Happy Halloween 2014

Happy Halloween

I have to admit I am not doing a good job blogging this year.  I am not taking a lot of pictures during our class times mainly because I am so involved in helping the children.  I guess that is my first priority. 

Anyways I wanted to share a couple of things that my students enjoyed this year. 

First of all the top three Halloween stories in my classroom were: 

·      Big Pumpkin

·      The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything

·      Room on the Broom

We painted pumpkins for our classroom.

When we went to the Apple Orchard we were given a free pumpkin.  I sent a parent to get the pumpkin for us and she came back with this huge pumpkin. 

I found two great activities for free that we did throughout our Halloween Day.

·      Pumpkin Math by Kristin Smith

·      More Halloween Math from The Busy Class

I did purchase two activities:

The first was by Leslie Ann and it went with the book:  Room on the Broom

 The second was a fun activity with a  100’s chart by Primary Techie.   My students loved it. 

For a Halloween treat I made these cute little bags.  My students were so excited to get the treat bags.  You would have thought I gave them gold.  

And With A Light Touch Chapter 10 & 11

This week I read Chapter 10 and Chapter 11 in the book And With a Light Touch.  Carol writes about the importance of reading-aloud to your class.  She has so many good points and benefits for reading to children.  We all know it is important however I know I am guilty of missing a story here and there because if I am running behind it is so easy to skip. 

However I need to make a point of making read-aloud a focus in my classroom.  Carol reads to her student first thing in the morning just to make sure she makes it a priority.  Not only do my students benefit from the rich language they hear as I read they also are exposed to the structure and organization of the stories.  Most importantly I need to spend more time talking about books and authors.  The hows and whys of stories are very important. 

“I’m teaching them to get in touch with their thoughts about what happens in stories and express their responses..”  This is the goal of every reading teacher.  Reading discussions are all about “sharing ideas, questioning text, making connections, striving to understand different perspectives”, most importantly to develop individually listening and thinking skills. 

When I choose my books for read aloud I tend to pick stories that reinforce and go along with what I am teaching that day.  I try to find the best stories and award winning literature. However I also like to pick stories that I know will motivate my students to challenge themselves as readers and writers.  

Chapter 11 is about responding to literature is a touching subject.  I don’t like to give busy work and I don’t like to give work that is going to take away from the enjoyment of reading.  With that said I know it is important to teach children how to process what they are reading. 

My favorite way to check on what the children are learning is through a letter.  Each week I ask my students to pick a book and write me a letter about the book their reading.  As the year progresses we add more to the letter.  We start out simple with title, characters and setting.  Then we move into story sequence, next personal connections and so on.  Carol also writes about how she works through the same concepts in her own way.  I liked how she wrote about making connections.  She had three types of connections:

·      Text for information

·      Text to self

·      Text to our world

I
It is similar to what we have all read here on blog world.  There are great resources available for free on pinterest.  I know I have downloaded a few for my classroom.  Here are my favorite charts from pinterest as well.  I like that the second one adds media.  

source

source

And With A Light Touch Chapters 8 & 9

I am a little bit late in writing about Chapters 8 & 9 from the book….And with a Light Touch by Carol Avery.  Starting a new school year takes so much out of a person, it is hard to find time to read and find time to take care of your self however things are starting to settle down around here.  So I am hoping to get back to reading and blogging again. 

On the first page of chapter 8 Carol writes about the sharing time of writing workshop.  She writes how important sharing ideas in the classroom build the class community.  Of course she has some guidelines for sharing:

1.  Raise your hand. 

2.  When you share a comment begin with “I” statements.

(I think…I wondered….I didn’t understand….)

3.  Always end the sharing sessions by applauding the authors.

As I looked at the first page of the chapter, I could see a child sitting in a special chair sharing their book.  It reminded me of when I first started teaching.  I had an author chair in my classroom.  I thought back to those days and I reflected a bit and remembered that the chair could be used for so much more.  So I decided to create a “sharing chair.”

My sharing chair is for anytime in the classroom when the students have something special to share:  books,  show and tell,  Fluffy’s Journal, or just science observations. 

Another thing that Carol wrote about the stuck with me was ways to publish student work.  She recommends Real ePublishing.  I don’t know anything about it and I need to look into this more.  At our school the computer teacher recommends the website www.zooburst.com.  I don’t know anything about it yet, however it is on my list of things to do. 

Carol writes in great detail about publishing in Chapter 9 and an author celebration.  The first time I read this book I did take this advise to heart and this is something I have incorporated in my classroom over the years.  However I have modified the Author Celebration a bit.  I generally have the children take home their published book home to practice reading and then the next day they can read it for the class during snack time.  I am thinking of changing it up a bit to record the readings on the ipad. 

Red Ribbon Week

Recently I received a free copy of the book, Charlie and the Curious Club, by Erainna Winnett.  The book addresses an important issue DRUGS.  Now I know most of you are thinking my kindergarteners or first graders don’t need to worry about this, however that is not what the book is about.  It is about mistaking drugs for candy.  This could happen to anyone.

Now that is a situation that all children may find themselves in.  I read this book to my little first graders and they were very interested in the story.  I could see in their faces they were making connections.  After the story we had a wonderful discussion.  I was surprised with how many of my students said they saw medicine at their grandparents or babysitter’s house. 

We also discussed taking things that do not belong to us.  That was a really good discussion.  We also talked about only eating things that our grown ups say is ok.  We have several students with food allergies so it is really important that we always check with a grown up before we eat something. 

I even tied this book in with our Religion lesson.  We are learning about how much God loves us.  So we talked about how important it is to take care of ourselves. 

 

free copy

I had the children draw a picture and then we used our thumbs to make hearts.  However your students may be older or you make be looking for other ideas, you can look at the website:  CelebratingRedRibbonWeek.com.  There are other resources and lessons you might be interested in. 

I mounted the pictures on card stock and I plan on hanging them around the school to remind the other students in the building to make good choices.