Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

"To the whole world you are someone, but to someone you are the whole world"

Take a Peek ....Holiday Tile Gifts

My students make these decorated tiles for their family holiday gift.

I bought the tiles at Home Depot for 16 cents each.  In all, it cost me less than $5.00 for a class set.

Then I cut squares of scrapbook paper.

Students picked the design they liked and modge podged it to the tile.

I chose more generic designed paper that could be displayed all year, but you can also use seasonal designs.

Then I sprayed them with a sealant.

This is one of the easiest gifts I've made over the years for both the students and ME!

The finished tile can be put on display or used as a coaster.

Find more great ideas on my Pinterest page or TPT store

December Holiday Read Aloud

Holiday Freebie alert!

Go grab my Rudolph Writing freebie

I always read the story Rudolph's Second Christmas to my students and have them then write their own version afterwards.  The sequel to the original Rudolph has an endearing set of "misfit" characters who, like Rudolph, seem a little different. Santa and Rudolph come to the rescue to bring back Christmas spirit to two children who were "forgotten" the previous holiday season.

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!  (Freebie ideas and giveaways are sometimes shared there!)

Thanksgiving Recap a la Harley

Even dogs celebrate Thanksgiving. My parents call Harley their granddog and they do spoil him like crazy. They even dogsit him most days at their house when I am at work and he has a habit of ALWAYS hitting his dog dish first thing when entering their house to look for treats. Well, fast forward to Thanksgiving Day. My dad played a trick on him, knowing he would hightail it to his dish.

See that wooden pig in the background by the dog dish? That's my dad's recent buy at an antique store.

The pig has a name...Oscar. Oscar happened to be guarding Harley's bowl upon our arrival on Turkey Day. Harley's reaction was classic. He came to a screeching halt, and growled, sniffed and skirted around his bowl trying to figure out the nerve of something else by his bowl. Luckily, he did warm up to Oscar by the end of the day and got some turkey and gravy of his own.

Oh, on a sidenote, I got relieved of jury duty yesterday. I had to call in midday for a possible appearance. But Yay for me, when I called my group did not need to report! So I went to Olive Garden with the whole family instead.

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Sight Word Swat It Games

A great way I've practiced sight words is with my team Swat It games.

Split your class into teams. Display one of my Swat It Sets word cards on your board or under your document camera and let the swatting begin. Call off a sight word and the first student to hit the right word gets a point for their team. What a great way to reinforce mastery of sight words and get some energy out to boot!

 

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Swap the Squiggle Writing

My class had the greatest time doing Swap the Squiggle writing.

 The idea is to take a random squiggle and create a picture to write a story about. But my twist on this popular idea is to "Swap the Squiggle" which involves a group/team effort in creating the final picture. I have found that this activity helps motivate reluctant writers. What fun! These 15 squiggle writing prompts will be sure to engage your students.

Grab it at my  TPT store

Here's one of the cutest prompts generated today. 5 people worked on this picture.

A story was written about a girl stepping in gum.


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I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

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Conference Time!

I'm heading into conference week come Monday.

Here's what I did Friday evening.

I collated and organized work samples, benchmark test results and report card data for each student.

I've found that it helps to organize the work by the way it is categorized on the report card. This makes presenting information to the parents easy.  I also have a Trimester Note with important  data to share with parents. It looks like this:

I also plan to share this Apple for the Teacher Poem with parents which is an important reminder of the home school connection to their child's learning.

Click picture to get your own copy:

Find more great ideas at my TPT store

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!

V is for Veterans Day

It's time to honor our veterans.  Here's my Veterans Day unit that includes letter writing, a poster, acrostic poem, a holiday overview, and ABC order dog tag badges.

You can get it in my store

Find more great ideas on my Pinterest page or TPT store

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!

Elections and Voting Activities

I just made an I Have Who Has Election theme set game.

It’s a fun Around the World looping type game. Each card states a question related to voting and elections. Students each hold one or more cards and need to listen and respond with their card if it is the correct answer. Play continues in sequence until all cards have been read.

Grab it at my store

And if you missed my last post there's this: Election TV Ad writing

 Aso, here's a 5 page election writing prompt pack!

Cute kid quote:

One of my students wrote in response to character traits of a president:

"Well I think the president would need a squeaky clean record."

 

You can also grab my Election Pack Bundle at a discount.

 

 

Find more great ideas on my Pinterest page or TPT store

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!

Election Ads: Persuasive writing

Election time fun is here!

 My students created TV ads for a candidate of their choice and then wrote a persuasive speech to go with it. We talked about catchy slogan writing and selling your candidate. This was one project every student wanted to get right to work on. Some picked to write about an animal or cartoon character and others chose to write about themselves or a classmate as a candidate. So fun!

You can get this unit {HERE}

This is part of my Election Bundle you can grab at a discount too!

 

The lead in to this lesson was the wonderful book Vote by Eileen Christelow.

Her website has lots of election links too!

Find more great ideas on my Pinterest page or TPT store

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!

Halloween Jokes and Themed Book Reports

Pick up some fun treats for your classroom for Halloween fun.

  Batty Book Reports pack

  Halloween Howl Joke pack.

Themed Book Report pack

Halloween class joke book.

These two items also come in a money saving bundle.

Leaf Writing

I think fall like weather has finally made it's appearance today.

I hope it sticks around. I'm sipping a pumpkin spice latte, as I share a fall lesson my

class did this week.

 First, I asked my students how many of them ever look at the clouds and imagine or "see" another item. We went outside and practiced just that. After the cloud observation,  I handed out fall colored die cut leaves, and had students make a leaf picture to create a story. What imaginations! Take a look.

 

You can get this activity in my TPT store.

A bird

An acorn on a tree

A campfire...this one impressed me!

An eagle

"Leaf" me a comment if you wish!

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I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

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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?


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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.  

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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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"  

                                         

Click to grab a copy of this poem

Happy Fall Y'all

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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

Quick question: Why does it seem that time DOESN'T fly by when you are grading papers?

Off to grade!  Happy Saturday all.

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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.

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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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Muggie Maggie Read Aloud

A great read aloud for third graders is Muggie Maggie, as she is the main character who refuses to learn to write cursive. By the end of the story Maggie has a change of heart and comes to like writing in cursive. Now, I've never had any students who did not itch at the chance to learn cursive. In fact, I use these wonderful animated cursive links as a learning tool for cursive.

Following my Muggie Maggie read aloud I do this reading response

Grab it {HERE}

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I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

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Speaking Presentations in the Classroom

I've always done some form of monthly speaking presentations in my classroom.

Some months it's a poetry recital and others it is presenting an animal report or news article review.

My class also LOVES doing Readers Theatre scripts.
Add in the use of microphones for extra fun. I'm lucky to have one from Learning Resources that actually records, but you can get toy microphones at the Dollar stores too.

With the common core standards, being able to speak in front of groups and with groups is pertinent and mastering the art of public speaking is a life long skill that helps build self confidence.

I always start the year with a poetry prompt which helps students appreciate poems as a literary genre.

For grading the presentations I use this handy form.

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How to Eat a Poem

Don't be polite. 
Bite in. 
Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that 
may run down your chin. 
It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are. 
You do not need a knife or fork or spoon 
or plate or napkin or tablecloth. 

For there is no core 
or stem 
or rind 
or pit 
or seed 
or skin 
to throw away.

by Eve Merriam

What are your ideas for fun presentations? Leave me a comment and share. 

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Back to School Photo Booth Activity : Framing a Great Year

I know many of you are gearing up to start your first day of school.

I've already been back for 2 whole weeks and have a great bunch of third graders.

I just put the finishing touches on my Back to School"Framing a Great Year" photo booth writing craftivity.

I had a cracked picture frame hanging around in the back of a closet that I drug out to use (minus the  broken glass). Then I posed students holding the frame and grade level caption "Fabulous in ____grade" We followed up with the writing piece! I got this done in one day and it was up on my walls for Back to School Night.

Grab it at my {TPT Store}

Have fun framing yourself a great school year!

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

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Roll and Build Geometry Math

Lakeshore Learning sent me this fun game Roll and Build Geometry for at your seat fun!

The dice is rolled and you build and match the shape with the sticks and pegs.

A variety of 2D and 3D shapes can be built.
It comes in a handy pouch for storage too.

I made up this recording sheet to go along with this great game.

Grab it {HERE}

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