Enemy Pie, Geography, Water Cycle, and more {Must be Five for Friday!!}

Hey there!  I'm thankful for this linky because we can take the time to try to share random bits from our week and it doesn't have to all go together...which is kind of how I feel like my brain is right now...all over the place!!  ;O)

So, here we go linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching!

We read Enemy Pie this week and created our own recipe for a good friend.  We brainstormed all of the characteristics of a good friend (which was also a great time for me to do a little assessing on their vocabulary) and then each student used the brainstormed list to write a final recipe for THEIR perfect friend.  It was a great chance to reiterate our classroom rule, as well, because since we were talking about what WE want in a good friend, maybe we should remember to BE a good friend too!

  

For more activities using this book, check out our Teachers Pay Teachers Store 

Stacia made these adorable friendship pies with plates and construction paper.  Look how cute they turned out!

We started social studies this year with geography to give the background the students would need in order to know where everything took place that we are learning about.  We have specific terms that we teach.  Stacia created a graphic organizer that had definitions in it with our terms and we are pasting these in our interactive notebooks!  You can find them HERE in our TpT store.

I also have a bulletin board that we are using to add the terms to as we learn them.  They pick a word and then they show me where it is on the poster and I use a pipe cleaner to make a line to the landform or body of water on the board.

In science, we are working on the states of matter as we get ready to start the water cycle.  The new teacher to our team had a cute idea of using tissue paper to have student illustrate the states of matter...I added them to my science bulletin board...

They used the tissue paper to show what the particles look like in solids, liquids, and gases.

Some of them wadded up the tissue paper and glued it. Some of the cut the tissue in squares(ish) and then put it on the end of their pencils to glue.  They turned out pretty cute.  (I'm sorry the pictures are so blurry- not sure what happened there...)

We had curriculum night last night (I think that's the longest day of the year since it starts at 7:00 PM and we didn't go home between the school day and curriculum night).  We made a few things that we put out in the hall for the parents to get to see.

Here was my wall display.  I got the idea from my daughter's wonderful teacher.  She has done this for several years with fish because her class theme is the ocean. I used owls because that's my theme. It's like an encyclopedia entry on the student.  All of the boxes are where their name is.  At the top it says Last name, First name (noun) and then they write the sentences in third person, so when you read it on the wall it's like an encyclopedia entry.  I think they turned out pretty cute.  I got the owl for free from My Cute Graphics.

Here is Stacia's wall display for her ocean theme:

She had the kids use the jellyfish head from Krista Wallden and and then they used colored paper to write facts about themselves.  Then, they wrapped the paper around their pencil so that the tendrils were curled.  It turned out super cute! 

Last but not least, we are going to be holding a sale this weekend in our TpT Store.  I'm very excited about this sale because we have pages and pages of items on our wishlist that we can't wait to buy and start using!! Don't forget to enter the promo code when you check out!!!!  (I've done that and then you just want to kick yourself for forgetting- but I just got so excited!!!)

Love this button from Krista Wallden!

Have a fantabulous weekend!!
Amanda

What's on your wishlist for the Back to School TpT sale? 2 + 1 = A blog hop!

It's here, it's here!

As we are all prepping our classrooms, going through professional development, or in survival-beginning-of-the-school-year mode, we have been anxiously waiting to hear when our favorite and most wish-listed products will go on sale at TPT.

Well friends, I am happy to announce it is finally time!

In celebration of this momentous event, myself and a group of wonderful wonderful bloggers came together to create a fun linky to showcase our shopping carts and our favorite products.

If there's one thing we teachers love to do, it's shop for our classrooms, right?

Join us by linking up with 2 of the top wish-listed products in your store and 1 product on your wish-list you just have to purchase! *If you're not a blogger or TPTer, still feel free to comment with your most wish-listed item!

Use the graphics below if you'd like!

Two of our most wishlisted items are actually our bestsellers and are graphic organizer to use in social studies and science!  I was actually surprised that they were the most wishlisted items, and was kinda wondering if it's because they are only $2.00 since you have to have a minimum of $3.00 when checking out at TpT.  What is your opinion?  When you shop at TpT, do you still buy an item if it's only $2.00 and you don't have anything else to buy to get you up to $3.00?  Do you just wishlist it?  I'm curious how people feel about that...

Anywho, here are our top 2 wishlisted items:

The first is our Native American Printables that are a set of graphic organizers to be used while studying any tribe of Native Americans.  

The second item is also a book of graphic organizers used for teaching the water cycle.  I'm so glad people like our graphic organizers because we LOVE to make them!!  :O)

Now, I'd love to share one of the items that we have on our wishlist that we are sooooo excited about!!

Well, actually it's two items that go hand in hand and they look totally awesome!  They are from Nicole at Teaching with Blonde Ambition!

The first one is Nicole's 4th Grade Interactive Language Notebook and the second is Nicole's 4th Grade Interactive Reading Notebook!  They are both Common Core aligned and look AH-MAZING so we are super psyched to be getting these this weekend!

What's on your wishlist?  

PS- Be sure to use the promo code BTS13 to get another 8% off at our store!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland {A Math Must Read Mentor Text for Teaching Angles}

Hi there!  As you can see, we gave our mentor text linky button a makeover!  Although I loved the first button, I just felt it was time to make something a little different!  The cute spotlight comes from Melonheadz's Hollywood clipart bundle!  I thought it was just the thing to show that we are spotlighting great books!

So, on with the show linky!

Today I want to share a book that I found on Amazon recently when I was buying some other books that I HAD to have.  You know how Amazon decides to show you books that you might like?  Well, that is where I saw this book and I am so glad that Amazon is getting to know me!  ;O)

Here is the book Amazon thought I had to have!

I am sure that you have heard of these books.  I had heard of these books, but I had not seen this one.  I am very excited about it!

You can probably tell from the title that this book is about the different types of angles.  Of course, it explains about how the character, Radius, names angles acute and obtuse, which is always fun!

I love these books because sometimes I feel like in math we teach them vocabulary by just telling them "Ok, anything smaller than 90 degrees is an acute angle," and there's nothing to connect it to besides saying, "See, it's a small angle...isn't it CUTE?  That's why it's called, acute!"

Well, by reading this story, it's giving them one more connection that may help them remember which angles are acute and which are obtuse.

And, the book comes with a cute medallion looking protractor in the back!

So, I created this graphic organizer (because you know I love a good organizer!) to use while reading this book.  Once again, it's super simple!

While reading the story, we would write the definition or explanation that Radius gives for each angle.  After reading the story, we would use protractors to draw examples of each angle.  You can get this organizer for FREE by clicking on the picture.  :O)

Now, as an extension, I was thinking that this would be a great opportunity for my class to write their OWN stories explaining how THEY think that these angles got these names.  After all, this is just this author's imaginative story of where the names of the angles came from.  So, why can't my students make up their own story and why not just incorporate writing into math??

So, technically, this organizer could ALSO be used to brainstorm a fictional story of how the angles got their names.  How's that for a multi-tasking graphic organizer?  ;O)

I just love it when an idea comes together!!  

I hope you have a great week!  And those of you going back to school this week, I hope you have a great start to your year!

Amanda

Please Link Up!

Fun Back to School Lesson Ideas - Five For Friday

Happy Friday Saturday, Friends!

I hope you have a had a GREAT week! Our week has been CRAZY BUSY because it was our first week (well 3 days) of school!!!  I can't believe we are really back!  :)

I am so excited to share with you some back to school activities from our week! We are linking up with Doodle Bugs for Five For Friday.

Here we go!!!

We started off our first day back to school by reading one of my favorite books- First Day Jitters. 

The kids love this book (even in 4th grade when they have already heard it before)!!! I tried something new this year that I came up with this summer: a Jitters Jar and Jitter-Free Jellybeans. I am so happy they were a hit! I know I talked about these before in one of my summer posts, but basically the kids wrote all their jitters about the new school year on sticky notes. Then, they crumpled their jitters up and locked them away in our "Jitters Jar." Finally, they ate "Jitter-Free Jellybeans" to ensure that they would have a great, jitter-free year! I also did some other activities to go along with this book. You can view the unit here in our Teachers Pay Teachers Store. 

I gave classroom rules a bit of a twist this year. I decided that I wanted my classroom to focus around the theme of "treat others how you want to be treated." So, as I started thinking about that, I came up with a "sweet" idea: candy. I decided to play off the word "treat" and create 3 rules using candy. You can see my rules below. :)  If you like them, they are included in my Officer Buckle and Gloria Back to School pack.

Amanda made a cute anchor chart to review cafeteria expectations! We got the inspiration for the lunchbox template from Rowdy in Room 300. She has an awesome freebie- Cafeteria Expectations Craftivity. Click here to go to her store. 

We also read Scaredy Squirrel on Thursday because we had a fire drill on Friday.  You may wonder what they have to do with each other.  :O)  Well, in our Scaredy Squirrel pack in our TpT Store there is a sheet that has an exit plan on it.  We filled that out and talked about what we would do during a fire drill depending on where we were at the time.  It was a great segue and we did a few of the other activities in that pack, too!

Finally, we participated in a Back to School Blogger Exchange!

We were paired up with sweet Amy Marie from The Unique Classroom!  I know Amy Marie had a tough job because she was shopping for two people instead of one, but she did an awesome job!  Here is our gift!

Now, Amanda said that we are good at sharing.  And we are.  But this gift is going to make it hard to share.  I will let Amanda have the adorable owl bath mitt since her theme is owls (Amy Marie wrote on the tag that it could be used for a dry erase board cleaner!!  Adorable!).  But as for the rest...we are still working it out.  Amanda does also have zebra print in her room and she is obsessed with chevron right now...so there may be a little tug of war going on soon as to who gets what...but that's what happens when there is a great gift!!!  It's hard to share!  ;O)

Thank you Amy Marie!!!  And don't worry!!  We'll work it out!  I promise!!

To see more about the Back to School Blogger gift exchange hit the button above and check it out!  :O)

Have a great weekend!
:) Stacia

Monday Made It- Back to School

Hey there!  We are finally linking up with Tara for Monday Made it!!  It's definitely been a while!

We had open house/ meet the teacher day today and so we had a few things that we made that went with that!

First off, I'd like to share a treat that I gave to my students today.  The idea originated from this pin:

Click the picture to go to the original post.

I was really excited that she gave directions on how to cut everything out because I just hadn't even thought about using my Cricut, but it was perfect for this!

Here is my owl with gummy worms treat bag!  On the back (which I of course forgot to take a picture of) it has a label that I printed that says "4th grade is a hoot!  I am so glad that you are in my class!"

So, I used my Cricut to cut a scallop that was 4 inches.  Then, I used some black sticky vinyl and cut the black circles 1 inch in width.  Then, I cut the white paper circles at a 1 and 1/4 inch width.  The nose is a triangle that is 1 inch in width.

Squirrel

Two years ago when I was on maternity leave with my youngest son, I had a tendency to watch the Home Shopping Network.  This was not a good idea.  Sitting at home all day with a tiny baby apparently made me think I needed all of Rachael Ray's pots and pans and many other things.  A while back Diane from Fifth in the Middle blogged about her sticker maker.  For some reason, it sounded familiar, but I didn't really put much thought into it.  Then, I looked for one at Joann's before school got out and saw a very small one that looks like an X by Xyron.  Again, it looked familiar.  I thought I might have one.  Well, over the summer I was moving some things around on my craft table and saw a box and wondered what was in it.  I opened it.  It was a little sticker maker shaped like an X!  Score!!  Christmas in July!!!  Wohoo!!  Moral of the story- sometimes crazy maternity leave shopping sprees on the Home Shopping Network can be a very handy thing!

Back to the craft.

After two years of sitting in the box, I decided to figure out how to use this sticker maker because I thought it would be pretty handy to just peel and stick the eyes and nose of the owl.  Man.  This sticker maker is sooooo easy.  You literally just drop it into that open part at the top and pull the tape at the bottom and you have a "sticker" (there's sticky residue on the back, like a label).  Done.  So, all I had to do was peel and stick.  It made me very happy since I had to make 28 of them!

Now, I put gummy worms in the bag because last year when I made these, I thought I was being so clever because birds eat worms.  I made these cute little bags and set them out.  One of my teammates came in and said they looked cute.  She asked why worms?  I said because birds eat worms.  She said, "Owls don't.  They eat mice."  I stopped in the middle of what I was doing and was mortified.  Then, because every now and then I can be quick on my feet, I said, "Then we will pretend they are snakes since owls eat snakes, right?"  She laughed and said yes!  This year, before I made the treats she came in and asked if I was giving out gummy snakes again this year and I said yes!  She laughed and said it's a shame I can't find gummy mice.  I think I'm good with the worms/snakes.  I'm not sure why it's ok to eat gummy worms. Gummy mice sounds ewwwwww to me.  :O)  

Ok, enough about owls and gummy snakes and the Home Shopping Network...

Here is what we gave as "homework" for them to have for the first week- to fill a paper bag with up to 5 things that they want to share about themselves to us as an introduction the first week.  I have done scrapbook pages for the last few years but I didn't think they'd have enough time since they met us on Monday and then had to have this by Wednesday.  My bag is called "Owl About Me" and Stacia's is "An All About Me Crab Bag" (instead of grab bag) because her theme is ocean.  We got this idea from another teacher years ago and just changed it to match our theme.  Stacia's treat was goldfish since her theme is oceans!  The note says "Welcome to Mrs. ______'s ocean of learning!  Come swim along with us!  It will be a great year!"  (She made that up.  Just like I made up the gummy worms snakes.  I think hers was a tad more successful.)  ;O)

When we went to IKEA after the Atlanta Blogger Meet Up we bought these really cute frames with a stand for less than a dollar each.  They were perfect for leaving out on the table and giving directions to parents so that when we were caught up in conversation, they could just read the directions and get started on filling out forms.  My signs of course have owls (pic on the left) and Stacia's are ocean themed (pic on the right).

Last, but not least, I made my teammates a little gift.  I had some left over daisy tops from our Atlanta Blogger Meet Up and some left over straws.   So, I used those, went to Walmart and got some mugs with a handle (only $1.00 each!) and filled them with lifesavers.  I made a little note that says, "It's a lifesaver having you on my team!"  I know it's a little cheesy, but I had tons of leftover lifesavers from my daughter's birthday party last week and I figured, why not?

Phew!  I think I've talked your ear off!  That's what happens when I've been gone so long from blogging!  I have so much I want to tell you!  :O)

I hope you have a wonderful week!!  :O)
Amanda

The Relatives Came ~ Lesson Ideas { A Must Read Mentor Text}

Hey there!

How are you?  We are crazy busy getting ready for our first week of school.  We have meet the teacher day tomorrow and then the first day of school on Wednesday.  I do not feel at all ready.  But I know that it will all come together and be just fine...right?

I am here today to share a book that I think is so sweet and many can make a connection to.

I want to talk about The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant.  Don't  you just love Cynthia Rylant's books?  I do...  :O)

So, there are many reasons that I love this book.  I love it because I can completely relate, for one.  I live in Georgia.  All of my extended family lives in Ohio.  My parents moved down when I was only one year old, so I've never had my extended family close by.  Every year, we'd travel to Ohio to see them.  I can remember that feeling like it was yesterday, and it was so fun to go see them each year.  It's so much like this book.  It brings up so many memories and happy feelings when I read it!

It's a big possibility that our students have had similar experiences like this, too.  Even if they didn't have to travel so far, they can probably relate to seeing family after having not seen them for a long time.  Hopefully, they can drum up some of those same happy and loving memories!

The other reason I love this book is the way that Cynthia Rylant really describes the setting and how she takes the small moment of the relatives arrival and really makes it come to life!

I think one of the hardest things for students in their writing is to really describe the setting of a story.  I love how Cynthia Rylant describes it here.  You can see that on the very first page she says "They left when their grapes were nearly purple enough to pick, but not quite."

What does that mean?  It would definitely spark some conversation...luckily it tells us in the first sentence that it was summer.  But, she didn't leave it at just that...she described it by comparing it to the grapes!

Again, the way that Cynthia describes the setting provides the opportunity to discuss different ways to use your senses to build a picture in the reader's eye of the setting.  It says, "They had an old station wagon that smelled like a real car."  It makes me wonder exactly what that means?  I know what a new car smells like.  I can smell it right now...can you?  She could have just said they have a new car...but she didn't...I love that about her!

Also, it begs the question, if the narrator thinks they have a "real car," what kind of car does the narrator's family have?  So, in other words, this book isn't just a great model for writing, it also is great in reading too!

I could really go on and on here, but I will spare you.  I just really love the way that she describes the setting using senses.  And, that she takes the small moment of relatives arriving, and blows it up and makes a story out of it!!

I really think this is a great mentor text for modeling how great authors describe the setting using their senses so that their readers can visualize it and get inside the story!!  I think that students could try it in their own writing!  Especially, if they try by writing a story about a time that they traveled to visit relatives or when they came to visit them!

So, I whipped up a little graphic organizer that you can use with your students to help them use their senses to describe the setting in their own piece!

Just click on the picture and you can download it!

Clipart from Glitter Meets Glue and font by Cara Carroll

I hope this will be helpful to you!  I know it's simple, but sometimes simple is best!!

Have a great week!

Amanda

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

Next week's topic- Math