October Currently and a freebie!

Yay! I knew it was the beginning of the month, but things have been so hectic that I completely forgot about looking for Farley's Currently. It was a very pleasant surprise to see it pop up on my reader yesterday evening because I love to link up and see what everyone else is posting. (Note: I'm scheduling this post because Thursday are CRAZY for me - band practice, then straight home to eat and go to small group)

So funny that Farley and I chose one of the same books. I mentioned a few posts ago how Chris Van Allsburg is one of my new favorite authors, and I'm making it a mission to familiarize myself with all of his books. I saw The Widow's Broom a few weeks ago in the library while searching for another book (I ended up using The Wretched Stone to teach plot), so I checked out both books to make sure it was mine for the month of October. I'm still working on exactly what my lesson will be, but I read it today during my planning time and loved it!

As far as The Graves Family goes, this is a Patricia Polacco book (another favorite author), and I just got this book with my beginning of the year order. I started reading it with one of my 4th grade groups today. We're going to use it to find the main idea and supporting details. They love it so far!

Oh, this book is also GREAT for predicting! We're doing that a lot naturally. The family is very strange. I laughed because my kids were debating if the family were vampires because they moved in at night (and had red hair). They decided on their own that was not true.

And now for my freebie! I posted a few days ago about my main idea and supporting details pumpkins. I thought about it and decided I would rather give that away as a freebie. So click here to download it and use in your classroom! I'm hoping to get those pictures of it being used later this week, but no promises. Tomorrow will be crazy, too (Friday night football)!