Theme - Including a Poetry Slam

Last week our ELA focus was finding theme in songs, movies, and poems- and then connecting it to books. 

For songs, I used Joanne Miller’s Close Read to Music to share 4 songs. 

*Brave 

*Fly

*Man in the Mirror (my old school)

*Let it Go (their old school) 

We listened to the safe share link, they noted on copy paper what they thought the author’s message was, and then we discussed. 

For movies I used Gay Miller’s Animated Short Clips to view. Love this entire product, how it’s organized for different types of strategies. 

*Fishing with Sam

*Glued

We ran out of time for the others…

Then the next day we had a Poetry Slam. I seem to have at least 8 poetry books (mainly Shel Silverstein), and I charged up my Karaoke machine. I passed out the books one per group, and then called one person per table group to choose a poem to present into the microphone. They sat on my stool, They read with emotion. Even my shy kids eventually wanted a turn. After they read, other kids called out their theme ideas. Then we moved onto the next speaker. They LOVED it! 

Then we took everything we learned and transferred it to our textbook and novel, and eventually took a formative assessment. They now have a better idea what theme is and isn't. 

It was a fun ELA week. :)

Hope this helps! 

First Things First and Context Clues

It was a wonderful weekend. I’m trying out this whole balance thing. School during the week and relaxing on the weekend. I hope that I can move into relaxing during the week as well. 

I’m learning (again) to let things sit. I can grade that stack of papers during the week when I’m getting paid for it. My plans are ready. My copies are made. My plan book and that stack of papers took a nice ride home and back this weekend.  It's all good.

One thing that does help me is planning out the entire unit at a time. Then even if something comes up, or timing has to change a little, well at least I know what’s next. It’s a little stressful at the beginning of the year, but it becomes easier. It's also easier when you can look back at past years and have the reminder of what you did...

Copies can be made in advance. Links can be grabbed. The big picture makes it easier for me to see clearly. 

This week I’m excited about our Context Clues Travel Adventure. Last week the focus was on dictionary skills, this week is all context clues. We have whole group practice on Monday, task cards for Tuesday, and then the adventure is going to be on Wednesday, then a formative check on Thursday. I use this product by Teaching with a Mountain View. 

For a small room transformation I hang this backdrop over my window, and these country flags around the classroom. 

I set up the stations around the room. One country at each station. I have the country context clues page and pictures of the country that I have googled. Each country has a specific color, so by the end the students should have completed the rainbow. 

We will start out with each kid making their own travel booklet. It’s just a few pages of copy paper folded together. They will use the markers to color code their booklets. There is a booklet included, but I don’t want to deal with the copy machine. 

This year an Amazon search for airplane stickers ended up with a purchase of airplane foam flyers. Since it won’t be their table groups flying around together, they will have to match up with those that have the same type of airplane. So 6 groups instead of our normal 8. 

We will do America together, then they will be flying around to the other countries. I’ll give them 10ish minutes at each station, and will use my best stewardess voice to let them know when it’s time to transfer to their next destination. After our last landing we will take a moment to go over answers for them to check their papers before turning them in so I can take a peek. 

I hope you have a great week! 

Day 12... ELA Bulletin Boards

Hi Everyone.  I've fallen into the black hole that is called Back to School.  Where the days are long, sleep is short, and a teacher's energy is zapped!  I wanted to share what we've been up to the past 12 days of school.  Yep, only 12!  I can't believe August is almost over - time has seemed to move at record speeds!

We started our novel studies.  Each week we have been focused on a specific reading strategy, but also spiraling through all of them.  I've been using my Reading Exit slips on Fridays as a quick check of what the kids should be able to identify.  The kids drop them off on this pocket chart, right next to their classroom number.

Nearby this entire wall has turned into a reading center.   Don't mind the mail crates underneath. :)  

Over in the corner are character traits from Joanne Miller (our intro. to that was this week), and then our strategies.  The kids brainstorm different examples from our text, and I stick them on to the reading graphic organizers.  The kids have the same ones in the front of their reading comprehension notebooks as a reference of what we are learning.  It has made it pretty easy to fill out!  

Across the room is our Writing wall.  We have started Rainbow Editing and Word of the Day.  Little by little this wall is filling up, which makes me happy!  

How are you doing?  Are you surviving Back to School?  

Two for Tuesday - 3 items!

This morning I'm linking up with The Teaching Tribune with 3 brand new products.

It's getting very clear that school is right around the corner, so I've been prepping tons of things that I want my students to use this coming year.  

What's Missing? is a 32 multiple choice task card set.  Students choose which punctuation mark is missing in the sentence.  It's only $1.50 today.

 

Perimeter and Area Task Cards contain 40 cards - 20 of each perimeter and area.  My students are always wanting to talk about their Lego builds, so I made up some fun cards for them to review.

  

Wonderful Weekly Words is a product filled with different headers and activities to work with the different vocabulary words that the class will learn throughout the week.  I blogged about it yesterday during Monday Made It.  It's only $1 today.    

Hope you have a wonderful day!  

Popping In - Giveaway Over on FB

I really love summer!  My house is already cleaner than it usually is during the school year, my laundry is getting done when it should, and I've had adult conversation time with mom friends when my boys played at the park. 

I have so many "educationally fun" things I want to create this summer, that my goal is to get going on them too.  Today I uploaded 2 items over on TPT.  This first one is something I have wanted to do for a while.  I know as a buyer I love looking for bundles, and definitely something that I can use all year long.  I figure there are others out there just like me, so I bundled up 22 of the math task cards and activities that I use throughout the year... all the way from Place Value in August to Area & Perimeter in May.  It's the biggest bundle I've ever gathered up, and I'm so excited to offer it at 20% off the retail price.  Over on FB I posted the link earlier on today, and will be giving away one copy to a winner tomorrow (Thursday) night.   

In case you are interested, here's what's included:

Since I have math pretty much covered for my own school year, I wanted to start making up more ELA ones for my future students.  I made up these Parts of Speech Task Cards this morning.  Students have to identify nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions while looking at a sentence.  I have really started LOVING the colored digital papers from I'm Lovin Lit, but I understand that sometimes it's too much color to print - so this pack has 2 options... each page with a background of color, and another one that is more ink friendly.

That's it for today!  Hope you are having a magnificent afternoon.  :)