A Pollution Solution and Earth Day Freebie

Earth Day is such a great way to inspire your class to show empathy and compassion.  They show their love in a most beautiful way!  They really want the world to be beautiful!

Inspire the class with the book, Earth Day from the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler.

$3 at my TpT Store

Previous Posts about Earth Day

Day 1 on making shirts!

Day 2 on finishing shirts!

Earth Day Persuasion Posters

Earth Day Unit for $4

Do you Twitter?

I've been tweeting a bit more!

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Follow Me and I'll Follow You - I'm looking to follow more blogs!

Thanks for reading all this way!  Here's your Freebie!

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List Poem Template - Freebie

I was reading the book aloud Gooney Bird is So Absurd! by Lois Lowry.

These books have been a new treasure to me this year.  My colleague introduced them to me and I have fallen in love with them and so has the class.

This book is set in the month of January so I thought it would be great to read in January however, you can read it in any month.  January doesn't play a large part of the book!

However, poetry does!!!  

The kids became inspired to start writing their own poetry!  We started with a haiku!  These are challenging but they stepped up to the plate and wrote fantastic winter poems.  They typed them up in Google classroom.  I printed and laminated them and now they hang on their lockers. 

They were sad they couldn't take them home so I made booklets of the class poems and sent them home!  They were so excited to have a book of them.

This week we are writing a List Poem about our family!

I'm going to reread Malcolm's poem from the book and then use the anchor chart below to model writing a list poem about my family.

I've listed the family items I'm going to use and then come up with adjectives or adjective phrases with them to complete the poem.

I'm going to give them this template to help them write theirs.

To pick up your copy click on the template.

Enjoy using and follow me on Bloglovin'

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Scarecrow Acrostic Craftivity

Wow, did these scarecrows turn out cute!  I love how they make the hall so festive!  Teachers are walking by and telling me how cute they are!  I love that they are all a little bit different!

 

 

 

Pick up your copy today!

Happy October!

 

 

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Five for Friday Week 2

Gay Su Pinnell & Irene Fountas wrote

phonics and lessons: letters, words, and how they work!

Wow is this resource full of ideas.

Our school purchase Grades 1-3 and I'm digging into it!

This week we did a Short vowel activity.

The price for both books is $99.  Plus there is a cool CD resource with the binder on the disc.  It sure makes it easy to print and find the page you need!

Poetry

A book that goes along fantastically is Sing a Song by Gay Su Pinnell.

Check out my post this week if you missed it!

I wish I were these ladies!  Wow - they are just phenomenal.  I would love to sit with them over a cup of coffee and pick their brains!

planbook.com

This is my new method of lesson planning.

Check out this post!

Favorite Recipe!

Southwestern Stew Pot Recipe

We like things a little spicy so we add extra hot sauce!

Started conferencing with students.  I quizzed a few on their sight words and helped edit sentences!  I'm still working on procedures for the classroom and how to work in our centers so it will be a while until they are completely independent.

Each student in our class has their own chrome book.  We keep them in a charging cart.  This year we also purchase mice for the class.  I wish companies made better headphones.  One students broke the first day in the "hinges"!  How frustrating.

Students go on raz-kids.com or IXL.com.  After they take their MAPs testing next week they will also be able to use compass learning which links their lessons directly to their scores!

See you next week!  

Lori

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Sing a Song of Poetry - Fluency Lesson

Sing a Song of Poetry by Gay Su Pinnell and Irene C. Fountas compiled this fantastic resource of poetry to use for the year.  It is published for grades K-2.  There are 250 poems!  Each printed without pictures.  Students focus on the words.  You don't have to choose poems from this book but it sure is making my lesson planning easy!  I do not have to hunt down poems or retype them.  Cost of the book is $29.50.  It was worth it.  It's even cheaper on Amazon!

My Weekly Poetry Schedule

Monday:  Introduce the poem.  Discuss any vocabulary that may interfere with the meaning of the poem.  I read the poem aloud to them 2 times while they listen.  They chorally read the third time.  They put it into their poetry folder (with prongs) and buddy read the poem each 2 times.

Tuesday: We chorally read the poem 2 times.  We highlight any rhyming words using their poetry folders while I demonstrate on the white board. Read poem with buddies 2 times each.

Wednesday: Chorally read the poem without me. Underline skills that we are focusing on for the week.  Such as long a words.  Buddy read the poem 2 times each and read a previous taught poem.

Thursday:  Chorally read the poem as groups such as girls, boys, 7 year olds, etc.  Color a picture on the poetry page to show that they understand what the poem is about.  Buddy read 2 poems.

Friday:  Students are on a rotation to share reading aloud a poem.  They can choose to read the current week or a previously read poem.

You could choose to send the folder home on Friday.  At this time I am not doing this.

This weekly activity is a great boost to fluency as they listen to the teacher read, their partners read and gradually improve themselves as the week goes on.

Feel free to demonstrate poor fluency when you are reading the poem to them.  See if they notice!



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Monthly Activity Freebie

Start off 2013 - yes can you believe is 2013 with a super charming book!  Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak.  I have this book in big book form and the adorable little books.

In the past I have started using this book in September and read it all year long.  This year I am going to start it in January!  We use a student booklet for them to read along with and keep in their book boxes to read independently or with their buddy.  The students get to illustrate their own copies.  Click below to get your own copy.  Let me know how it's going for you or what else you do with this great book!

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