Let's talk turkey and I've been featured!!

About a month ago, I heard from the wonderful Dana at Fun in 1st Grade asking if I would like to be featured on her blog, and of course I said yes! What a great opportunity to get my name out, and I was so flattered! Please go check it out, and if you're not already following her, please do!

And now, on to another linky I know...another one? But it's the last full week before Thanksgiving break, and I'm fried. Plus I have a really cute book  that I want to share! This linky is hosted by Gina at Beach Sand and Lesson Plans (I love that name!).

My favorite Thanksgiving book to use with the kids is one I just discovered this year: Thank You, Sarah by Laurie Halse Anderson.

If you're not already familiar with this book, it's about Sarah Hale, the woman responsible for making Thanksgiving a national holiday. She wrote letters to politicians and 5 consecutive presidents asking them to make it a holiday - waiting over 30 years - before becoming successful finally with Abraham Lincoln in 1863. The book is very funny and engaging for students of many ages.

I loved this book so much that I created a letter-writing unit to go along with it. I've been using that this week with grades 3-5. So far, the kids love it! You can click on the link below to get the unit for yourself!

Teacher Tip linky

Today I'm linking up with Miss Kindergarten to share a teaching tip. I plan on browsing all of the other tips as well to see what I can learn!

My favorite little classroom management tool is Class Dojo. If you haven't heard of this, SIGN UP NOW!! It's free for now, but I'm not sure that it always will be.

If you're not familiar with it, here's a quick synopsis: You set up different classrooms (I have one for each of my groups) and positive/negative awards that you want, or you can keep the awards it already suggests. Then you begin your class and click on their avatar to award them a point DURING class. I have it pulled up on my Promethean board for them to see, and then my phone acts as a remote. 

If a student is off task, I simply click their name on my phone and award a negative point. It makes a sound on the board and shows instantly which child is off task. The sound alone helps to refocus the entire class. It works the same way when awarding positive points.

At the end of each group, I give them Skittles for every positive point they have (I try to keep it at 3 or less so I'm not buying too many Skittles). The kids love it and really work hard to keep their avatar happy! When I was in the regular classroom last year, I would email reports to parents at the end of each week so they could see what their child was earning points for. I would recommend adding comments to explain most negative behaviors, though. And if the parents don't have email addresses, you can print off the behavior report to send home as well. It really is an amazing tool!

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!

Top 10 Things I'm Thankful For

I know this is my second post today, but I really wanted to join in this linky. It's such a great one, and you really should join in!

Thanksgiving centers are here!

Yippee! Today was a teacher workday, and I was able to FINALLY finish my literacy centers. I'm so excited to post them! There are 6 centers and a poem that can be used for different activities. I focused more on comprehension because there are very few centers available that are geared more toward comprehension skills These are recommended for grades 3-6, although you know your kids and if they may be more capable. The centers include:

• fact and opinion
• main idea and supporting details
• cause and effect
• author's purpose
• prefixes
• suffixes

Isn't it so cute? These are the first graphics I've purchased (KPM Doodles), and I LOVE them!

I also bundled these centers with my writing pack that goes with Thank You, Sarah.

You can find the Thanksgiving bundle here.

By the way, PLEASE feel free to pin these activities. I would love to have my work floating around Pinterest!

Oh, and Tammy at Live, Love, Laugh Everyday in Kindergarten is having a giveaway. Go check it out here!

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:

November Currently

Not going to make a long post at all today because Steven's taking a break from classwork so we can go hang out before he comes back to write a paper. But I wanted to go ahead and join Farley's currently!

I wish I could go ahead and post my literacy centers this weekend, but I have to wait until I get back to school. We have the old word, and the picture formatting is all messed up. So I have to get on my school computer and fix it before posting. It's going to be great though!

As for the music, I discovered this rap a few years ago and fell in love...

Then I found out it's actually from an entire CD all about math. Tons of fun! My kids loved it, and I would see them whispering the lyrics as they were trying to make their place value charts, etc.

Apparently they also have a language arts album, but I haven't listened to it.

If you teach math, I really recommend AT LEAST the place value rap. It's amazing, and the kids really will remember from then on!

Oh, and an FYI for my VA blogger friends - I decided to start a facebook page for us to join and find each other. I'm constantly running across other VA bloggers, but then I have trouble remembering who's who. Here's the CORRECT link (I hope):
http://www.facebook.com/pages/VA-Teacher-Bloggers/294987317271984
Please join and share with others!