Veterans Day Activities

I'm so looking forward to Monday.  I need a 3 day weekend like peanut butter needs chocolate.

Of course when I asked my students if they knew why we would be having a 3 day weekend they couldn't put it into words.  So I search through the freebies on TPT and found these gems to help me explain it.

First I learned about this picture book to read to the kids.  In That Room has this mini unit to help with comprehension.  

This one is from Michelle Harper and has a timeline that kids work to put together.  I have it copied for students to work with partners.  

This one is from Ashleigh and has a bunch of different activities.  Time is going to be an issue on Friday, so I printed off her synonym activity for individual students to tackle.

This pack is from Denise Scaccia.  I love how her writing paper has all the different branches of the armed services represented.  I know it's for the little kids, but my big kids will enjoy it too.

Just a few things to help my kiddos know the reason behind the day off of school.

Hope these help you! 

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Black History Month

Do you celebrate Black History Month?  I do!  

Every year I give my students a large piece of construction paper to make a placemat.  Not that they really use it as a placemat when they take it home, but the point is I want them to share the information with their parents.  I want to promote family discussions about what they learned that day in school.  Sometimes kids need a visual to remember...

  As we discuss the famous men and women they write fun facts about them on their paper.  This year, since I have now discovered the power of powerpoint, I made the placemat official looking.  I typed the names for my kiddos - making it easier for them to follow along.  I also typed up all my notes about these famous people, created note pages for the students to fill in, to use in a game, and then made up a sheet for students to take one person & create a paragraph about them to add to a class book.  

After we make up the placemat and before their individual writing, I'm going to take the fun facts sheets and cut them into strips.  They are then going to each get a strip of information about a specific person, and mingle to music to share their information over and over again with the different members of our class.  After all that writing they will need a chance to get up and move!  I have another page in the packet similar to a bingo board for them to check off who they talk about.  Their goal will be to make a bingo with the different people.  After the fact they will take their strip of paper and begin writing about their specific person.     

  It's over at TPT if you are interested in checking it out!

Hope you are having a wonderful day!  I stayed up way too late last night (no school today) to finish my 3rd book of the weekend.  Yes, 3 books.  I love vacation!

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President's Day Fun

We started celebrating President's Day a week ago when my students reviewed graphing coordinate points.  2 years ago I found functional mystery picture graphs on Superteacherworksheets.com.  At that time they were free, but now there is a membership fee.  Still worth it though!
I have the one for Abe and another one for George.  

Like I was saying, my students graphed Abe a week ago on Friday, and then last Friday they graphed George.  With the first graph I showed them an example of Abe so they could check their plots.  With George I wasn't that willing. I wanted to see if they really got it.  They did and they look awesome (and their self confidence has gone up).
Besides the graphing, this coming Tuesday we will compare and contrast Abe and George.  I'm going to give them this free coloring sheet and they will draw their Venn Diagram on the back of it.   
Then after we brainstorm they will need to write a multi paragraph essay comparing and contrasting Abe and George.  It's motivation to finish since they then can color the cover of their book.  A quick staple to include their graphs and they have a book to take home to show their parents.  I love things that turn out to be easy!
Here's an art project that I loved doing with my school kids last year, as well as my home kids.  The picture below is of my 3 boys.

All you do is take a portrait of their heads - I try to have their heads fill up the camera screen.  After you print you (or they) cut out their images.  At school last year I had them stick their face on a paper plate and they painted over it with black paint.  It was messy and my room smelled of paint for a couple of days.  At home I cut them out and then we used a poster sized permanent marker to color it in.  It was so much easier using the black sharpie.  Definitely less messy.  Then you glue it onto a white background and it's done.
Hope you are having a great weekend!

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Chinese New Year and a Super Sale

Yes, both my stores will be participating in the sale over at TPT and TN this Saturday and Sunday along with many many other people.  Thanks to Primary Polka Dots for the super cute graphic!   TPT will be 20% off plus an additional amount on Sunday when you use the code "Super".  I put TN on sale for 25% as well. 
This week I celebrated our 100th day of school and Superbowl.  It was fun... and draining!  If I could only mention all the things that my students decided to do today to move on the behavior chart... but I can't and I won't.
I love this time of year, but there are tons of things to add to the curriculum.
Sunday, February 10th is Chinese New Year and I always like to do something special.  Next week we will be celebrating in the classroom because the next week is busy with Valentines...  I made these last year for Chinese New Year... not my picture... this was pre-blog. I ended up doing it slightly different - traced a 4 inch circle onto felt (just used a canning jar lid), the kids cut it out, and then I hot glued a 4 inch piece of pipe cleaner on the inside diameter.  The kids wrote themselves a fortune on a slip of paper, and then I showed them how to fold it - to take their fingers to pinch it closed and fold it into the shape.   
Here are also some free things I found on TPT that I'm excited about.Most everything will be perfect for my intermediate classroom. This has 3 different reading levels plus comprehension questions.
This will be a fun craft.This has everything!  Story, coloring, word search, boggle, tangrams, lantern, learning the language, and writing.

This lantern page is adorable...
Click on any of the above pictures to head to the correct links.Hope this can help someone!  

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Planning for Dr. King's Birthday

For Dr. King's Birthday, I like to have my students think of their own wish for the world.  We discuss what Dr. King's dream was, and then we brainstorm together what our own wishes are.  Coming off of Christmas when the students are so focused on themselves and what they feel they need, I try to guide them into thinking of things that will help the entire world.
For example:*Clean water for all*Peace*No wars*Medicine for anyone who needs it
We discuss and then they write a multi-paragraph essay about it.  We are working on details, so they will need to not only state their dream, but also a solution that could make that a reality.  Of course the solution may not be a real life possibility, but in their eyes it could.  
When they are ready to tackle the final draft I will give them a paper from this packet.  There is a full sheet with clip art, as well as a 1/2 sheet with clip art.  It's free, just click the link!  

The new year means I'm also starting out a new incentive thing in my classroom.  My kids are spelling out words to earn whole class rewards.  We tried doing something like this the week before Christmas break using Tara's "Be Merry" banner, and they really were motivated to earn the letters.  We still do warm fuzzies, but these are mainly used those weeks that there is something special going on and we need a little extra motivation to make good choices (staying on green, walking in line, etc).  

I made up a DREAM banner (and also a SNOWMAN , and then a Love Bug one), and this weekend am planning on getting the rest of Winter complete.  I'm making up 2 sizes for each banner since I want to use the full sheet for the Writing wall and the smaller 1/2 sheet for the board.  They are in the same set for convenience.  
Do you do something for Dr. King's birthday too?  Any other activities you could share with me?  Sometimes it seems that I get so trapped in the regular routine that I forget about all the thematic stuff that helps to supplement their learning.     

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Figurative Language Turkeys

We made figurative language turkeys today.  

My class has been using the bookmarks that Addie Williams created (it was a free download) to review similes, onomatopoeia, personification, alliteration, metaphors, rhyme, etc.  I printed off 2 pages (8 bookmarks) from her packet of stuff that was perfect to cover for the 4 days this week.  We did 2 per day.   

Click the picture to take you to TPT.

When I first started this week I was only going to make a little fan booklet from the bookmarks, but then decided that I really needed to create some type of turkey art as well - especially after seeing all the cute primary art that people have been posting on the blogs.  The colors on the turkey above are on the back of 5 of the bookmarks.  When the turkey is turned over, the bookmarks with the figurative language can be read.  I ended up cutting off the clipart from the bottom of the bookmarks before I glued it on so there is a bit of extra clip art that can be added to our Thankful books.  

The students did the same steps.  

Here they are in a bit more detail:

Prep work:  I cut my 12 x 18 brown construction paper into 6 x 12 pieces (3 per sheet).  Those brown pieces I then cut into 2 sizes (7 x 6 ) and (5 x 6).  The 5 x 6 I cut in half to make 2.5 in x 6 in. size.

I also took the bat eyes and the triangle nose from A Cupcake for the Teacher and used them for the beak and eyes of the the turkey.  Those are cut, ready for the kids.  

Click the picture to take you to TPT.

Students will:

1.  Cut out an oval shape with the 7 x 6 paper.  

2.  Take 2 pieces of the 2.5 x 6 inch paper and accordion fold them, then glue onto the bottom of their oval (to create the legs).

3.  Cut out their bookmarks and choose 5 of them for the turkey.  The other ones are theirs to use as bookmarks.

4.  Cut the clipart off the bottom of the 5 bookmarks.

5.  Color the back of the bookmarks, glue onto the back of the oval shape so the writing faces the back and you can see the colors.

6.  Decorate the face using the eyes and beak.  

All done!  The kids saw mine yesterday and are so excited to create theirs today!  

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