Show Off Your Classroom Linky Party

One of my favorite things to do as a teacher is walk through other fabulous classrooms. I love seeing their layout, bulletin boards, students work, organization, theme, and ideas. Back to school time is always a good time to do this when things are shiny and new, but I also like doing it at the end of the year when the room has been fully "lived in" too. Maybe that's because teachers have tweaked things throughout the year to get them just right, or maybe it's because the students' personalities are all present too. Either way, the end of the year is approaching and I'd love to take a look inside your classrooms. That's where my linky party comes in. Show off your bulletin boards, libraries, computer areas, centers, desks, whatever you want! Maybe you have a fantastic organizational system we all need to see. You know you've put your heart and soul into your classroom, so show us your favorite part. You can sign up for my linky party below. You know you want to! 

My favorite thing about our classroom is our meeting area. I love that it's right in front of our reading and writing bulletin boards, which makes referencing our mini lessons easy. I also love the conversations that happen there. During our read alouds this year, we've laughed with Oscar as he tries to get rid of his little brother in Operation Dump the Chump by Barbara Parks and cried along with Ricky in A Dog Called Kitty by Bill Wallace. We've learned about genres, inferences, leads, and so much more in reading and writing workshop. I also have a personal connection to our rocking chair since it's the same one my father made for my mother when they got married. It's been lovingly repainted many times, but just think of all the children it has rocked over the years. This little spot in our room is certainly filled with love AND learning so it's easy to see how it's our favorite spot in our room.

 

 Okay now it's your turn, so link up. =)  Be sure to post a link back to this page on your blog using the grab box below to help spread the word. As a bonus, I'll be giving one randomly chosen link up a freebie of their choice from my TpT store. I can't wait to see your classrooms!

Grab the linky party button for your blog!

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Spring Break!

I broke up with my alarm clock this morning, well for a week anyway. Why? Because as of 3:00 today I am officially on SPRING BREAK! My husband and I are major beach lovers, so I am seriously wishing my toes were in the sand right now. Unfortunately, his spring break was last week so that isn't going to happen. I still have plans for the 3 Rs though: retail therapy, relaxation, and reading. I also have an adorable nephew on the way who I'm sewing some projects for that will take up some of my time. I know I'll blink and break will be over, so I plan to enjoy every minute of it.


I ran home just long enough to let my pups out, so I'm heading to the library now. It's a nice day, and I think I'll walk. Have you read anything good lately? I just finished the Millennium Series and have my eye out for another good book.


April is right around the corner, so make sure you've "liked" my Facebook page in order to grab April's freebie. Have a great weekend, or if you're lucky like me have a great spring break!

Innovations Make Writing Workshop Easy!

Writing workshop is one of my favorite times of the day. I wanted to share one of my favorite writing workshop ideas with you... innovations! Innovations are great ways to jump-start student writing because students take familiar books and rewrite them with their own twist. I have several books that I use for innovations each year, and I'm always on the hunt for more.

 

I usually start the year with innovations while building writing workshop stamina and setting our classroom procedures, but I thought of this post today because we're working on adjectives in our room. One of my favorite ways to teach adjectives is through an innovation using Judi Barrett's Things That Are Most in the World. I read the book aloud and then have students create their own page in our very own book. 

The twist in this lesson is that we use PowerPoint to make a digital book. I upload class pictures and let students write the caption.  You could also have scan students' hand-drawn pictures or use clip art. They are so, so cute! I put the template in my TpT store in case you don't want to start from scratch.

I'll share some of my other free innovation ideas soon!

Penguin Foldable and Linky Party

I love using foldables in the classroom. When I saw Laura Candler was having a linky party FULL of foldables, I admit that I was super excited. I mostly use them for writing workshop, but they are always great to use for vocabulary and word work too.

My absolute favorite foldables are the ones we make during our amazing animal unit. Here's a snapshot of my penguin example. Students are assigned specific penguins to research. After they take notes, they publish their report in a foldable. I always do the Emperor Penguin as an example while we read the story Penguin Chick. We do tons of other penguin activities too, like play a PowerPoint I created called Name That Penguin.




My students seemed more engaged with the foldables than regular books so I've started creating some digital foldables for my favorite units during the year. I created two versions, one with pictures and one without. Most of my students enjoy illustrating their own book, so we can practice writing captions with that lesson as well. 

What are your favorite foldables? You should join the linky party because I'd love to see them!

Teaching Historical Fiction

I teach reading and writing workshops using different genres each month. Right now we're reading biographies and historical fiction in reading workshop so my students are drafting autobiographies in writing workshop. I have a confession to make though... history and social studies just aren't my favorite subjects to learn about. However, I do my best to make them interesting for my students so they won't grow up thinking history is just boring, old, useless facts the same way I did. 

I usually have students select a historical fiction chapter book from our library to read independently during reading workshop. I like to use the My America series for this, as well as favorites like Sarah, Plain and Tall. I also read aloud When the Soldiers Were Gone by Propp each year. Before sending students off to work in their different books, we spend a few weeks getting ready as a class first.

 

Last week we read "Boom Town" by Levitin from our basal. It's about a family moving west during the gold rush and the hardships they face while their father struggles to find gold. The main character, Amanda, starts a very successful business of her own selling pies and they live happily ever after (sorry, couldn't resist!). In guided reading we read nonfiction books about children's lives during different periods of history. The nonfiction was easier than historical fiction because the text features and organization make the facts easier to follow.

I think the hardest part for my students each year is putting themselves in the past in order to understand just how different life was. It's hard for students to imagine life without all of our technology and inventions, and they often don't understand subtle facts woven into the story. They also point out pieces of the story that aren't necessarily historical fiction, like a character using a wooden spoon. This year, I tried a few different ideas in addition to old favorites.

First, I had students create a quick sketch of a scene from the beginning, middle, and end of the historical fiction story. We used a large piece of construction paper folded into third vertically. They labeled items in the picture that supported the historical fiction genre (wood stoves, wagons) and wrote historical details around their sketch (gold rush, town development). The visual helped them focus on the character details, setting clues, and plot events that were from the past.

After that, I made a t-chart. Students wrote important events from the book on the left and their inferences about the past on the right. We had to work really hard to use clues from the book and information we learned during guided reading to pick out the important details. You can grab a free copy of my chart here.

Finally, we used some of my favorite printables from The Mailbox to create a log cabin and wagon wheel about our stories.  It's a long process, but I think we just might be on the right track!

Indianapolis Children's Museum Field Trip

We're going on a field trip tomorrow! It's the one I schedule for my  team each year (and my favorite, don't tell). It's to the Indianapolis Children's Museum. Their website has a ton of resources, even if you aren't nearby.

Ryan and I went Sunday to update my scavenger hunt questions. They have remodeled A LOT this last year and I am just blown away by how awesome the museum is. If you are in my neck of the woods and haven't been, it's definitely worth the trip. 

I'll update with pictures after our trip just to prove how cool the place is. In the meantime, I'm sharing my scavenger hunt packet and answers in case you're nearby. Even if you aren't, I highly recommend writing scavenger hunt questions if you go to museums with your class. I think they get so much more out of the trip because they're actually reading and learning about the displays instead of just running around kind of crazy all day.

Think of us tomorrow... field trips are always hectic, but fun! That reminds me of the thank you notes I always hand out to our chaperones. You can grab that freebie too!

 PS-- If you missed yesterday's Easter Blog Hunt, click back and enter to win.

Easter Blog Hunt and Giveaway!

I'm a member of a great group of relatively new bloggers who decided to come together for a great giveaway. But giveaways are more fun if they have a little twist. So, we've also made this one a blog hop. Each blogger will be running the same giveaway on their blog. So after you enter here, head on over to each of the other blogs and comment to enter there as well!

Here's what you'll win:

1. From Tales from Outside the Classroom: Captain Cool, which practices addition and subtraction in function machines.

2. Ms. Fultz’s Corner: Egg-citing Math Bundle, which practices addition, subtraction, and multiplication.

3. All that Glitters in First Grade: Shape Fun, which practices the basic shapes circle, hexagon, octagon, oval, pentagon, rectangle, square, and triangle.

4. Ms. McDonald’s Fourth Grade: Decimal War, which practices decimals from tenths, hundredths, thousandths, and mixed decimals.

5. Young and Lively Kindergarten: Growing in a Spring Kinder-Garden Learning Center Games, which practice beginning sounds, color words, rhyming, number words 0-14, counting 1-20, real/nonsense words, reading CVC words,punctuation, & Time to the Hour.

Here's how you enter to win:

1. Follow Tales from Outside the Classroom's blog and TpT store. {1 entry}
2. Follow Ms. Fultz's Corner blog, Ms. Fultz’s Corner TpT store, and Ms. Fultz's Corner TN store. {1 entry}

3. Follow All That Glitters in First Grade's blog and TpT store. {1 entry}
4. Follow Mrs. McDonald's blog and TpT store. {1 entry}
5. Follow Young and Lively in Kindergarten's blog and TpT store. {1 entry}

This means you can get up to five entries here and up to five entries each by commenting on the other blogs as well. That's 25 chances so go get yourself entered to win! Entries will end on Sunday, April 1st at noon CST. Winners for each blog will be announced that night.

Other Easter Blog Hunt Pages:

Best of Teachers Pay Teachers

Vicky over at The Best of Teachers Pay Teachers picked my test-taking poster as her Freebie of the day. We are in the middle of our test-taking season here in Indiana with two sessions down in March and one to go in April. I really think our poster and bracelets help my students feel motivated and confident during the tests. If you missed it, you can read my previous post about our poster and pick up your FREE copy here. If you aren't already following The Best of TpT, you should add it to your list. =)

To celebrate, I decided to give away another freebie. I uploaded these cute frames to TpT last night. I use these frames to brighten up our worksheets and projects. They come in two sizes (8x10 and 4x5). The large ones are great for classroom book covers and the small ones make cute note cards. I keep some in our writing center so students are always finding new ways to use them. If you like them, please leave me feedback. Thank you!

If you're looking for other spring ideas, check out this linky party over at Second Grade Superkids. I'm off to enjoy the weekend, but click back for exciting news about a new collaborative giveaway coming this Sunday!

Egg-citing New Products

I've been busy editing some of my spring teaching files for my store. Sitting down to type instructions and cover pages can take so much time. But, I just had to do it because my kids love, love, love our egg activities each April. With spring underway, Easter will be here before we know it so I wanted to have my eggs ready for you too. I also have eggs for language arts, but so far I only have my math ones ready for sale. Are there ever enough hours in the day? =)

I use these eggs for matching games in the month of April. I cut each egg in half and laminate the pieces. Students can individually match the eggs in a game like Memory, or you can pass out the pieces and have students try to find a partner with the other half of their egg. At the end of the month, students paste the eggs together onto construction paper, sometimes for homework practice and sometimes in class.


I have four versions!
Egg-citing Addition Practice without Regrouping:  I've included 15 two-digit addition problems that don't require regrouping. You'll receive 30 problems total because I have provided the same problems horizontally and vertically for differentiation.

Egg-citing Subtraction Practice with Regrouping: I've included 15 subtraction problems, and most require regrouping. You'll receive 30 problems total because I have provided the same problems horizontally and vertically for differentiation.

Egg-citing Multiplication Practice with Single Digits: I've included 20 multiplication problems with factors from 2 to 12. Unlike the other eggs, this download is all vertical.

Egg-citing Multiplication Practice with Double Digits: I've included 15 two digit by one digit multiplication problems. You'll receive 30 problems total because I have provided the same problems horizontally and vertically for differentiation.

Here are my cute little babies. Enjoy!

Click here for the bundled file with addition, subtraction, and multiplication

I hope you're following my Facebook page because a spring freebie is on the way to those followers. I just love this weather!

Reading Response Projects

My third graders have reading homework twice a week. They have a list of reading response leads that they keep in their binder and are required to write two paragraphs a week as homework. Because families are so busy during the week, I allow my students to pick the nights they do their twenty minutes of reading and only require that two are turned in by Friday. This helps families plan around sports, church, and other family activities. The reading response leads change several times during the year as students grow as readers, but the format is always the same. Here's a link to the Level Two Reading Response leads in my TpT store. I'm using those right now in our classroom. I also have a level one and level three for the beginning and end of the year. If you're interested in the bundle, it's cheaper in my Teachers' Notebook store.

Every other month or so, I assign a homework project instead of the reading responses. For our fantasy unit, my students create reading sandwiches about a fantasy chapter book of their choice. It's a fun way to mix up the homework, and even my reluctant readers and writers enjoy making the project. On Friday, students share their sandwiches with the class in an oral book talk. After presenting their book, students answer questions from their peers. I love that! My students were asking really thoughtful questions like, "How did the cover illustration match the book?" or "What elements of fantasy did you find in your book?" I wish I had written more of the questions down because that's how thoughtful they were! The one I use is an old photocopy without a source so I'm hesitant to share it, but here's a link to a sandwich book report template for purchase from Unique Teaching Resources.

For another homework project, I have my students make book worms. I give them a packet to take notes while reading their chapter book. After finishing the book, students use their notes to create a book worm. The book worm contains skills for character development, setting, and plot. After giving their oral book talk, students hang the worms in the hallway to show off their hard work. I also found a butterfly reading response sheet from The Mailbox Magazine, so some years we turn our worms into caterpillars instead and add the butterfly worksheet to the hallway too. It makes for a pretty cute spring hallway display. You can purchase my book worm reading packet and template in my TpT store.

I know there are differing opinions on homework, but I think it's an important part of reading development. My students are able to select their own books and only read for twenty minutes. I think that's a fair way to assign work for all reading levels as opposed to a set amount of pages. I also think it teaches students to be responsible for bringing work back and forth each week. Finally, I think it's important for involved parents to see how their students work independently (or not!) while reading.

Finally, as a reward for getting through this longer-than-usual post, I'm giving you the scoop on a big, big giveaway. Karla over at Life In Special Education is having a giveaway with lots of goodies from awesome bloggers (like me, haha!) valued at over $80. Click on over to her blog to find out how to win!

Great Potato Disguise Contest

Last week I promised to write about one of our favorite St. Patrick's activities. Each year I have my students participate in the Great Potato Disguise Contest. I found the idea on the internet four or five years ago and have been adapting it ever since. I held off on writing this post until I could track down the original source of this idea, but am sad to admit defeat. As with so many ideas on the internet, the original creator of this fabulous idea has been lost in translation.

I host the potato disguise contest and a potato writing contest. I also disguise a potato and bring it to class to get my students excited about the project. They always seem a little confused until they see an example. Then students have one week to disguise their own potato and write about it. I have several different writing prompts for students to choose from and usually send one as homework and work on many more during writing workshop in class.

Each year I'm so impressed with the students' creativity! When students get to school, they write a creative name for their creation next to the potato. I could never pick a winner alone, so I invite other teachers in the building to cast a secret vote for their favorite potato. It's so much fun to hear other teachers in the building commenting on my students' work and trying to guess who made each potato. After the votes are tallied, winners are selected in best disguise and best writing categories. I have the winners' names read on our announcements and hand out certificates too. This year's winner was Cherry Good. Pretty smart, huh? =)

If you want to grab my packet of printables that go with this project, they are in my TpT store.

 

Classroom Websites, a Sale, and a Freebie Too. Oh my!

If you're reading this, chances are you have a blog or are at least very familiar with the blogging world, but are you equally familiar with classroom websites?  I started a classroom website for my class while student teaching. That was waaay back in the day when the concept was still relatively new. ;) I've come a long way since then and recently gave our current classroom website a makeover.


If you don't have a classroom website yet, what are you waiting for?! I know they can be time-consuming to set up, but templates help with that. You can also start slowly with just a few sections at a time to reduce the initial set-up time. My favorite section is a list of websites for educational games, although our student showcase  section with the newest pictures and videos is a close second. I also upload copies of parent letters in case the paper copies get "lost" along the way and other important parent information too. It's a great way to keep parent-school communication going.

Finally, I also built separate sites for some of our bigger units during the year that include research links, pictures, etc. I link up with those sites slowly during the year as we complete the units. Students can download PowerPoint templates from the site, explore safe research links, or play content-related games. Other teachers at my grade level have used those pages with their classes too. Easy!

Our site is hosted through www.tripod.com. I bought my own domain last year to make our address shorter. You can click over and find us at www.msfultz.com to get inspired.  I'd love to see your classroom sites if you have them!

I hit 100 followers yesterday (wow!), so I decided to throw a 10% off sale in my TpT store. I also made my Pirate-Themed Marshmallow Graphing Math Center FREE during the sale. Click on over to get your free download. Please remember to leave feedback if you like it. I love all the connections I'm making, so I'll have a 15% off sale and another freebie when I hit 150 followers.


Have a great week!

Assessment Resources

I'm always on the hunt for new websites to use with my students. I've been specifically looking for common core and assessment resources ('tis the season, right?). Now that the applied-skills portion of our state test is over, I'm looking ahead to the multiple choice tests that come next. 

Prepdog.com is a website with printable quizzes for math, reading, language, and science. They come in different levels, and the website also has tutorials and lessons too. There is a store link, but most of the resources are FREE. It's definitely worth checking out.

Do you have any favorite free assessment resources to share?