Linking Up- 11 in '11

Hadar @ Miss Kindergarten and Kristin @ A Teeny Tiny Teacher are having a linky party! Since I don't get to partyin' much these days, I thought I'd join in the fun!  

11.  Favorite Movie You WatchedWe don't get out to the movies much anymore, but a last minute tagalong with my friend and her teenage daughter to see Footloose turned out to be the best movie I saw in 2011!  I will say The Help was a VERY close second.  Even the hubby liked that one.  

10.  Favorite TV Series

First, let me say that I have a serious TV addiction.  I love reality shows-Real Housewives, Big Brother, and yes, I still watch The Real World-don't judge.  I love the dramas-Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Harry's Law, Parenthood.  But, I love to laugh.  There are just not enough comedies on TV anymore!  I love The Office.  And yes, it is just as good without Michael Scott.  Actually, James Spader is freakin' hilarious on the show.  I have also just discovered How I Met Your Mother.  I know, I'm about 6 years too late, but I had this thing about CBS shows for a while.  I hated them all, and my prejudice kept me from enjoying one of the funniest shows on TV since Friends and everyone who knows me has heard me say, "There is a Friends reference for every situation in life."  

9.  Favorite RestaurantI live in Columbus, Ohio-the world of Wendy's and White Castles.  Not many options for eating out on a teacher's salary.  For the special occasions, the hubby and I love going to The Melting Pot.  Cheese & Chocolate Fondue?  Yes, please!  

Since I tend to spend a lot of time in Florida, too, I have to give a shout out to Raglan Road in Orlando at Downtown Disney.  My sis & her husband both work there, and it is such a fun, authentic, Irish restaurant.  Everything in the restaurant is imported from Ireland, including the band and the dancers!  And the Bread Pudding is to die for.  

8.  Favorite New Thing You TriedTraveling alone with my son.  My sis called me a few weeks before her wedding and asked if I would come help her with the plans.  I happened to have a four day weekend and traveled to Orlando with my two year old.  It was very empowering to know that I could do it by myself!

My son on the plane!

7.  Favorite Gift You ReceivedIn the year 2011-my iPad!  Love, love, love it.  Everyone should own one.  For Christmas-my Cricut.  I've always kinda wanted one, but never wanted to buy one for myself.  My mom and sister bought me one for Christmas.  I didn't even ask for it!
6.  Favorite Thing You PinnedBesides all the yummy recipes?  Probably this post-it note holder.  It's probably the only thing I've pinned that I've actually done.  I made these for some of my co-workers for Christmas.  I wish I had my Cricut at the time!  
5.  Favorite Blog PostI don't really have a favorite, so I'll go with the one with the most # of page views, which was part of my Daily 5 series, regarding Anchor Charts & Focus Lessons.  I'm not sure why it was so popular, but I'm glad I was able to offer my experience and advice to so many people.  I love the Daily 5! 
4.  Favorite AccomplishmentProbably finally achieving the balance of school & home.  I still take papers home to grade on the weekends, but not nearly the amount that I used to.  I still go into work about 45 minutes early, but I leave only about 15 minutes later than I can.  I learned to say NO and remove myself from committees.  Do I still feel guilty about it?  Yes.  But, I know I would feel much guiltier looking back at these years with my son and feeling like I should've done more with him.  
3.  Favorite PictureMy hubby & I on Siesta Key Beach in November.  I chose this picture because he loved it so much.  He said he was glad to have a recent picture of just the two of us.  Aww..he still loves me :)

2.  Favorite MemoryMy sister's wedding in Siesta Key, Florida.  The perfect week, the perfect day (11/11/11), the perfect setting, the perfect couple.  Did I mention it was perfect?  

1.  Goal for 2012Professionally-Continue to encourage my students to become readers.  I truly believe that test scores will follow if my students read and love to read.  Personally-Declutter and keep my house neat and organized!  I've already cleaned out 3 closets and working on the bedroom.  I just have WAY too much stuff!  
This was a lot of fun reflecting on 2011.  Everyone link up!  

Similes & Metaphors with The Grinch

My favorite activity before Christmas is to introduce similes and metaphors using the song, "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."  I'm sure this is not an original idea, but the idea for this lesson did come to me as I was driving home from school three years ago and heard the song on the radio.  What I'm sayin' is, I didn't intentionally borrow this lesson plan from anyone!  First, I usually have a quick intro lesson on similes and metaphors.  You know, the basics.  Similes compare two things using like or as, metaphors don't.  We look at some examples and students have some practice creating their own.  The next day, or mini-lesson, whichever I see fit for the group I have, I pass out the words to the Grinch song and we listen to it on You Tube.  



Next, I split students into random groups.  Sometimes I do this by passing out Christmas icon cards and students have to find the matches.  Other times I just use the random sorter in Smart Notebook.  I give the students about 10-15 minutes to find as many similes and metaphors in the song.  They then write their similes and metaphors here to display in the hallway and classroom.  

Need Book Recommendations!

I have made it my goal this year to read aloud a different book from each genre category. We read James and the Giant Peach for fantasy-my favorite book for fourth graders, by far.  We just finished reading Shiloh for realistic fiction, and now I would like to read a science fiction book.  Let me preface this by saying I am NOT a science fiction fan.  I recently learned to enjoy Sci-Fi after reading The Hunger Games trilogy and the book Divergent by Veronica Roth.  If you haven't read the latter, it is a must read!  It is the first book in a trilogy, but the other two books have not been released yet.  It is very much along the lines of The Hunger Games-set in future Chicago, where the city is divided into factions based upon their virtues-the honest, the selfless, the brave, the peaceful, and the intelligent.  Of course, there is an unexpected love story involved, which is probably why it drew me in!  Obviously, neither of these books are appropriate for my fourth graders as a read aloud.  This is where I need your help!  I need a good science fiction read aloud.  Preferably, something both genders will enjoy.  A Wrinkle in Time is out because I think it is above my students' heads, and I honestly do not enjoy the book.  


So...what good science fiction books do y'all got for me?

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?