These are a Few of my Favorite Things: Double Book Linky Parties!

As a book lover (and hoarder, according to my husband:), I could not pass up the opportunity to share some of my faves on two different linky parties! Plus, I am excited to click around and maybe add a few new books to my Amazon wishlist!

 

All right, these are my Good Reads...Click Mrs. Stanford's picture to join the linky party fun and see what everyone else is reading!

 

 

Professional Books:

My favorite Writing Workshop book...

 

Reading Workshop and Guided Reading...

 

 

For Classroom Management...Love the class meetings and problem solving steps for kiddos:)

 

 

A Few Personal Books...

 

Love Harry. I am sooo sad that I have no more Harry Potter books or movies to look forward to.

 

I really liked The Help. Haven't seen the movie yet, though.

  These are my favorite read-alouds...and, yes, I do loud, silly character voices! I love it! And fortunately, my kiddos seem to enjoy it as well. I may not sing well, but at least I can read with enthusiasm! Click the link below to join the read-aloud linky fun!

The Perfect Nest is great for reading in different voices! Plus, it is a sweet story.

Love the surprise ending on this one...great for predictions/making inferences!

I also love all of Kevin Henkes' sweet stories, plus Mo Willems' books! I'm a bit Mo-Obsessed!

Three Freebies and A Big Reveal!

Phew! I've got a lot to say today (stick around, there are three treats mixed in for you!) You know how some weeks (or days) you just seem to have it all together, whereas others you can't seem to get anything right? Well, this week has been a little busy, but I seem to be on a roll! My husband would insert a "butter" joke there, by the way.  All sillyness aside, I am very proud of how productive I've been!  In the last few days, I've "made over" several TPT files, even uploaded a new one to be revealed in a little bit, plus I've managed to keep our house clean, work out, and even cook dinner several times (major accomplishment!!).

I also have a few semi-cute (and educational, of course) activities that I can share with you!  The first activity went along with our reading story, A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds, which I must admit, is not my favorite.  I really prefer to teach using units of study in a Reading/Writing Workshop style, but my county requires that we use our Treasures basal as well, so the story is a bit of a must.  To spice it up a little bit, my kiddos and I made these little "Fruitcases" as I keep accidentally calling them. 

They were very easy to make, and I was super excited that they only used one sheet of copy paper(since the copy police have really been laying down the law at our school).  You can grab the printable by clicking the picture below.

All you have to do is copy the paper front/back, fold it in half and staple to a brown paper "suitcase" (just a half sheet) with a folded handle.  The students responded to the text by writing three fruit facts, listing fruits with one vs. many seeds, and finally creating a double bubble map to compare two fruits after having a class taste-testing party.  It may sound a bit silly to have a fruit taste-testing party, but every single year, I'm amazed at how many of my students have not eaten fruits such as strawberries or grapes--nevermind the more interesting fruits like kiwi, starfruit, mango, and papaya!

The second activity and freebie is a quick synonyms/antonyms sort.  There are blank cards included so your class can add synonym/antonym pairs and sort them as well.  Just click the picture below to download it.

Now, on to the big reveal and the third freebie I promised...I have been working very hard the last few weeks to get this latest idea out, and it is finally ready!  Drum roll, please...

My kiddos always have trouble when it comes to creating their own folded graphic organizers, so I decided to help them out a little. And once I started, I just couldn't stop--the ideas kept coming! So, I am now proudly introducing my Snip, Flip, and Fold 3-D Graphic Organizers for Reading Comprehension.  They focus on skills such as questioning, making connections, inferring, sequencing, and more, so they align with the Common Core Standards and Reading Workshop wonderfully!  My students have love, love, loved using them during their reading response time, and I have loved how independent they've become through using them!  Here is a preview of the full set... 

All you do is print the graphic organizers front/back, then have students snip on the dotted lines, fold on the solid lines, and the flip up the flaps to record their thinking as they are reading.  Here are some pictures of Snip, Flip, and Folds my students have used recently (sorry for such poor quality photos--I've got horrible lighting in my room since there are no windows--its hopeless!):

I will be giving away one of my Snip, Flip, and Fold 3-D Graphic Organizers for Reading Comprehension packs to the first commenter who leaves me their email!  Also, if you are not the firstie, don't worry, you can always download the preview file for your third freebie, which includes one Snip, Flip, and Fold that you can use with ANY story!! Hope you like it!

Enjoy, and have a Hoppy Easter Weekend! I'm super-excited to watch my girlie hunt for eggs now that she is walking like crazy!

Fun with Olivia!

Last week, our basal story was Olivia, so we did a mini character study, and it was so much fun! (Even though I missed the first few days to strep throat-yuck!). I made these thinking maps for my students to use, and thought I'd share them with you! The students used the bubble maps to write adjectives describing Olivia.  They also used the class tree map headers and the student tree maps to organize their writing before writing descriptive pieces. (Sorry I don't have any in-class photos of those--the kiddos did those while I was out)  Click on each picture to download using google docs!

We wrapped up the week with Leslie Ann's cute Olivia craft! We added a mini foldable to the front of Olivia's dress focusing on one problem and solution in each child's favorite Olivia story.  I love how they turned out!

P.S. The Olivia image on the above documents was found for free online--it is not my own, nor is it for sale in any way.  The frame used is from PrintCandee. :)

My First Giveaway--and it is Seuss-tastic!

In honor of Dr. Seuss Week quickly approaching, I am very excited to announce my first giveaway! And this is just perfect timing because I am linking up to Mrs. Bainbridge and Mrs. Fiorini's Seuss Give-Away and Linky Party!  Click below to check the party out--but don't forget to keep reading to learn the details of my giveaway and to get some freebies!

The details...
I will be giving away my Green Eggs and Contractions Unit to one lucky follower! All you need to do is follow my blog and leave me a quick comment to enter! On Friday, February 24, 2012, I'll use the randomizer to choose a winner.

The prize...
Here is a peek at my unit, which includes the poem Cooking Up Contractions to introduce the basics of creating contractions, a Green Eggs and Ham inspired pocket chart poem with contraction cards and student recording sheets, Contraction Match-Up cards for playing Memory and Who's My Partner?, Scrambled Eggs Contraction Game, and two practice sheets that can be used for student assessment.

The freebies...

In case you missed it before, here is a freebie from my unit! And, if you visit my Teachers Pay Teachers Store, you'll find another Seuss-y freebie there as well! Enjoy and thanks for reading!

Back to School with The Kissing Hand

I'm finishing up my first week of school, and boy, has it been busy with meetings almost daily and lots of changes among our team and faculty! Hopefully, when things calm down, I'll have more time for blogging! Anyway, I have a pretty good class of twenty firsties this year, and we had a lot of fun getting to know each other this week! We did some Kissing Hand activities the first day, and lots of Deanna Jump's wonderful activities including her Rainbow Names, All About Me people, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Name Trees, and more! It was a blast! Here are some pics of our Kissing Hand activities...we made a hand/heart shaped circle map of our First Day Feelings. Then, we did a predictable chart telling how we felt on the first day. We also made some handprint art to send home with the parents this week at Parent Night.

Back to School Books Linky Party

I love, love, love children's books and probably have a bit of a problem when it comes to buying them, but a teacher can never have too many books, right??  There are so many wonderful books out there...here are my faves for back to school!

First Day Jitters is wonderful and it has a surprise ending...It is about a girl who does not want to go to school because she is new.  She doesn't want to get out of bed, etc...At the end, you find out the girl is actually the teacher.  I love reading this because the kiddos (and even I) can totally relate to the main character's feelings.  It is a great way to start the first morning, when everyone is a bit anxious.

Miss Smith's Incredible Story is a great book about stories coming alive.  I love using this to get students excited about reading workshop.

Library Mouse is great for introducing Writing Workshop.  The mouse is a secret author who writes tiny books for his local library. At the end, there is a part where the students look into "Meet the Author" box to see their own reflections.  I made a box similar to the one found in the book, and my kids always get excited to see themselves in the mirror and start creating their own books and stories. Here is a picture of our "Meet the Author" Box...

My other faves for the beginning of the year include a variety of Kevin Henkes books.  We usually read Chrysanthemum to talk about our names and our special qualities, and Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse is a great one for introducing rules or a class promise.