Throwback Thursday: Poetry and INB Foldables

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! 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!

Poetry is such a GREAT genre to share with students during the last weeks of the school year. This post  originally appeared on The Teacher's Desk 6 on May 16 and 21, 2014..

Poetry has spread from eighth grade to fifth and sixth. While my eighth graders are delving deeply into classics such as Poe's "Annabel Lee," my younger students are having fun learning about different forms of poetry. My sixers reviewed haiku and diamonte and were introduced to cinquain. My fivers are continuing to build their INB's by adding poetry foldables. This was their favorite foldable of the week. Click on the pic if you'd like a copy to use with your students.

Speaking of poetry here are some finished projects where my kiddos created a SQUIGGLE masterpiece (from Thinking Outside of the Box: Exercising Creative Minds) then wrote either a cinquain or acrostic poem about it.

And speaking of INB's... I just began using these little gems with my kiddos this year.

Do you use Interactive Notebook Foldables with your classes? What has been your experience with them? Yea or Nay? 

Now it's your turn for a Throwback.

Tuesday Writing PaWs: The Best Teacher 5.19.15

The school year is quickly winding down. There are only 10 school days left (and a few of these are fun days with no classes)... EGADS! Just as the year is winding down, so, too, will the Tuesday Writing PaWs. This will be the last weekly topic for the year, but don't fret. The Tuesday Writing PaWs will appear the first Tuesday of each month during the summer and resume weekly once school returns in late August.

This week's PaW's a great topic for us teachers to see what our students think about GOOD Teachers. You can download the FREEBIE instruction sheet HERE.

Other PaW (Paragraph a Week) FREEBIES currently available can be downloaded below. This list is arranged in no particular manner and contains single and multi-paragraph topics.
Leprechauns
Earth Day
Mother's Day
Finish the Phrase
Nice
National Pencil Month
Favorite Valentine Memory
Bird's Eye View of Spring
Abe and George
Journey of a Snowflake
Color
A Tribute to Johnny Appleseed
School Uniforms
Chocolate Rain
Good Substitute Teacher
Favorite Relative
Allowance

The Tuesday Writing PaWs will return June 2, 2015, with the topic AROUND THE WORLD.

Throwback Thursday: Memorial Day FREEBIE

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! 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!

Memorial Day is fast approaching. Here's a great, low prep idea to sneak in some grammar practice. This post  originally appeared on The Teacher's Desk 6 on May 19, 2013.

Many of you know that my sixers love mystery pictures! Like, CRAZY love them! They think it's the best way to practice parts of speech and other drill type Language Arts skills. I've been working on some summer related mystery pictures that I'm sending home over the summer with both my fifth and sixth graders, and thought I should take time out to make at least one picture for Memorial Day. It's nothing fancy, just some patriotic bunting, practicing nouns, verbs, and adjectives. If you are interested you can download it HERE or by clicking on the graphic.

If you like this design, you might like another that I recently created. It features a soldier in battle fatigue and also has students practicing parts of speech: singular and plural nouns and present, past, and future tense verbs. It is available for purchase in my TpT Store.

Now it's your turn for a Throwback!

Tuesday Writing PaWs is Paused

Due to the storms and winds that passed through our area on Monday afternoon and night, the Tuesday Writing PaWs must take a pause for this week. I arrived home late on Monday evening to find no internet, no cable, and no phone service. I had not yet written my Tuesday blog post (normally I have the week's posts ready on Sunday; alas not this week)  and could not complete it as planned.  I figured I could quickly put a post together Tuesday before leaving for school... sigh! The electricity had gone out overnight.... Mother Nature and technology have conspired against me this week! Thank goodness for cell phone alarm clocks or I would've overslept for school. My kiddos are changing classes right now so I quickly typed this message to let you know why there is no PaW FREEBIE this week. Next week... for sure!

Mind Boggling Monday 5.11.15

My mind IS SO boggled this Monday that I have no idea what I should be boggled by! 17 Days left, but that doesn't tell the story. So many days are special days with no classes, several are finals' days with tests to administer, one is a field trip... sigh! Time out for a game of Boggle? You bet!

Simply download the image of this boggle board and project it for you and your students to use. Try it as a bell ringer or a brain break! You won't be disappointed.

background courtesy of A Perfectly Poetic Page

Not sure how to play Boggle? Click HERE for the original game rules.

Need a Boggle board that you can edit yourself? Click HERE for a free editable board.

Want a blank boggle board template for your students to use with classroom boggle? Click HERE.

How about a variety of editable boards to change with the seasons? Click HERE for a bundle of fifteen.

F4F on S

I've been non-existent of late for Doodlebugs weekly linky. I was determined to take part this week, but ALAS, once again I missed it! However, I decided to just add my blog post on Saturday. So, here you have it... Five for Friday on Saturday!

                             

This past week was Teacher Appreciation Week! There were so many wonderful things that happened to let our staff know that we are loved and appreciated! Among them three special gifts from my parents: a brand new DVD player (mine gave up the ghost two years ago and there have been no monies available to purchase one), two super large packs of colored printer paper (INB foldables, oh yeah!), and a pot of precious, miniature roses. I have the BEST parents in the world!

This past week was also our spring program. Grades four through six performed a delightful mini-musical about the Wild West. LOVED it!

Finally, this past week the librarians and 7/8th grade teachers in our county met to discuss the recent County English Festival and to select the books for the next year's festival reading list. This was the first year that I had participated in the English Festival so the selection process was new to me. So many great-sounding books were presented by the panel members. Six were selected based on the book talks given by the participants, and all six seemed to be "good". However, now that I've read two of them... Have any of you read these titles? Any thoughts? Reactions?

Throwback Thursday: Fitness Day

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! 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!

Tomorrow is our annual time to celebrate and encourage fitness and fitness habits in our students. This post about Fitness Day originally appeared on The Teacher's Desk 6 on April 30, 2013, the first year we added this day to our activity calendar.

One of the school year's most motivating events for my sixers was held yesterday. Called Fitness Day, the event is really only a portion of the afternoon. We set aside a period of time and bring together groups of classes to celebrate physical activity. Last year each class participated in a round robin of eight activities during a two hour period.



This year a former student and graduate of our school, Mr. Izzi organized and lead the day for us. Mr. Izzi recently earned his teaching degree (health and physical education K-12) and has been subbing for us. He taught the students a new game and lead them through several sets of exercises. The students were engaged, played well together, followed directions, and just had plain FUN! I was so proud of my class. Mr. Izzi and the other adults who were helping him commented how well-behaved and attentive they were... and this is the class that is in trouble more than one day a week in the lunchroom!

Wordless Wednesday: Mother's Day Gifts

Time to join Miss DeCarbo for...

Mother's Day is fast approaching and each of my kiddos has busily been preparing a special gift for her/his mom. Our art teacher collected glass jars and had my sixers select one to decorate with glass paint. Here you see their creations drying on a classroom shelf waiting to be cured in the oven.

Do you have your students make gifts for Mother's Day?

Something else fast approaching is the end of the Teacher Appreciation Sale on Teachers Pay Teachers. You only have until midnight EDT to complete your shopping and save up to 28% off of your purchase. Be sure to use the special promo code THANKYOU at checkout. Don't miss out!

Tuesday Writing PaWs: Allowance

Last week during our Tuesday Writing PaWs, Amy M. asked, "Do you have a strategy for how you work through these [prompts] in a week?"

Paragraph a Week (PaW) itself was not originally meant to be an instructional strategy as much as it was a practice strategy. PaW was intended to be independent practice of what was being directly taught during our (the developers) Language Arts classes, specifically the writing process. Writing was not something that was just over and done in one sitting; rather it required planning, doing, checking, and redoing over a period of time to allow the writer to make changes and improvements.

While we implicitly taught the steps of writing in our classes with specific prompts and lessons, we required our students to write outside the classroom following these same steps. PaW helped us meet this need.

The PaW prompt was passed out in our Language Arts classes on Monday. We read the instructions together carefully and answered student questions. While the actual assignment was not due until Thursday (some PaW teachers collected the assignment on Friday), we encouraged our students to follow a weekly ritual that helped them implement the writing process and allowed them to spend time with their writing.

Monday evening was meant as a re-reading of the prompt and a brainstorming session. Many of the prompts came with procedures to help the students pre-plan their writing via webs, flow charts, lists, etc.

Tuesday evening was meant as a rough draft and initial editing/proofreading session. Here students were required to get the input of an adult writer by asking a parent or older sibling to help them proofread.

Wednesday night was the night to polish the draft and complete the final copy to be turned in first thing Thursday morning.

The beauty of PaW is that you can tailor it to your student needs! Use it one week and not the next. Collect the assignments on Thursday one week while on Friday the next. Check the progress of your student writing by requiring them to show you each step of the process along the way. There is no right or wrong way to use Paragraph a Week... just use it!

This week's FREE PaW can be downloaded HERE.

Other PaW (Paragraph a Week) FREEBIES currently available can be downloaded below. This list is arranged in no particular manner and contains single and multi-paragraph topics.
Leprechauns
Earth Day
Mother's Day
Finish the Phrase
Nice
National Pencil Month
Favorite Valentine Memory
Bird's Eye View of Spring
Abe and George
Journey of a Snowflake
Color
A Tribute to Johnny Appleseed
School Uniforms
Chocolate Rain
Good Substitute Teacher
Favorite Relative

Topics soon to appear during the Tuesday Writing PaWs:

My Favorite Outfit

Good Teacher

Mind Boggling Monday: Celebrations 5.4.15

So what is mind-boggling this fine May Monday? For me, it has to be all the celebrations coming up: Cinco de Mayo, Mother's Day, Fitness Day, Fun Day, Awards Day, Ascension, Pentecost, Memorial Day, etc... How to keep up? One simple way to incorporate a celebration, such as Cinco de Mayo,  into your classroom is via a game...

a fun activity...

a quick printable...

... or with a quick game of Boggle. Just download and project this Cinco de Mayo themed board to use with your students for a no fuss, no prep, fun, engaging, and learning-filled holiday activity.

clip art courtesy of Educlips

Something else mind-boggling this week is TpT's terrific Teacher Appreciation sale going-on on May 5/6th. Save up to 28% on your purchases.