Reading and Responding to Text!

Common Core is where it's at.... Well, at least for the time being!

Boy, do I have a great lesson for you! Okay, well I'm thinking it might be a great lesson. This will be taught this Thursday in a 3rd grade classroom. We shall see then just how wonderful it is, LOL! Anyways, it's FREE and I just made it tonight! You can either read the book Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco, OR you can go to www.storylineonline.net and you can have the story read aloud to your class! It's about a 16 minute video and it's a great story. Check it out!!

Comprehension ~ Constructed Responses: Book Thank You, Mr. Falker!

Do you need words for your word wall?

This post is from a long time ago! I'm not sure why it was saved in the draft section...Oops!!  We had just started using them at the time and now the whole 4th grade team uses them. This is a set of 180 Words taken from Fry's list of 100 4th grade words and 80 of the 5th grade words. All words have the parts of speech listed and pictures added in where possible. These words help to meet many of the common core standards!
*180 words for the word wall that kids should be able to write and read fluently*
These words can be added in to your current spelling program.
Great for ELL kids as well as your whole class!!




180 Word Wall Words        

Our Newest Product: Building a Terrarium!

Our school is in the process of becoming STEM certified. STEM means Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics! Basically our kids are taking a more inquiry-based approach in their learning process. So far, the kids are responding well and most of the teachers are really liking it too! Whether you are a STEM school or not- our lessons that have STEM in the title can work for your students as well. Our newest product titled Water Cycle: Building a Terrarium, is currently in our Teacher Pay Teacher store. Our kids had a blast completing this 1-2 week unit. We also have many other Science units available such as: weather, simple machines, force & motion, ecosystems, etc.

 

Water Cycle: Building a Terrarium

Fractions Freebie

Greetings to you.  I'm sitting here wondering how many balls I can continue to juggle in the air. It seems that as each month passes another ball is added to my juggling act! I'm sure you can relate. Hence, the 2 month absence from this blog! Anyway, to help me feel less guilty, help yourself to our newest freebie on equivalent fractions. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/MATH-Equivalent-Fraction-Sheet-FREEBIE


Math Freebie

Stay tuned, another post is coming soon on simple machines.

Ordering Fractions!

One of the biggest changes in our curriculum this year involves fractions.  We are having to teach our 4th graders how to put fractions with different denominators in order. Wow! We decided the best way to do this is with a number line- actually, many number lines.  Through trial and error we discovered that the students should make a number line for each denominator before figuring out which is least or greatest.  We wanted to share with you how we did it so it can hopefully save you time when you get to this!

We gave each group of 3-4 students a number line to build. The number lines started with 1/2 and went all the way up to 1/12. We skipped 1/11- but we didn't need that one anyway!  The little papers attatched are pictures of each fraction.  The kids used graph paper to make these.  





A New Blog and Writing Idea!

The Constant Kindergartener Blog is hosting a linky party. If you teach younger kids this may be just the blog for you.  She has some really cute paper with holiday designs on it.  This type of paper is great for having the students publish their writing pieces on. We are always looking for ways to make writing fun and just having a simple thing like decorated paper makes even the big kids get excited!

FREEBIE for READING

Feeling a little sluggish...  Going back to school after having one week off is really hard to do. You know- you get in a different routine of staying up late and sleeping in, staying in your pajamas all day, and making things for TPT. I could handle a few more days of that!

Well, back to the grind tomorrow. In reading we are still working on our "Following Characters Into Meaning" unit. Here is a freebie that we used a few weeks ago about assigning traits to our character and backing it up with evidence.
Character Freebie
Take a look and see if it's something you can use.

We need your help! We are trying to find some interesting non-fiction texts for our 4th graders. The non-fiction unit is coming up quick. We will definitely use our Science & S.S. books to help with this, but we are looking for other titles that may seem a little more "fun" for our kiddos. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

That's it for now... I have a little more lesson planning to do before I hit the hay! Have a great week ya'll!!