Five for Friday 1.30.15

It's Friday, so you know what that means...

This was the message  I found waiting for me this morning on my cellphone. WOOT! WOOT!
I promptly went back to sleep... hibernating.

We FINALLY finshed our penguin writing project... SOOOO cute! The idea is from Runde's Room and includes multiple types of paragraph writing.

My fuzz girls have been quite active this week.
Actually Lulie (on the floor) has been bedeviling her sissy, Daisymae a LOT! Daisy has taken to finding new hiding places, the latest being on the piano. LOL!

This week we celebrated Catholic Schools Week and had LOADS of fun activities. So why the empty hallway shot? Have you ever been THE ONLY person on your floor when there should've been tons of kids around? EERIE! On Wednesday the entire student body K-12 went to Skyzone while I stayed behind to work on pacing guides for CCSS.
Yea, me!

In just two days it will only be seven days until the return of my fav show! Can't wait! Nor can many of my sixers and their parents. We suffer from...

Come back in two days for the Sunday Scoop! I'm hosting a little ZOMBIE ZANIA giveaway to tide us zombie fans over until Feb. 8th. Meanwhile be sure to stop by Doodle Bugs for Teaching to check out more Five for Friday posts.

Throwback Thursday: Groundhog Day

Welcome to...

What is Throwback Thursday? How does it work, you might ask? Simply look through your PURR-fect Previous Posts, perhaps a particular favorite of yours, and re-post it! Then add the TBT badge to your post and include your link below! Purr-fectly easy and simple! Your post doesn't have to be from LOOOONNNGGG ago; it can be from last month or even earlier this week. And if you don't have a post to share, perhaps an old photo or two from WAY BACK will do! Even a favorite pin is PURR-fect! Just join in the Throwback fun!

This post first appeared on The Teacher's Desk 6 on Jan. 29, 2014 Introducing a brand new teaching tool just in time for the upcoming fun holiday: Groundhog Day.

What's Happenin' Wednesday? Not a whole lot... YET! We were still out of school today due to the frigid temps, but it looks like we MIGHT make it back for Thursday and Friday! MIGHT because a new, unexpected, wind chill advisory has JUST been issued for tonight into tomorrow morning... sigh! The air temp. is ONLY supposed to reach a low of zero and the wind chills are ONLY going to be -15 degrees... nothing compared to the past two days! That's why I say we MIGHT be back in school on Thursday.

I've kept busy these last four school days off, plus two weekend days, doing a whole host of things from practicing piano to doing dishes and everything in between. I've even had great fun creating some new products to add to my TpT Store. One that I have had great fun making is a SCOOT/SCATTER game for Groundhog Day.

I designed this for my fifth and sixth graders to use whenever we get back to the classroom. It'll be a fun way to get them thinking Language Arts again. There are various skills highlighted on the task cards: synonyms/antonyms, recognizing parts of speech, captilization/punctuation.

As they move about the room my students can simply write their responses on a sheet of loose leaf paper; however, it's much more fun to have a cute recording sheet to work on. 

I can even use these cards in a literacy center. I've included an answer key so that my students can check their own work, making the cards perfect for independent work.

With just the task cards, my students can "play" SCOOT. However, I included special answer cards so we could also opt to "play" SCATTER. 

I can select specific task cards to hand to half of my class and the matching answer cards to the other half. The kiddos must SCATTER about finding the classmate that has the match to their card.

I have a small group of students in both grades that work with intervention tutors and often leave the room, missing out on Scoot and Scatter. For them, I created this gameboard.

I'll send the gameboard and a second set of cards and answer key with them to their tutor. They can review the same material in the small group setting while still having some fun! The tutor will enjoy this also.

If you would like this fun product for use in your own classroom it is available for download HERE or by clicking on any of the graphics above.

Come on out of your burrow; it's time for your own THROWBACK!

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Wordless Wednesday 1.28.15

Time to join Miss DeCarbo for...

What are you currently studying in science?

Something as simple as a clear balloon and a coin helped my sixers understand a complex scientific concept.

Be sure to stop by Teachers are Terrific to see more fun classroom science activities!

Tuesday Writing PaWs 1.27.15

Last week my sixers were studying the 6+1 Traits of Writing. We had worked with them last year, but we really hadn't looked at them too closely this year. With this new grading period we are turning our language focus to writing in a more intense way. We started with a PowerPoint Presentation.

As we worked our way through the presentation, we kept notes on an INB foldable that I created using the clip art from Edu-clips.

Like this foldable? Click HERE for your own copy.

We are using our renewed knowledge of the Six+1 Traits to help us revise, rewrite, and publish a set of expository/narrative paragraphs for a great winter project from Runde's Room that features penguin shaped paper. These will be completed this coming week.

During last week's Tuesday Writing PaWs I talked about the original Paragraph a Week program that the 5-6gradeconnection teacher group developed via email almost twenty years ago. We originally used a set of five characteristics of good writing to assess our students' work. Here is what the original evaluation form actually looked like.

As time progressed and the Six Traits assessment tool was developed (the +1 trait of presentation was added later), I began using these traits to help my students hone their writing skills. The PaWs weekly topic/instruction sheets reflected the focus traits each week. You can see this feature of the program by looking at the REMEMBER section in this free PaW that you can download HERE. All six traits were introduced, practiced, and reinforced throughout the Paragraph a Week program.

Other PAW FREEBIES currently available can be downloaded below.

St. Patrick's Day

Leprechauns

Earth Day

Mother's Day

Finish the Phrase

Topics soon to appear during the Tuesday Writing PaWs:

Parent Introductory Letter

Journey of a Snowflake

Valentine Memory




I'm adding this post to Teach Junkie's Creative Teaching Ideas linky. Hop on over to Leslie's blog for more fun teaching ideas.

Mind-Boggling Monday 1.26.15

Monday always seems to be a challenging day for me, a real mind-boggler! I think it's the lack of routine over the weekend along with the later hours that I keep. I don't think that I'm alone in my feeling as many of my sixers drag in on Monday mornings, quieter and less energetic than usual. They always ask to have subdued lighting (only one set turned on) for a mellow morning start.

Boggle is a quiet activity that seems to warm-up and rev-up my sixers slow moving Monday engines. We spend about ten minutes searching for words independently and another ten sharing the words that we've found. Boggle is truly a terrific game for classroom use. Besides the fun involved, it does boost word skills. Have you tried it with your students yet?

Here's this week's free board for you to download and try with your students. Just click and save the image to your computer and project it for your students to see. If you're unfamiliar with the game, check out the original rules from the creator of the game HERE.

If you like playing Boggle with your students but would like to select your own letters, please check out this set of editable Boggle Boards with background themes suitable throughout the school year. Included are 15 boards that are "user friendly" in that they contain no specific holiday clip art only colors and textures suitable for various seasons and holidays. There's even a blank board that you can program both background and letters. You can read more about the packet HERE or by clicking on the pic. I'll be adding more boards to the packet as time goes on. The price will increase with each set of additions, so be sure to grab the set now and you'll be able to download the additions at no extra charge.

Throwback Thursday, Snowy Fun!

Welcome to...

What is Throwback Thursday? How does it work, you might ask? Simply look through your PURR-fect Previous Posts, perhaps a particular favorite of yours, and re-post it! Then add the TBT badge to your post and include your link below! Purr-fectly easy and simple! Your post doesn't have to be from LOOOONNNGGG ago; it can be from last month or even earlier this week. And if you don't have a post to share, perhaps an old photo or two from WAY BACK will do! Even a favorite pin is PURR-fect! Just join in the Throwback fun!

This Throwback Thursday post first appeared on The Teacher's Desk 6 in two segments, one on January 18, 2014, and the other on January 31, 2014. The long cold, snowy winter (can you say 8 snow days in January alone?) was influencing our classroom activities.


Like many of you I've been using some fun snow themed books in my Language Arts classes to teach skills and develop lessons. One of the books that I used with my fifth graders recently was "The Snow Globe Family" by Jane O'Connor, a cute story about two families who live a parallel life, one outside the snow globe and one inside.

As part of the lesson I had my fifth graders complete these four foldables for their notebook. I introduced the term "synopsis" as they continued working with "theme" which I introduced in December. After coloring the flaps and gluing them in order in their notebooks, they responded to the topic on the flap by PQA'ing... putting the question in their answers, writing in complete sentences, and citing something from the text to support their answer. Perhaps you might like to use these for your interactive notebooks as you read some snow stories. Just click HERE or on the pic for your copy.

My fifth graders and I completed our snow globe projects/stories that we started last week. There were interruptions to our schedule because of several SNOW DAYS. I just LOVE how these turned out. Their snow globes are adorable, and their first person narratives are wonderful! They worked so hard on their writing, and they followed directions so well. I am VERY proud of them!!!

 

This is SNOW joke! Now it's your turn for a Throwback!

An InLinkz Link-up