Non Fiction Resources (Tying it into CCSS)

Today I went to a training.  It was good - part 3 with the instructor.  She has been teaching us about Common Core ELA and Writing, a great resource since we have no actual CC curriculum going into full time CCSS next year.  Today she shared something that really sparked my attention and made me excited to turn on my computer and explore.  

Newsela.com

This website is brand new to me, but it's going to be a great resource.  It has articles that directly relate to how students will be expected to pick apart the text.  Each of the articles also has different Lexile levels and a quiz based on those specific levels.  Basically kids can access with their specific reading level and then have a comprehension quiz based on what they read.  There is also a way to put in a class roster, and get a report of grades for each kid.  I love that there is a search button to find numerous articles based on a topic.   It's FREE!

Like I said, right now there isn't CCSS ELA curriculum that the district is looking at - we learned that piece of information at our last staff meeting.  Right now the plan is to keep our text and switch it to being CCSS correlated.  At the last staff meeting it was shared about the Basal Alignment Project through Edmodo.  Basically there is a group to join (code: F4Q6NM) that has a folder of all aligned lessons that are free resources.  Not all my OCR stories are on there, but the group is adding more lessons every day.  They take the different texts and basically have created a CCSS lesson plan that will work those standards, giving tier 2 and 3 vocabulary, deeper comprehension questions, etc.  We're supposed to throw out the teacher's edition and use these plans instead for ELA.  

 

  I also bought this resource by Forkin4th this past fall and have used it in my ELA workshop this year.  It's great and has the nonfiction articles & comprehension.  I recently sent it off to be copied full class for next year to add more nonfiction into our days.  I was reminded about it today in the training when we were discussing the need for numerous articles about the same subjects.  Many of the homework sheets have more than one article to help with comparing/contrasting between articles.  LOVE it!

I hope these resources help you!  Linking up with Holly and Tried it Tuesday!  

5 for Friday!! Exciting News!!

Time to link up with Doodlebugs!  I am SO GLAD IT'S FRIDAY!  TGIF x100!!!

Did you see the newest Educents bundle?  It started last night and is all about Poetry.  Looking at it I was so happy to see many things I already have for my own classroom.  It's such a great deal at $10.99 (70% off) though, that I'll be buying it to get the other items too. 

    

The other day I used Ideas by Jivey's Idioms set in my classroom.  The kids have added idioms to our binders all year long (the posters are wonderful), and since it's close to progress reports I wanted to do a check in on the concept.  I used her matching sheets as a mini quiz to monitor progress.  The kids did great!  As they finished they grabbed an index card and made their own card that we added to our bulletin board.  Click any of the images above to head over to check out the bundle!

On Tuesday I shared about my Shopping Spree Pack.  Well winners have been chosen via Random Number App - turns out Crystal was a lucky winner's name!  For everyone else that was interested, I put the pack up on sale (saving $1.25) through the weekend.  

Fun moment this past Monday... The kids decorated hats for the leprechauns on Friday.  They colored a Styrofoam cup and then magic happened over the weekend.  (Shh, don't tell but the magic was me taking them home, sticking them in a 250/275 degree oven for a couple of minutes to make them shrink.)  My big kids' eyes were huge when they came in and saw them on Monday morning.
  

This week was also a BIG HUGE cookie kind of week.  I grabbed a tube of cookie dough and decided to make them at home.  It was a jumbo roll that I cut into 12 pieces.  6 made it onto the cookie sheet and I squished them with my palm before baking.  They were delicious warm with a scoop of ice cream on top.

Random photo op!  We had to get a new tire this past week - somehow the school parking lot caused a flat tire, so these buds came with me to wait.  Love my boys!!

Hope you had a great day!  

Angle Pictures

I have some wonderful artists in my classroom.  I also have some wonderful mathematicians.  Today we combined the two skills and made angle pictures.  I had to emphasize the difference between angLE vs. angEL pictures. :)

  We identified quite a bit between right, obtuse, and acute, and then passed out the scratch paper and they drew pictures.  

Whenever I take pictures I'm going to show online, I usually tell the kids that I'm taking pictures to share with other teachers - so here are some of the kids that really wanted to share their artwork with you.  

After they were done drawing, they had to count the Right Angles (R), Obtuse Angles (O), and Acute Angles (A).  That's what those codes are on their drawings.  Some kids used tallies, some used numbers.  Either way they were defining, identifying, and creating angles so we met our objective.  

Plus by letting them draw I won that Best Teacher Ever award again.  FYI - BrainPop has many videos on geometry (and electricity).  We are using the school account ALOT!  

Hope you had a great day!