I get so excited during the summer when the Back to School sales start. I think it goes back to my childhood when my folks would take me to get my school supplies. We went to a store called Smitty’s and I would get to pick out a new pencil box, crayons, and a fresh […]
Making Test Prep SNOW much fun!
So, here in the desert it doesn’t snow. In fact, quite a few of my students have NEVER even seen snow. Imagine their surprise when I told them we were going to have a snowball fight in our classroom… HA! To motivate my kiddos during our last stretch of test prep, whenever we were finished […]
Dirt Pudding
Have you ever made dirt pudding? This is another fun activity to do around Earth Day, or anytime you want to have your kids practice using some functional text. We recently finished a unit on functional text. Students need practice in reading recipes and following written directions. This would be a great culminating activity and […]
Stone Soup!
This was a really fun week for me at school. My class did a little ELA unit using the story Stone Soup. I used the Reading A-Z version for the students, and then read aloud the classic Marcia Brown version. We compared and contrasted the folktales with an anchor chart: For writing, I used this […]
Accountable Talk in Close Reading (Notice and Note)
Hi friends! We are back with another installment of our summer book study of Notice and Note- Strategies for Close Reading. Today we are working on pages 27-38. (This is where it gets meaty!) It is all about implementing accountable talk strategies during close reading. Question 5- What is the role of talk? This session […]
Up, Up and Away!
Looking for a great unit for teaching flight? I just uploaded my new “Up, Up, and Away!” unit to Teachers Pay Teachers! It is chock FULL of fun, engaging activities for teaching all bout kites, hot air balloons, and other things that fly! It also has beautiful images of some of my favorite things! I have […]