Title I Night

I hope everyone's Easter was fantastic! I'm on break right now and away from the computer for the most part. But I wanted to share about the activities we did for Title I Night last week.

Last Thursday, we had Title I "Night" at our school. In the past, we've always had trouble getting parents to bring their kids back out and participate (even when we invited a local author to come in the Fall, we only had 6-10 kids from our programs. Fortunately we opened that night up to the entire school and had a decent turn-out) So our K-2 specialist and I sat down and started brainstorming ways to get the attendance we desired. She had the idea of doing our activities immediately after school and then intentionally running the event past the time when activity buses leave so the parents had to come pick up their kids and meet with us, even if it was just quickly.

We sent out permission slips and ended up with the highest turn-out we've ever had (at least as far as we know of)! I had 13 of my 26 students participate and two more who tried to call their parents and stay the day of - I didn't let them because I didn't have enough supplies for them. Plus it was at the VERY end of the day. K-2 ended up with eighteen students, and we were able to talk to ALL of their parents!

Students were encouraged to dress as their favorite book character and bring pillows, blankets and sleeping bags to "read under the stars".

Here's Cinderella!

We started with some Easter eggs. Inside the eggs, I put the names of a few popular book characters (Pete the Cat, Harry Potter, etc.). 

Students chose an egg and then had to give a few clues to the rest of the group. The group could ask yes or no questions to figure out more. When they guessed correctly, they came up and chose another egg. They had a lot of fun with this activity, and it was a simple, fun way to add some eggs to our evening! I believe with the younger kids, they had sight words in the eggs that the students had to read. I wanted to adapt it to something a little more difficult since I have grades 3-5.

Then I split students into grade levels (which I needed because there were HUGE differences in maturity levels even from 3rd to 4th), and they rotated between a craft with me (keep reading for more on that), "reading under the stars", or playing this Fact and Opinion game they love on my Promethean board. The winner of that game from each grade level got to pick a book to take home for free. Our K-2 teacher was much nicer and bought a book for each child who came, but mine were happy enough with one winner from each grade level!

Moving on to the craft because this was my favorite part of the evening: I was browsing Pinterest last week for a perfect little Easter snack that they would have to assemble using some directions. Then I came across this:

Isn't it just the cutest? I knew I HAD to do it with my kids! So I adapted the recipe to make it work for me. Then I went and bought all of the supplies. I almost wish that I hadn't included a picture or title in the recipe because then they would have had to actually read all of it to know what to do. But there was at least some reading required to clear up any confusions they had because I WOULD NOT tell them what to do if they asked. They had to read the recipe first to see if it said (and it almost always did). Here's a picture of how my Bunny Buggies turned out. I'm so proud of them!

My cute little bunny buggy ahead of time

All set up ready for them to come (I couldn't find the Bunny Peeps when I went shopping)

Some of my kids finished with their craft, ready to eat it!

And if you want the recipe to use for next year, grab your copy here:

Yes, I changed the name. I liked the flow of "Bunny Buggy" more than "Easter Bunny Racecars". I like alliteration.

After centers, I found this adorable Reader's Theater for 11 students (I was supposed to have 11 when I planned activities, then two more turned in their slips last minute) with The Frog Prince Continued by Jon Scieska. We had a lot of fun with this, and I would love to practice it with a group and let them actually perform it. It was so cute!

At around 5:30, I put in Horton Hears a Who for the students to watch quietly as I began to meet with parents. I found the movie for $4 at Target. Score!

I found this wonderful resource to give to the parents, courtesy of Carrie from A First Grade Teacher's Passions and Obsessions. It even shows where students should be for their grade level at the end of each marking period. This was a great visual to give to my parents and really highlighted the growth that each child has made!

It was a busy evening, but it was a lot of fun and much more successful. Plus we were done just after 6, and I was able to see my son before he went to bed! I think this will be a new tradition (with a few tweaks) for our Title I Night!

Five for Friday and a Sale

I feel like I actually had enough going on this week to join in on this fun linky, plus I won't be posting as frequently next week (thinking of scheduling at least one post though) because it's my SPRING BREAK!!

1. We had our Title I Night last night, and it went well. This will be another post that I am scheduling for next week (Tuesday?) because I have a lot to say about how we structured it. However, I will leave you with one picture of my favorite activity from the night. Check back to get the recipe that we used (since it was a reading night) and learn more!

2. One of my third grade classes that I work with has had a student teacher for the past few months (today was her last day). Last week, we had a book fair and she decided she wanted to buy some books for someone. Since her teacher and daughter's teacher had already had their wishlist fulfilled, she bought two books for me! It was so sweet of her, especially since I'm not a regular classroom!

       

Oh, and one of my sweet fourth grade students brought me a yummy chocolate bunny this morning because yes, we still had a full day today. I'm a little jealous of you teachers who got to start your break on Good Friday. 

I might have eaten it right after he walked out the door. Hey, I'm justifying it with my Insanity workout, although this might be part of the reason why I'm not seeing any results yet. At least I feel stronger, but the whole point was to lose some inches in the waist so my pants fit right.

3. Speaking of gifts, I got this sweet Easter basket complete with a Barnes and Noble gift card from my secret pal at school. SO excited! I knew I saved the email with a B&N coupon for a reason. Time to go shopping!

4. Tuesday and Wednesday of this week were Writing SOLs (Virginia's Standards of Learning since we didn't jump on the bandwagon and go to CCSS) for our 5th graders. This year was the first year that they did everything online including the prompt. It actually went better than we had anticipated, but the importance of teaching them how to type essays appropriately is that much more of a priority. I know they're glad it's over. Only 5 weeks after break before the rest of the SOLs start. EEK!!

5. I'm joining in with some other bloggers and having a sale at my TPT store! I chose five of my favorite products that will be 20% off through Sunday. 

Here are the items I chose. Click on the images below to find them, and I wouldn't mind if you wanted to pin them as well. ;-)

Have a great Easter weekend, and enjoy your Spring Break if you're starting it like me!

Kim Norman visit

Okay, I said I was going to get this post up by the end of the week, and technically that's today! This past Monday, we had our Title I night, and it was a great honor to have a local author come and do a program for us! Kim Norman (from Smithfield, VA - the famous hams) has some great books, especially for younger children, and she did a few read alouds with the kids.

Her first read aloud was I Know a Wee Piggy (remember I said she was from Smithfield - this is a little play on her hometown), which my students were so excited about. This is the book I used to introduce them to the author a few weeks ago.

Anyway, it's about a little pig who makes a big mess of himself by rolling in lots of colors. For younger students, it's a perfect way to talk about colors, but it's also great for rhyming patterns. With my older kids, we predicted what the word would be with the rhyming pattern and also noticed that they used alliteration to help you predict what the color would be (i.e. yard of yellow, wash of white). It's saying a lot that one of my 5th graders told me this was her favorite book! And I was scared they'd hate it because it was too "babyish"...I guess you never can predict what a kid will think!

Then Kim read Ten on a Sled. She had LOTS of kids come up and help her with this one. It's basically the same as 10 on a bed, but it's so cute!

The kids really enjoyed helping her out with this story, and the illustrations are adorable! She had a powerpoint so we could all enjoy the pictures as she read.

And as promised, here are a few pictures from the night:

There were about 16 kids up helping her with this story, not to mention the kids she had pull items out of bags for I Know a Wee Piggy. Then she also used all of the older students who were willing to come up to do a reader's theater with her. They had a blast!

Kim made sure to emphasize to the parents the importance of reading with their child. She even sang the Storytime Boogie to Crocodaddy (I was a little bummed we didn't get to hear that story, but I did read it while she was signing books).

She almost completely sold out of books! I thought about buying this one, but it comes out in board book in January, so I decided to wait. Keagan would tear this book up in no time! I did, however, get her to sign my copy of The Great Christmas Crisis, which is her newest book! I plan on putting together some kind of unit to go along with the book because it's so cute!

Speaking of Christmas, I know I JUST posted my Thanksgiving literacy centers earlier this week, but I have already finished my Christmas ones and posted them yesterday! 

I wanted to make sure they were done before Thanksgiving so teachers could have them ready to go when they got back from break. This set has 5 comprehension centers and 4 word-knowledge centers. It's HUGE, and I love it! My parapro told me it was her favorite one yet. She may not still agree when she's helping me cut out all of this laminating when we haven't even gotten all the Thanksgiving centers ready yet!

Late night

After being home with my little one all but Wednesday of last week, today was hard. I guess it's better to get back into the swing of things now, though. Besides, tomorrow is a teacher workday.

Anyway, what makes tonight even harder is that I'm here late for our Title I night. We have an author coming, which I'm SUPER excited about!

Her name is Kim Norman, and she's from Hampton Roads, VA...just a little further down the road from where I teach! In the past, no one has really shown up for Title I nights, so we decided to change it up and pay a little extra to have her come visit. We're hoping for a big turn out. I should be posting pictures later this week!

And here are a few of her books:

Halloween main idea, book of the month, and a bundle

Is anyone else just drained? Keagan's been sleeping through the night, but for some reason I feel like I'm completely out of energy. I'm blaming band competition this weekend. Hopefully I can find my energy soon. We're not even halfway through the week, and this weekend includes a football game AND another band competition. Can't wait until November gets here!

As far as my full time job goes, we're in week 2 of pulling students for Title I, and so far things are going well. I have so many kids that I've had to split them into smaller groups, but that made it easier to work with them on their most appropriate level. Fourth grade alone has 3 groups, and the others have two. I push in to classes in the mornings and then pull out mostly in the afternoons.

Third and fourth grade have been working on main idea and supporting details, so I've been trying to find activities to do with them. Yesterday, I made pumpkins with a different main idea listed on each one, and I gave it to my higher group of fourth graders so they could each come up with three supporting details. Then I typed them up (and changed a few to make better supporting details) and put them all into a file. Later, I'm going to give them back the pumpkins and supporting details all cut out, and I'm going to have students sort them to match the correct main idea.

You can download the packet here. I want to print my pumpkins on orange paper, and I'll take pictures to show after they've done it.

Then I also took this packet, my bat research unit (which I added more pages to), and my pumpkin writing craftivity, and I bundled them all together for one big Halloween literacy unit. It's on sale for the rest of this week, but the price will jump up $2 next week!

Oh, and I found a linky that I had to join! Tammy at 123 Teach With Me is hosting a book of the month linky that she'll have each month. For this linky, you need to choose a book that relates to the month in some way.

I have two books this month. One is the book I based my bat unit off, and it's quite old. Actually I realized while searching for the book that it is now out of print. I'm checking mine out from the library, but I think I may buy a copy from Amazon later.

This book is about a huge ball game (sounds like lacrosse, maybe?) between the birds and the beasts. The bat keeps trying to find his place, and both teams end up pushing him away. I remember reading this when I was in school, and it always stuck with me.

Chris Van Allsburg is one of my new favorites, and I found this book in the library last week when I was searching for a book. I haven't planned exactly what I'm going to do with it yet, but I had to check it out before it went missing.  Just a quick synopsis I found online: A witch leaves behind a broom that can't fly anymore, but it can still do chores for the lonely widow who befriends it. But the neighbors think it's evil and want to destroy it. 

I can't wait to see what other books people are posting!