Five for Friday

I love 

but haven't been able to link up to it because we've either been moving or are now on vacation back in Minnesota (where I'm from).  Since we're on vacation, I some more time to devote to blogging, etc.  Here's a summary of this week:

One:

On the shores of Lake Superior where I grew up.

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Two:

Did a nice run along the shore of Lake Bemidji and then sat on a rock to
cool down and listen to the waves splash against the rocks.

Three:

The flowers in my mom's garden....the inspiration for my blog!

Four:

"I'd like a medium white chocolate mint condition please and I'll answer
the trivia question too." said as often as I can get to a Caribou!

Five:

Our beloved Malt Shop that makes THE best malts!  We eat
them and stare out at Lake Superior to see if there are any ore
boats coming into port.  Daddy is so jealous he's working!

Hope you also had an enjoyable, relaxing week too!

Freebie Friday

I'm linking up with 

Now that it's summer, I have much more time to work on creating teaching materials.  The first thing I tackled was finishing up my Writing Dude SmartBoard lesson series.  There are 13 lessons that teach important skills and concepts for beginning and progressing writers.  Lesson 10: Proofreading, is my  freebie this week!

Writing Dude

He's the dude with writing attitude:

I love my SmartBoard to pieces! About a year ago I decided to create a little character to teach the writing skills and conventions that are important for beginning and progressing writers.  I like him so much and my students liked him so much, I decided to create more lessons....and voila Writing Dude was born.  I'm a proud mama and am happy to announce I've taken all 13 of his lessons and wrapped them into one neat little package with a big red bow....just kidding, but they are all in 1 file (234 slides, woah!).

      

I'm going to do my first giveaway since I'm SOOOOOO excited about this product!  Click on the link below and sign up to win the entire MEGA Pack:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Manic Monday

I'm linking up with Charity over at 

to share another Readers' Theater script.  I read this book

to my 5-year-old daughter recently.  It's a cute story about four animal friends who unknowingly disturb a tired bear in his cave.  Hilarity ensues when three of the four animal friends try to dress him up to cheer him up.  

When I finished reading, I asked her "Which character was your favorite?"  She responded, without missing a beat, "The bear because he was grumpy and I like to be grumpy."  At least she's honest :)

So I created a Readers' Theater play to go along with the book. The play has 7 parts: Narrator 1, Narrator 2, Moose, Zebra, Lion, Sheep and Bear and is four pages long.  Check it out and then check out all the other FREEBIES this week on Manic Monday!

Best Seller Linky Party

I just came across a neat Linky Party...and I'm always on the lookout for good Linky Parties because you end up finding some great new resources and discover some awesome creative teachers!

Teachers are posting their best selling products, "Whether it was a product that was surprisingly successful or expected to be so, let know what worked well for you."

I'm going to share my Readers' Theater Partner Plays, Pack #1.  We started using AIMSWeb this year and it was all about FLUENCY.  I love to do Readers' Theater with my whole class but was looking for something that 2 kids could do during our Daily 5 time....thus was born Partner Plays.  

But since some of my reading groups have an odd number, I wrote each play for either partners OR trios.  I think many things factored into 17 of my 21 kiddos achieving fluency proficiency (54 words correct per minute), but I know these plays and all the others I've written helped A LOT!  Not only did their pace increase, but their expression bloomed!!  Okay, enough tooting my own horn, go check out all the great resources over on Sarah's blog.

Pairs, Trios & Quads

A fun way to randomly group up kiddos:

I like to use many ways of putting students into pairs, trios or small groups: playing cards, student names on tongue depressors, etc.  I also like to then defend those pairings (if kids whine or aren't happy about them) by telling them "The Magic Jar picked your groups, not me." :)  

I recently decided to pull out this tub of connecting cubes and use them for putting kiddos into groups (of 2, 3 or 4).  I made rods of 4 cubes in an AB pattern and put them in a bucket and went around the room handing them out.  Then kids had to get up and find their matching rod(s).  It's worked really well and I will continue to use this method next year.

The Very Cranky Bear

I read this book, by Nick Bland,

to my daughter (5-years-old) tonight.  It's a cute story about four animal friends who unknowingly disturb a tired bear in his cave.  Hilarity ensues when three of the four animal friends try to dress him up to cheer him up.  

When I finished reading, I asked her "Which character was your favorite?"  She responded, without missing a beat, "The bear because he was grumpy and I like to be grumpy."  At least she's honest :)

So I created a Readers' Theater play to go along with the book. The play has 6 parts: Narrator 1, Narrator 2, Moose, Zebra, Lion and Sheep and is four pages long.  Check it out and I hope you enjoy this FREEBIE!