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Category: Currently Posts

Jul 06

Daily 5: Chapter 3, Currently, An Award, and Summer Reading Camp Snapshots

Okay, so I don’t know about anyone else out there but I have just been loving the month of July! So far this month has been treating me awesome {Aahhhh, knock on wood}! I have another lovely blogger who has awarded my blog an award! You can visit her over at The Resourceful Apple. Can you believe that her name is Tammy too? Maybe it is a coincidence or maybe if you are a Tammy you just rock……

Anyway here is the award she gave me! Thanks so much!

I still have to award 15 bloggers but I have not even begun to think about that, so that is going to have to wait until I can visit all these amazing blogs and pick ONLY 15.

I wanted to also link up to the Daily 5: Chapter 3 book study for this week. I am LOVING this book. I have so many great ideas that I started to create a unit. I wanted to do this for anyone like me that loves fun and interactive ways to implement the Daily 5 into your classrooms. She just has so many ideas that I have to create things to use with introducing the Daily 5. When I first starting reading the book my idea was to create a little freebie for every chapter that I read. Well, let me just tell you that I have gone way past a little freebie. So here is what I am going to do. I thought about this for a long time and I think everyone will be happy with the outcome.

1. I am still going to post a freebie from every chapter that will be added to the Daily 5 Classroom Pack.

2. In addition I am creating a matching unit that will be in the same color scheme and theme as the Daily 5 Classroom Pack but will contain posters, worksheets, and interactive tools, and yes, CLIP ART to help kick off your Daily 5! I just love when everything matches, so this is important to me a I am excited about everything.

3. This unit will not be available to purchase until we have our last chapter linky party. I want to make sure I include it all!

4. I am going to do a little give away with this unit. I am still thinking of ideas and how I want it to work.

5. I have a date outline of when I will be making new posts of the freebie on the product description at my TpT store! So if you want to know when to look for updates you can check it out there. Of course you can always wait until that last update to have the whole thing all at once! But if you are anything like me, I have to see it as it comes, no waiting here!

I think I covered it all. If you have any requests on what you would like to see in the unit, leave me a little comment and I will see what I can do. I made a few previews of what I have created so far. Most of these posters and things I made to go along with chapter 3 and are management ideas.

I finally finished putting together a new center in my classroom! I wanted to show you what my reading response center looks like up and together! After the minor flooding in my room they had to move everything around to let the floor dry. So once I was able to get back over to my classroom library I got to work. I have to say reading chapter 4 in the Daily 5 makes me even more excited about this center. It was all about read to self and I think this center will really help the students develop in this area of reading. Here is what the center looks like all set up.

If you are interested in this center you can pick it up at my TpT store! Also don’t forget to link up for the Daily 5: Chapter 3. You can check out the linky for chapter 3 {here}!

I also am linking up to Farley’s July Currently post. I love the way she decorated this one. It is so cute!

I can’t wait to check out everyone’s posts to see what reads they enjoy! If you have never read The Salamander Room you really should check it out! I don’t want to ruin the book but it is great and boys really love this story just as much as the girls do.

Okay so now some summer school snap shots. We really have been busy little bees learning about nonfiction and getting ready to start our research projects. Here is an anchor chart that we have been using all week.

This week we are going to be picking an animal that they want to become experts on. This animal will carry them through the research process. Each students will have their own book to help them with their research. So I have made a little worksheet for them to use to get to know their book as well as the nonfiction features that are in their book. Check it out below. I think this will really help out once I require them to do their research.

After that lesson on getting to know your book I will be using questions to help focus our research. I always love giving the students a question rather than a topic when doing research because this is a skill they will need when it comes time for testing. So I have made a bookmark that is going to have each question as well as sticky note tabs (the will use the colors to help color code their research questions and answers) and 3×3 sticky note section (this is for anything else they want to remember and include in their research) for their research.

In guided reading we have been trying out the Fab Four which is a strategy I read and learned about from Reciprocal Teaching. It has been a little challenging only because I have children from 4 different schools who are all at different places with the strategies used in the Fab Four. When you only have 4 weeks and 2 days with the kids it makes it hard to get them all familiar and comfortable with the strategies! It has been a great trial and error process for me but I think when I have a classroom full of kids only from my school it will help the introduction process. The teachers and I that were involved in the book study came up with an anchor chart to help with the overall concept of what you need to do as a reader when using the Fab Four.

It is a pretty basic concept, first you read a selected text ( page, few pages, etc.) then you need to stop there and think about what you have read. When thinking you should use your 4 strategies (predict, question, clarify, summarize). You don’t have to use all of the strategies every time you pause to think, just use the ones that help you understand the text better, what you need to do as a reader. The blank spaces by each strategy will be for pictures of the kids using the hand motions that we assigned to each strategy. I already laminated the poster so each year I can easily change out the pictures by using Velcro! I know, I was thinking ahead on this one!

Well I think that is all I have today! I hope all of you had a great 4th of July! I did I made 4th of July cupcakes with my sister-in-law Megan and then yesterday we went to Busch Gardens! I have so much fun riding all the rides and roller coasters! I even saw the cheetahs which was the newest exhibit there. I do have to say that they were beautiful and just amazing! I will leave you with some of the photos from our two days of fun!

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Posted in Award, Book Study, Currently Posts, Daily 5, Reading, TpT

Jun 16

Traveling Rewind, My Currently and a new unit!

Alright so I am finally getting around to posting how I organized the students traveling binders. This needs a big REWIND! I will also show you a little bit on what reading skills we attached to the unit. We started off by teaching the students about the hemispheres {we used an orange and labeled it and cut it apart to visually show them how the equator helped define the Northern and Southern hemispheres}. Then we labeled a map and identified the 7 continents as well as placed a compass on the map. This was the first activity we did and kept in our traveling binder.

In this picture you can see that after we visited each continent the students had placed a star on it to show we had traveled there. Then after that, the students used maps that they glued onto file folders which we used to represent dividers. We used the same color as the map to label each continent. If you click on this picture it will take you to my TpT store where you can pick these up for FREE!

So now on to the inside of the dividers. We had the students read articles that had basic information about each continent. We called these are mini books and they were glued into the left side of the divider. They really liked doing this. We color coded each topic so that it would be consistent when we filled it out for each continent. The only one that was a little different was Antarctica. Sorry about the second picture, I just wanted you to see that the mini books opened with the information inside.

Moving right along. After they completed this we had them buddy up and read through books that we had copied for them. We taught the students how to track their thinking as well as practice answering “right there and thinking” questions. This worked out great because it is definitely a skill that the students need for third grade so I am glad we were able to review this. The series that we used {copied} for the students was the series {A true Book} that I showed you before. But in case you don’t remember here it is again.

Here is what the students’ books looked like. We really wanted to make sure that every student had exposure to the text!

Okay so for the questioning, this series is great because as part of the table of continents they ask a question for each chapter! Fantastic right? So those were the questions that each student was responsible for. I made a sheet for the students to use as they were reading that had all the questions typed up. Once they found the answer they used sticky notes to write them down on and place it on top of the corresponding question. Here is what it looked like.

Now moving onto tracking your thinking. This was done on the back of each sheet. Once they answered ALL of their questions they went aloud to track their thinking. They could track connections, questions, and interesting facts. Here is what it looked like.

Now we will move onto the last part of their assignment. They had to create a summary which you can see above. In order for them to be focused and on point with their summaries we created an anchor chart to assist them in writing a nonfiction summary. This is what the anchor chart looked like.

I wanted to show you another example of a summary that one of my little ones did. I have to warn you they were very precise with their surrounding ocean facts {they needed another sheet of paper}. It really is too cute and I am pretty sure they used their map to add in their directional location.

That about sums it up. A whole bunch of learning in one binder. They absolutely loved this unit. We ended it with our traveling experience where the students created suitcases and made artifacts from each continent. I have already posted about this {here} so if you missed it make sure you check that out. However, in that post I did not offer the stickers I used to decorate their suitcases. I have put them all together and created another freebie for all of you. So if you click on the picture of the suitcase you can pick it up at my TpT store.

I also wanted to show you the book that I purchased to help with creating artifacts from the 7 continents. I purchased it from Amazon but you can probably find it at a book store as well.

I also forgot to show you some of the other resources we used in the unit. Here is a picture of those books. We read P is for Passport after we labeled our dividers. It helped kick off our around the world traveling. Then if we had any spare time {usually as their morning work} we did math from around the world.

So now that I feel complete and happy to have posted all that traveling unit information. I can now officially move on to share my June Currently with you. I know, I am kinda late on this one but better late than never is what my mom always used to tell me. So here you go.

Boy this is sure a long post, I guess that is what I get for not posting all of my traveling pictures until now. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Anyways, onto my new unit. I have to admit something……. I thought I was going to work on my mystery unit but it turns out my inspiration shifted and I created an interactive center for reading responses. Since I am teaching summer school, this jumped up to the top of the list and my mystery unit got put on hold for a minute. I am pretty excited to use this center because I think that it will make creating responses easy for your students {and mine}. If you click on the pictures below it will take you to my TpT store where you can pick up a copy of this little unit.

Okay, I am off to get last minute gifts for Father’s Day {well really it is groceries because I am going to attempt to cook my Dad a Father’s Day Dinner}! I am hard at work on my Mystery Unit so I will post that as soon as it is finished. I am also working on a fun activity for the beginning of the year. Monday starts the first day of summer school for me!!! AHHHH, I don’t know what I was thinking.