October Essay Writing Menu (On Sale)

Well, better late than never. I finally finished my October Essay Menu and Writing practice.  It's 50% off for the next few days since I finally finished it.

There is an essay menu, graphic organizers, checklists, rubrics, scaffolded practice pages, and publishing paper. I am making them to go with each month. I also have September and December made. Hopefully I will finish the November Essay Writing before the end of October.

Don't forget about the October Spelling and Vocabulary menu, too. This freebie has a menu of themed writing ideas that can be used with any list of words.

Persuasive Writing with the Spider and the Fly

I love October and all of the fun fall and Halloween related activities you can do.  This week we will be working on persuasive writing using The Spider and the Fly. We are going to do some research projects this month on spiders and bats so I thought this would be a nice introduction.

You can read a review of the The Spider and the Fly with some other helpful links from Joanne at Head over Heels for Teaching HERE.

To walk through the writing process, we also will be using a video series from LearnZillion. This series walks through writing a persuasive letter in response to "Little Red Riding Hood."  However, we are going to write in response to The Spider and the Fly. The link for the video series of lessons is HERE.  You could easily do all of the lessons to really scaffold the writing process or you could just pick and choose some of them.  LearnZillion does a nice job reviewing over concepts from previous lessons at the beginning of each video. This does give you the option to do just pick and choose some videos. I believe most of my students need the scaffolding so we are going to go through the entire series of videos.  It may take us a couple weeks instead of just one to get through it all.

What are some of your favorite mentor texts for October?

October Spelling and Vocabulary Menu - Freebie

When I loved up to 7th and 8th grade this year, I decided we would work through some SAT vocabulary words for our vocabulary this year.  I found a book with SAT vocabulary words and divided the words into 12 lists.  They have around 35-40 words per list.  I am giving them about 3 weeks to work on each list.

I am most interested in their ability to understand the worlds in context and apply the words. For this month, I decided I wanted to give them some creative options for using their words in writing assignments.  (There are less opportunities for thematic, seasonal assignments in middle school).  I created a vocabulary menu to be made with any vocabulary or spelling list.  I love choice menus! They turn in their assignments today, so I am excited to see what they came up with.  Click HERE to get a copy.

What do you use to give your students choice in applying their spelling or vocabulary words?

A Halloween Sale and some Halloween Ideas on Bats

I hope all is great with you.  I have spent tons of time the last couple days researching ideas and adjusting my schedule. I would be curious to know if you prefer to have extended amounts of time on a subject fewer times a week or shorter periods of time every day.  I am trying to decide what is most beneficial.  I have decided I like the idea of a shorter amount of time for Math every day instead of longer amounts of time 3 days a week. I think this will work better for me since I have like 3 grade levels of math in one class. I would rather focus on different grade levels each day to meet in small groups. It will probably be a constant work in progress.

I did not want to miss out on all the Halloween TpT fun, so I am throwing a sale for 20% off at my TpT Store.

I saw this post yesterday from First Grade and Fabulous for ideas on discussing bats.  We watched the Magic School Bus episode on "Going Batty" today. 



Some of my kids had already been writing about bats from my Halloween writing prompts.  First Grade and Fabulous includes a link to some activities for Stellaluna.  You can watch Stellaluna on Storyline Online, which I think we are going to do.



We also are going to read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat and discuss cause and effect. On Wednesday, we will read I Need My Monster.

For My 95 Halloween Writing Prompts, so far instead of cutting them out and putting them in a jar, I have been projecting the prompts each day. The kids get to choose a prompt for their journal writing. The prompts are divided into categories.  We have done persuasive writing, descriptive writing, and a fictional story.  We will do a couple more categories, and then the students will choose one journal entry to go back and finish and publish. We do journal writing for about 10-15 minutes and then share.

And in case you are also studying owls, here is a song on owl pellets a former teacher of mine shared:

I have been "boo-ed" and 95 Halloween Writing Prompts

I have been absent for a few days.  Yesterday, I drove four hours to go to the baby shower of one of my best friends.  It would have been a long day with a four drive home. However, I hit tons of traffic and my four drive turned into a six hour drive.  The only thing that made my drive decent was my audio book of Under the Jolly Roger, the third book in the Bloody Jack Series by L.A.  Meyer.  This series is fantastic!  I am loving it.  If you teach middle school or high school, you should read it.  If you are just looking for a fun read with a spunky, adventurous heroine, you should read it. Anyway, I left the house at 7:30am and got home at 11:30pm.  Today was a long day...

I have been "Booed" several times and for a couple different linky parties. 

First, I was "boo-ed" by SoS Supply for the linky party at Tori's Teacher Tips.

Here are the rules for the linky party:

 

1. Give a shout out to the blogger who booed you and link back to their site!

2. Share 3-5 October activities, books, products (yours or someone else), or freebie(s) that you love!

3. Share the Boo love with 5 bloggers- make sure you check this link to make sure you don't boo someone again:  http://toristeachertips.blogspot.com/2012/10/ive-been-booed-fun-october-linky.html

And don't forget to tell them that they have been BOOED!

4. Link up {here} so that others can find you and read about your October ideas! And while you are there... check out the other great blogs!

I was boo'd twice for Cynthia's linky party at 2nd Grade Pad. I was boo'd by Emily at I Love My Classroom and Katie at I want to Be a Super Teacher.

Here are the rules for this linky:

• Choose a fellow blogger that has MORE followers, another that has about the SAME number of followers, and last, someone that has LESS followers.
• Highlight their blogs with links to encourage others to check them out. Don't forget to let your fellow bloggers know that you shared about them. 
• Lastly, leave them some love by offering them a goody from your store as their "treat."

First, l will tell you my plans for some Halloween activities in my classroom.  Then, I will boo some other people.

I have been working on putting together some Halloween Writing Prompts similar to my 100 Back to School Writing Prompts and 100 Persuasive Writing Prompts.  There are 95 writing prompts and writing paper.

I am looking forward to using these this week and next.  It will be a lot of fun. I have included 95 prompts with lots of cute clipart (thanks to TpT) as well as writing paper.

Thanks to everyone's suggestions I also plan on reading several Halloween picture books.  The two I am most looking forward to using are:

I Need My Monster by Amada Noll

The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano

I want to find some cute Halloween Math activities.  I know there are tons on TpT.  Any recommendations?  I really would like to find some cute math puzzles or project ideas related to multiplication, division, or decimals.

I would like to pass on the boo to the following 5 people.  (I am combining the two linkies to pass on the boo).

Bridget at Little Lovely Leaders. - She has a fabulous blog with tons of great resources, including amazing freebies for the 7 Habits for Happy Kids.


Kristin at iTeach 1:1 - She has tons of great technology ideas!

Ari at The Science Penguin - Ari has my favorite resources for Science on TpT.



Tammy at Life, Love, Literacy - She has great ideas for all subjects and has been a really supportive follower.

Nikki at Sent from my iPad - More great technology ideas!



All of these ladies will get a copy of my Halloween Writing Prompts and one other item of their choice from my TpT store.