Zaner Bloser I Read To Write Program - $25 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card Giveaway!

I have been able to review the Zaner Bloser I Read To Write Program, and I love it!

I was sent a 3rd grade student edition and a teacher's edition to go with it to look over and try out with my students.

Each unit comes with passages that the student reads.  They then answer questions about the passage, and then finally write a piece about what they have read.

The articles tie in to other disciplines such as science, social studies, and math.  To the side of the articles are "sticky notes" designed to get students thinking about taking notes using the text to answer questions.

After each section there is a comprehension check piece with both multiple choice and written response, perfect for getting students ready for the next generation assessments.

Graphic organizers are provided in the writing instruction sections to help scaffold students as they prepare to write their pieces.

I worked with my students in small groups to do a close read of one of the pieces.  As you can see from the pictures, they were very engaged!

And samples of their work:

These are examples of a low, middle, and high from my class, and I was impressed with the high level of responses from ALL of my students!

The Teacher's Edition is also extremely helpful, offering not only answer keys, but also suggestions for teaching the material.  I loved the sections about teaching Close Reading and Vocabulary.

If you would like to use this program, you can order a sample of the program here to try with your students.  

 Now for the giveaway!  You can enter to win a $25 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card from me! That's two contests this month!  Just a special thank you for all of my followers!

 Enter below:

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Martin Luther King Jr. Lesson Plan Ideas and FREEBIES

Whether you have to work tomorrow or have the day off in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., chances are that you might want to teach your students a little more about the man and his accomplishments.  Here are a few resources and freebies to help you with your lesson planning this week:

Panicked Teacher has this poem and close reading activity all about Martin Luther King Jr.

 

 I had blogged about this mobile we made last week.  It is a freebie from Scholastic.

   

Laura Candler has this amazing packet full of activities to go along with the Martin Luther King Jr. Brain Pop video.

Here is a lesson plan to go along with the book Martin's Big Words.



Your students can create a Martin Luther King timeline of his important accomplishments with this idea from Crayola.

I also have a ton of other ideas pinned on my Pinterest board below.  If you like the ideas, please be sure to follow me on Pinterest for even more ideas and resources!


Follow Kelly's board Holidays in the Classroom - Martin Luther King on Pinterest.

Five For Friday January 16, 2015

Time for Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching! This has been a very long week for me, and I am happy to usher in the three day weekend!  Here are a few things I have been up to this week:

We started the week with a fossil hunt as part of a field trip for a STEM Earth Science class I am taking.  I was able to take two of my sons with me and they had a blast hunting for fossils of stickleback fish.

And keeping with that STEM focus, we also worked with our STEM roller coaster sets.

We had fun practicing our multiplication facts with these adorable penguin games.

 They are a freebie from Light bulbs and Laughter.

We also learned about text features using this amazing book.  Stay tuned for a giveaway soon!

It is a giant wipe-off book that is perfect for teaching non-fiction text features.

Last but not least, I am participating in an amazing giveaway with one of my blogging buddies, Celeste over at The Education Highway!  She is celebrating 300 followers.  Head on over to congratulate her!






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Good luck and enjoy your weekend!

Learning About Windmills - STEM fun!

One of my fellow teachers and I have been taking a STEM class to help us integrate STEM into our curriculum.  As part of our class, we have been very lucky to receive a variety of resources, but our favorite so far has been a KidWind kit!

With the kit, our students have been able to design their own windmills with the following purposes:

1. A design that will lift the most weight.
2. A design that will create enough power (electricity) to turn on a small light bulb.

We started our lesson by allowing the students to play with the kits, designing windmills as they built them.

As they watched each team try out their designs, they made lots of observations and developed several theories.

Once they tested a few out, it was time to plan some re-design based on the observations they had made the day before.

I loved how some of the students used tools we had used in previous lessons (rulers and using centimeters) as they wrote out their plans.

Some used prior knowledge.

Here is a video of some of our students lifting washers with their windmill:


Our winning engineers who lifted the most weight.  They were so proud!

Here are some students creating electricity with their windmills.

You can order these kits here (you could also use it as a Donors Choose project!).  Or you could try to make a similar kit to the one shown below.  Our instructors from the STEM class ran our school's science night and brought these versions with them. They used wood dowels, closet rod, PVC pipe, swimming “noodles” cut 3 inches wide, a washer, and hot glue to make them.  

They poked barbecue skewers into the pool noodle and taped paper plates to them to make their windmill panels.

Have you integrated STEM into your classroom?  I'd love to hear what you've done!  If you have a blog post about it, be sure to leave a link in the comments below.