Types of Sentences!

Well it's about time to start sticking in a little bit of review for state testing!  I made a list over the holiday of all of things that I think we needed to hit again in January.  One of them is types of sentences.  It seems so easy for us adults, but it is something my kids really needed to review.  I made this little packet to have some fun while we review this skill next week.  It has anchor charts, flipbooks, games, cut and pastes. and even a printable to use for an assessment.  Click on the picture to see it in my TPT store.
 

Noticings and Wonderings!

Something new for me this year is my "Noticings and Wonderings" board.  "Noticings and Wonderings" is something I learned about in my Common Core training this year.  It is very much like an exit slip to wrap up your lessons.  At the end of some of my lessons I wrap it up with "Noticings and Wonderings."  The kids grab a sticky note and write something about the lesson.  They don't have to put their names if they don't want to.  Here is a picture of my board.  It is nothing fancy, (guess that will go on my to do list)  but my kids love when we use it!

I used a dry erase board that is in the corner of my room.  I give the kids some options for their sticky each time.  They can ask me a question, tell me what we learned, or answer my question from the lesson.  I put a question directly tied to lesson that most of the kids should be able to have mastered.  This was a lesson on comparing fractions.  Here is one of the sticky notes from the board today.

I had to include this one!  It has to be one of my most favorite ones I have ever read!

It is hard to read but it says,

Can we work more on this?  Please!!!!

What more can I say......

Make each day count with your kids!

Happy Teaching!
Tracy

Chocolate Cookie Digs!

We had the BEST time in science!  I have a wonderful student teacher this semester and his lesson yesterday ROCKED!  We have been working on identifying evidence that something living had been

there before.  So he came up with a fun fossil lesson.  He filled a plastic tub with sand and chocolate chip cookies.  The kids dug into the tub to "excavate" their rock cookie. 

Once they had their cookies, the had to dig out the chocolate chip "fossils" like real archaeologists do.  They used toothpicks and slow but surely found that getting the chocolate chips out without any cookie or sand on it was harder than they thought.

The activity took about 20 minutes and was so much fun!  We warned them not to eat the cookie and rewarded them all with a new cookie to munch on after we finished.  The student that found the most fossils got an extra cookie!  If you try this make sure that you use soft cookies, not the hard ones. 

All in all it was a great lesson and the kids LOVED IT!

Happy Teaching!
Tracy

Writing, Writing, and MORE Writing!

Well a big focus for my class is working on our writing this month.  I really like to do "think alouds" before they write.  This gives me a chance to read/create my own writing before they try.  When they write I see little traces of the things I did in mine, so I know that it is sticking with them.  The other day I typed my story out ahead of time and projected it on my screen.  We read through it together and when they wrote it seemed like their topic and closing sentences mirrored mine.  While I had hoped they would use their own thoughts, at least they transferred what I said into their work.

We have also been working on citing evidence in our writing.  We have been using this anchor chart to give us some stems to get started. After I made this, I noticed that it says on page ----- twice....  thank goodness for scissors!  We have written our thoughts and responses to our text using these stems....  after just three days I am really seeing improvement.  This is a great addition to your classroom!

Yes....  we are writing, writing, writing to become wonderful!

Here is a bundle of three different packets that I created to teach:

W.2.1, W.2.2, W.2.3
W.3.1, W.3.2., W.3.3

It has everything you need from flipbooks, anchor charts, writing tasks, a transitional word wall and even fancy paper to publish your writing on.  Here are some of my favorite activities from this bundle.  This helped me kids truly become better writers in a just a few lessons.  Click on the pictures to go to my TPT store.  This bundle is currently on sale!