Taste the Rainbow of Adjectives

      Today we used skittles to learn about adjectives. We reviewed what nouns are and gave examples. Then we reviewed what adjectives are. Next we made connections to the characteristics we used to describe Crankenstein and the Peasants in Stone Soup. BrainPop Jr. has a great video on adjectives that the students really enjoyed. We discussed adjectives used in the video. Then I handed out one skittle to each student. I showed them how to hold it with their palm open so they could observe it and so it wouldn't get sticky. We observed our skittle with each of our five senses. Then students discussed with their partner adjectives that describe their skittle. Finally we shared out and added adjectives to our anchor chart. The students really loved the lesson and had a concrete understanding of adjectives.

Stone Soup-Peek at my Week

     This week we are reading Stone Soup. This book is one of my favorites! I remember reading it in second grade, everyone bringing an ingredient to make stone soup. We also acted out Stone Soup for the monthly PTA meeting. Those are so sweet memories. I can't wait to dig deep this week with Stone Soup in my classroom.

     You can download the pdf here.

Resources:

Rooted in Reading: November

Writing Through the Year Unit 3

November Literacy Stations

Character Traits: Self-Control

     Head over to DeeDee's to link up and view my lesson plans.

November Literacy Stations & Self-Control

      I finished my November Literacy Stations earlier today. There are five activities and are TEKS aligned. The activities include:

*Thankful Synonyms-match synonym pairs
*Gobble Gobble Verbs-sort verbs as strong or weak
*Thanksgiving Common & Proper Nouns-sort nouns as common or proper
*Turkey Trot Spelling-spin a spelling pattern and record words
*Terrific Thanksgiving Sentences-locate hidden words in a picture and create terrific sentences

     Each activity includes an answer key and recording sheet.

     I also uploaded my Character Traits: Self-Control unit. It includes eight activities to teach self-control along with a poster, quotes, discussion questions, and awards in color and black & white.

The activities are:

*Introduce using poster

*Create a self-control example anchor chart

*Self-control scenario sort

* No, David! response

*Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day response

*Self-Control List Poem

*Self-Control Writing or Predictable chart

*Three Ways I Can Show Self-Control

     In honor of Halloween, my entire store is on sale for 20% through Monday evening.

Happy Halloween!!!

Spiders-Peek at my Week

     We will be using Spiders by Gail Gibbons and lessons from Amy and Katie's Rooted in Reading October unit. My students were so excited about Stellaluna last week, and I have a feeling they are going to love learning about spiders this week!

     Download the pdf here.

Resources:

Rooted in Reading October

Writing Through the Year Unit 2

October Literacy Stations

Character Traits: Courage

    Head over to DeeDee's to link up and view other lesson plans.

Enemy Pie and Kindness

     I always love when we read Enemy Pie by Derek Munson. It's a story about a boy who has a new boy move in down the street from him and how they go from being best enemies to best friends. Our character focus last month was kindness, and this story has some perfection examples of how kindness can change everything.

     After reading Enemy Pie, we discuss examples of kindness and unkindness in the story. Then students wrote about the ways the boys showed kindness to each other in the story. We also did a directed-art drawing of the main character. We glued our writing and our illustrations to a sheet of construction before hanging them in the hallway. The students did such a great job-I'm so proud of how they turned out!

     This activity is from my Character Traits: Kindness unit.

Peek at my Week 10-13-15

This week I'm excited to use the Stellaluna lessons from Amy and Katie's Rooted in Reading October unit! We also have midterms on Tuesday and Thursday.

Download the pdf here.

Resources:

Rooted in Reading October

Writing Through the Year Unit 2

October Literacy Stations

Character Traits: Courage

Head over to DeeDee's to link up and see other plans.

Peek at my Week and October Literacy Stations

     This week we are reviewing content and skills for our midterms next week. We will also be reading some of my favorite fall stories.

     You can download the pdf here.

     I just added October Literacy Stations to my store. There are five activities that cover different skills. I will use these activities as part of a mini lesson this week in whole group before adding them to literacy stations. The activities include:

Pumpkin Sentences-types of sentences (statements, questions, commands, exclamations)

Halloween Photo Subjects & Predicates-match sentences with pictures, circle the subject and underline the predicate

Monster Sentence Mash Up-combining subjects and predicates

Apple Singular and Plural Nouns-sort nouns as singular or plural

Monster Nouns-sort nouns as people, places, or things

You purchase it here. It is on sale for $3 until tomorrow night.

Head over to DeeDee's to see more visual plans and link up.

Peek At My Week 9-21-15

     This week we are working on making and confirming predictions when we read. We will also review characters, setting, and plot. We will also review characteristics of fiction and nonfiction. We will combine the subjects and predicates of sentences and use quotation marks. We will begin our unit on writing personal narratives. In social studies, we will focus on rules, laws, citizenship, and calendars.

     You can download the pdf here.

Head over to DeeDee's to link up and see more lesson plans. 

Peek at my Week 9-14-15

      Today has been crazy! This week we are continuing to focus on main idea and details. In grammar, we are identifying the predicate of sentences. We are finishing our unit on writing procedures. In social studies, we are celebrating patriot or freedom week.

     You can download the pdf here.

     Link up with DeeDee and see other teachers' plans too!

Peek at My Week 9-8-15

     This week we will work on identifying the main idea and important details when we read. Then we will use that information to write a summary. We will also work on fiction vs. nonfiction and sort characteristics of the two genres.

     In writing, we are still working on procedures for our mini lessons. This week, students will write about an activity they like to do with their family or something they did with their family this weekend.

     We will learn about and identify the subject of sentences during our grammar mini lessons this week. We are still introducing and using activities from my School is Cool! Literacy Stations resources.

     This month's character focus is courage. We will work on defining it this week and discussing our courage quote for the week. This resource was just added to my store. The link is included below.

     You can download the pdf here.

Resources I'm using:

Writing Through the Year Unit 1

School is Cool! Literacy Stations

Character Traits: Courage

Head over to DeeDee's to link up and check out more lesson plans!

Teacher Week-Five Fun Facts About Me!

     Yay! It's teacher week. I look forward to reading all about everyone during teacher week each year. Without further adieu, here's five fun facts about me.

1. My faith and my family are the most important things to me. We have busy soaking up all the time we can with my Grandpa and brother while they are in town.

2. This is my eleventh year teaching. I'm not sure how that can be since it feels like I graduated with my certification yesterday, but teaching is my passion and I love it more and more each year.

3. I love to read! My friend and co-worker, Krissi Dallas, is writing this amazing series of book called The Phantom Island series. They are young adult fiction, and a good, clean, fun read. I just love them.! She currently has four published, and is writing the fifth one now. They are great if you're looking for fun, easy read. You can purchase them on Amazon.

4. My life verse is I Thessalonians 5:16-18.

"Rejoice always;

Pray continually.

Give thanks in all circumstances; 

for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus."

5. I love Alabama Crimson Tide football! I'm so glad football season starts this weekend! Roll Tide!

Head on over to BlogHoppin to link up and read everyone's fun facts. 

Characters Have Feelings! and a Freebie

     Last week we focused on characters, their feelings, and how story setting affected their feelings. On Monday and Tuesday, we read two different stories about the beginning of school. We charted the characters, setting, and feelings for both stories as a class. On Monday I modeled. On Tuesday I modeled the first one, and then allowed students to to tell me the rest and support with evidence from the text.

     On Wednesday we read Pirates Go To School again. Then we created an anchor chart about character feelings and discussed examples from the book to add as our chart example. Then students recorded characters, feelings, and setting from the book.

     You can grab this freebie here. The students did really well with this activity independently. 

Peek at my Week 8-31-15

     This week, we are working on retelling the beginning, middle, and end of stories in reading. During writing, we are still working on procedures, and will be writing about something we have done with a friend or family member. In grammar we will be learning about commands and exclamations, and reviewing capitalizing the first word of the sentence, and putting punctuation at the end. I will also continue introducing literacy station activities and pulling students individually for DRAs. In social studies, we will learn about rural, urban, and suburban communities and using a compass rose. Our character focus is kindness. We will create an anchor chart with examples of kindness.

     You can download the PDF here. I made sure it was set to anyone with the link can view. :-)

Resources I'm using:

Writing Through the Year Unit 1

School is Cool! Literacy Stations

Character Traits: Kindness

Head over to DeeDee's to link up and view other lesson plans. 

Classroom Rules

     We spent our Social Studies time the first week of school focusing on our classroom rules. On the first day, we introduced the rules. We talked about the rules contract they would discuss with their parents and sign for homework that night. We also sorted situations by whether or not students were following the rules and began working on our classroom rules book.

     On Thursday we sorted situations by the rule students were following. They were really into this! They got a little heated when they were explaining their reasoning. We continued working on our classroom rules book.

      On Friday we had a fill in the blank quiz about our rules. Then we finished up rules book. 

     These activities are from my Classroom Rules Pack. 

Back to School with Pirates

     During the first week of school, our reading and writing activities centered around the book, Pirates Go To School by Corinne Demas. All of my students were super pumped about the pirate book!

     On the first day, we read the story and focused on the Pirates' character traits. I modeled identifying the traits and using evidence from the text to confirm the character traits. Then we charted  their character traits and the students had to support their answers with evidence from the text. I teach two classes, so I recorded one set of answers on one color sticky notes and the other classes' answers on different color sticky notes.

     

     Then we sorted some pirate and school words by the number of syllables in each word. 

     On Thursday, we read Pirates Go To School again. This time we focused on the characters and setting. As we read, we identified the characters and the setting. Then we created an anchor chart and sorted pictures as an example of characters or setting.

     We also put pirate and school words in alphabetical order. 

The syllable sort and abc order activities will be added to a literacy station once we begin stations.

     We also worked on writing stories about what would happen if pirates were in our class. On Friday, we made pirates to go with our writing. The pirate patterns are from Rachel Lamb. You can get them here. 

      You can get my pirate activities in my store. 

      It was a successful first week of school!