I LOVE PINTEREST! Favorite Pins Friday

Happy Friday, y'all!

I am here to link up with Cara from The First Grade Parade for her Favorite Pins Friday!

There are sooooooooo many awesome pins linked up on her blog so make sure to check them out! :)

Okay here are a few I LOVE:

1. I am TRYING to organize my bathroom and I saw this great idea to hang baskets. I have a tiny bathroom so this idea may just be PERFECT!

So Cute!

2. I absolutely adore this idea for starting out our math journals and I can't wait to use it this year! SO CLEVER!!! (The link only took me to a larger photo so I am not sure where this is from :( ....sorry)

3. Edible Bookworms! Hehe! :)   I love incorporating a little candy into our day...

Definitely using this next year! Yum!

4. This anchor chart is AMAZING! It visually shows kids (and teachers) what the Common Core means by digging deep. So Smart!!!

Love this

Have a wonderful weekend! See you Sunday for our Must Read Mentor Texts Linky focusing on Math!

-Stacia  :)

Tried It Tuesday with Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars and a Freebie!

Hey Friends!

Hope your week is going well! I am here to link up with my friend Holly at Fourth Grade Flipper for her Tried It Tuesday linky! 

I have 2 "Tried Its" to share today. 

1. Yesterday was my mother-in-law's birthday so I decided to make a special dessert. I didn't have a lot of time so I needed something quick, easy, and super YUMMY! I found the perfect recipe: Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars! They turned out GREAT! Yayyyyyy!

Here is the link to the recipe

2. I am keeping my ocean classroom theme next year (which is a big deal for me because I tend to change themes every year!!! crazy I know...) so I have been creating some new decor. I made a banner to post on my door for the first day of school and Open House. I am really excited about it because I used Krista Wallden's Ocean Set and it is ADORABLE! :)  I loooooove her clipart! 

If you would like it, click here to download it from our TPT store for FREE! 

Have a wonderful evening,

Stacia  :)

Scaredy Squirrel - Must Read Mentor Text - Back to School

Hi!!

Today we are all about sharing must read mentor texts for language arts...and I'm going to slightly cheat.

I know Stacia shared back to school books last Sunday, but I have one that I want to share, and it does have to do with language arts, so maybe I'm kinda killing two birds with one stone???

Anywho, you've probably heard of this book:

Here is the synopsis from Amazon:  "Scaredy Squirrel never leaves his nut tree. It's way too dangerous out there. He could encounter tarantulas, green Martians or killer bees. But in his tree, every day is the same and if danger comes along, he's well-prepared. Scaredy Squirrel's emergency kit includes antibacterial soap, Band-Aids and a parachute.Day after day he watches and waits, and waits and watches, until one day ... his worst nightmare comes true! Scaredy suddenly finds himself out of his tree, where germs, poison ivy and sharks lurk. But as Scaredy Squirrel leaps into the unknown, he discovers something really uplifting ..."

I love this book for many reasons.  

#1- It has great vocabulary.

#2- It has great illustrations.

#3- It is about fear of the unknown and overcoming (mostly) your fear.

#4- It's just adorable!

This is a great book, regardless, but I like to use it at the beginning of the year because the first few days of school can be scary for kids.  (What am I saying?  It can be scary for teachers, too!)

Our classroom is unknown.  We are unknown to the kids.  This is a great book to just get it all out in the open at the beginning of the year and talk about fears they may have.

This is mainly how we use the book...but there is so much more you could do with the book...so...I made a unit to go with it...  :O)

So, how will I incorporate this into Language Arts?

Well, since I'll use this at the beginning of the year, we'll talk about literary elements.  We will also work on vocabulary (this will be a great time to observe how they attack words they don't know).

There are also several writing ideas (narrative and persuasive) to go along with the book.  Another opportunity to observe them at the beginning of the year!

I also included some skill pages for cause and effect and fact and opinion.  It's never too early to review!

And, since there is a schedule in the book, I threw in some elapsed time, just for kicks!  ;O)

In the book, Scaredy Squirrel has an emergency kit and an exit plan.  This would be a great time to go over procedures for a fire drill (or any other drills you may have).  It never fails that this is one thing I don't think of until right before we have our first fire drill, so this way, I may go over it ahead of time.  They can also take home a blank sheet and come up with a plan with their family in case of an emergency!

There are several more books in the series that are just as cute!

There is also an adorable website to go with these books!  http://scaredysquirrel.com/.  It has bunches of games and activities!

Aaaaand, Cartoon Network has a tv show about Scaredy Squirrel.  It looks like you can watch some of them online, but some are just clips.  It would be fun to compare and contrast the book with the tv show!

If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it!

And, as you are reading this, we are on our way to the beach (hopefully!!)!  It will be the first time my littlest gets to go so we are super excited to see how he reacts.  I apologize in advance for pictures that are to come!  I may be later in responding to everyone's link up, but I'm excited to see what you link up and we really appreciate everyone who does link up each week!

Have a great week!!

Amanda

PS- this Scaredy Squirrel pack is on sale today since our July 4th sale goes through today!  :O)

Now, it's your turn!

(If you have never linked up before you can check HERE for more information.)

For the Linky- Please make yourself a SANDWICH!  Please comment on the person who linked up before you and the person that linked up after you.  I know everyone puts in a lot of time and effort to these posts and I want everyone to feel the love!!!  (Haha, see, you're a sandwich...you know...because you are in the middle of the comments...do you get it?)  ;O)

Next week's topic- Math

Summer Planning Giveaway- A Scavenger Hunt- Everyone Wins! {Stop D-10}

Hi there!

We are very excited to be stop on a Scavenger Hunt Giveaway where EVERYONE wins!  We are just one stop to the scavenger hunt!  If you want to learn how to be a part of this scavenger hunt, head over to I'm Lovin' Lit to get all of the details and begin the hunt!  (It will make more sense, I promise!)

For our part of the hunt, please follow our blog through bloglovin (click the link below):

And/or, follow us on Facebook:

Here is what we have donated to the giveaway!

It's a pack of Bubble Gum inspired digital papers.  There are 45 different papers in this set in the colors you see above.  I only have the pink showing here in this preview.  You can use this for your TpT products or scrapbooking!

Good luck on your hunt!  Thanks for stopping in!

Favorite Pins Friday!

Hey y'all!

I just wanted to jump in on the fun with Cara at The First Grade Parade and share some of my pins from this week for

First off, this one goes with my post on Wednesday about all of the composition notebooks that we use for every kind of journal you can think of!  This is such a simple way for kids to find them quick.

I think I will go with some fun duct tape (mustaches, etc) over the colors...but that may make it confusing?  What do you think?  Fun duct tape or plain colors?

I like the idea of using dollar store facial cleansers for individual dry erase board erasers.  I can't find the original post for this one!!   :O(

I really like this idea!  The blue post its are character traits and the pink is text evidence that supports the students' thinking for that trait!  I love it!

I think this might work nicely in the classroom, don't you?  What a discussion starter...and great reminder!

And, on a personal note, I'm working on setting up my daughter's 9th birthday.  It's going to be a "spa" party.  Here are two of my favorite pins:

Again, I couldn't find the source, but the description said that it's colored marshmallows with tootsie rolls!  Aren't they cute?  They look just like nail polish bottles!!

Maybe something like this for a party favor?  I can't find the direct link to this blog because it's invitation only but it looks like it's from Life in the Thrifty Lane.

So, here are my favorite pins from the week!  Be sure to click the button at the top of the page to find more great pins!  And if you want to follow us on Pinterest, you can go to the top of our sidebar (on the right) and click the P buttons for both of us!

Have a great weekend!
Amanda

Setting up Workshops for Reading, Writing, and Math {Workshop Wednesday}

Today I am here to talk about some tools for setting up your workshops for the year!

First off, we do everything in journals/notebooks!

Reading journals.

Writing journals.

Math notebooks.

Word study journals.

Grammar notebooks.

You get the picture... :O)

So, we HAVE to have these to start the year!

We basically paste everything into these and do all of our writing and notes in them, so these are a must have!  I think our grade level asked for students to bring in 7 of these on the school supply list for the year because we use them in science and social studies too!

I also label all of their notebooks by typing their names and the subject it's used for and we just stick them on and are good to go.  It takes a little time on the front end, but it is still a time saver on the day all of the supplies come in!

We also use very large rubber bands to stick in the middle of the notebook (around the spine) so separate the front and the back of the notebooks, especially for reading and writing.  In reading, the front is used for lessons and notes.  The back is used for response to their reading, either independent or guided reading group response.  For writing, the front is used for lessons and notes and the back is used for their actual writing.  The middle is pretty easy to find because of the stitched binding, but it helps in the beginning to put the band there until they get used to it.

Hopefully you can visualize it because I don't have one here to take a picture of as an example.  :O(

I also use a good bit of chart paper so we can make our anchor charts when we start our workshops!

Ok, once the notebooks are set up, we can get started!

Reading Workshop

I use Fountas and Pinnell's Guiding Readers and Writers to set up reading and writing workshop.  We do the first 20 days of setting up reading workshop.  I do condense a lot of it since our school uses the workshop model and they've done this each year, so by 4th, we can move a little faster.

We make a lot of anchor charts so that we can pick "Just Right Books" and I have posters that I've made that I put up near our classroom library so students can remember this when they are picking books!

I also have the genre posters up by our library by Beth Newingham but I can't find a link that will get you to the free posters.  :O(  I'm not sure what's going on with that but if her site comes back up I will add the link.

We spend a lot of time talking about books, brainstorming things we like that we could read about, exploring different genres, etc.  Then we start practicing independent reading.  I have pillows in my room and we practice getting comfortable and using the pillows.  We start working on our reading endurance and we go over how to use the classroom library.  I have my books leveled and that is how they are in bins.  At this point, I'm doing running records so they are picking books that they like more so than based on their level.

This is also a great resource for setting up reader's notebooks and mini-lessons that you can do.

Writing Workshop

I use Fountas and Pinnell's book for writing workshop as well, but we spend a lot of time using mentor texts (surprise surprise) to set up our writer's notebooks.  Here are some of my favorites from the beginning of the year!

And these barely scratch the surface of books...books are such a great way to teach author's craft and as examples of how to be a good writer...I could go on and on...but I won't...

A few more resources I use for writer's workshop are:

Math Workshop

I don't have too many teacher resources for setting up math workshop.  I just think it's important to teach your students what they should be doing while you are pulling small groups during math.  I usually have students doing games that can be easily done independently while I am pulling small groups.  

I start out by teaching them some really simple games that only require skills they've already mastered before coming to 4th grade.  This way, they are successful and they aren't jumping up and coming to me for help while I have a group.  We shared some of the games in a previous post.

This is the first game that I teach because it's fun and it only requires addition and subtraction.  This is always a favorite among my classes and they ask if they can play it all year long!

Van De Walle has some great books that you can look through based on the skill and find activities that you can do in small group that really helps students understand that skills.  It really takes the kids from concrete to abstract AND can help teachers understand how to teach the skills as well!  :O)

This is really just the tip of the iceberg!  I will go more in depth as we start all of this in the upcoming year and I can share actual photos!  Hopefully you found something useful here today!  :O)

Amanda

Make sure to go to my good friend Jivey's blog to find more ideas for tools for starting workshops! Click the button below!

Also, we are having a sale starting tomorrow and through the weekend in celebration of July 4th!  Click the button to head over to our store!  :O)