Winner Wednesday

The first Wednesday of every month is set aside for WINNER WEDNESDAY!

Are you ready to WIN a brand new ENGAGING and USEFUL product?

Just fill out the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post. If your name is selected as the winner, you will receive....

Raise your hand if you have heard of anchor charts? It seems everywhere that you turn in the education world there is a picture of, an article about, or teacher testimonial regarding this oft discussed instructional aid. They are wonderful! I have used them (just called them teaching charts) for nearly all 37 years of teaching. I have a HUGE collection of pins of anchor charts. You're welcome to peruse and repin from my awesome board!

The problem with anchor charts, at least for my students and me, is that my kiddos just don't stay in one classroom. We are departmentalized in grs. 5+. Since I teach the language arts skills, much of my content is that which our students need to carry over into all their subjects: writing process, writing traits, conventions of writing, etc. It is not practical to send anchor charts from room to room with the students nor to duplicate them to hang in multiple rooms. The content area teachers have enough charts of their own let alone displaying mine as well.

What is practical, however, is giving each student a mini-anchor chart to take with him/her! The photos below show you what these mini-charts are like and how to assemble them. Minimal supplies are needed, students can assemble them themselves with a little instruction and guidance. All you as teacher need to do is select the chart to use and print enough copies. Students supply a pencil, glue, scissors, and tape (optional). You can read more about these fun instructional aids and see a listing of all the mini-charts available HERE. There is even a customizable chart included so you can create your own!

So, are you intrigued by these little gems? Would you like a set of your own? Just enter the Rafflecopter before midnight tonight, Aug. 3, 2016, and you could own your own mini-anchor charts to use with your intermediate/middle grades students. I will send the winner their packet of mini anchor charts early on Thursday.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to hop on over to A Dab of Glue Will Do You or Sara J Creations to read more Winner Wednesday posts and enter to win more WINNING teaching products!

Very First Writing Wednesday

I am very excited to be joining Lit with Lyns for her very first ever Writing Wednesday linky party! Writing is something that is near and dear to my heart in my ELA classrooms. Perhaps it's because although I was a very good writer throughout my own schooling, I was frustrated because I did not know what made me a good writer. I was never taught to write just directed to write and then graded on it. Thank goodness I was an avid reader, an enjoyable pastime that unknowingly gave me a writing foundation.

Because of my frustration, I am careful to TEACH my students HOW TO write, providing explicit instruction, repeated practice and support, and practical applications. With middle school students there is a shift to more nonfiction/technical writing than in previous years. Much of it is focused on extended response and providing text evidence.

PQA is the first writing lesson that I cover with my incoming fifth grade Language Arts students and review with my returning sixth and seventh grade students. PQA or Put the Question in the Answer is an acronym to help my students remember how to phrase answers to questions. I am very particular with student responses at this level. It is no longer sufficient to just give an answer that is only a few words. I expect them to be able to elaborate, cite text evidence, and write in standard English for nearly every answer. PQA is the first step in helping them achieve this expectation.

All of my classes utilize an interactive notebook for Language Arts. The very first foldable to be inserted is for PQA. An anchor chart is displayed on the board and mini charts sit on the tables to saturate my students with this important strategy. You can read more about this in a previous post and download a PQA notebook foldable for use in your own classroom. Here's a sneak peak at this year's anchor chart displayed in my new "Scrabble" theme. This will appear on all the tables in my classroom displayed in small stand-up frames that I purchased from IKEA (see previous blog post linked above).

After instruction, and loads of practice, my students generally remember to address their responses in this manner, at least while they are with me. However, my students see many teachers throughout the day, and for whatever reason, when they leave my class to go to another (Social Studies, Math, Science, etc.) they often "forget" to implement strategies taught in my class in another. Grrr! You have probably felt this pain a time or two yourself. I don't necessarily want to impose on the content area teachers to "reteach" my lessons nor to display my anchor charts for student reminders, but I do want my kiddos to carry this skill over into everything that they do. So, I came up with a solution: pencil topper mini-anchor charts. My students can carry these friendly reminders with them to other classrooms and hopefully be reminded to PQA away from me.

I created these toppers for many of the major skills and strategies that I teach in my Language Arts classes. The complete file will soon be available in my TpT Store, but until then I'm sharing the PQA topper as a forever freebie for you.

Here is what the PQA pencil topper looks like.

How does it work?

Simple and effective (I have used pencil toppers previously for various skills), just the way I like it, and I hope you do as well! Something else that I hope you like is this a-MAZE-ing little worksheet that I just created. I recently stumbled upon Hidesy's Clipart on TpT and discovered some wonderful maze graphics. I added some cute images from Educlips and a few text boxes to come up with a PQA practice sheet that doubles as an interest inventory. I'm planning on using this during the first few days of the new school year with my sixers.

To download a freebie INB foldable for PQA, click HERE.

To download the freebie PQA pencil topper, click HERE.
To download the freebie PQA practice sheet, click HERE.

To read more Writing Wednesday posts, click HERE.

Top 5 in 2014

I think it's safe for me to say that 2014 has been a productive year in my blogging adventure. This post will be the 196th and last post for this calendar year, an increase over last year's total which was one of my blogging resolutions I made last January. Here are my top 5 posts (minus giveaways and sales notices). Just click on the pic of each post to read more about it.

Which of my top five is your favorite?

Hop on over to Ideas by Jivey to catch up on more Top 5 Posts by Teacher Bloggers.

Anchors Away! Starting Point

The leisurely pace of summer is drawing quickly to a close. I only have three days of summer left before I HAVE to go to work. This Thursday I report for an official faculty meeting... sigh!

I've already begun 'working' in that I've begun to seriously plan my introductory lessons and materials. One of the first lessons that I do with seventh grade Language Arts students is that of recognizing and writing compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences. I've already worked with this group of students for two years so I know they have the background skills (independent vs. dependent clauses) to prepare them. I'm planning on creating an anchor chart to serve both as a memory guide and an introduction to the types of sentences so I'm joining Deb's linky at Crafting Connections this week.

I found a great post about anchor charts over at Minds in Bloom. The post details a best practice for creating anchor charts. Boy, did I need to see this! I especially like the description for how to place information on the chart. There is even a sample template provided.

I'm not very artistic and don't always have a good sense of how I should design a chart. This template is a terrific starting point, breaking down the key areas of the chart and what information to include in each. I believe that if I follow a similar pattern on each chart that I create this year, my students may find my charts easier to read and use. Thanks, Minds in Bloom, for a great starting point; I'm actually looking forward to starting this one!

Be sure to stop by Crafting Connections for more blog posts about anchor charts.

Monday Made It: IKEA Frames

I've surprised myself and have another Made It for this Monday so it's time to link up with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics for...

This week's Made It stems from one I made a few weeks ago. That was then...

Gold spray painted IKEA mini-frame for our 

GOLDEN NUGGETS of KNOWLEDGE anchor charts

and table signs

This is now... IKEA frames + spray paint in my new classroom colors = 

Please note the broken chair in the background.
That is hopefully another Made It in the making, perhaps for next week!

... these colorful frames which will be used to display my anchor charts once I've miniaturized them... what a space saver... and CUTE, too! Here's the finished product being inspected by one of my fur babies, Lulie.

Now all they need are the anchor charts. Those will be coming shortly, once school begins. Until then feel free to browse my anchor chart pin board; it's growing day-by-day.


Follow Angela's board Anchor Charts on Pinterest.

For more terrific anchor chart ideas, be sure to stop by Crafting Connections where my sweet, bloggy friend Deb hosts the linky...

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

This is going to be a JAM packed post today: several linkies, a giveaway reminder, and a party invitation all JAMMED into one. Sit back, hold on tight, and let's get JAMMIN'!

First up is The Teaching Tribune's summer linky Monday Meet-up. They announced today that this is the last Monday Meet-up for the summer. You know what that means? Shhh! We'll not say those words aloud yet!

Next up is the weekly Anchors Away linky hosted by Deb from Crafting Connections.

If you have been following my blog or Deb's linky then you'll know the value of anchor charts, in all shapes and sizes, traditional and non. I'm always on the lookout for great anchor chart ideas. I FOUND AN AWESOME ANCHOR CHART over at Just a Primary Girl that I just HAVE to share with you!

I have used the annotation strategy for initial reads of all text genre for eons; however, with the emphasis on close reading as proscribed in the CCSS, I knew it was time to formalize and expand the strategy in my classes. My first inclination was to create bookmarks with an annotation code; however, knowing my students as I do... unh-uh! Those bookmarks wouldn't last a week! Then, I came upon this anchor chart and knew I HAD to do something like this. LOVE it! Gonna use it! Can't wait! Read more about this chart and how to develop it with your students HERE.


The last linky I'm joining this week is 4th Grade Frolics' Monday Made It.

Last Friday I mentioned that my family was joining me for Independence Day dinner and they had requested Auntie's famous chili. I had gathered all my ingredients and was poised to begin, but... I had NEVER made chili for so many people... 10 in all, and of these ten only three of us are under six feet tall, and four are taller than six feet six inches... I'm hinting that these folks are BIG eaters. I wasn't sure how much of everything to use.

I am not a cook who measures or follows a recipe, I just dump and stir things in. I knew I had to use a BIG pot to make enough chili to feed everyone so I borrowed my niece's 21 qt. stockpot. Here's what I ended up using to make my chili:

• FIVE pounds of meat... three pounds of ground beef and two pounds of hot sausage (normally just two pounds total)
• Four cans of diced tomatoes (normally one)
• Two large cans of sauce, five small cans of sauce (normally one large can)
• Six cans of beans: chili, dark kidney, light kidney, white kidney, black, chick pea (normally three)
• Two cans of whole kernel corn (normally one)
• 12 cloves garlic (normally two or three)
• Two large onions (normally one)
• 2/3 jar chili powder (normally a few tablespoons)
• pitcher of water (normally a can or two to rinse the sauce)
• salt and pepper to taste

When all was said and done, I ended up making about 18 quarts of yummy, spicy chili.

By the end of the evening there wasn't a drop of chili left! I can NOT believe my family plowed through all that chili, and I was looking forward to leftovers on Saturday. LOL!

On to things other than linkies. How 'bout a giveaway? There's still one more day left to win your choice of a Teacher T-Shirt. Hop over to this blog post and enter to win! There's no obligation or cost so give it a whirl! You won't be disappointed if you win. The t-shirt is a great product! I am LOVIN' mine.

Finally...  And I'm REALLY excited about this... You've heard me talk about Jamberry nail wraps, how I'm enjoying them, how cute they are, how easy they are to use...

I'm throwing an online, in real time, Jamberry party via Facebook and you ALL are invited.

You do not need to be a member of Facebook nor do you need to be my "friend" to attend this party. All you need is to visit this LINK and click the join/going button. The only requirement is that you register for the party before it begins so that you reserve your space. Once nine o'clock EST on July 17, 2014, rolls around no one will be able to join unless you have reserved your place. There will be games and prizes while we learn more about Jamberry wraps, hear about some special offers, and make some new Jammin' friends! There is no obligation to purchase anything. Since this is an open party, please feel free to invite your friends to attend as well. Just send them the party link so they may register.

The party consultant who will conduct the party is WONDERFUL! I've been to one of Bev's parties and had a great time learning about these fun fashion wraps. I'll be sure to post several reminders between now and the party date; however, I encourage you to reserve your spot right away. As soon as reservations start to roll in, Bev will begin posting information on the page that you won't want to miss.

Just click this link,

 https://www.facebook.com/events/1537142123180257, 

to reserve your space. 

Can't wait to Jam with you on July 17, 2014.

Monday Made It and Anchors Away PQA FREEBIE

Today's blog post is a two-fer! I made something this week that is an "anchor" chart so I am linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It (my first one in eons) and also with my sweet, bloggy friend Deb from Crafting Connections for Anchors Away.

I finally, finally had the time and the gumption to make something this week. I had piddled around with a few TpT products since summer break began, but I hadn't really made something, like a REAL something, something concrete, something you can hold in your hand. So, what did I finally end up making?

A few weeks ago I blogged about not having the storage space to keep all the anchor charts that my students and I generate throughout a school year. I end up throwing them all out when I really should be using them with my kiddos. That's what an anchor chart is intended for. I also blogged about some possible solutions for the upcoming school year. You can read the detailed post HERE, and then as part of the solution I discussed some cute Tolsby photo frames from IKEA HERE. This all came together as part of my PQA lesson.

PQA is the first lesson that I cover with my incoming fifth grade Language Arts students and review with my returning sixth and seventh grade students. PQA or Put the Question in the Answer is an acronym to help my students remember how to phrase answers to questions. I am very particular with student responses at this level. It is no longer sufficient to just give an answer that is only a few words. I expect them to be able to elaborate, cite text evidence, and write in standard English for nearly every answer. PQA is the first step in helping them achieve this expectation.

Here is the permanent PQA anchor chart. I say permanent because I will actually develop this concept step-by-step on a chart paper with my students, giving them plenty of examples along the way. This decorative, smaller chart will replace that large sheet of paper. This smaller chart marks the unveiling of my new color/pattern scheme; I'm toning it down a bit, but still keeping it colorful.

Because this is such an important skill that I want my students to internalize I am placing a mini-anchor chart on each table. I miniaturized the above chart to fit in the Tolsby frame (4" x 6"). In the front of the frame is the anchor chart while in the back is the table number. The frame is golden because these are golden nuggets of knowledge... items my students MUST know. Only THE MOST IMPORTANT information will be displayed in these golden frames on the student tables. I've other frames that will be spray painted in accent colors (another Monday Made It for the future) and used for additional miniature anchor charts along the window ledges.

These charts are just a part of my PQA lesson. I spend several days developing and practicing the skill together with the students before I expect them to produce it independently. This year we will be continuing with Interactive Notebooks for Language Arts so I also made a foldable to accompany the lesson. This will serve as  yet another resource for my students.

This is what the student INB page looks like.

I will more than likely print them on colored paper.

The two flaps are meant to be layered.

Under both flaps will be written and highlighted an example to illustrate the concept, creating a great reference for PQA.

If you'd like a copy of the foldable and anchor chart, you can download it HERE.

Be sure to stop by Tara's blog for more great Monday Made It ideas and Deb's blog for additional anchor chart ideas. Also, don't forget that Throwback Thursday is only three days away. Get your PURR-fect Previous Posts ready to link-up here at The Teacher's Desk 6.