Thursday, September 27, 2012

Patricia Polacco Magic


Patricia Polacco is one of my favorite authors to use in the classroom.
She is such an engaging storyteller.  My class was riveted to this author study video today.


I plan to now have my students practice sharing a family story of their own with this assignment:



Which Patricia Polacco story is your favorite?


Find more great ideas on my Pinterest page or TPT store

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Fall Lesson Ideas: Halloween Joke Book

I'm not sure the weatherman in my neck of the woods know it is fall based upon the continuing warm weather. But, regardless, I'm looking forward to fall holidays. Halloween will be here before we know it.  I always do a class Halloween Howl Joke book.  

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Kids always get the most fun out of riddles and jokes, so I make a lesson out of it.
Students are assigned a joke to present and then illustrate for our class book.

Here is a finished sample:

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Find more great ideas on my Pinterest page or TPT store

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Fall Lesson Ideas


This is a Fall Flashback post, with a new video addition.

I show my class this beautiful fall scenery video before doing the art




Fall is here!  I love doing fall leaf art with the accompanied poem,      
"If I Were a Leaf"  
                                         

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Click to grab a copy of this poem
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Happy Fall Y'all

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Saturday, September 15, 2012

It's About Time: Telling Time

Time...where does it go?
I'm in the middle of midterm progress reports and can't believe 6 weeks has gone by already.
I can barely find time to post regularly or blog hop, but I did make this:

These are cute and effective ways to add time telling skills into your classroom routines.

Click the picture to grab a copy
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Quick question: Why does it seem that time DOESN'T fly by when you are grading papers?

Off to grade!  Happy Saturday all.

Find more great ideas on my Pinterest page or TPT store



Friday, September 7, 2012

Fun Word Generator



I wanted  to share with you a fun word generator from Game Gal that you can 
use for quick game time fillers, indoor PE, or rainy day activities. I plan to bookmark this to have quick access to fun games like Charades or Pictionary. It does the "thinking" of the word for you. So cool!
I can also see how you could use this for vocabulary games or writing topics. Display it on your projector and have students brainstorm about the word shown, in this case, picnics. You could ask the class, "What would you take with you on a picnic?" or brainstorm as many picnic foods as you can.
The possibilities are endless. Give it a try.



Find more great ideas on my Pinterest page or TPT store

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Gooney Bird Greene - Read aloud Activities in the Classroom

I must say that I adore Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry!
And my class quadruple adores Gooney.


I just finished reading this to my class last week and this one little story has SO many good teaching points for mini lessons. Plus, Gooney Bird Greene models wonderful story telling!

Here's one teacher's take on all the teaching opportunities for this book.


I've made a packet of activities for Gooney Bird Greene

Take a peek. 
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I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 
Come Join the group!



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