaching Context Clues

Context clues are always so tough for me to teach!  Anyone else?  I have always been a reader and I think learning vocabulary has always been automatic for me, that sometimes I have a hard time slowing it down and teaching how to learn new vocabulary through context.  I also think using context clues are very tough for students to learn, which oftentimes make it difficult to teach as well.  Context clues are a HUGE part on the OAA.  I can't remember the exact number, but it is the second most frequently tested indicator in the fourth grade.  For all of these reasons, I'm getting a jump start on context clues this year!  

This year, I have decided to slow-it-down.  I'm going to break it down into at least four mini-lessons.  Each mini-lesson will focus on the different context clues strategies.  As each strategy is introduced, students will record notes on this sheet.  

Students will keep these notes in the "Notes" section of their Literacy Binders.  Each lesson will be taught on the Smart Board.  About three example sentences will be given, and students will first be shown, then guided on how to use each type of context clue.  Each mini-lesson is followed up with a quick assessment.  My co-teacher and I will use the assessments to determine who needs additional instruction and form strategy groups if needed.  My absolutely wonderful literacy coach (who I talk about often on here!) has also volunteered to help plan additional instruction/enrichment if needed.  I'm really hopeful that teaching context clues in this manner will help my students understand it better.  

What strategies or fool-proof lesson plans do you use to teach context clues?  

My Apologies and an Update!

My apologies to all my faithful readers and followers.  I know I have let you all down with my lack of posting.  I've really have missed blogging (and reading...I'm behind 200 posts on my google reader) and a little bit of me hopes you've missed me too!  I never imagined how busy I would be now that school is back in session.  My faithful followers know that I am my building's new technology coordinator.  When I applied for this position back in May, I honestly had no idea what I was in for.  If I was just dealing with computer, printer, and Smart Board problems I would be ok.  No, I had to take the position right before a major district-wide launch of ProgressBook.  So on top of the computer, printer, and Smart Board problems, I'm working with teachers on ProgressBook and the ridiculous roster issues we're having!  All of this on my free time.  Um...what is that anyways?!  And, did I mention I'm on the district Reading committee?  This committee is making the selection for our district wide reading curriculum, and I feel VERY strongly about this so I'm not going to complain about the 8 days I will be out of the classroom over the next two months while this committee meets.  Did I mention 8 days?  And two days in a row next week?  Nope, you hear no complaining here.  

By the way, did I mention I'm also a teacher?  Wait.  No, my first priority is being a teacher.   I'm so happy that I have such a wonderful class this year!  We are going into our fourth week of school already.  I cannot believe it!  Our Daily 5 & CAFE is well under way and we are launching our new Word Study program and Word Work this week.  The fifth grade teachers are joining us in the Word Study program and we decided to take some time to really get everything together before launching.  Plus, it takes quite a bit of time to get the students assessed.  Our FAB-U-LOUS Literacy Coach is also helping, and we are all so excited to see the progress the students will make this year in spelling.  

I hope you accept my long-winded apology and will stick with me throughout this madness I call the 2011-2012 school year!  I promise there will be many more classroom ideas and freebies to come!