Favorite Civil Rights Reads!

Since February is Black History Month, I thought this would a great time to link up with the lovely ladies at the Teaching Trio to share my three favorite Civil Rights picture books for their Favorite Things Linky!

In 5th grade, we have an entire integrated unit about the Civil Rights Movement. We read tons and tons of primary sources. We watch videos, we learn about the history, we make timelines. Its truly one of the best units we teach all year. However, one of my favorite ways to "teach" this time period is through amazing picture books. You can see more of my favorite books by checking out my past post on Historical Fiction & my Civil Rights feed!

Here are my three favorites:

Freedom on the Menu
This picture book is great for teaching the idea of injustice. Told through the eyes of a little girl who wants a banana split at the lunch counter this book resonates with my 5th graders. The book is extremely well written and has great "stop and jot" moments. This book is also a great companion to primary sources about the Greensboro Sit-ins. {Click each book cover to see more on Amazon!}

Freedom Summer
 This book focuses on two best friends that try and go swimming together at the public pool, only to find out the pool is only open to whites. The writing is impeccable. For fifth graders, this book is perfect for meeting our multimedia standard in Language Arts. Have students read the entire story typed up without pictures first. Then, reread the story together with the pictures! The pictures definitely add to the tone, beauty, and understanding of the text. I'm so glad a fellow colleague thought up this great lesson!

A Taste of Colored Water
I love this book because it's written from a completely different perceptive. Instead of being through the eyes of an African American child, this story is told through two rural boys that have no concept of segregation. Lots of inferencing and imagination are at work in this story! The boys venture into the city with their uncle lured by the taste of "colored" or rainbow flavored water. My students love the humor but always see the bigger message of this text. It also pairs extremely well with the picture book White Water.

I use all of these books to teach about different historical perspectives and events. I also use them as our models before we start writing our own historical fiction. If you're celebrating Black History Month and need some great reads definitely start with my three fravorites!

What are some of your favorite February picture books?

Communicating Incomplete Online Work

It's been a while since I blogged so I thought, I'd check in and write a quick post about a grading trick that works for me. If you're like me and have students complete assignments online, it's often hard to keep track of write-ups or communicate information to parents about unfinished work.

A trick that works for me is using LABELS! I purchased a huge pack from Quill at the beginning of the year for a really cheap, cheap price. Labels are my way of communicating information to parents via our student planner (next to the write-up) so that parents don't need "log on" and check up on students. I also find that they help give me a visual reminder of who needs a write-up for missing work. Once the label is gone - I know I've met with that student about incomplete/missing online work.

Here are my labels for January's online reading log:

I only filled them out for students that did not complete one or more of my requirements. This was just as easy as recording their names on a post-it note but much more useful.

I also send home a small paper grade sheet with all students, like a graded paper. This goes home with all their graded work for the week. However, sometimes those papers tend to get "lost" where a label is not so easily removed from the planner!

What are some of your favorite grading tricks for online work?

Super Bowl Sale!

If you're like me and not so into the Super Bowl this year...except for the commercials, food, and half-time. Then check out my store today and tomorrow. I'm running a "SUPER" sale and my entire store is 20% off including bundles! The sale will run 21 - 2/2!

Graphics and Font by: Ashley Hughes, I Teach What's Your Super Power, KG Fonts, Melonheadz, and Glitter Meets Glue Designs.

I have a few items perfect for Black History Month. The Freedom on the Menu lapbook is a freebie! Please leave some feedback if you use it in your classroom!

I also just updated my Maya, Inca, and Aztec Interactive notebook pages. It now includes pages for the Mississippian culture. It's a stand alone product or you can bundle and save! It also comes with Native Americans of North America bundle.

Please leave me some feedback and enjoy the big game!
Let's Go Seahawks! 

Martin's Big Words Freebie!

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! I know many people are not as lucky to be off today to celebrate and I know this freebie comes a little late but I thought I'd take a minute and share a quick activity for anyone studying Martin Luther King Jr. or readings for Black History Month.

My fifth graders come with a lot of knowledge about Martin Luther King Jr. from previous grades. One of my favorite books to share with them is Martin's Big Words. This book has so many great quotes that can really open up conversation about so many social issues or social injustices. You can check the book out from the library or watch it here on You Tube!



After watching the video, I assign each student a different quote from the book. You could also let students choose a quote that speaks to them. We do a huge display as a wing out in the hallway so I try to make sure all quotes are represented.

Students spend time thinking about their quote. Researching how their quote relates to Dr. King's life or how they see his quote realized in our world today. This activity is a great 1 - 2 day activity to get students thinking and talking about social justice.We use this during our Civil Rights study during Black History Month. This is a great introduction activity to get kids to see the power of words!

Here's what the handout looks like:
{Grab it here from Google Docs or click the image}

What are your favorite MLK books or activities?

Tried it Thursday: "PEELS" Response

Linking up with the wonderful Holly from Fourth Grade Flipper for a Tried it Tuesday, Thursday style! A little late to the party, but with a great resource to share! With PARCC testing approaching in March, I've been looking for an easy way for my students to organize writing for their Performance Based Assessment. A co-worker suggested the super easy PEEL(S) model!

First, we glued this handout in our Reader's Notebooks. 
You can grab your own copy from Tracee Orman's TPT store - for FREE!

Then I modeled and went through the process with Maniac Magee. Our prompt was to choose one theme from Maniac Magee and support the theme with evidence from the text.

Here's my model: {Want a copy? Click the image to grab the PDF}

Then students got to work and started writing their own PEEL paragraph answering the same question about their book club novel.

Look at all this writing about reading! And evidence, evidence, evidence!

So, happy I tried this organization method. My goal is to do a quick flash drafts of short essays using PEEL each week until we take the PARCC. Students can choose to create the organizer before writing or they can go straight to the paragraph but I will be checking and monitoring all the PEELS parts during Reader's Workshop "Writing Days."

What have your tried to help students write about reading?