Bright Ideas: A Blast From the Past!

November's Bright Ideas post is very unique. Instead of being a million brand-new bright ideas, we're giving you a change to browse through some of the great bright ideas from the last ten months that you might have missed! 

The Bright Ideas posts are great places to get interesting and useful tips and ideas to use in your classroom without having to download anything! No freebies, no products, and no hard drive space involved! Just good teaching and great tips.

These are my Bright Ideas posts from the last year. Check them out and maybe you'll find something new to try out!

I was extra-excited about this Bright Idea. This fun Creative Writing Response for Any Book! is a good way to get kids to respond to text while encouraging them to develop their writing vocabularies, too!

Setting Behavioral Goals  is a great way to get kids thinking about their own goals for behavior while encouraging teamwork, too!

 

 I love my color-coded Response Rings for checking for understanding. I hope you love them, too!

 

Personal Editing Checklists are a differentiated tool to help individual students develop a sequence for editing their own writing!

 

 My first Bright Ideas post was about Special Delivery Book Bags, a fun way to get kids excited and engaged in reading new books you introduce to the class!

  I hope you've found some useful tips here! If you see something you like, follow my blog Check out some of the other Bright Ideas Posts below!  

An InLinkz Link-up

  Pin It

Because I'm SUPER thankful! Link-up

Primary Powers is hosting a superfun thankful link-up!  

I'm super excited to participate. I love these holiday link ups! 

  We've been married for just over a year, and I'm so thankful God put him in my life. He blesses me every day with kindness and love.  

  My family is the best. They are fun and they do whatever it takes to help each other out.   

My colleagues are incredible. We have a beautiful team, full of people who always say, "Yes, I can help!" and "Yes, we can do it!" They're such a blessing.  

  As I was looking for pictures to add to this slide, I realized I have a problem. I found all of these pictures in my iphotos from one week of our honeymoon. ONE WEEK. I love coffee. It don't need it but I sure do appreciate it. I've been going a little crazy with the creamer lately, though. I can't turn down those holiday flavors.  

  I binge-watch all sorts of shows while I work. This year, this has included: Bob's Burgers, Once Upon a Time, The Walking Dead, and Orange is the New Black. (Arrested Development and 30 Rock are the old stand-bys)

  Books, books, books, books, books. Need I say more?  

  I met some amazing people last summer in Vegas. They've really helped me on my way!

  They have made so many things possible in our lives. Thank God for the teachers who spend their hard-earned money on products I've made!   What are you thankful for? Head over to the link-up to see what the other primary powers bloggers are thankful for, or to link up your own thankful post!   Pin It

Saturday English Camp: Turkey Time!

For the last two years, I planned with teachers to host a Saturday English Camp for grades 2 - 5. This group of third graders was the last group in our Saturday English camps last year. It happened right before Thanksgiving, so of course, our theme was TURKEYS!  The main focus of our English camps are listening, speaking, reading, and writing in English. We incorporate fun, hands-on activities, and language acquisition strategies such as chants, songs, poems, GLAD charts, etc. 

Third graders read A Plump and Perky Turkey and pulled out descriptive words from the story.  Then kids wrote about what their turkey wants us to eat for Thanksgiving, instead of turkey! The most exciting part of the morning was when the kids used lots of edible materials to create their own turkey. It was fun to see what creative turkeys they came up with!

This turkey honestly left me with a few questions...

Pin It

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!

Pin It

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!

Pin It

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! 

Pin It