Next week, as we know, is Dr. Seuss' birthday.   Like many of you, my school is doing a whole week of "Read Across America" celebration and I wanted to participate in the celebration, but everything I was finding that dealt with Dr. Seuss was just too primary.  While my kids enjoy cutting and coloring, I wanted them to do a bit more. So I decided that we would spend a week looking at the underlying themes and inferences that are in some of Dr. Seuss' books. Themes?  Inferences?  Dr. Seuss? Yes.  You see, Theodor Geisel spent much of his early career as a political cartoonists, and many of his books are rife with political and ethical ideas and messages.  So we, as a class, set off to look at some of them.  Here is what we did. On day one, I read The Cat in the Hat (Beginner Books(R)) aloud to the students.  Of course they had heard the story before, but I asked them to look for evidence of ethical decisions that had to be made. Trust, wrongness, rudeness, ...
If you haven't heard yet, TpT has reached a major milestone.  3,000,000 (yes, that says three MILLION!) teachers have signed up to buy and sell teacher resources to use in their classrooms.  Amazing.  Simply amazing.  As a celebration TPT is throwing a sale!  So stock up your wishlists, because this is all happening on Thursday and Friday of this week! All my teaching resources will be on sale for 20% off , and if you use the promo code TPT3 , you'll get an additional 10% off at the checkout.  Be sure to enter that code.  I know I am guilty of getting a bit too excited by all the new things I am getting for my room and forget to enter for the extra 10% ;) As a thank you to you for supporting me in my own personal journey with TpT, I am going to be giving away one $25 gift certificate for you to spend at TpT.  You don't have to spend it in my store...you can spend it anywhere you like!  What's more, I am also going to give away one of my own resources to you t...
At the beginning of the month, my students set out to do some close reading with nonfiction texts about the impact of the Columbian Exchange on the world (boy, that was a mouthful!)  They read with a close eye, reading with a purpose, and really learned a GREAT deal more than I had ever thought they would.  You can read about it in detail here . But, with our new Common Core standards, it isn't enough for the students to read and discuss anymore.  Writing is equally as important to use as a vehicle with which to convey your thoughts and learning.  So I wanted my students to take their reading and discussions a step further and convey their thoughts through a written essay. Sounds standard. But it wasn't. This was actually REALLY hard for them.  Let me explain why. The focus of the essay was to relay to the reader both the positive and negative effects of the Columbian Exchange.  Easy enough.  What was difficult was the next part.  They needed to include evidence fro...
OK...so we just got home from seeing the Lego Movie and I just HAD to redo the title of this post.  Have you seen it?  Super cute!  Anyway...back to the regularly scheduled post. Do you ever have an AWESOME lesson idea at home, plan it out, knowing it will be super fabulous, only to have it fall short when you actually implement it in class??   Yeah...that is what happened at the beginning of this week. You see, I had this fabulous idea to have the kids construct buildings using the bazillion Lego bricks I had at home, then measure the buildings to find the volume of the entire thing.  Additive volume, measuring, problem solving....the whole shebang.  Awesome, right?? So I brought all of the materials into class, had the kids get into groups, explained what I wanted done, modeled it, and the kids were off. Here is where it all melted down.  The kids were building crazy thing with so many different levels that when they eventually went to find the volume of the entire projec...
Do you ever have those moments while teaching that really make you feel like a "proper teacher"?  Moments when you look at the students, see them engaged and learning, picking up what knowledge you are trying to impart, and know that things are just gelling?  That was my experience this week with our close reading lesson. This week, we turned our attention to nonfiction reading and reading with a purpose.  The ultimate goal of the process I am about to describe to you is to write a 3 paragraph essay about the positive and negative effects of the Columbian Exchange, using evidence pulled from various sources.  So keep that in mind when you are reading.  Also, I am only going to write about the reading part today.  The writing part will get written about at a different time (probably when we are done with it ;) ) So, back to the point.  I opened my week sharing with the students that when we read nonfiction, we usually have a purpose for reading.  We ask ourselves, &q...
I, like many of you, work with some truly amazing educators.  Yesterday we went on a walk through of the classrooms and I knew I had to share this fabulous lesson that two of my colleagues, Kristi and Debbie, did with their students.  Let's call it, "Close Reading Character Sketches" (yep...Common Core tie ins all around!) During the course of a core lit novel study, many instances of character development and description are bound to occur.   The novels Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis and Wonder by RJ Palacio are no exception.  They are both filled with a plethora of character building paragraphs.  So, while reading these novels, character traits, growth, and development is something that becomes somewhat of a focus.    To emphasize that as a focus, and to get the kids going back into their reading to make inferences about the main characters and then "prove their inferences", Debbie and Kristi photocopied some paragraphs that were parti...
My goal as a teacher is to be there as a facilitator of learning, while my students basically take care of everything else.  Don't get me wrong.  I am in charge in my room, but I want my students to be independent enough to keep the classroom running like a well oiled machine. (a dictatorship disguised as a democracy ;) )  One way I do that is by having classroom jobs that truly are a reflection of classroom needs. At the beginning of the year, I sit down and think about all of the jobs that I, as the teacher, simply do not want to do or will just forget to do.  Those are the things that I make sure my students are responsible for!  By putting the kids in charge of these tasks it 1) insures they will get done (since my baby-fried brain just can't remember things anymore!), 2) frees me up to just teach and 3) allows the kids the opportunity to learn some responsibility. The jobs in my classroom last one month.  Students apply for them at the end of the previous month, that w...