It's Time... for a SALE!

Start January out right with quick and easy to grade "Snapshot" assessments, interactive reading, writing, and grammar notebooks, partner fluency building plays, and Common Core connected reading response tasks for grades 2, 3, 4, and 5!

All 20% off in my TpT store until 2016!

Click the pic head over and check it out!

Christmas Around the World REWIND! {Check for freebies!}

There's still time... click the pic below to check out old blog posts highlighting Christmas Around the World goodies you can use in your classroom!

Your kiddos will thank you for it!

Holiday Party Saga: The Control Freak Teacher {Aaaaand... Freebie!}

Admit it.  You're a control freak too.  And, nothing brings that out in more more than class parties.  I love them.  But I dread that feeling of out-of-controlness... so mine are organized.  Maybe more organized chaos than strictly organized.

BUT... I have to run stations and students rotate through them at scheduled intervals.  I am usually lucky to have a plethora of parent helpers so that I can meander through the room, snapping pictures, and having fun with my kiddos.

Tomorrow is the day for our Christmas party!

We will be...

1.) Playing "Christmas JINGO"... I have the JINGO games for all holiday parties and LOVE them.

2.) Making edible Christmas trees... always a sugar-ified hit.


3.) Making an ornament craft.  Hello 60% off of Christmas at Michael's!  I stocked up and bought some for next year too!

4.) Playing a "Roll and Cover" multiplication game from the fabulous Fourth and Ten.  I printed these in color and slipped into page protectors.  Students can check off boxes and wipe off for the next crew!

5.) Making Christmas cards... silently at our seats.  Click the pic to score this freebie!  I'll even add more for other holidays as the year rolls on.

So, for about 40 minutes, students will be rotating through those five activities.  I may even get wild and crazy and not assign them where to go but instead just put a limit of 6 kids at any activity at any one time.

How's your week looking?  And... are you crazy about controlling your parties too?  The thought of it turning into a giant free-for-all is petrifying to me!

Main-O! Main Idea BINGO! Want to win?

Just added to the ELA growing bundle!

Want to win a copy?  Just leave a comment!  Say hi.  Say anything!  It's always quiet here in December, so just say a howdy and leave your e-mail address!

I'll send out TWO copies!

Christmas Around the World Research Freebie!

It's that time again... CHRISTMAS AROUND THE WORLD!!!!

I have a ton of great free and paid resources for a fun study... click the pic above to check them out!

We're using one of the freebies now... we're researching to create a brochure on holiday traditions in different countries!

Click the pic to check out the freebie!

Tic-Tac-Cookie-Dough!

My ELA random growing bundle is getting bigger!

Newly added... identifying verbs game (Tic-Tac-Cookie-Dough), identifying verb tense, and main idea/details!

Grab it now... the price goes up each time a game is added!  Here we are loving "Tic-Tac-Cookie-Dough"!

Integrating Interactive Notebooks and Reading Response Journals

I LOVE interactive notebooking.  More importantly, so do my kiddos.  I LOVE seeing them use their notebooks as resources and, with our reading interactive notebook and reading response journal, the interactive notebook serves as amazing support for students and parents while they complete their RRJs at home!

Here's how we do it in a standard composition book...

We place the "Teach Me" and "My Turn" pages in our notebook.  I use the "Teach Me" to introduce a skill (this is a pic of the RI.1 skill- asking questions about a non-fiction text).  We highlight important information and then students work on the "My Turn" page right next to it.  This page has a passage about bees.  Students read it and then wrote questions from the text on flaps.  They wrote the answers under the flaps and then asked one another the questions.  They loved it!

Then, I introduced the page they will be completing in their RRJ for homework next week.  For RI 3.1, they read any non-fiction text of their choice, develop 3 questions and answers about the text, and then summarize the main idea and key details.  We did this together so students had a sample.  They refer back to our sample and the "Teach Me"/"My Turn" pages as needed at home.

I LOVE these reading response tasks because they directly connect to what we are doing in class and help me see if students can apply the skills on their own at home!

Storing all of these things in one notebook makes a wonderful resource for my kiddos!

Want to check them out?  You can find the Interactive Reading Notebook in my TpT store.

There are also "Reading Response Tasks" for grades 2, 3, 4, and 5... connected to the Common Core!

We interactive notebook for writing too.  This is probably my favorite!

12 Days of Christmas GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!

You can win amazing prizes... including this from me!

Use the Rafflecopter below to enter!  Good luck!  Thanks to Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs for hosting this great giveaway!
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