What's Working Wednesday...and Winner Wednesday

I know I haven't posted one of this in a while..ok forever, but I have good reason. I always forget to take the pictures. Bad memory is a good reason right? So while I am sitting here on lunch, I took out my cell phone (because of course I forgot my camera on my desk at home...) and snapped a couple pictures of what is working for me. I originally found this idea at Adventures in Teaching but changed it up a bit to match my classroom and our curriculum.

Our new assistant principal is really pushing differentiation. And while I understand the importance of it and how it can really help, sometimes it is just practically impossible due to time constraints. But this is one thing that I am able to differentiate thanks to this stellar idea- Spelling. Who knew differentiating spelling could be so easy?

Now the original post (and I believe the person who trained on this) had a different plan, but like I said, I had to make this work with my class. So instead of cutting file folders into thirds (like the post suggests) I cut mine in half. One side for pretest and one side for post-test. This eliminates any chance of cheating because the word list is not attached. Here is how it works-

On Monday, I give my students a pretest on the first 15 words from our spelling list. I use our spelling that comes with our series because that is what is expected. I then grade the pretest and circle anything that students got wrong. If they got less than 10 wrong, I circle up to all of the challenge words to make up to 10 words. Now, sometimes students might ONLY have the challenge words circled because they got a 100 on the first 15 words. To them I say congratulations on a short spelling list. No child has more than 10 words a week.

As you can see, this child only has 6 spelling words this week. I don't write the challenge words in, I just circle them so they know to circle them on their newsletter.

I do this while students head to music (we have it early in the morning). When they return, their folders are on their desk along with their weekly newsletter. Students then open both flaps and circle the same numbers on their post test page as I circled on their pretest page. They circle the same numbers on their newsletters and those are the words they study for the week and the words they do their homework with for the week. It is working well so far (this is only week 2) and I have seen a lot more success out of my students when it comes to spelling.

**I have my folders laminated for durability. I stuck a sticker on the folders and labeled them with my students' numbers to help me pass them out without having to open flaps and see who the folder belongs to. They are stored on my shelf during the week and only come out on Monday and Friday for tests. I never have to worry about them being ruined or students trying to sneak and write the words in advance on the post test side.

Thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway for my Turkey Treats writing and craftivity and a HUGE thank you to everyone who follows this little blog of mine! I ended up passing my goal of 25 followers on TpT (HUGE thank you!) so I drew two winners! Congratulations to Amber and Courtney! Your emails are on their way ladies! I hope you enjoy it!

Don't worry if you didn't win... I am putting it on sale 15% off until Friday! Grab it quick!

A big 500 follower giveaway...

Megan over at I teach. What's Your Super Power? has reached 500+ followers. Hooray for you Megan!!! In honor of this big milestone she is having a HUGE giveaway. There are a ton of awesome prizes (one of them from yours truly) from some amazing teachers! Click the image and get there quick! I promise you do not want to miss out on these prizes!

Just let them teach...

No, I don't mean teachers of the world (though if we were allowed to just teach, imagine the miracles that we could make happen). Who I am referring to in this post is the kiddos. Last week a few of my students were begging me to let them teach. I told them that maybe at the end of the year I would let them do just that (ya know, once the big fat state test was over and we could breathe easy... until the scores come back). But over the weekend I got to thinking. We are doing Author's Purpose this week for our reading skill. I have done a lot of fun activities for this already and wanted to do something a little different. So Sunday night, after spending all day creating this fancy shmancy blog, (and doing work for the week) the lightbulb went on. Yes folks, I had my own lightbulb moment. These kids WANT to teach each other... so LET them Gina! I sat down and ran through some ideas and came up with this....

Now at first, I wasn't thinking this was anything as marvelous as I wanted, but I knew it would serve the purpose. Boy was I wrong. It IS marvelous and my kids LOVED it. First, let me tell you how this went this week. Included in this pack is a characteristics sort. There are 9 different characteristics (ranging in difficulty) for students to sort based on what purpose that characteristic fits (for example: "the author tries to get the reader to think like they do" would go under persuade). We did that yesterday after reviewing PIE, the meanings, and examples. (Sorry I don't have pictures of these and I left them at school- nothing fancy just a cutting and pasting activity, but I suppose you COULD split a paper plate into thirds and sort them that way... too bad I didn't think of that before this minute!)

Then today was the big time fun! The "wow I wish I would have had my drop in observation right now" moment. (Of course I wasn't that lucky, but oh well.) There are 3 different stories pertaining to Thanksgiving in the pack. Each story also has 4-5 comprehension questions where students need to reference the story for their answers. (Common core right?) I decided to differentiate this activity (but you don't have to) and have my students grouped by ability. I gave my "superstars" group the "Thanksgiving" piece, my "got it" group the "Dream" piece and my "developing" group the "Letter" piece. (No I don't call my groups this in the class, in fact most times they don't know that they are grouped by level, I just group them under the activity.) I worked with my developing group while the other groups were self led. The students had to read their story (and boy was I proud that they actually took turns) and answer the questions on the back. I told them to make sure they really worked hard to get their answers correct because they were going to be the teachers for this lesson and this would be their "answer key". Wow- I think I found gold with this one!

So back to the lesson, I worked with my group by having them each read a few sentences. Then we discussed what the story was about, what happened in it, etc. Then we went onto the back and answered questions. I was so proud of them! Citing their answers and everything! (I wrote their answers for them because most of them just write too sloppy for a peer to be able to read it, but I wrote exactly what they told me to write.) After my group finished answering their questions, we assigned reading parts and I left them to practice reading their story out loud for their big teaching moment. I took this time to walk around to my other groups to see them really working well together and working hard to get their answers done. I told them to assign reading parts when they finished and then we had to go to lunch...

As soon as lunch was over they couldn't wait to get in the class to finish up and prepare for their BIG TEACHING MOMENT. And they got right to work as soon as we walked in that door. I gave them about ten minutes to finish preparing and practicing and then we got to teaching. Each group came up and read their story to the class and then asked their peers to answer the questions. They called on the volunteers to answer their questions, gave them hints if they were wrong, and were just so excited. I was so proud of their enthusiasm!

After that they worked with partners to complete the closing activity (another  activity included in this pack). They had to sort the sentences based on their purpose. This was that lesson where you are just WILLING your principal or assistant principal to drop in for that formal unannounced observation because it is going so well... and they don't. But we had a lot of fun!

I have decided to definitely incorporate this more throughout the year and then later in the year allow them to come up with their own questions and such to ask. But for now, I will provide them with the questions until they are ready for that.

If you want to grab a copy of this for yourself you can click the picture of the unit up top or this link!

PS my giveaway ends tonight! Get entered and thank you to everyone who has entered, is a new follower, or is a new follower to my TpT store! I am hoping to hit 100 followers soon and do another giveaway then!

I did it!!

I designed my own blog and I love it! I have a button now folks! A button! Made by me! Well this is all made by me with kits from Just So Scrappy! I am so excited I just had to share... and now my procrastination must end and I must do work for the week! Don't forget to enter my giveaway in ends in a couple days!

November- currently, thankful, and a giveaway!

Yay November! This school year is flying by- which makes me sad because it typically happens that if you have a REALLLY GOOD class this year... next year's will make you crazy and I am so not ready for another year of crazy. I know I know that is many months away, but I can't help but be sad thinking about these kids leaving me. I even thought about asking to loop with them, but no part of me wants to teach 4th grade or start all over with new curriculum again.

But a new month means a new Currently with Farley at Oh, Boy 4th Grade.  I love these link ups! It gives me something different to blog about and a chance to find new bloggers to follow! So... without further ado... November Currently...

These are all pretty much self explanatory. My to do lists run my life. If I lose one, I almost end up in a panic attack. In fact I just texted my husband the other day because I was at work and couldn't find mine. He knows this is a huge crisis to me. Needing- seriously Mother Nature. I wake up in the morning and it is 40 degrees. So I get dressed... and roast by the time lunch is over because it is hot again. And we can't turn our air back on in the trailer because it smells awful now that the heat has been on, and we all end up choking.

Music- when we are having quiet time or writing time I have both of those cds in my iTunes library. They calm me down (I love anything Disney) and the kids are used to hearing it. Both are instrumental.

And Stories by Storie is having a Thankful link up (I just got this to work- finally!). I thought this was cute and fitting with the stress that comes around this time of year!

And for my giveaway... I set a (small) personal goal for myself. And decided that once I made that goal, I would giveaway a copy of my Turkey Treats activity. I made that goal and am now giving away a copy! (And once I reach 25 followers on TpT, I will giveaway another copy.) Who doesn't love something for free? I know all teachers love FREE! So why not enter?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

November is here... are you ready?

Well... are you? Because until yesterday I wasn't! How did November get here so darn fast? I swear we just started school. And once I realized (on Monday) that November was coming, I knew I had to get literacy centers ready. Now let me be honest. I have NEVER been a fan of centers. Ever. Small groups and me... we just don't get along. I haven't figured it out/mastered it yet, and it drives me crazy. I still don't implement small groups the way most people do, but instead I pull groups at different times for different reasons. My goal is to start doing groups after winter break.

So why did I decide to create literacy centers? Because my kids love the little bit of center activity they do get. I decided that if nothing else, for now I can let them work on them on Fridays/when they finish their classwork. My plan was to make centers for both skills that they struggle with as well as things we don't really practice as often as we should.

So what is included in this fantastic pack of centers might you ask?

 Fall Into ABC order. My kids rarely practice this unless it is an activity they choose on their spelling tic-tac-toe. Bad teacher moment for me, but at third grade, they KNOW the skill so I tend to forget to review it. But it haunts me, believe me. This way they will at least get some practice with it. Students will sort the cards into ABC order and then record their answers on the included recording sheets. I have included both intermediate and primary lined paper.

 Birds of a Feather Common and Proper Nouns- students will match the feathers with nouns on them onto the correct turkey and again record their answers onto their recording sheet.
Serving up Possessive Noun Pie- students will match the possessive form of the phrase to the sentence it goes with. They then need to write them on the recording sheet (I am all about student accountability).

 Switched up Synonyms-Students will match the tops of the acorns to the bottoms with the synonym. Again- recording sheet.

 Acorn Antonyms- same as the synonyms, but with antonyms.

 Feast of Facts and Opinions- we just introduced this skill and I know I often have kids that struggle with it because they think that if it is not true that it is then an opinion. So students will sort the food onto the correct plate (I suggest getting cute fall themed paper plates to make this center cuter) and then record their answers. They will also come up with their own opinion sentence.

I included teacher tips on each activity as well as answer keys. I put my center activities in plain folders. I used to do file folders and just today (because our grocery store had folders super cheap and I am running low on file folders) I decided to go back to regular folders. I will put the title of the game on the front of the folder. I will put the pieces inside a ziploc bag and staple the bag inside the folder. Then in one of the pockets I will keep the recording sheets. Students will turn their sheets into a designated bucket (this part I haven't figured out yet).

So- if you need some literacy centers for November, please check these out. There are 6 complete centers plus a "Just for Fun" activity (how many words can you make from Happy Thanksgiving?). If you click on the first picture it will take you to the listing on TpT or this link. I didn't link all the pictures because I want to allow my readers to enlarge and see what is included.

And I am just 5 followers away on my TpT store until I will give a copy of my Turkey Treats away!

Turkey Treats Writing

I am excited to share with you something that I am very proud of. I want to first thank Nicole Shelby for helping me out in all kinds of ways. I posted last month about my class making her Owl S'mores and loving every minute of it. They didn't even mind the writing part. It was then that I decided I needed to do something like this every month. And so I give you my Turkey Treats writing craftivity.

Students will make a turkey treat using Oreo double stuffed cookies, candy corn (I know you have a ton leftover and if not... hit the stores while it is on sale from Halloween!), Whoppers (again, after Halloween sales), and some icing/gel. I used nonpareils for his  eyes because I didn't have the right color icing. I just used some cupcake gel to stick the eyes and candy corn onto the Whopper.

After they make the treat, students will write about it. My students will be writing an informative "how to" piece. Included in the file are primary and intermediate planning pages and writing papers. There are sequence pages and bubble maps. The sequence pages help students to write the how to piece, while the bubble map can be used to write a descriptive piece. I have included ideas for differentiation in the teacher notes section of this file as well.

Want to use it as a bulletin board? I have the cute factor covered as well. I included pieces and directions to make a turkey craft to match the treat. Glue the writing onto fall colored paper and put the turkeys near their writing. Instant bulletin board. (I like to glue the crafts onto the top corners of the colored paper, just to make it look cuter.) If you want to check it out please click any of the pictures above or this link.

I can not wait to have my class do this. (As you can see, I had my one year old test it out for me... she had a blast.)

Psst... I have two goals that I am trying to make... 25 followers on TpT and a total earnings. I am soooo close to both that once I reach them I will give away a copy of this- once for each goal made! Help me out please?