Five for Friday: Wrapping things up!

This year is completely flying past me! I feel like I've been neglecting my blog and my postings. I really need a calendar and to make some time for my little ol' blog. But, since it is Friday and I haven't linked up in a while, I'm going to join up with Doodle Bug's Teaching for her Five for Friday linky!

This week has been a whirl wind to say the least... here's a peek back at my week!

As part of nonfiction Reader's Workshop, we've been working on summarizing nonfiction texts different ways. Here is our "Five Finger" summary of an article about getting enough sleep! This strategy seemed to be easy for all my students. This student had a rock star summary that was definitely photo worthy!

In Writer's Workhop, we're nonfiction writing as well! Students are writing problem-solution feature articles for National Geographic Explorer. Students are really getting into their topics and thanks to my ATP Amie, I had my own mini-research station! I also found these fabulous note sheets on TPT thanks to Mrs. Heeren's Happenings! Check out her Nonfiction Notes for free at her store! I also purchased the Nonfiction Writing Unit from Lightbulb Minds to help students choose a topic, create a glossary, and write an introduction! I'm loving this writing unit!

In Social Studies we flew to the Midwest region on our very own Crop Duster planes! The students did a great job with this activity! Along the way we created Midwest Scrapbooks of our journey. Wish I would have taken some photos of the students' planes and scrapbooks.

We have a four day weekend this week thanks to our first SNOW DAY! The dogs were very excited to be off school for the day. We had some cinnamon rolls for breakfast and I got caught up on many of my DVRed shows from the week! It's really the best text to get at 5am!

Since school has been crazy busy lately trying to wrap up our reading, writing, and social studies before winter break... I've also been trying to get "wrapping" on my own personal winter break "To Do" list. I'm about half way through my holiday shopping. I used part of my snow day to wrap the gifts I have. The rest are still in transit. Thanks Cyber Monday!

Happy Friday!

Must Read Mentor Text: Over and Under the Snow

I hope everyone enjoyed their time off and had a wonderfully filling Thanksgiving! I enjoyed getting to see friends and family and sleeping in. However, I've also been working on how to improve my students "craft" during our nonfiction writing unit. I really wanted to offer some mentor texts that showcased great nonfiction writing. We've read a lot of articles from National Geographic for Kids and Super Science magazines- but I wanted something else. So, after reading blogs and searching through Amazon. I found two author's craft gems!

My first book I found through through one of my favorite blogs, Joy in the Journey. Jessica shared the book, All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon on her blog. Plus, she has a great vocabulary word wall to accompany the book. Check out her post here. The book is amazing! So after reading her blog and checking it out on Amazon, I had to have it for my nonfiction unit.

While purchasing All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon, Amazon so kindly recommended some other books for me. So, course I had to take a peek and see what else was out there for my nonfiction unit. That's where I found another great book with powerful writing and vocabulary. The book is called Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner. This book is not entirely "nonfiction" - more narrative nonfiction which we will be studying in January. However, I love how the author weaves facts and details about animals in the winter through a plot about a family skiing through the woods. This was definitely the type of author's craft book I was looking for. I can't wait to use it after we finish drafting this week!

Here's a peek inside the book:

The author blends facts with powerful verbs/adjectives and many different uses of commas that we've been studying in our mentor sentences. Plus, there are stunning illustrations!

"Trees rattling leftover leaves" - such great craft!

I love nontraditional use of verbs like "clouds whisper down feathery-soft flakes"

This book could be a great tie in at younger ages to animals during winter. It also has facts about all the animals mention in the book in the Author's Note at the end of the picture book. I'm glad I found this great text to share with my students and add to my collection!

Don't forget to link up with Collaboration Cuties with your favorite must read Language Arts Mentor Texts! 

Also, I'm having a TPT sale for Cyber Monday & Tuesday! My store doesn't have much, but check out all the great work on Teachers Pay Teachers! Don't forget to use the promo code CYBER during checkout! The adorable button is courtesy of Creative Clips.

Happy reading & shopping,

I'm thankful for my little "turkeys!"

I'm so incredibly thankful for all my students and supportive parents! It really is a blessing to be in a district with such great support! To get into the celebration spirit we had a Thanksgiving "fun" morning! We don't always have time to just have some "fun" so today, we pulled out all the stops and rewarded our students for working so hard! For our first part of the day we did two "crafivities."

First we wrote riddles and created our Turkey's in Disguise! These turned out so amazing. Students had to write clues to help protect the turkey and keep his identity hidden! We used Mrs. O's "Wanted: Turkey in Disguise Inference Activity" for our riddles and example. Check out Mrs. O's TPT store for your own free copy! This was perfect for 5th graders! Then we used the turkey from "Disguise a Turkey Project" from The Fabulous Life of an Elementary Teacher. Her turkey was super adorable and I couldn't not use him as our mascot for the day!

Here are some of our sensational Turkeys....

Right to Left: We have a Mickey, Frankenstein, Hello Kitty, Native American, Grandpa Turkey, Draco Malfoy, Luigi, Rocketship Turkey, Birthday cake, and a Bush Turkey.

So clever and the riddles were a great addition to make this perfect for an intermediate grade level activity! Our students loved it! Check it out for next year if you teach intermediate students! We were not disappointed! The kids were able share their riddles at the end to see if other students could "guess" their turkeys disguise! So much fun!

Our second "craftivity" was a Pinterest idea for creating conversation starters. We had the conversation starters printed out on card stock for our students to cut out. Then we made origami envelopes and decorated them before typing them up with a orange ribbon. The students LOVED the origami and now they have some thoughtful things to talk about over Thanksgiving! Just wish I had taken a photo of their cute envelopes and origami!

We also took our "Thank You" card photos today... A mustache really helps you look smarter!

And if you "mustache" I hope everyone has a wonderful break!

Thanksgiving Must Read: "Bugs for Dinner"

So, I know I'm a little bit late to link up with Amanda and Stacia from Collaboration Cuties, but I have a great must read Thanksgiving Mentor Text that is also very historically accurate! This is one of my favorite lessons to do right before Thanksgiving. We're actually making time for the lesson tomorrow even though it's our end of trimester party day!

My favorite text to use the day before Thanksgiving break is called Eating the Plates by Lucille Recht Penner. This book has multiple chapters but I only read the first chapter to my students entitled "Bugs for Dinner." This isn't your typical "yummy" Thanksgiving story!

I print out the entire first chapter so the students can follow along. We discuss some aspects of narrative nonfiction and then we get started. {It is a few pages to print out but I use the same copies year after year.} The chapter "Bugs for Dinner" talks about the hardships on the Mayflower including lice, no showers, sea sickness, and of course the lovely meals on the ship. My students always do a moan and groan after we read this chapter together. I love to do a dramatic read as we go through the Pilgrims pre-Thanksgiving meals on the ship.

Here's a glimpse at the first page...You can also preview the entire chapter on Google Books.

My favorite page discusses the Pilgrims' meals of ship biscuits and squishy turnips! Doesn't it sound delightful? Mmmm....

Then after we finish, we complete a simple visualizing activity! I promise I do more than visualizing activities but this activity is really great because the author does add LOTS of imagery and details. So much so, that my students are usually moaning and groaning about all the "gross" things the Pilgrims had to endure on their journey. We also watch a short video about the size of the ship and realize that no one has any personal space to boot!

Here's my visualizing worksheet. Click on the image to get a free copy.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week! I'm extremely thankful that we only have a two day week this week! The kids and I both are need of a break!

Hope your Thanksgiving doesn't include "ship biscuits" or weevils!

Tried It Tuesday: Photo cards as "Thank You" notes!

This week, I'm once again linking up with Holly from Fourth Grade Flipper for her Tried it Tuesday linky party! I always get so many great ideas from the other teachers! This is truly one of my favorite and most practical link-ups.

Today, I wanted to share a great idea my teaching partner had last year since holiday season is approaching fast. On our team we love how generous our students are during the holidays but writing all the Thank You notes before the end of the day or during plan can make my hand hurt! I see 53 students but we have 100 students on our "team." That means, I could potentially be writing 53+ "Thank You" cards. Plus, the math and science teacher on my team are writing up to 100 Thank You cards during the holiday season... Wowza!

So last year, we decided to split the cost of photo holiday cards to give out as Thank Yous. So many sites like Picaboo, Shutterfly, TinyPrints, and Simply to Impress have many different "holiday" options! Even Walgreens has photocards now! Plus, many are offering great deals before December! This year we were able to score a Groupon for Picaboo! For $30 dollars we can get 100 cards. Now, this is more expensive than my One Spot Thank You's, but they are personalized and after splitting the cost - it's less than $10 a teacher!

Last year, the homeroom teacher was in charge of writing out a thank you to just her homeroom's students. We all met during plan to collaborate on the notes and make sure we had similar gifts. But then we wrote and signed ONE note from all of us. Students who did not bring in gifts, still got a a holiday card as well on the day before break. This made our lives much easier and the students really seemed like like our  Merry & Bright cards.

Here's our card from Picaboo & pic from last year: (sorry about the glare, it's in my scrapbook)

This year, we're going to do a Christmas sweater picture for the kids. Check out some of the photocard sites! Many are offering discounts plus free shipping! Don't forget to also check out RetailMeNot to see if there is a coupon code. It's a an easy want to say "Thanks" without getting a hand cramp!

How do you handle "Thank Yous" at the holidays?