Super Sight Words BAM Bag Freebie!

I'm blogging over at Primary Powers today! Check out my post to read a little about me and grab the Super Sight Words freebie from TPT!

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Five for Friday November 7 Link-Up

This is one of my favorite link-ups. It's just so easy to do! I have at least five pictures pretty much every week. So here are my five pictures from this week!

This week has been busy busy, full of professional developments and product-making.

I am the luckiest teacher ever. I get to start a HARRY POTTER BOOK CLUB! WHAT?! 

I know. I'm sooo lucky. I put these posters up around the school and I already have kids asking to join! I am so excited to start next week. Any ideas about what I should name it? If you have an idea, I'd love to see it in a comment below!

I am so excited about this picture! One of my latest products is Thanksgiving Partner Plays, reader's theater scripts for two readers. They're perfect for centers or stations or fluency practice. Who doesn't love a seasonal Reader's Theater?! I personally loooooove using scripts in the classroom.

Don't worry: the error in the word "pilgrim" has been corrected!

This week's Learning Thursday (a one-hour professional development after school each Thursday) was the continuation of our school-wide book study: Close the Achievement Gap. We read chapters two and three and created a rigor circle map. Lots to think about!

I love my little pumpkins on my patio. They're all different shapes and sizes!

And this is my brand-new freebie! Super Sight Words BAM bag is a fun way for kids to practice sight words! You can get it free by visiting the Primary Powers blog tomorrow, Saturday!

So, any ideas for the name of my Harry Potter book club? Leave them below!

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Saturday English Camp: Pizza Pizza Pizza

To help our students develop their English in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, we invited fourth and fifth graders to participate in our Saturday English Camp last year!  We planned some fun activities to help them build their language through hands-on experiences. Our theme for fourth and fifth graders was pizza pizza pizza! The teacher shared the pictures and steps for making a pizza with a GLAD narrative input chart as she told the story of someone making a pizza at home. Then kids, in teams, sequenced the pictures and glued them onto a piece of butcher paper. The kids wrote the steps underneath each picture, using complete sentences. 

And then, we made tortilla pizzas! These were a staple in my house growing up. They're so very easy to make! You just need: tortillas (flour), tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, and any other toppings you want. You take a tortilla and spread some tomato sauce on it.

Toast it a little in the toaster oven. Then take it out, sprinkle on the cheese and pepperoni. Toast it some more, until the cheese bubbles deliciously. It's an easy snack and kids love it! 

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Author Visit: Donna Munoz: Harley Farley's First Halloween!

One of my fondest memories of my early teaching career is the day I met Rick Riordan. Our school had won the membership contest for International Reading Association, and our prize was a guest author visit. Rick Riordan had already written several novels for adults, and his new book, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, was about to be published!

Now, of course, Percy Jackson is a major series, has been a motion picture, and is loved by middle schoolers, high schoolers, and adults everywhere (or many places, anyway).

I believe in authors sharing their writing process with kids; encouraging them to write and read; discussing the challenges of revision; sharing where inspiration comes from. Because of this, we try to have at least one guest author each year to hopefully inspire our students.

Yesterday, we were absolutely blessed to have a lovely children’s author, Donna Munoz, come and share her writing and her process with our kids! I sat in on the fifth grade presentation and listened to her story about being the first person in her family to attend college, overcoming challenges, and loving her career as a teacher and a writer.

Her book, Harley Farley’s First Halloween, is available on Amazon in paperback and for the kindle. You can grab it here: 

It’s an adorable story about a zombie named Harley Farley who sleeps in a bunk bed in Eddie’s room at the top of the stairs! Eddie finds him one Halloween night and decides to take him trick-or-treating. It was really enlightening for the kids to hear about where the inspiration came from for certain details in the story; why Eddie’s “plan” looks like a football playbook, whose idea it was to include fried chicken in the story, and why the message of acceptance is so important.

Donna wrote the story collaboratively with her three sons around the dinner table!

An important moment (I always enjoy it) was when Donna shared her document of the story with edits. Students are always surprised to see that “real” authors revise. It’s such a valuable lesson to help kids think about their own writing work.

Donna also shared the first page of her upcoming middle school book, A Jar Full of Butterflies, a story about two sisters who have to move from Mexico to Texas and must find themselves here in America. This is a story many of our children know well from personal experience.

She encouraged our kids to find something they care about and work through their challenges. What a great message!

Happy Teaching!

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Five for Friday! Halloween edition

This week was ca-razy. The kids were actually really great, but we had so many things planned that I am dead tired. 

One
Because this was Red Ribbon Week, just getting dressed appropriately in the mornings was a real challenge. This was Give Drugs the Slip, so I pulled out my Clifford slippers and flopped around in them all day.

Two

On Team Up Against Drugs Day, I busted out my favorite team shirt: Go Yanks!

Three

We had an early release day this week. My math/science counterpart had already planned a training on learning targets and he delivered it beautifully. But, of course, we had to pause for some tasty treats courtesy of our principal and office staff.

Four

On Thursday, I made some tasty treats of my own. To thank the teachers and staff who had worked hard to make Family Literacy Night successful, I made them some deeelicious cupcakes. I don't know if you've tried the new Cinnamon Bun frosting, but holy cow. It is amazing.

Five

On Friday, we had a fairy tale ball for the students in K-2. It was SO MUCH FUN. I dressed up as Gretel and we were introduced red carpet-style. We danced the afternoon away and left feeling exhausted and disgusting in our costumes. 

Go check out Doodle Bugs Teaching and see what other great pictures people have shared for this week! Or link up yourself!


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November Math and Literacy Centers and Stations: Fun Turkey Themes!

Are you a planner? Are you completely ready for November? Well, good for you. Go to some other blog where they're already hand-crafting their own Christmas decorations. Because this is not that kind of blog. I'm just cutting out some stuff for November! These are two of my math and literacy stations that are perfect for this time of year!

In this activity, students have to work out the multiplication problems on the pumpkins. They round the answers to the nearest hundred and sort them into products that round to 100, 200, 300, or 400! 

The entire Turkey Time Math Centers set includes the above activity, a multiplication roll and color center, fact family matching activity, word problems, and arrays. Every activity includes an answer sheet and answer key! Grab it at TPT for only $3.00!

This is from my Gobbling Up Words Word Work centers. In this center, kids read the words on the cards and sort them into one, two, or three-syllable words.

The rest of the Gobbling Up Words Word Work Center set includes a fun Old Maid-type game called Old Crow to practice plural nouns, a compound word building activity, and a sight word choose & color center. Everything is in a fun Thanksgiving theme! Recording sheets are included!

You can get this at TPT for only $3.00 too! For just $6.00, all of your math and literacy stations can be taken care of for November! Pin It