Social Media

This summer, I have fallen into a routine of drinking my coffee, trolling Pinterest, and reading gobs of teacher blogs every morning.  After reviving my blog last week, I have tried to find ways to connect to other bloggers, but I haven’t posted about any of them…so here’s the post!

Pinterest:

I am on Pinterest and have a school related board (along with several others).  If you’re interested in following me on Pinterest, I can be found here.

Blog Lovin’:

I also joined Blog Lovin’ this week, and have posted a button on the left side of the blog.

Instagram:

I have an Instagram account, but it is primarily for personal use (as opposed to “teacher stuff”).  If you’re interested in checking out my Instagram account, there is a button on the left side of the blog.

Teachers Pay Teachers:
I started my TpT store last week, and so far, I only have a few things for sale.  I plan to add more as time goes on, but for now, you can check things out here (and follow me while you're there!)

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!

Monday Made It – July 22, 2013

Today I’m linking up with 4^th Grade Frolics for the Monday Made It linky event.  This week, I spent some time on a puzzle (one of my favorite time wasters).  I’m addicted to Revolution era and Constitutional history, and my mom bought me the coolest puzzles for Christmas.  I’ve actually done these puzzles twice, but the most recent completion was this week, so I figured they count for a Monday Made It!

The first is a puzzle of the Constitution. (Yes, I know I’m a geek, but I’m ok with it!)  This one was incredibly complicated, but I had a ton of fun doing it.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a picture of this one, which is a shame, because some of the pieces are shaped like states and the very center piece is shaped like the Liberty Bell, which looks pretty cool.

The second puzzle does have a picture.  This one shows all of the important events and places from the Revolutionary War.  This one was easier than the Constitution puzzle, but still took some time.  It was a lot of fun though!

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

Reading Response Journals

Last year, I started using a Readers Workshop approach in my classroom after reading The Book Whisperer last summer.  I love the approach and found that my students grew as readers and developed a love for reading that I haven’t seen with other approaches.

While I loved the Readers Workshop method, I sometimes had trouble coming up with interesting and different prompts for the kids to use in their Reader’s Notebooks.  My goal for this year is to find more creative response prompts, and this morning I found a wonderful resource for that!  

 

The CaffeinatedLibrarian has a post on her blog called “The Best List of Reading Response Questions Ever” and after reading through the list, I must agree!  I copied the list into a MS Word document and it took nine and a half pages to list all of the prompt ideas!  There are several general prompts, but there is also a section divided into categories aligned to test readiness including: analyze, compare, contrast, define, describe, differentiate, discuss, evaluate, explain, identify, interpret, list, main idea, and outline.

I plan to use several of these prompts in the upcoming year, and hope they can be helpful to you as well!

A Little Pinspiration

My morning routine this summer has become a pretty established pattern of drinking coffee and trolling Pinterest for new ideas for my classroom.  Last week, I came across a wonderful site for third through sixth grade teachers (which was a nice treat!).  The board – Teaching UpperElementary – is dedicated to ideas for teachers in third through sixth grade classrooms.  This was a great find for me because the general “Education” board has a ton of ideas for primary classrooms, and while they are super cute, they aren’t very helpful or applicable to my classroom. 

The creator of this board has not only established a place for upper elementary teachers to share ideas, but has taken it a step farther to ask that you pin two to three free items or ideas for every paid item.  This is somewhat refreshing in a time when so many ideas are linked to a Teachers Pay Teachers site.