New products (I was on a roll!) and a giveaway

Teacher workdays have come to a close, and I feel like I got a lot accomplished - at least for my TpT store. On Tuesday, my sweet hubby called at lunch to say he was going to pick me up and take the family to the Williamsburg Outlets since the weather was PERFECT yesterday. He brought Keagan to the school a little early, and I got to show him off. I'll have to post the picture I took later. He found my rocking chair and loved it!

In contrast, we had those storms move through last night (a few power outages, but nothing major). Well, our school is REALLY old (well, not REALLY old, but in that time where construction must have sucked. Our school needs to be bulldozed and rebuilt) and has a flat roof. Since we've had all this precipitation recently (oh, and snow is in the forecast for tomorrow as well) and last night we had high winds as well, two of the classrooms flooded! Apparently there was about an inch of water sitting, and the kids are in the computer labs for the day because of it. Such a mess! Yet all the other schools in our county are state of the art...

Anyway, about those TpT items:

First, I made a quick writing craftivity for President's Day. It's similar to my craft for Valentine's Day and MLK, but I changed the writing part to a hat. Students write what they would do if they were President. Cute. Simple. Love it!

My next project was much more in depth. I said I was going to make something to go with John, Paul, George, and Ben. I was thrilled that so many of you love the book as much as I do!

Here's the packet. Don't you just love the name?

I ended up creating a plan that's really a BDA (before, during, and after) on accident. I guess my grad school program rubbed off on me more than I thought. Before reading, I thought it was important to activate their schema (which a big thing with me this year. All of the students who see me at least once a week know that word) about each of the founding fathers. So they will split into groups and list everything they know about each person on a word splash sheet. If they don't know anything, they can do a little research ahead of time to build their schema.

Then they will read the book, and I would have them differentiate fact from exaggeration. After reading, each student will do a biography sheet on one of the founding fathers. This sheet is a little different though. They will focus on the reputation each person had and how they earned that reputation. I thought that was a fun way of looking at it and still have them write what the person was known for. I also think I'll have the students fill out a bio sheet on themselves and do the same. It would be great for making them reflect on what kind of reputation they're building for themselves.

Finally, I included a "Create your own story" sheet. For this, they will choose a different person in history and think about what they're known for. They have to choose a reputation and then imagine what kind of trouble they might have gotten into as a child because of their reputation (for instance, maybe bossy John Smith got in trouble for telling his teachers what to do, or maybe he had trouble making friends because he always told them something like, "If you don't help, you can't play!"). I may add more to it later, but I'm in love with it already. Enjoy! 

And before you go, Lisa from Growing Firsties is having a fabulous 400 follower giveaway where you could win a $25 Erin Condren gift card. Have you seen the adorable stuff over there? I could spend $100 EASY. Go check it out!

Brain Teaser Puzzles and books

Okay, I have been looking for a book of brain teaser puzzles like I remember doing in elementary school. You may remember them as well. You had a group of people, a list of foods (or something like that), and another list of items (maybe a color). They gave you a small set of clues, and you had to use the process of elimination to match each person with the correct food and color. They gave you a chart to put X's and check marks as you solved the brain teaser. They were my FAVORITES! To this day, I have yet to find one. So last week I decided to try my hand at making some myself.

So far, I've only made 3. However, my plan is to make them throughout the year. I put the packet on TpT this morning for $1.50. If you buy it now, you can have all of the brain teasers as I create them for one low price. I will update the price as I continue to add.

Today and tomorrow are teacher workdays here (and the weather is BEAUTIFUL - I may have to eat outside), so I'm hoping to get another product or two completed. I want to do a unit on John, Paul, George, and Ben, one of my favorite picture books.

I would also like to create something for President's Day and something for Dr. Seuss since that's coming up. For Dr. Seuss, I'm leaning toward an activity with his very first book, And To Think That I Saw That on Mulberry Street. Did you know I had not actually read that book until last year? It's so great!

While I'm on the topic of books, have any of you ever read either of these?

         

The first one was all over Teaching in Room 6's Facebook page yesterday, and I had to check it out. Everyone thought it would be this year's Newbery Award winner. It lost to The One and Only Ivan. I went on my library's page and reserved a copy of Wonder to pick up today. Then I'll find the other. I need to catch up on these two books because I've never heard of them. Trust me, I'll give a review of them as I finish each. Wonder sounds fantastic!

Alright, time to get to work now!

Valentine freebie

I have been procrastinating racking my brain trying to think of the perfect freebie as a thank you to all of my wonderful followers that helped me reach the 200 mark so quickly! I wanted it to be something that would be useful for upper and lower grades, so I thought a craftivity would be perfect. Since Valentine's Day is coming up, that was the most logical theme. I have a confession though (please don't unfollow me!): I don't really care for Valentine's Day. There. I said it! Maybe it's the fact that I was single for every one of them until I met Steven in college. Or maybe it's that my parents never did any of the sending flowers or chocolates like my friends' parents in elementary/middle school. Or maybe it's that my heart is two sizes too small. Anyway, I'm not much for the whole cheese factor. But I finally came up with a craft that I could get on board with that was still related to Valentine's Day. Plus it's a little different since I'm sure there are MILLIONS of heart crafts already out there.

So this craft has students think about ways that they can show love to others. Yay for thinking about others and not what their favorite candy is or who has a crush on who! Sorry, Negative Nilly had to poke her head again. I stopped her, though! My helping otter (that's our 5th grade helpers - isn't it cute?) did this one for me to show as an example. I love it!

I'm putting this on TpT as a freebie UNTIL SUNDAY or until I remember to change the price! But I'm also giving my special readers a link here to the Google drive that will always work. (But that's our little secret).

And even though I'm not much of a sap, I really do LOVE y'all and am very grateful for all of your comments and ideas. You've made my short time on this blog great!

While you're downloading my freebie, go check out All Things Upper Elementary for their very first Friday Free 4 All linky party!

200 followers?

I can't believe how quickly this little blog is growing! Just two months ago, I reached 100 followers and was amazed. Now I've already doubled that! With that being said, I need to get my butt in gear and come up with some kind of giveaway/thank you. I wanted to change it up a little bit and not have some extensive list of people involved (plus I hate to ask people for help again when I feel like I just asked them). I'm thinking of having a flash freebie from my store for one day only.That way I can thank all of you at once! If I did that, what item would you most like to see? I was thinking about my Valentine Literacy Centers, but they're geared more toward upper grades, and I want to be able to help out my lower grade friends, too! Maybe I'll have to create some new craftivity similar to my MLK craft.

Input would be appreciated!

Mrs. Leeby is also celebrating 200 followers with 3 AMAZING gift cards! You really should check this one out!

New Magic Tree House unit and snow?

I'm REALLY hoping that today was my Friday! After having temps in the upper 60s and even 70s last week, they're now calling for snow in our area starting in a few hours. This morning they said 6 pm, so hopefully it will wait until then. I usually get home around 5. So I prepared all of my kids with the typical snow homework (ice cube down the toilet and pjs inside out), and I'm praying for a snow day! We can miss one more day before the semester ends next Monday and not have to make up President's Day. I would LOVE a four day weekend! Is anybody else getting a snow day? Do you love them as much as I do, or are they more of a nuisance to you? Maybe it's because I grew up in the deep south and still get as excited as the children when it snows since I rarely saw it growing up.

Well, no matter if we have a snow day or not, next Tuesday I will begin a new historical fiction book study with one of my groups. It was not a book that I already had, but I got a copy from the teacher to go ahead and prepare. I love historical fiction, so I'm very excited about doing this study. As usual, the packet breaks the book into 6 sections (the last page is a reflective writing assignment). The questions range include reflections, straight from the book, vocabulary, and even some visualizing. Enjoy!

Valentine's Day already?

Can you believe that Valentine's Day is less than a month away? This time last year, I was at home with my sweet one month old (today he's 13 months - eek!) enjoying maternity leave. I came back right before Valentine's Day and survived the rest of the year. I didn't do well with missing time in the middle. It was too hard to get back into a groove. This year, I'm finally falling into a nice groove. One of my favorite things to use for centers during pull-out time is my literacy centers. I bought some of Amy Lemons' earlier this year and they were adorable, of course. My kids did well with them, but the centers focused on skills geared more toward 2nd grade (which Amy teaches). I looked for comprehension centers that I could buy by theme and couldn't find anything. So I began creating my own. This is my fourth set, and I'm in love with them!

Like the rest, I have a mixture of comprehension skills and word knowledge. This one has the following centers (bold centers are new skills I'm adding):

• Fact and Opinion
• Main Idea and Supporting Details
• Cause and Effect
• Drawing Conclusions/Inferring
• Synonyms
• Antonyms
• Prefixes
• Guide Words

I took out Author's Purpose and Suffixes to replace them with the others because I felt like there was more of a need for those two, at least at my school.

If you like these centers and missed the others that I've created, here are the pictures and links:

 

Snow themed - great for January

Christmas includes an extra Sequencing center for The Polar Express

Thanksgiving was my very first. I plan on adding more to it later!

New TPT Store

Remember back in the fall when I blogged about Kim Norman, the author, coming to our school?

She's so sweet, and I've been in contact with her since then. Kim has been considering opening a TPT store for herself to sell guides for her books and other cute little things that she has created. Yesterday I received an email asking me to review a few of her guides to see if they were "TPT ready". I was so honored that she valued my opinion enough to even ask! I looked two of them over, and they have some fantastic resources. She posted her first few items on her brand new store (all of them are free so far!), and I want to encourage you to check them out.

My favorite item she posted is a teacher's guide for her book, Ten on a Sled.

This book follows the same patterns as Five Little Monkeys, but it's full of wintery animals. They keep falling off of the sled. The book is one that Kim read when she came for her author visit, and all of the kids loved it (even the 5th graders). Her activity sheets that she included as the freebie are great practice for alliteration. It has a place for students to write their name (or an animal) and then describe how they wiped out. She even included a list of great verbs for each letter so students can just choose one. I will have to use this activity with my older students to discuss alliteration!

Right now, she also has a freebie of seasonal number mazes which are very colorful and fun. Then there are writing prompt cards that use the 4 W's. She included 88 of these all for free!

So go check out her store and be sure to leave her some love! 

Oh, and keep your eyes out for another book review of hers. I'm about to get Crocodaddy, which I have been eyeing for a few months. As a mother, I HAD to check out this book!

I also noticed this morning that I am at 195 followers. When did this happen? I'm super excited and will be trying to scramble and put something together to celebrate when I pass the 200 mark. Any ideas? I was thinking a flash freebie for all of my followers.