Last Minute Election Resources and Text Suggestions

One of my primary goals as a blogger has been to share texts and ideas to incorporate Social Studies and Science with Literacy.  I love Literature and feel that it should be integrated into all learning experiences. Having your students read nonfiction is so important in this digital age, as so much of what we read in our daily lives is nonfiction. I am going to try to be more consistent on sharing text suggestions for Social Studies and Science topics, as well as technology resources that apply.

Everyone has been sharing great Election resources and products.  We have been discussing Native Americans and the US Regions, and my students have been doing book club units with My Side of the Mountain and Island of the Blue Dolphins. As a result, we have not had much time yet to discuss the Election.  I wanted to start discussing it some today, but I was sick. We are going to spend most of tomorrow looking at some Election Resources and possibly the rest of the week.

Readworks.org is a great resource I came across a couple weeks ago.  It is completely free and has great lesson ideas for Reading and Common Core. Here is a link to some passages they have on the election.

ReadWriteThink has some lesson plan ideas related to the election.

While at home sick today, I was researching the exemplar texts for Common Core.  One of them is So You Want to Be President. I checked it out from the library tonight, and we are going to read it tomorrow. 

Here are some ideas for using with this book:
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/so-you-want-be-president
http://coolkidlit-4-socialstudies.pbworks.com/w/page/16473227/So%20you%20Want%20to%20be%20President_Lesson%20Plan
http://www.irvingisd.net/vote08/lessonpdfs/ES_3_5_vv_for_everyone.pdf


We also are going to read The Kid Who Ran For President over the next two weeks as a read aloud. There are some resources for this book on TpT.  I will probably just use my graphic organizers that are tied to Common Core.

Another cute book is Off and Running by Gary Soto.  It is about two kids who run for class president.

I made a Live Binder of all the fabulous resources other bloggers have been sharing.  In case you are last minute like me, hopefully you might find something helpful.

An Amazing Giveaway and Gratitude

Today we had a great day!  This was fabulous because yesterday was crazy.  The kids had a great Halloween party, but I was so tired at the end of the day.   Today my students worked really hard. We had some great discussions, and they worked independently when they needed to without causing too much disruption for others.  I had someone tell me one time that teaching gifted students is easier because they are more motivated.  This is not necessarily true.  Gifted kids can be so creative and absolutely amaze you when they apply themselves.  However, they also can be very emotional and sensitive.  Often, they also are used to things being so easy for them, that once something is challenging they fight it with everything they have.

Anyway, I am just happy that it was a good day!  In fact, I am thankful.  This month I plan on doing a gratitude journal with my students.  How do you bring up the subject of gratitude in your classroom?  This weekend I am going to work on my gratitude journal and maybe some other ideas for gratitude in the classroom to share. I would love to have guest bloggers do some posts related to gratitude in their own lives or classrooms.  Let me know if you are interested.

I hope you stop by the amazing giveaway going on at Miss V's Busy Bees.  I am thankful for her enthusiasm and great ideas.

 There are five giveaways with absolutely tons and tons of prizes from lots of bloggers.  One prize is $15 credit to my TpT store.

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:

Helping your students begin with the end in mind

Have you ever wondered how to help your students begin with the end in mind?  Today, we read the second story in 7 Habits for Happy Kids.  In the story, Goob the bear decides on some goals he wants to achieve that will take some money.  He makes a list of his goals, so he can figure out how much money he needs to raise.  He meets up with Jumper the Rabbit, and they decide to start a lemonade stand.  They split $20, and Jumper quickly loses his $10.  Goob wisely spends his $10 and is able to achieve all of his goals.  We discussed ways we could plan ahead.  This week I handed my students a take-home project related to volcanoes since we had read Will it Blow? about Mt. St. Helens. We discussed how they could plan ahead to get their projects done by the due date.

We also started our book club books today.  Some of my students will be reading My Side of the Mountain and the other half will be reading Island of the Blue Dolphins.  Since we are discussing the Native Americans both of these stories really reinforce how people have to adapt to the climate and natural resources in order to survive.  These are important foundations for History. My students have calendars in their planners.  They met in their book club groups today and planned out with a calendar exactly how many chapters they would read each day.  They all had to agree to the amount and write it down on the calendars in their planner. They will have assignments they will complete while reading the book.

I have found this strategy to be much more effective than if I assign how much they have to read.  It gives them ownership.  When I assigned how much to read each day, some read too far ahead and some never finish the book.  Giving them ownership can help your reluctant readers finish a book.  You also could apply this same strategy with projects, science far, or even individual choice books.  Make your students plan ahead how to finish something by a due date.  How do you help your students begin with the end in mind?

Sumdog Math Games and Read Write Think Online Interactive Graphic Organizers

The new technology resources we tried today:

Sumdog

I had seen lots of bloggers recommending Sumdog. I wanted to try it out.  I created an account awhile ago, but had not implemented it in my classroom yet.  My students love it!  They are begging to play at lunch and at recess.

With so many levels of Math, I like that I can differentiate this for my students.  After you add your students, class, and add a challenge.  Within the challenge, you can edit the skills by student.  I have some students working on 4th grade skills, some on 5th grade, and some on 6th grade.  They loved being able to earn coins, change their avatar, and play against each other.  They all want to be the top of the leader board.

Essay Organizer

I love Read Write Think.  Here is a link to all of their interactive graphic organizers.  There are 59 of them.  We tried two of them today.  Since we have computers, I am trying to find resources that they can use that help us achieve things we need to accomplish.  We are writing informative essays about the Olympic biographies we read.  We had tried organizing our 5 paragraph essays on paper with a graphic organizer I made. Some of my students understood it and some were not making much progress. I decided to try Read Write Think's Essay organizer.

Oh my gosh.  It made a world of difference for some.  The depth of clicking through the process seemed to help them a lot with the thought process.  Interactive made a huge difference for some of them. After they make the organizer, they can save it and even email it directly to the teacher.  So after they emailed it to me, I printed it out for them.

Story Cube

We read the first story from the 7 Habits for Happy Kids about being proactive.  Sammy the Squirrel has to learn how he can be proactive to take care of his own boredom.  We made the Story Cube for Sammy the Squirrel reviewing the character, setting, problem, resolution, theme, and favorite part of the story.

I made them answer in complete sentences.  They saved the story cubes and emailed them to me from the website.  I printed them out, and they made the cubes. One activity worked on story plot skills, understanding theme, web skills, writing in complete sentences, and the motor skills to actually cut, glue, and make the cube.

Overall, we had a great day!  How do you use Read Write Think?  Any other interactive graphic organizers you love?  Do you have any great suggestions for building online quizzes for short answer questions besides Google Docs?

Teachers also should begin with the end in mind

I sit and think about all the things written down in my to-do-list in my Erin Condren life planner.  The lists never end.  As we begin to settle into a routine, I find myself wanting to finally try to get a little ahead in my planning for once. 

We are going to begin discussing habit 2 of the 7 habits: Begin with the end in mind. I remembered tonight that I, too, need to begin with the end in mind.  It is a constant battle to not get so bogged in the details that we forget the goals.  Why did I become a teacher in the first place?  Why did I want to have a small class again?  Is this really about the content we learn and the activities we complete? 

Do I really remember what my teachers taught me?  No, I remember the teachers who took the time to show they cared.  So tonight I reminded myself to slow down and think more about how I can show my students that I care.  How can I spend more time listening and less time worried about grading and planning?  As routines settle and my students become more independent, my goal is to build in more conferencing.  I feel the one-on-one conversations with my students as readers, writers, and math students will also afford me more opportunities to get to know them as people. 

I feel the need on a regular basis to remind myself to show them I value their thoughts and feelings.  I am considering that a morning meeting routine may also be a good idea.  I'm not really sure what people discuss in classroom morning meetings.  Do you discuss goals for the day?  Do you discuss what has been going well and what could go better?  What about things you are thankful for?  In the month of November, I really want to keep a gratitude journal with my students.  I am thinking maybe we will start morning meetings next week.  Any suggestions?  How do you show your students that you care about who they are as people?  How do you begin with the end in mind?

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.