Made It Monday

I am linking up a day early with 4th Grade Frolics for my favorite weekly linky! After this week is it turning into a monthly linky for the school year.  I have two Made it Monday items that I created this week.  The first one is a freebie :)

Before Reading Activity Menu 

This four page freebie is a great addition to reading centers or Daily 5 activities. There are three different before reading menus with 9 activities on each card.  Click here for this freebie. 

 

Common Core: Text Dependent Question Prompts

The Common Core standards focus on students’ ability to read closely to determine what a text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it.

Rather than asking students questions about their prior knowledge or experience, the standards expect students to respond to questions that can only be answered by referring explicitly back to the text in front of them. This resource contains 16 text dependent questions. It can be used as a center or for small groups.

 

Click here to purchase this item from my TpT store for $3.00.

 

Back to School

I have been slowly getting my new classroom in order.  It's hard to get started when you have a blank slate, but also leaves room for a lot of imagination.  So far I've done a couple of bulletin boards and a lot of organizing.  Here's what I have so far...

 



 

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

I just finished creating my next novel unit pack.  This is a 36 page novel guide for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum.  My students LOVE this novel every year and really have fun with it. 

 

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

This unit includes the following:

• Page 1- Cover page
• Pages 2 to 3- Characteristics of a fairy tale
• Page 4- Chapters 1 to 3 summary
• Pages 5 to 11- Chapter summaries
• Page 12- Comprehension questions
• Pages 13 to 14- Character analysis of the Cowardly Lion
• Page 15- Novel vs. movie
• Pages 16 to 19- Vocabulary homework and tests
• Pages 20 to 22- Questions from novel with page numbers
• Pages 23 to 36- Acrostic poems for each character

Click here to purchase this unit from my Teacher's Notebook store for $5.00.  Enjoy!

 

Common Core: Text Dependent Question Prompts

I am excited about a new product that I just finished.  The Common Core standards focus on students’ ability to read closely to determine what a text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it. 

Rather than asking students questions about their prior knowledge or experience, the standards expect students to respond to questions that can only be answered by referring explicitly back to the text in front of them.

This resource contains 16 text dependent questions. It can be used as a center or for small groups.  Click on page below to view this item at my Teachers Notebook store.

Common Core: Text Dependent Question Prompts

What Good Readers Do

Last week after a lesson on inferences I asked my students why they thought we were learning this skill.  Their answers included, “So we can get 100%”, “To fill out the worksheet”, and many other answers that made me bite my tongue.  I finally got the answer I wanted from a student I didn’t necessarily expect it from.  She said so that we can be better readers. 

 

This really got me thinking.  I want my students to understand WHY we are working so hard on our reading strategies.  Not to get the good grade, but to become better readers.

 

Today we discussed what a good reader looks like and what they do.  After brainstorming, we used our journals to draw a picture of themselves and list good “reader” habits.  It turned out really cute and my students got a lot out of it.  Take a look at our pictures below. 

 

Did I mention that I CANNOT draw?

 

 

 

Monday Funday!

It’s that time of the week again.  Monday Funday with Maniac Mondays.  I look forward to this every week.  There are so many talented teachers that post wonderful freebies.  Head on over to Classroom Freebies to check them out.

My freebie this week is a great common core resource for teachers. It has each third grade reading standard for literature and informational text. Each standard is written in a teacher format and also a kid-friendly format.  Click on the link below and enjoy J

3rd Grade Common Core Reading Standards

 

Superfudge

We just finished reading Superfudge, by Judy Blume. My students loved this book. It is packed full of humor and is a pretty easy read. Some of the vocabulary was difficult for my third graders, but they really enjoyed it. I have activity packets for each chapter. Click on the links below to check them out at my Teacher's Notebook store.

 

 

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Scholastic News

As we are transitioning into the Common Core Curriculum, we are concentrating more on non-fiction text. In addition to our anthology and novels, I love to incorporate magazines such as Scholastic News and National Geographic into my lessons.    My students love the high-interest articles in their “very own” magazine. 

Scholastic News Interactive, in combination with your print magazines, allows students of various learning styles and reading levels to be engaged simultaneously in the magazine’s content.  This is an easy way to incorporate technology and differentiate your lesson. 

With Text-to-Talk audio support and an alternate-level cover story in every issue, it is a powerful tool to support small group, differentiated reading in your classroom. For example, you might set up small groups as follows:

 

·   One group reads the print magazines independently.

·       One group reads the print magazines with you.

·       A third group reads the cover story on a classroom computer, using the Text-to-Talk feature for added support.

·       The fourth group reads the alternate-level version of the cover story (written at about 100 Lexile points below the original) on a classroom computer.
 

 

What type of non-fiction materials do you use in your class?  I would love to hear from you.

Happy Hump Day

Happy Hump Day! Well, we’re more than half way through this week. I hope your week is flying by as fast as mine. Every year seems to go by faster than the previous year. I can't believe we are already into January and almost half way through the year.

 

This year I started implementing the Daily 5 in my classroom. The hardest aspect that I have found is finding meaningful work for students to complete at their seats. I created journal prompts that students can use for any story or novel they are reading. This really cuts down on the "busy work" and allows my students to be show their understanding through a creative outlet.

 

This 19 page resource contains 36 different writing prompts for higher level thinking. These can be used in isolation with certain skills or even as a center. My students look forward to their journaling rotation with the use of these prompts. Head over to my TpT store to grab this item while it is on sale!

Click here to purchase this product from my TpT store for only $3.00.



Character Traits Activity

This is an activity that focuses on character traits. A situation is given and students have to identify which character trait is displayed. Eight situations are given.
 

Click here to purchase this item from my TpT store for $2.50.