What's the Difference?

Here's a little quiz.  Write down or remember your answers and then scroll down to see how you did.

Are these pairs of animals the same?

                   A)  cougar & puma

               B)  turtle & tortoise

               C)  crow & raven

               D)  jackrabbit & hare

               E)  crocodile & alligator

               F)  firefly & lightning bug

               G) butterfly & moth

               A)  yes

               B)  no

               C)  no

               D)  yes

               E)  no

               F)  yes

               G) no

How did you do?  If you're wondering why B, C, E and G are NOT the same then I've got the thing for you. . . actually it's for your students.

Click to get

Click to get

I remember wondering, about a year ago, "Are ravens and crows the same thing?", as I watched a raven (revered by certain Native Alaskan groups) caw at me from a light post at my school one morning.  Right then and there I got the idea for yet another Readers' Theater pack and my brain started racing to think of more animals that were similar but not the same.

Each play comes with 2 different comprehension checks: a Venn diagram fact sort and a 6 question opened ended response sheet.

I came up with so many animal pairs that I'm going to start working on pack #2, followed by pack #3!  

Next week I'll be at a cabin in the woods, on a lake, in the middle of no where and I'm excited to churn out some more writing!

Nature Hunt

The weather here in Alaska has been awesome and there is so much LIGHT now!  We just had to get outside last week and take advantage of our 'Living Classroom', which is an outdoor classroom complete with a walking trail and benches.  We did a Nature Hunt to reconnect with nature after many months of snow.  This is the freebie I'd love to share with you today via

And check out my guest blogging post on May 1st for Charity Preston of the Organized Classroom Blog!

Peer Teaching

I really didn't teach much today, my students did most of it!

We're taking a break from our Daily 6 reading groups this week but I still wanted to do something, so I thought it would be fun to combine Readers' Theater and science.  I choose 5 oviparous animals and then wrote short scripts about them.  Pairs of students were assigned 1 of those animals to learn about and then teach their peers about.  

Reading their scripts together and then taking notes about what to teach their peers.

The teaching focused on 5 questions: What is the animal?  What are the babies called?  Where are the eggs laid?  When are the eggs laid?   How much time do the babies spend in their eggs?  "Teachers" were also able to tell their "students" other facts they learned from their scripts. It was fun to incorporate 'close reading' which involved students going back to the text to find or make sure of their answers when taking notes. 

The 2 "teachers" teaching their group about turtles and the "students" taking notes. 

I modeled the entire process (learning and teaching) with the help of one of my students.  We read our script about salmon aloud for everyone and then I talked aloud as we were close reading and taking notes.  My student teacher was our "student" and it prepared kids very well!  Here is that script for FREE.


It was so FUN to hand the reigns over to my students today!  The most interesting part was debriefing between each teaching about how it went for the teachers.  Many kids told me it was hard to teach when some of their students were talking too much....boy I know what that feels like!   I think this experience really empowered them and I have a feeling it was the topic of conversation at many dinner tables tonight.

Check out the entire unit:

This is the perfect time of year for Peer Teaching and I can't wait to do more!

Egg Week and a FREEBIE!

I think this week is going to be eggcellent!

I am back in the saddle full time, as my student teacher wrapped up her 4 week solo residency last Friday.  I did enjoy having a break from teaching but am really looking forward to being in charge again.  

I did get to teach a math lesson last week though because it's my FAVORITE thing to teach...and it's not part of the curriculum: TANGRAMS!  I love these 7 little shapes that make so many different pictures.  What I love even more is watching my first graders tackle them, it's so interesting because it's always the kids that you least expect who are fantastic at these tricky puzzles!  I revamped my SmartBoard Tangram lesson and it now has Chinese music infused into it :-)

Since it's

I'm sharing this FREE SmartBoard lesson! Tangrams are so much fun!

So my students need a break from our weekly Daily 6 reading groups and we're switching things up this week by doing something I call "Circle of Experts".  Our theme is EGGS since Easter is just around the corner.

Students will partner up and become an expert on 1 of 5 different oviparous (egg laying) animals: duck, butterfly, crocodile, turtle and snake.  To become experts they will read a Readers' Theater non-fiction partner script about their animal and complete a note taking sheet.  Then pairs will combine to make small groups of 4 and each pair will teach the other one about their animal.  "Teachers" will use their notes to convey information and "Learners" will take notes about what they learn.  The rotation will continue until each pair has learned about all the other animals.  I'm going to break it up so we do 2 rotations on Tuesday, 1 rotation on Wednesday (because we're also going to do an egg art project) and finish on Thursday with the last 2 rotations.

I'm so excited to try this kind of activity and will blog and post pictures about how it goes!  

Students will kick off Egg Week by getting an egg to take care of for the entire week.  When they get their egg, I will tell them what kind of oviparous animal they are (which is also what they will become an expert on).  I was going to give them raw eggs but figured it would be much less messy if I give them hard boiled eggs...but I'm not telling them they're hard boiled!

I hope you all have an 'egg'cellent week!

Do YOU know how crayons are made? Learn with this FREEBIE!

It's Monday!

~CRAYONS~  

Everyone has used them and everyone remembers them from childhood. I think it's peaceful and therapeutic to take out some crayons and a blank piece of paper and just color.  It's interesting how these wonderful, simple little things are made.  Take a look:

Creating Readers' Theater scripts is my passion and my focus is now on creating non-fiction scripts that infuse science and social studies.  So take a look at this partner & trio script about how crayons are made:

Have a great week!

The Lifecycle of the Frog

Creating non-fiction Readers' Theater scripts has been my focus lately because I like to get more bang for my buck.  By that I mean, using a teaching resource that will help reading fluency AND teach a science topic stretches your teaching farther and is more interesting and engaging for students.  

So even though this was my morning, a whale watching cruise with my Kindergarten daughter

I had frogs on the brain and created a new Readers' Theater script that comes with a comprehension check, draw & label worksheet and writing activity.

I have a salmon and apple lifecycle script in the works and am now thinking about whales!

Water, water everywhere!

The weather we're experiencing up in Anchorage is not typical of this time of year...it's warm and wet.  By warm I mean above freezing.

It's been raining outside and we've been learning about water inside. Our second science kit this year is "The Power of Water" and it gets really fun on our  fifth lesson when we get to play with water!  This past week we learned about the sticky property of water known as 'cohesion'.  Students put drops of water on a piece of wax paper and used a toothpick to get them to stick together.

Then we learned about 'surface tension' by putting as many drops of water as possible on the face of a penny until it spilled over.  But the cool part was getting down on our knees to see the dome form on it!

This week we're going to learn how to break the surface tension of water.  Hint: it rhymes with rope and starts with an 's'.  Next week we'll get into the whole water cycle.  Speaking of which, I just finished a new Readers' Theater about the Water Cycle, which we'll infuse into our small reading groups next week.

And even though Martin Luther King day has now passed, his message and life can be carried on throughout the year.  My readers' theater 'Martin's Message' is now on sale, so consider taking a peek.

Ice Luminaries

I've been on Winter Break for a week now and wish it would last more like a month!  When you think about it, it's a loooooooong haul starting in mid-August and going until the end of November for our first bit of time off (4 days) and then finishing up the quarter to have 2 whole weeks off at Christmas time.  And if you're like any teacher, you're catching up on things you haven't had time to do and spending time with your family.

I love to do fun things with my 5-year-old and so the other day we made ice luminaries.  I saw something about it in the paper one weekend and thought it would be fun to try.  My class recently started a new science kit: The Power of Water and we'll soon be doing the "3 States of Matter" lesson and this fun activity fit right in, so I may have to do it with my students too.

Here's the final product

There are 5 of them lining the sidewalk up to our front door.

I didn't follow any particular directions and just went on what I thought would work.  But of course I had to tweak it and we added food coloring.  I learned the hard way though how to do it without having hands that end up like this

1. First add food coloring drops to the empty balloon.

2. Then attach it to the faucet and fill it up as big as you'd like.

3. Next tie off the balloon and place it in the freezer or outside.

4. Finally drill holes in the top (round) of the sphere until a tea light candle fits 

    down into the hole.

Before I drilled holes in them, we sat staring at them up close because they were so cool!  Each ice globe had, what looked like, a frozen porcupine inside it.

 And, interestingly, the food coloring (blue) didn't show up at all.  So we made 2 more the next night with red food coloring and made sure to add more drops.  It worked as about 50% of the globe was red.

You've got to try this, either at home or school because it's so cool...no pun intended :-)