Class Yearbook

Have you seen that commercial on Hulu about "falling into a show hole" because you've binge watched an entire series?   Well I feel more like I've fallen into a "blog hole" and just dug my way out today.....yikes!

Too much on my plate and a student teacher this spring (who was FABulous) are what I'm blaming it on.  And I ran the Paris Half Marathon in March and trained for it (then gallivanted throughout Europe while my student teacher held down the fort), which took up a lot of time but was so worth it!

Today is my first day of summer vacation and freeeeeeeeeeedom!  We ended our year with one of my favorite writing projects, our class yearbook.  It was our last quick writing assignment and turned out so nice.  But this year I did something new with it: I passed it out to kids on the last day of school on the bus that took us out to the Eagle River Nature Center for a guided nature walk and picnic field trip.  The kids read it from cover to cover, on the way to and from our beautiful trip.  I sat with two of my squirrely boys on the way back and they were even quizzing me on it ("What is Nickel's favorite color?  What is Sadie's favorite thing about first grade?, etc.)

I copied the cover, a class picture and the autograph pages onto an 11x17" piece of copy paper and it became their cover.  I had them color it on one of the last days of school.  I wish I had had time to laminate them too, but oh well.

I've updated this FREEBIE because I have a new favorite font and favorite borders (Krista Wallden)!   I know many of you are not yet done so I hope you'll take a peek at this and use it with your kiddos because it's really a nice keepsake that is special to your class.  Click on the images above to snag it!

Vive les vacances d'ete!

Snow Day and a FREEBIE!

Last Monday it was snowy here in Anchorage and as I left for work I didn't think anything of it.  But as soon as I crossed an intersection that was a mile from my school it became stand-still traffic and it took us an hour to get to school.  Luckily my kids had art first thing and there were only 6 of them.  

Fast forward to TODAY: It snowed like crazy in only a few short hours, but I did not think school would be cancelled.  First I got a call saying there was a 2-hour delay in effect (never had that happen in my 12 years here).  Then, 10 minutes away from leaving the house with my kids, another call announced that school was now cancelled.

I'm glad the district erred on the side of caution this time.  So we immediately got into comfy clothes and started playing.  The sun came out too and it was beautiful!  We went for a walk, me pulling them in the sled, and delivered some freshly baked cookies to some friends in the neighborhood....that was awesome!

Also awesome was that I was able to get some work done and finished a project I've been wanting to whip up for a few weeks and you can get it for free here!

Non-Fiction Nuggets

I don't put my baskets of Non-Fiction books into our classroom library until January....

September

January

I know the Common Core is all about non-fiction but I love to exhaust my Fiction supply so the introduction of non-fiction is a HUGE deal...especially for boys.

After 2-3 weeks of immersing ourselves in non-fiction I find it starts to wain a bit.  I wanted to create something that would rehook them AND encourage them to write about what they've read.  Here it is:

and it's a FREEBIE!

I really wanted to find a way of having kids write more but I wanted it to be short and sweet and tie to what they were reading. In my classroom, this is a 'Writing Station' choice that goes up in the hallway on our 'Non-Fiction Nuggets' bulletin board to showcase their writing and learning.  

My next step is to cut apart a non-fiction reader and cut out pictures that show all of these features and post them on the board.

Check it out and see if it's something that would be good for your classroom and your students.

Would You Rather?

Would you rather be a piranha or a beaver?

Would you rather eat a worm or a spider?

No, I'm not trying to bring back Fear Factor.  These questions were created by my students for a fun new writing activity at our Writing Station.  

This idea came about because I have the board game Would You Rather? in the classroom and use the questions as one of our brain breaks. My students love how silly, gross, funny, etc. the questions are and can now contribute to them.

There is also a book by William Steig that has the same idea and I created a class book to add to our Writing Station.  On each page, there are two objects presented and kids are asked which one they would rather be.  

My favorite part about both of these activities is the conversation we have when students explain their choices!  So I put both of these ideas into a packet on Teacher Pay Teacher and it's FREE! 

Go check it out and have some silly fun!

Rocks!

I love rocks!  I love to collect rocks, throw rocks, play with rocks and climb on rocks.  My two favorite places to go exploring and climbing on rocks are the North Shore of Minnesota and La Cote de Granite Rose in France.

~

My husband and I just celebrated 10 years of marriage by having a night away at our favorite little resort on the shore of Lake Superior, sans children.

We first went up to a beautiful state park to explore and climb on rocks.  Looking around in the gift shop afterwards, I again stumbled upon a wonderful book that I just HAD to have.

written by Peggy Christian and illustrated by Barbara Hirsch Lember

On each page of the book, a type of rock is described (i.e. skipping rock, resting rock, wishing rock, etc.).  I love the simplicity yet complexity of the text and, as usual, thought of a writing extension to go with it.

I collected a bunch of interesting rocks (the ones you see surrounding the book in the first picture above) on our evening exploration and plan on letting students either choose their own rock or blindly choose a rock and then write about what kind of a rock it is.  All of these pages will become a class book!

And last night my daughter and I went for yogurt at a build-your-own place and guess what I sprinkled on top of mine?  Chocolate rocks!  Okay, I'm a nerd...

Book Talk Linky

I'm republishing this post from last week because I just stumbled upon a neat linky party where teachers share great books.  This linky party is being hosted by Mrs. Jump!

I was in a local bookstore last week, perusing the shelves hoping something would jump out at me when I found this beautifully illustrated gem:

This book has very simple text but beautifully striking illustrations.  When I finished the book I immediately thought of a writing extension for Kinders, 1st graders and 2nd graders.

Take a look at this example book I created and how I've differentiated it for K, 1 and 2.  I hope you'll think about incorporating this book and writing activity into your upcoming school year.

Back-to-School FREEBIE!

I love the Fourth of July...well I guess I really love the time leading up to the Fourth of July more because it's summer and I am not thinking about Back-to-School in any way, shape or form.

But once it's over, summer is half over and stores start advertising Back-to-School stuff.  Part of me is sad because I know my time off is coming to an end and part of me is excited for the start of another year.  It's a double-edged sword I guess you can say.

So here is something I got an idea for the other day because one of my goals this year is to create way more class books with my students.

Wordles are a super fun, easy, visual expression of writing.  Not sure if that made sense, but here's an example (the words under my picture):

Wordles can be used throughout the year for thematic studies, science, social studies and even math.

Here are some more Back-to-School goodies to check out as well:

FREEBIE

Smartboard File: $

$

$

Now go check out all the other fun FREEBIES over at 

Mad Libs

Do you remember Mad Libs?  Those fill-in-the-blank stories that were so fun to complete and hilarious to read!  

I just discovered that Mad Libs are scaffolded so kids as young as preschool can start doing them and then progress as they get older.  There's an easy, medium and hard version.  The easy version has stickers and my soon-to-be first grade daughter and I just happened to buy one from a local book store the other day and had lots of fun with them this weekend.

There is also a Christmas and Easter sticker book.

Reading this over and over is also great fluency practice!

Kids can make a serious or silly Mad Lib with the stickers provided.

And voila

The medium level has symbols underneath each missing word.  There is a word bank to choose from, by matching up the symbols.  I make these available at our Writing Station.

I took my love of Mad Libs one step further and created two for Mother's and Father's Day and they are the inside of the cards we make for our moms and dads.  They are FREE too!

Click to get them!

I hope you get just as ___________ about Mad Libs as I did!

(adjective)