Presidents Day

With President’s Day rapidly approaching, I have been trying to find some fun things with the kids to learn   I wasn’t having a ton of luck finding anything that focused on ALL of the presidents.  Most things I found focused on Washington and Lincoln (who were both very important!), but I wanted to teach the kids about everyone, not just the two they’ve already spent years learning about.

Since I couldn’t find anything, and I was feeling motivated, I got to working making something of my own!  I did tons and tons of research to find information and fun facts about each president.  Along the way, I learned that President’s Day isn’t even the real name of the holiday!  The federal government still recognizes the holiday as George Washington’s Birthday.  All of my research turned into a huge collection of activities for the kids.

I wrote two short reading passages for the kids: Facts about the Presidency and Facts about President’s Day.  Close Reading is a huge thing at our school this year, and I decided that the kids could put their skills to use on these passages, so I wrote close reading questions to go with each one.  I wanted the kids to be creative and use research skills, so I made a template for them to make Presidential Trading Cards.  I’m really excited to see how they turn out.  I am thinking of making them do the lesser known presidents, so we can learn more about them.

Perhaps my favorite part of researching for this packet was for the Presidential Fun Facts list I created.  I learned all sorts of things.  For example, did you know that William Henry Harrison gave the longest inauguration speech of any president (on a cold rainy day), and then died of pneumonia 31 days later, giving him the shortest term as president.  And Zachary Taylor never voted in a presidential election – even when he was running!

I’m really excited to share all of my learning with the kids on President’s Day, and I’m hoping to have photos to share afterward!  If you are interested in these activities, they’re available in my TPT store here.

Shh! We’re Writing the Constitution

This week, we are starting Shh! We’re Writing the Constitution by Jean Fritz.  The book is a great story about how the Constitution was written during the summer of 1787.  The Framers are brought to life and are described as real people.  The events are written in a way that fifth graders can understand.  This is the sixth year that I have used the book with my group of fifth graders, and every year they seem to like the book, but most importantly, they remember the history!

I start by dividing the book into five sections.  The content is so rich, that the shorter sections allow us to really dive in and understand the story each day.  We read and discuss the book together and they complete comprehension questions each day.

At the beginning of the week, I also hand out a Spelling Activities page for the kids to use during the week.  There are only 12 words, but the kids are also required to learn their meanings, so 12 seems like plenty!

Once we finish the book, we review by completing a fill-in-the-blank summary of the story and by watching the video.  The video is available on YouTube here.  The video is basically a reading of the story with the illustrations in the background, but it provides a good review of the story.

I finish up the mini-unit on this book with a short quiz on the material.

This weekend, I’ve been cooped up working on school work, and I put together all of the materials I’ve created to use with the book into one packet of activities.  I even managed to get it posted on TPT!  If you’d like to check it out, it’s available here.

 

Spelling Practice

This year we have adopted the Journeys program for our Reading and Language Arts curriculum.  The spelling included in this program has challenging lists of appropriate words that are great for fifth graders!  However, the accompanying activities are a little lacking.  I started a list of different activities that I have done in the past, but it was kind of “same old, same old,” so I went to Pinterest to find some new spelling ideas. 

One of my favorite finds was the Spelling Scribble.  You can see the pin here.  

 

I also found a great (free) list of ideas here.

After finding tons of new ideas to add to my own ideas, I decided to get to work creating.  I made five different spelling choice boards to use with my students.  The center square on every board is a mandatory “Definitions” assignment, but the kids get to choose two of the other eight squares to complete during the week.  I also added a rubric to the bottom of each page to make grading an easier process.  I put them in my Teachers Pay Teachers store today.  Thisis the link.

Book Genre Posters

As part of my Readers Workshop, I focus on the different genres of books that students can read.  Each month, they are required to read a book from a different genre and give a book talk about that book (see yesterday’s post about these here)

Before we start reading in the different genres, I start the year with a look at each of the different genres we will study.  I show several examples of each genre and then we take notes on the genres’ characteristics as part of the Reader’s Notebook.  These note pages provide the kids with a way to check which genre a book belongs to throughout the year.  In addition to the notes, I have posters about each genre displayed on our Reading wall.  I add the posters as we discuss the genres to help the kids visualize the genres a little better.  Each poster has the characteristics of the genre listed and has images specific to that genre as well.

I have these posters available in my TpT store (link to product), but as a special blog offer, I will email you the pages I use for genre notes if you email me or comment asking for them below.  The notes pages are simple, but they’re already created, and why reinvent the wheel, right?!

Book Talks (and a Freebie!)

Last year, I transformed my reading program and I absolutely loved the Readers’ Workshop structure that I was able to create in my classroom.  One part of the program that I enjoyed was the book talks I had the kids do.  Each month, the students in my room were required to read at least one book from a specific genre.  After reading that book, they had to give a book talk on the book.

Book talks (or book commercials) are simpler than the traditional book report, and the kids seemed to enjoy both giving and listening to them.  

So what is a book talk?  A book talk is like a commercial for a book that the students have read.  They are not long (only about two minutes in length).  During the book talk, students were asked to share:

* the book’s title and author

* the cover (or a picture of the cover)

* a little information about the characters and the problem in the story

* some interesting information from the book.

I created a handout with the basics of a book talk and a monthly genre calendar to give to the kids to include in their reading binder.  The handout is available in my TPT store for FREE! (link to product)

If you use Book Talks leave me a comment to let me know what they look like in your classroom!

Multiple Intelligences Survey

The beginning of the year is all about getting to know the new kiddos in your classroom, and creating a great classroom environment.  But in my classroom, I like the kids to get to know themselves a little better, so I use a Multiple Intelligences survey to help.  The kids read a series of statements and either check that the statement applies or leave it blank.  At the end of the document, they use a scoring guide to determine which of the eight multiple intelligences they display.

After the scoring is complete, the kids write their names on note cards and display their names next to the intelligence that they display.  We leave this display up for the first quarter as a reminder of the ways that we are similar and different in our learning styles.

Both of these items are available on my (brand new!) Teachers Pay Teachers store here:

Survey

Posters