A Fun Day at the Ball Park! (With Freebies)

My youngest three sons attended a baseball camp put on by the Reno Aces, our local minor league baseball team. Tyler has attended for the past two years, but this year was the first year for Cody and Luke.

Here are the three of them walking across the parking lot towards the stadium.

 

You can tell how excited Luke was!

There was a sign welcoming the campers.

The boys enjoying the dugout.

They loved meeting their favorite players!  And Luke won a catching contest and won an autographed batting glove used by Adam Eaton during a game.  Luke hasn't taken it off yet! LOL!  Not bad for a rookie.

The best part was what happened at the game that night - they gave raffle tickets out if you donated food or money to the food bank. Look at the prize we won! It was an amazing day at the ball park! Thank you Reno Aces!

 And to thank you for reading through this long off topic post fun family filled adventure, here are a few baseball themed freebies for you!

Morning Meeting

One thing that I really missed when I was teaching middle school was the idea of a morning meeting.  When I student taught in 4th grade, my mentor introduced me to the idea of the morning meeting, and I felt like it really helped build relationships with the students.  It is definitely something I want to include this year, but I wanted to beef it up a bit with some academic content as well.

I recently ordered these books from Amazon:

I also ordered Morning Meeting Ideas Grades 3-6 directly from the responsive classroom site because Amazon was sold out, and I didn't want to wait - I'm impatient like that.

From what I've found on-line like this sample chapter from Morning Meeting Ideas Grades 3-6 morning meeting includes:

1. A Greeting

2. Sharing

3. Group Activity

4.A Morning Message

The sample chapter also gives a list of things you might want to have to incorporate the morning meeting.  I really love the way Mrs. Bainbridge keeps a tub of supplies handy near the morning meeting area.

 3rd Grade Thoughts also has some great thoughts on morning meetings!

As soon as I read the books I ordered I will post with more ideas that I incorporate into our daily routine.

I also found this video from the Teaching Channel which demonstrates a version of the morning meeting.

Have you incorporated a morning meeting into your school day?

Reading Assessment

 Mary Howard, the RTI guru herself, recommends using running records weekly to assess the lowest 20% of your students and every three to four weeks for the rest of your students.  Here are a few resources to use:

The Teacher's College Website has a ton of Benchmarks for all reading levels that you can print off and use.  I know I will definitely be printing out a ton of these!


You can print out the running record sheet pictured above here.

 Here is a reading strategy use checklist to keep track of all of your students' strategies.

Here is a word identification reading assessment with Pre-Primer to 4th grade level words.

How often do you assess your students' reading progress?  What do you use?

The Daily 5 Book Study Chapter 5 - My Notes

I am participating in the book study at  We Read, We Blog, We Teach.

Chapter 5 Read to Someone and Listen to Reading

According to the Sisters, and mountains of research, "reading with someone helps students read independently and grow as readers".

This is the part of Daily 5 that seemed to be the most difficult when I was a student teacher.  It seemed like the students who picked partner reading would often make this choice in order to goof off with a friend.

  I did find this post by Beth Newingham (one of my teaching idols) about Buddy Reading.  She suggests assigning partners and having them  read on their own, and then partner up to ask and answer each other thick questions.  I think this will help with accountability.

For time constraints, I am also hoping to implement buddy reading with a lower level class.  Since I am new to this school and district I haven't planned it yet, but I am friends with one of the first grade teachers, so I am hoping it will work for her as well.

I am planning on using this Read to Someone Coaching Sheet to help the students remember how to coach each other.

According to research, students benefit from listening to fluent readers, either in the form of teacher read alouds, volunteers, or books on tape, CD, or mp3 players. Despite the evidence, it seems that many teachers of older students (third and up) might forgo due to time constraints.

I myself have been tempted not to include this portion, but I realize how important it is especially for struggling readers who may not be able to access grade level texts.

I plan on having the students listen to chapters from the science and social studies text to help incorporate those subjects and to save time.

What are your plans for reading to someone and listening to reading?

Freebie Friday - Cat in the Hat Word Problems

The Cat in the Hat always has a few tricks up his sleeve and Friday the 13th seems like an appropriate time for tricks, or FREEBIES - even better!  I am linking up with TBA's Freebie Fridays and sharing this fun little Cat in the Hat word problems worksheet. 

Click here to download

 If you have any problems downloading it - send me an email and I will get you a copy :)

You will also want to checkout all the freebies on the linky - there are a ton of really good ones!

Classroom Energizers

I have been perusing The Responsive Classroom website, and have been watching their YouTube videos, and I must say that I am quite impressed with a lot of their ideas including their morning meeting and energizers.  I really liked the one in the video below.  It was really funny, because when I tried it out with my own son (soon to be a 5th grader) he knew it and said that he had done it in school last year.  Great minds think alike! LOL!

Hope you are equally inspired!  Are there any other classroom energizers you use when your students just need a moment to wake-up?

The Daily 5 Book Study - Chapter 4 - My Notes

I am participating in the book study at  We Read, We Blog, We Teach.

Chapter 4 Read to Self 

"Having children read to themselves is the first step in Daily Five and is the foundation for creating independent readers and writers" (pg. 46).

When I was in elementary school, I always felt like there was never enough time for me to do what I really wanted to do, which was of course read to my self.  That is one thing that I really love about the Daily 5 is the opportunity that the students have to read books of their own choice - how motivating!

Then this is where I really have questions - the Sisters advocate teaching three ways to read a book - is this necessary for older kids who are reading chapter books?  Any thoughts from teachers who have been there done that?

The Sisters advocate working with your students to develop an I-chart that tells them what they should be doing as readers during read to self.

After a few minutes of modeling, the students practice for 3 minutes, debrief, and try again.  Each day students work to increase their stamina.