4th Grade In Ya Face

Shabooya + Science

2013-05-18T13:16:00.002-07:00

It's been a while! We don't need to go over the details. Let's just jump into a quick and easy lesson I did with a great result of student work to display and reference at the end of a unit.

Quite often, I start off my science units having the kids write one question about it on a sticky note. We then read our questions to the class and poll the students: Is it testable in the classroom, or do we need to research it? Then, the sticky note goes in the correct column.

I jazzed it up by having the kids ask their question in "Shabooyah" form:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qImdxtdJ32Y

They say, "My name is ___________," and we say, "YEAH???" and then they say, "I have a question," and we say, "YEAH???" and then they read the question instead of interesting facts about themselves as the cast of the office does in the above video.

This unit was about ROCKS. Woohoo! I decided to do something

NEW!

DIFFERENT!

SLIGHTLY HIGHER LEVEL OF THINKING ACCORDING TO OUR FRIEND BLOOM!

They Shabooya'd their questions, but didn't take a vote. They just put it up on the chart. THEN, we came up with our OWN categories afterward!

Some questions were about the history of rocks: How did they get their name? Who discovered the first rocks? You can read the rest of the categories and see the questions more easily if you click on the pictures.

The final product!

It used to be that you could just throw up a cute title and some work on a bulletin board, but now you have to add an exemplar and the objective. Less time-consuming than I thought, and actually it's pretty valuable. Thanks, EEF!

Exemplar

I love Post-It chart paper (accepting donations now!) but I always rip it when I tear it off.

Originally, I put this question under the "Tests to Perform in Class" category, but thought twice since this particular inquiry would come back to haunt me at the unit's end.

I teach a number of FLEPs that maybe shouldn't have been FLEPed.

I recommend these simple Total Participation Techniques (sorting) and Bloom's levels (categorizing and inquiring) for any KWL-type unit intro!

Memory Books and Jars

2012-11-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

Well, hello! It's been a while. I got a new job and feel like I'm a first year teacher again. I'm still teaching 4th grade, but that is about the only thing that is the same as my old job. Luckily, I have been getting a slightly better handle on my free time, and am ready to post this "tutorial" I did over the summer.

I decided to find all of my keep sakes and organize them. I saw these two ideas on Pinterest but cannot find the original sources! So my disclaimer is that it's not my idea, just my step-by-step directions and pictures to organize your keepsakes!

You'll need a large mason jar or two, and some cute three ring binders with sheet protectors and dividers- enough to hold as many notes you want to keep!

First, I found a place to store all the big stuff: My May Day crown from college (that's right, I was the queen), an old picture from one of those cheesy picture-sketch booths, and other things too big for a jar or notebook. I put them in a large bag from Guatemala that I can't bear to get rid of but won't really use. A keepsake holding a keepsake.

Then, I got all my paper goods and organized them.

I put personal stuff, like notes from family members and cards from friends, into piles by size and put them aside. Then, I separated the kid stuff into cards they made, notes/cards from co-workers, and notes/cards from their parents. I then put these into size sub-categories because I am a loser. Some things did get thrown away. You don't need to keep the half-sheet of notebook paper that a kid drew a smiley face on in highlighter. Especially if that kid gave one to you every day and you kept all of them.

As I organized, I found some things that wouldn't fit so easily into a page protector, so I made two memory jars: One for life, and one for just boyfriend memories (awwwwwww). I knew I was a true Bostonian when I had to separate my Red Sox tickets into those two groups.

BF Jar

Voila!

My life jar includes my Hogwarts patch, my first Red Sox tickets, my first Relay for Life bracelet, and other excellent things.

Jar twins

Now, get a notebook and a stack of sheet protectors and place them in the rings.

Start putting in the cards that are the easiest ones to fit!

Soon, you'll have tons of pages of memories. Unfortunately, you may run into a problem.

Some cards just won't fit.

Perform some surgery.

Put the two halves next to each other in the binder!

I also found that many of my students made me "3-D" cards, but my notebooks came with little clipboards inside, so I didn't have to smush their hard work.

For some cards, I wanted the front and back to be seen in one sheet protector, but others could be easily layered.

Front

Back

I layered a card from one person on the blank space of another.

Eventually, I finished up the kid stuff and moved on to family/friends. I made separate piles again. One was old stuff, people I don't even keep it close touch with but still made an impact (or cracked me up):

15th birthday card from lunch friends

No words...

9th grade

My next category was stuff from one of my dearest friends in the whole wide world, my since-8th-grade BFF.

I also had a Mom category, Dad category, a category for one of my aunts, my sister... categories are really important. What a great example to give my students about the importance of scientific classification!

I really don't think they will give a crap about my keepsake books. Never mind.

So fill up your binders with cards!

My memory holders

Make sure you leave room for all of the memories to come!

Civil Rights Unit Word Wall

2012-06-26T12:20:00.001-07:00

My cherubs had a lot of trouble understanding the Civil Rights Movement. Among a few other resources, I found pictures to be most effective to add to the unit we did. They showed the students that in fact, these events did happen. They had a hard time believing people could do such terrible things. It was also good to include successes! SO! Instead of a mere word wall, I made a picture word wall! I'm not a huge fan of plain word walls. I think definitions or an image should join the words. Here is my Civil Rights Word Wall:

Google the word, phrase, or event you need and search the images. Aim for pictures that are at least 500x600 so your pictures are basically the same size and you won't need to re-size. Obviously, I wasn't able to do that here, so just do your best!

Click on images to expand.

Tall Tales Unit Bulletin Board

2012-05-30T16:01:00.000-07:00

We are wrapping up our unit on Tall Tales. The kids read them in small groups, as a whole class, did graphic organizers, reading responses, and now they are writing their own!

Here are the pictures of my bulletin board:

Tray Re-Do

2012-05-28T07:55:00.002-07:00

Here's a craft that has nothing to do with school. Happy Memorial Day!

Before:

After:

You'll need a paint scraper, the acrylic paint colors of your choosing, and Mod Podge. I also needed a little sanding block.

I'm not super pleased with how the design turned out. I wasn't able to make the C more round and fancy doing it free-hand and I didn't have a stencil for it. I also wish the gray color was lighter. However, it was fun taking something gross and making it pretty!

I found the tray in my bathroom when I moved in my apartment. I think it was originally plain wood and someone painted white and put down ugly contact paper. It had then collected all the lovely residue that accumulates in bathrooms.

First, I found a good Lifetime movie to have on in the background:

Then, I scrubbed the tray like crazy with Clorox wipes and spent quite a bit of time scraping off the contact paper.

Once I got all the contact paper off and sanded it a bit, it looked like this:

I painted the bottom of the tray first so I could see if the color I chose was the right one and how many coats I'd need.

I let it dry and then used a technique I learned on Pinterest. Put thumbtacks on the bottom of the tray so you can easily paint the sides!

Fully painted:

Then, I picked my paint colors for the decoration!

Again, I wish I'd used a much lighter gray, like the one from my frame makeover. Maybe a lighter yellow, too.

I knew I wanted to do stripes with a C (for my first initial) on top. I have seen gray and yellow and coral on a lot of decorator and craft blogs, so I decided to experiment.

I put painter's tape around the inside of the tray and started with yellow, since the gray stripes would go on top. It would be easier than painting yellow on dark gray. I put down painter's tape for the stripes and tried my best to make them evenly spaced.

I gave up on using a ruler and just eyeballed it and started painting.

It looks like a bumblebee. But I persevered.

I wish I had better directions for how I did my C, but I sketched it lightly in pencil freehand, and then took my Pink Melon paint and went for it. I used a really skinny brush at first, but then switched to a stiff, angled one.

Close-up: You can see it's not perfect!

After I was done painting and it all dried, I added two coats of Mod Podge.

Here it is with a fruit bowl on it!

I decided to put it on my microwave. I have 4 roommates and I'm slowly making my room as close to what a studio apartment is like as I can so I can feel like a grown-up lady with her own apartment. Here's my little "kitchen area". It's sad and wants a pretty tray.

Here you go, kitchen area!

Learning Tree

2012-05-23T15:14:00.002-07:00

I have seen many different Learning Trees on teaching blogs. Some are hand-made with butcher paper and posted floor to ceiling. Some are on bulletin boards, and some are 3-D! I started small with a tree from Lakeshore and put it on my wall, overlapping the bulletin board and my "Reader's Treehouse".

I added an owl I made myself with scrapbook paper just for funsies and because I love owls. I didn't use a pattern, just my mad skillz.

I also have some multi-colored twinkle lights going on. The tree came with leaves, so I laminated them and made little pockets using cardstock:

I found a leafy font on dafont.com and cut out the words and glued them onto the cardstock. I stapled the cardstock to the bulletin board on the edges. I put blank leaves in the top pocket and the kids take whiteboard markers and write one thing they've learned on a leaf. Then they put it in the "What I Learned" pocket and I put it on the tree when I feel like it. After a few weeks, I take them down, erase them, and start all over again.

wtf

Job Chart

2012-05-22T19:00:00.001-07:00

Job charts provide an easy way to have a classroom full of child laborers for 5 minutes a few times a week.

After some trial and error, I found that it's necessary to have a job and a slot for every kid. You will also need to leave room for those friendly new students that show up at your door in March. I find 4 subs to be sufficient, as I have 2 students that are usually out of the room and after accounting for possible absences.

I bought one of those calendar pocket charts and put all the calendar stuff aside. I used pop-out letters for "Jobs" and just stuck them in the top pocket. You can use any little nametags as job cards with a border you like. I had to trim mine down a bit. You'll also need to measure how big the name cards are and cut some of those. I used cardstock. As you can see, the name card needs to be taller than the job cards.

The jobs in my room are:

Attendance- This person takes down the attendance sheet, I actually check attendance)

Time Keeper- The Time Keeper is supposed to kindly let me know if we're running late or give me 5-minutes warnings during read-alouds. Ultimately, this is a pointless job because my group this year basically can't tell time. Last year, they were allllllll about it.

Paper Passers- I do 2. Sometimes I wish I had 3.

Reading Corner- These students have the privilege of sitting in the reading corner on a cushion during free reading or any quiet seat work. However, they also have to make sure books are put back where they belong during job time. I have 3 of these. It all depends on how big your reading corner and class library are!

Lunch Bin- It takes 3 kids to carry down the lunch bin and pick up the extras that fall out of the bin.

Supplies organizers- During job time, 2 kids check the supply bins and math materials to make sure nothing is in the wrong box. More supplies organizers would be nice. They get really into it, check that the markers aren't running out and that the unifix cubes are clean!

Trash collector- 3 kids check the floor for trash during job time.

Recycler- Take down the recycling during job time. Only 1 kid is necessary!

Pencil Sharpener- The cherubs love sharpening pencils while I'm in the middle of lesson, so now ONLY the pencil sharpener person is allowed to sharpen pencils on my awesome mega-super-intense pencil sharpener during job time. The system works wonders.

Table Cleaners- 2 chickadees get a Clorox wipe and wipe down our tables. More or fewer kids could work.

Board Eraser- Erase the schedule, morning message, and whatever is left of what I've written on the board that day.

Job Changer- This person shifts the name cards down one space to the left, moving up to the next row at each end. I always make sure the job changer waits until the kids know their jobs before changing them. My kids needed a step stool to reach the chart at the beginning of the year and now they don't! Tall chickadees!

Subs- I started with 3, then got a new student in March, so I just added another sub. As of now, I have 5 subs. Yep! 2 new chickadees in March. 26 little darlings in all.

"What do I do during job time??? I DON'T HAVE A JOBAAAAHHH!!!!!???!!!!" is something I used to hear a lot. Job subs often have nothing to do, and kids like Attendance and Paper Passers are left milling about, distracting my Table Cleaners. SO, kids with nothing to do can:

-Clean out their bins/desks

-Help someone else

-Wipe down the board with a damp paper towel and dry it afterward

-Wipe down shelves and bins with a Clorox wipe or damp paper towel

-Stuff mailboxes with homework

My job chart is on my "Info" bulletin board.

It teaches them to clean up after themselves. It makes your life easier. It takes 5 minutes every other day. People always comment on the cleanliness of my classroom!

The Best Thing Ever

2012-05-16T16:37:00.005-07:00

It was my sister that directed my attention, and I think maybe bought me, Post-It dispensers. You buy the pop-up notes, not the pads, and load up the dispenser. Scholastic had an APPLE dispenser and I HAD to use my points to buy it. I had to.

Post-It dispensers rule over just the regular pads because:

-They're quicker. You can just rip one out instead of having to hold the pad down with one hand and mine has sand in it or something so it's super heavy.
-They're cuter
-The available colors for pop-up Post-Its are just as plentiful.

I still keep a pad of Post-Its because I like the teeny ones, too.

You can buy this apple on the Scholastic Book Clubs teacher thingy, or here:

There's no price listed, so that means it's free.

Other dispensers:

They have boring-color, boring-shaped ones, too. For LOSERS!

Stop and T.H.I.N.K.

2012-05-15T19:37:00.000-07:00

Is it

Thoughtful?

Helpful?

Important?

Necessary?

Kind?

Totally stolen and adapted from other teaching blogs. I don't take credit for the original idea at all. I decided to put the T.H.I.N.K. part in a thought bubble because of the thought bubble we use in all of the classrooms at our school. Students learn some thoughts should stay in the thought bubble. I combined the T.H.I.N.K. part I found online and made it part of the thought bubble. I did the design myself.

The white circles are the little parts of the thought bubble/cloud leading up to the big one :)

Print on white paper, glue and layer on colored card stock, glue on poster board, and laminate! Fonts from dafont.com, a free fonts website. Visit it when you have time. Lots and lots of time.

The Volume Song

2012-05-07T16:45:00.002-07:00

I have a gift.

One, simple, little gift. I have the ability to write math songs to the tune of the pop music our kiddoes love. And I do it while they're at P.E.

Here are the lyrics to "Volume, Maybe".

It's about volume. It's to the tune of....

....."Call Me, Maybe". teehee.

The chorus is the most important part. The verses are a little less vital, more silly. You have to sing it with the real song a few times to get the timing right. Just remember, I made the syllables match as much as possible. Then, sing it with your kids to the karaoke version!

Find the volume of a shape

It sounds like it’s so inane

But just know you’ll be okay

I will show you the way

There’s a simple formula

You’ll know it, you’ll be like, “Duh!”

And then you’ll never forget

I will show you the way

You know what the length is

You know what the width is

You know what the height is

Halfway there, you know it, baby!

Hey, find the volume

It isn’t crazy

Just multiply

For volume, baby

You know the length

The width and height

Just multiply

For volume, baby

You know the length

The width and height

Just multiply

For volume, baby

You know the length

The width and height

Just multiply

For volume, baby

For your personal practice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWAdb1vgoik

When you're ready to do it for realz:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j7msD4INr0

It's tricky to figure out where to start on this one. Listen closely and... count 2 measures or count two 4-counts or count one 8-count or start at 0:05. Whatever floats your boat. I promise you won't be disappointed.

I also did "Composite Number" to "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5 (did NOT know the actual lyrics until it was too late), "It's Prime, It's Prime" to "Tonight, Tonight" by Hot Chelle Rae, "Quadrangle" to "Firework" by Katy Perry, and "Trapezoid" to "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz.

I also wrote a super complicated song about classifying polygons to "I Gotta Feelin'" by the Black Eyed Peas, but it was wayyyyyy too ambitious.

I did actually get this strategy from an ELL course. But making up songs to help kids remember stuff helps everyone, not just ELL kids. The chickadees love for me to take a video of them so they can watch it over and over. I'm teaching it tomorrow. I always worry they judge me. I told them it was happening and I heard a lot of "YES!!!" but at least one, "I hate that song!" I told that student he/she could do a worksheet instead :)

Wish me luck!

Poster Museum

2012-05-05T08:50:00.000-07:00

1. Students make posters or create other work you can put up around the room.

We're wrapping up our Tall Tales unit in Reading! Our posters had 4 parts: Sensory Images, Exaggeration, Sequence of events, and Character Traits.

I hung a few posters on my line at the back of the room, a bunch on the whiteboard with magnets, and some over existing bulletin boards with push pins.

Sneak peek at my Tall Tales bulletin board:

2. Students walk around the room, looking at each other's posters silently. I made sure to tell them it was a poster museum, and they treated it as such. Be sure you put the posters in places that are easy to get to (i.e. not behind your desk or squished in the corner by the sink). I gave them about 10 minutes, and it was awesome.

3. Students get sticky notes and may whisper as they write only kind comments and put them on posters. I floated around, adding notes to posters that weren't getting as much love. I also suggest removing the unkind notes as you go.

I happen to have the sweetest children on the planet, so quite a few of them told me afterward that they tried to put one nice note on everyone's. If only I could put pictures of them on this, you'd see how hard they worked and how much they studied each poster!

Matting a Letter with Scrapbook Paper

2012-05-01T19:13:00.002-07:00

Hi everyone!

I'm a failed blogger. I was going to post 5 crafts that had nothing to do with school over April break and then I posted one like 2 weeks ago. Well, here's another one I did over break. I had a very special letter and wanted to display it. I was also in a crafty mood! Also, I had like $3.

I took my butt over to Walmart and got this frame:

It's 8x10 WITHOUT the matting and 5x7 with. I took the matting out and have no idea what to do with it. Thanks for ignoring the piece of paper on my floor. Cute dust ruffle, huh?

Then, I painted it with many coats of acrylic paint.

I tend to paint with a large piece of cardboard to cover the floor so I don't get stuff everywhere. It kinda works! I used Steel Gray for the color. It's my favorite color because it reminds me of Blue Steel.

I particularly enjoy getting my scrapbook paper from this fancy Marshall's near where I work. I got this pack for $5 and picked my background. They have scrapbook paper in lots of places but at Marshall's it's DISCOUNTED. I might devote an entire post to pretty paper and that you should buy it in Marshall's.

I traced the glass from the frame on the back of the scrapbook paper (the white side with no pattern). I lined up the corner of the glass with the corner of the paper so I'd only have to cut two sides. Then, I glued the letter to the center of the paper. I put the glass in the frame, the paper on that, and put on the back! I wish I had more process pictures for you, but I don't. I'm a teacher. I want you to learn, explore, try, do, take risks!

Orrrrrrr I forgot.

The finished product!

Layers! I love non-flat frames. I don't know what the word is for frames like this, but anything more exciting than a flat rectangle makes me feel like I'm classy.

My curtains are thermal, not pretty. You can't really have both. Also my lamp is boring and I have candles in a vase. I live a very luxurious life.

The frame is ginormous, so I'm glad I used softer colors. I wanted to have a special way to remember someone without being like, IN YO FACE about it. Framing a letter instead of a picture of a dead person is a little easier on the eyes.

It was the only frame long enough for the letter in the first place. I suggest measuring the thing you want to frame BEFORE you drive 30 minutes to go buy it. Or, it's an excuse to buy 10 frames, just in case.

Happy April Vacation!

2012-04-19T18:39:00.000-07:00

My plan was to post a non-school-related artsy-craftsy do-it-yourself-y creation a day, Monday-Friday, over April vacation to celebrate our freedom. You know the moment you realize you've wasted your vacation watching TV and sleeping?

It's Thursday. But I have one! One little craft I did over vacation. Maybe by Sunday, I'll have a decent number of posts and won't be so ashamed. For now, you'll have to enjoy my simple painting.

I printed out a picture of Massachusetts and traced it in pencil on my Walmart canvas. I picked yellow acrylic paint for a background color because I like it and it was handy. I painted the yellow around the state, using the tiniest brush to get it all the details around the harbor and islands.

I let the paint dry, which didn't take too long, and erased all the pencil. Then came the blue for the state! Again, I selected the color because it was handy, and I like blue, and it goes with yellow. My old elementary school colors were blue and gold. Maybe those colors are deeply embedded in my psyche.

Again, I used my tiniest paint brush for the details. While that dried, I found some crinkly deep pink paper from a stationery collection and cut out a small heart. You could also take some construction paper and crumple it with your hands. I took my Tacky Glue and glued it over my beloved Boston.

I've seen paintings of states done with the heart cut out or painted on, but I wanted to be creative and 3D. I'm also really into appliques right now.

I've had a few glasses of wine.

Final product again, this time hanging on my dark blue wall:

Artistic style:

That's my lamp.

Bye!

Late nights

2012-03-25T17:56:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you've had that moment. You leave work around 7 and think to yourself, "Whose van is that? Normally the parking lot is empty when I go home on Wednesdays."

Pencil Trade-Out

2012-03-19T17:03:00.001-07:00

Remember the crayon vases I made? I had to buy a large pack of mason jars instead of just a few. Silly Walmart. I have found many uses for mason jars, including my fancy, wonderful, slightly impractical pencil trade-out system.

Like the new camera? It has a lot of settings and I like to play with them.

I took a mason jar, found a cute pencil-themed font from dafont.com, typed up the labels, glued them to pencil-colored card stock, and packing-taped them to the jars. Then, I screwed on the jar rims, throwing the top disc things under my bed next to that green styrofoam crap and some old boxes.

You don't have to do that part.

Next, instruct your children to keep pencils IN THEIR PENCIL CASES and only to trade out a dull for a sharp if they have NO SHARP PENCILS IN THEIR PENCIL CASES. Then, make sure the dull ones go in the dull jar, and the sharp ones in the sharp jar. We have a Pencil Sharpener job during Job Time, and that is the ONLY time students can sharpen pencils during school.

My pencil sharpener was $50 and I love it like I love my own unborn children. It sharpens pencils in seconds! I highly recommend that investment.

I caution you: my sweet little chicadees ADORE trading out their pencils. They all demand a perfectly sharp one, and are also too lazy to get them from their blue bins at the back of the classroom (we don't have desks, just tables). I have had to crack down, I tell you! But now we've got the hang of it. In March! Also, they're glass jars, so maybe they're not the most brilliant container. Luckily, my cherubs are delicate and cautious.

...

I think the blurry part in the back is called "bokeh" and you adjust the aperture to make it focused in the front and get that lovely "bokeh". I might be talking out of my butt.

Here's how they know when to throw out a pencil that is too small:

This is taped to the table in front of the pencil jars. The kids hold the pencils up to the one drawn on here and throw it away if it's too small. This helps avoid their love of sharpening their pencils until there's barely anything left and then trying to write with it!

Keeping It Real

2012-03-06T18:49:00.001-08:00

Someone pinned this picture from my blog and commented, "I wish I was this organized!!!"

HA.

HA.

HA.

Note the chairs taped together there on the left side?

That means school hadn't started yet. Flash forward to today:

That stack of papers on the left with a bag on top? The bag is leftover supplies the kids brought in SEPTEMBER that I STILL don't know what to do with. The stack of papers? It is a pile of extra worksheets.

The stack next to the bigger stack? A pile of crap someone left in my room. I don't know whose it is. I think it's an accumulation of other people's paper and overheads and folders and math games. The tray? Rocks and minerals exploration. The pile next to that? I have no idea.

Ugly red bag? Emergency grab and go bag that I still have not figured out where to put. It is collecting dust.

Don't get me started on the giant box of Goldfish. Do the words "salty snack craving" and "binge" mean anything to you?

Yes, it's great to have "a place for everything, and everything in its place," as my Grandma taught me. But to have the discipline to put things where they belong in the moment? Knowing where to put the random crap you didn't plan on? I have yet to master that. I have done the opposite of mastering that.

Hey girl

2012-01-30T17:04:00.000-08:00

http://heygirlteacher.tumblr.com/

Crayon Vase

2012-01-13T20:39:00.000-08:00

It's time for a craft! I have yet to come up with something that is 100% my own idea, but I think I did a pretty good job taking this idea I found:

And crafternooning it into this:

So throw the Dance Moms marathon on your tv, get your materials, and have a great crafternoon!

All you need is:

-A jam-sized Mason Jar

-A brand new pack of crisp, clean crayons

-Fake flowers- I made paper flowers from a pack I got at Paper Source

-A glue gun

-Ribbon

-That styrofoamy green crap you use in fake flower arranging... I'm sure they call it something glamorous like "Floral Styling Foam" but you can get it in the craft section at Walmart. The little pieces of this stuff get all over your hands and clothes and they feel super grainy and gross and stick to you like glitter but if you can get over that, you should totally use it!

Here is a quick step-by-step via crappy iPhone pictures:

Assemble your materials and get your glue gun niiiiiiice and hot. You can discard the top of the jar unless you have some sort of affinity toward Mason Jar tops. I spent 3 minutes googling whether you say "affinity toward", "affinity towards", or "affinity for". I gave up and just used "toward". Boy, what I do for a laugh!

Be sure you have a safe working surface!

I'm sure there are proper techniques, but I just put a dot of glue on the jar at the top and bottom and pressed crayons on! You definitely have to be careful and work slowly, but it's pretty straightforward. I put the green stuff in the jar first since it's pretty firm and I didn't want to mess up the crayons after they were glued on.

Jam the flowers in so that they look full and happy and bright. Tie a ribbon around it and secure it tightly. I just did a tight double knot and snipped off the ends. Then place it anywhere in your classroom to make it a brighter place! I put it on my desk near the ugly computer table I covered up with my leftover lace curtains :)

You can't buy Mason Jars without getting the whole darn pack, and you'll probably have leftover crayons and flowers and that disgusting green stuff, so why not make another one?

Orrrrrrr... just put the crayons in the jar and screw on the rim- not the lid.

If you're like me, you have both rainbow AND yellow polka-dotted ribbon laying around AND all sorts of different packs of paper flowers. Then you can rrrrreally get wild.

Pinterest Tutorial Part 2

2011-12-12T17:34:00.000-08:00

Welcome back! Steps 1-5 can be found here.

Now that you know what Pinterest is, how to sign up/be invited, how to find and follow people, and how to make boards, it's time to start pinning!

An important thing to remember about Pinterest. Anyone that follows you will see each of your pins as you pin them, and vice versa. Anyone on Pinterest can see what you pin and your comments. It's 100% open to anyone with an account. Also, the point of pinning something is so you can go back to the link when you want to. You can also just pin things you like and have no intention of ever purchasing/trying/doing :)

Step 6:

Pinning things from the internet using your "Pin It" button is the easiest thing in the world. Let's pretend you're on Anthropologie's website looking at boots. Not that I've ever done that all day...

I want to pin these boots because they are adorable. See how my "Pin It" button is about to be clicked up the on the favorites bar? Let's pin this baby! When you click on your "Pin It" button, this screen will appear:

Pinterest finds all of the pictures on that particular page and separates them out. Hold your mouse over the picture you want to pin, and a button will pop up:

Click on "Pin This" and you will see this screen:

I don't want to put this boot on my Apartment Necessities board! Let's change the board it will be pinned to by clicking on the drop down menu and selecting my "Clothes and Accessories Wishlist" board.

Now, it's time to make a little comment and pin it on your board. Pinterest forces you to comment.

Click the red "Pin It" button and you have put it on your board!

(Here's a Pinterest secret few have figured out. You don't have to write a comment. Just press the spacebar once and it will think you commented.)

Step 7:

Re-pinning. Holy crap, is it easy to re-pin things. That's how I've found most of my cool teacher stuff. Other teachers on Pinterest upload cool stuff they've done, I see it, and I re-pin it on to my own board. The whole reason I started this blog is to upload stuff onto my Pinterest to share with others! Then I realized how much like describing things...

Here's how you can find the Education category on Pinterest. That means all of the things everyone has put on Pinterest that they categorized as educational. Warning: It's not always educational. The first screen cap I did had pin of a girl in a bikini from behind. Random things get thrown in...

First, go to the bar at the top of your homepage and hold your mouse over, "Everything". (When you log in, you only see the pins from people you follow, aka "Pinnners you follow".)

You can either select a category from the drop-down menu, OR you can just click "Everything" again. If you click on just "Everything", you'll get what I believe is a real-time feed of everything that is being pinned on Pinterest at that moment. You keep scrolling down to look at more, and it will alert you when more things have been Pinned.

Here's what "Everything" might look like:

Pins from strangers. Food, children's hairstyles, clothes, a picture of a baby sleeping on books... Anyway, you can see a million things a minute. But let's get back to our focus: teaching. Anyone else have to refocus yourself as much as your refocus your sweet cherubs?

Go to that drop-down menu I showed you before and click on "Education". You might see something like this:

Or this:

Pretty cool, huh? There is a decent amount of stuff for 4th grade, but there is a ton of stuff that helps the general education world and a LOT of stuff for K-2.

So what do I do when I see something I like when I'm on Pinterest?

REPIN.

When you hold your mouse over an image, you can repin it from there:

See the rainbow colored graphing worksheet with the kid's hand holding a pen? It's in the top right corner.

If you want to see a larger version of a pin, you can click on it:

And repin it from here!

Click on Repin and you'll add it exactly as you add a pin from another website.

Pretty soon, you'll have an education board (named anything you want!) that looks like this:

Or this:

I have seriously done so many of the things I have pinned. If I want to go back and read directions or get more detail, I just click on the pin and it takes me back to the teaching blog, store, or other type of resource where it was found.

Anchor Charts

2011-12-06T16:41:00.000-08:00

Chart paper.
Markers.
Stick figures.
Bubble letters.
Lamination.

Anchor charts.

Anyone else love to make these? I could write a bunch of stuff about how they're not just pretty pictures but that's no fun.

Here are some of mine!

You better believe they remember the difference now!

Not nearly as cute as I like to make them, but it was helpful.

This goes with this:

It can get annoying when our darling chickadees keep asking WHY they have to learn something, but truthfully, they do deserve an explanation once in a while. Maybe all the time :) Plus, the first text we used for the unit that introduced character reactions provided the cherubs MANY opportunities to react.

Explaining theme to 9 year olds was challenging. Do you like how while I was making this chart I realized they didn't know what inferencing was so I threw in the definition at the bottom? I explained it later. Also I thought it was "inferencing" not "inferring" so I get to re-teach that one! Thanks, anonymous co-worker :)

Goodness gracious do they love my stick figures.

Summary, not summer-y. No, really. I had to clarify.

This should be far larger, but at least you get the idea.

It's kind of tough to describe culture. This barely begins to cover it. The best part of this lesson? When we talked about the "tradition" part, I meekly started singing the opening song of Fiddler on the Roof and HALF OF THEM KNEW WHAT I WAS SINGING.

"Traditionnnnnnnn! Tradition!"

Anyone?

Inferring

2011-12-05T15:35:00.001-08:00

I had to look at a lot of resources to clearly explain inferring. Inferring, metaphor, theme, and culture are all concepts I understand fully, but the difference between understanding a concept you learned in 10th grade and mastered into your early(ish) twenties and teaching it to a 9-year-old is quite significant. Also it's inferring, not inferencing. Just found that out.

The cherubs in my class are having some trouble going beyond the text to think about why a character "really" did something or more importantly, why the author used the words he/she did. It's tricky. I had to backtrack and explicitly teach them what it means to think beyond just the words on the page. It was a very easy lesson!

I started off with a mini-lesson of INFERRING skills. Then we read the short story The Little Hatchet about a little boy and the older man babysitting him. It's almost 100% dialogue and 4th grade is lucky enough to have literacy aides, so she and I did it Reader's Theater style. The chickadees cracked up. They listen intently and laugh at even the tiniest jokes and make my life absolutely complete.

We paused here and there during the read-aloud and recorded inferences. Then we did more of that after the lesson. Here are the two anchor charts I used to teach INFERRING, which I left up and referred to during the lesson. Ignore how it says "inferencing", please.

Try not to be jealous of that magnifying glass. I'm not even a trained artist.

I know.

I leave this up all the time. Clear and simple.

I recorded inferences on this graphic organizer on the whiteboard. The first column was text evidence, the second was prior knowledge, and the third was the inference. Next time, I might flip it since the kids usually said the inference part first and we had to unpack it together. However, doing it in this order kept the little equation I made consistent. I used the same color for each inference and its information.

Pinterest Tutorial Part 1

2011-11-26T19:14:00.000-08:00

Pinterest is becoming a very popular website. It serves as a virtual bulletin board for all the cool stuff you see on the internet. It's kind of like a Facebook for stuff you and your friends like!

Why is it vital for all teachers? Because so many teachers across the country have joined and are pinning all of the cool things they do in their classrooms, links to great teaching blogs they have found, and everyone is sharing ideas. There is even an Education category just for teaching stuff.

Pinterest is used for EVERYTHING. Recipes, clothes, books, places you want to travel to, crafting, home improvement, quotes, and on and on and on. I've blurred out my name and the names of people I know. I didn't blur out strangers' names since Pinterest is public.

Confused? Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start! When you read you begin with A-B-C. When you sing you begin with...

I'll stop.

Step 1:
Go to www.pinterest.com and you will see this:

Go ahead! Request an invite! Unfortunately, you won't be invited immediately UNLESS you know someone already on Pinterest. Have them invite you and you'll automatically be allowed to sign up! Pinterest is no longer in its first stages, but they're still continuing to expand and work out the kinks. They're also trying to keep it classy, thus the "invitation only" rule. The site might also be slow or down every once in a while, but it has been working really well for the past few months.

You'll receive an email that looks like this once you've gotten an invitation:

Click on the link in the yellow box at the bottom and it will prompt you to do a zillion things like follow your Facebook friends that are already on Pinterest, install a "Pin It" button, and create your boards. In case it does not prompt you or this is confusing, be sure to read steps 3-5.

Step 2:
Once you've signed up with an email and username, go to www.pinterest.com and log in! You might see that same screen as the first time you visited the website, or you'll see this:

Log in, and you're ready to go!

Step 3:
If you have not already been prompted, it's time to follow some people! You can follow anyone that is on Pinterest, but you should start off with people you actually know. Once you follow someone on Pinterest, everything they pin will show up on your page when you log in. If you follow 3 people, all of their stuff will appear in the order they pinned it. If you follow 50 people, it works exactly the same. You'll just have a LOT more pins to look through!

Here's how you follow someone:
Find the button with your name at the top right of your home page. Click "Find Friends".

My name is blurred out and for some reason replaced with another question mark... Anywho, it will take you to this:

Isn't that so handy? It just uses your Facebook friends list! The left side is to invite friends who aren't on Pinterest, and the right side is friends that are already on Pinterest. Click "Follow" next to the people you want to follow. They will be notified and will probably follow you back.

Once you have a bunch of people that you follow, your home page will look something like this each time you log in with different pins displayed each time:

You can now see everything your Pinterest friends are pinning on their boards in the form of a live feed. The left bar has a little history: who has "liked" one of your pins, who started following you, and who has repinned something you pinned! I follow around 100 people, and about that many follow me. You can follow just one kind of board someone has or you can follow all of their boards.

Step 4:
At some point in the registration process, you will be asked to install a "Pin it" button on your bookmark bar. Do it. You'll be able to pin things left and right anytime you're surfing the web. Do people say, "surfing the web" anymore?

If you weren't already prompted to do so, install it from the website. Go to the "About" drop-down menu on the top right side of the screen:

Click on "Pin It Button" and it will take you to this screen:

Follow the directions...

Name it, and click "OK". They suggest "Pin It". I think that's fitting.

And then it will be on your bookmarks toolbar!

Hooray!

Step 5:
Create your boards. Pinterest allows you to add as many boards as you'd like and you can name them anything you want. To get to your boards, go back to the top right corner and go to the drop-down menu that appears when you click on your name and select "Boards".

It will take you to a page that probably looks like this:

It might have some blank boards, too. You can easily edit those boards by clicking on the large edit button at the bottom of the boards so you can change the title, add a description, or anything else you want.

Once you start getting more into Pinterest, you'll realize you want to have a lot of boards in a lot of categories. I try to give my boards fun titles like, "I Want To Go To There" instead of "Travel" as a shout-out to 30 Rock :) Here is a picture of all of my boards:

Most importantly, I have "For my classroom". 103 people follow my board and I have pinned 174 things. Here's a screenshot of some of the things I've pinned:

Cool, huh?

Here's how to add and name boards:

Click the "Add" button at the top right of the page.

You will see a screen pop up:

Click on "Create a Board" and this window will pop up:

Name it and pick a category. Where it says "Who can pin?" you'll probably want to keep it as "Just Me". Then click "Create Board"!

Part 2 will show you how to pin, re-pin, and how to find awesome stuff on the Education category on Pinterest.

See you soon!

Ode to Scholastic Book Clubs

2011-11-22T16:02:00.000-08:00

These opinions are 100% mine. As much as doing Scholastic Book Clubs benefits the company, it REALLY benefits teachers and is a cheaper way to buy brand new books easily. It's kind of a long post so you probably won't be interested unless you're considering doing the Scholastic Book Club thing.

I have to say, my kiddoes L-O-V-E LOVE book orders. They have physical giddy reactions and immediately start picking what they want. Not all of them get to order stuff, but some clearly get to buy whatever they want. It all depends on the parents. It doesn't seem to bother anyone who can't order, and I always remind them that since I get free books, really, we all get new books whether we order or not. The following is a little summary of the ordering process.

First of all, we probably all remember getting the catalogs in elementary school:

Yep. They look exactly the same.

Same colorful options showcasing beautiful book covers with tiny summaries, crowded onto thin, translucent paper mysteriously bound together. I used to just pick the pretty books and I was lucky enough to have parents that would pretty much buy whatever I wanted in the Scholastic Book Orders.

I was more than happy to do this for my students since I loved it so much as a kid, so I glanced through the ginormous catalog I received in my mailbox last year. As a first year teacher, I could barely handle the minimum requirements of my job description. Overwhelmed at the mere sight of the ordering form, I gave up and didn't try it. My chickadees last year whined about not being able to do the book orders, but they survived. I tell my kids "I'm sure you'll survive" a LOT.

One of my fellow 4th grade teachers spoke about all the "points" she got for each kid's order. She bought books for her classroom with her points at no cost to her. She also got book bins and all sorts of classroom supplies. That was the first time I realized I could benefit from doing this. I decided to try it this year. A daunting task at first, it was all worth it when I got the points. After two months AND ordering over 10 books using my points, I have this balance:

Whaaaaaaat?

Some books are only 75 points. You can get a huge set of Magic Tree House books or Geronimo Stilton books for 500 points. When I started last year, I inherited a huge library- I can't even fit all of the books in my shelves. But many of the books are pretty outdated, some are totally falling apart, and probably only 5% of them were published in the past 2 years. I am now able to slowly add to my library completely for free. I also get crazy coupons with each order. When a parent orders online, I get $3 per order (not per each book ordered, but the total). Each order generally comes with 3 free books, and they sent me coupons for $10 of free books for each month.

The more books they buy, the more stuff I get, so I always give them 2-3 different catalogs. There's usually a promotional catalog, plus the monthly catalogs organized by grades 4-6 and grades 2-3. They also have Pre-K through 1, ELL, and a zillion other varieties.

I started ordering using the paper order with checks. Imagine getting a ton of these all filled out with checks stapled to them:

You can either fill out one giant master paper form with all of the orders, or GO ONLINE! Online wins. It tracks the numbers and money for you, and automatically converts things into points. I also started letting the kids order online at home. I thought it would be too confusing or wouldn't give me points, but it does! If they enter the activation code, I get all the points that come from their order, and as I said earlier, $3 per online order. The only way for them to order books is to enter the activation code anyway! I was worried about the kids that don't have internet access, but they can still do checks/paper and it all combines flawlessly. The online orders are shipped with the check/paper orders, and parents can view the paper catalogs I give out in class online, as well as ordering any other books on the site at any time. Did I mention that basically every book ever is on their site and it's really nicely discounted? As in $1 books. $3 books. They have all of the Harry Potters, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Captain Underpants, and plenty of silly toys and diaries and "spy kits".

You choose which catalogs to be displayed online.

You can pick books by Guided Reading Level, DRA, and a few other reading level measures.

To input your paper/check order, just press the plus sign and it calculates it all for you.

You decide which catalogs parents see and when, create a wish list, and it tells you how many parent orders there are, what they ordered, and who ordered them. They pay online as well.

It totals it all up, you submit the order or save it if you're going to add more. You submit checks via an envelope given in the catalog. Parent online orders are already on there, and you can add stuff with your points and coupons here as well.

Organization:

I keep all my Scholastic information in a handy folder in the file holder on my desk. There is still a lot of paper and random fliers even though I'm mainly online. I suggest keeping a Scholastic folder. This was a tip from my mentor. The most important thing to hang on to is the check envelope. Since I still have a lot of parents who don't order online, I'm submitting quite a few checks. There's specific information to fill out on each envelope, so don't forget it!

Keep your login username, password, and class activation code in that file. Also, be sure to set a clear due date each month so you have time to use your monthly coupon! There's a place on each order form for the darling cherubs to copy the activation code and due date, so I always make sure they have a pen and the information is on the board when I pass out the newest catalogs.

Information overload? I promise I'm not getting paid for this!