Can We Get A Class Pet? Freebie!

If you have been reading my blog for a bit, you might already know that my kiddos have a way of "hijacking" my lessons as I like to call it. I already told you about the time one of them brought in a tomato hornworm, but that wasn't the only time.  We will be in the middle of something I had planned when one of them will go on a tangent and the next thing I know we are in a learning frenzy.  I am learning to love their spontaneous lessons as I let go more and more to their student centered learning.

A few weeks before Christmas break it happened again.  We were in the middle of our morning meeting and I don't remember what happened right before (if anything) a student raised his hand (YEAH - Following rule #2 Raise your hand for permission to speak - yes I am a WBT addict).  Anyway, he asks, "Mrs. Malloy, could we get a class pet?"

And the lesson was on!

Could we get a class pet? Could we? What do we have to do? Let's write down all of our questions.



Who would we have to ask/convince? Mrs. Malloy and our principal.

How much would it cost? How could we pay for it? Off to the computers to research pet costs and pet grants. "We could apply for a grant Mrs. Malloy!!!!"



What type of pet should we get? More research, and maybe we should take a vote!


Asking and answering questions while reading Non-fiction texts is the common core standard we were focused on - and I think my formative assessment would say they got it!


Then we were off to write persuasive letters to both Mrs. Malloy and our principal. We also wrote about our pet with a research project.  We made a budget and applied for a grant (which we received!).  Fun, fun learning with a real world purpose! Loved it!

So... I decided to create a unit based on what we did over the holiday break and this is what I came up with:



 

Can We Get A Class Pet? A Lesson in Persuasive Writing and Research

If you are thinking about getting a pet for your classroom, you will also want to check out this great blog:

Critters in the Classroom

Download the preview for a freebie!  And, I am giving away this unit to a few of my followers! Be one of the first three commenters with you email address and I will send it your way!

Hopefully the pics are ok in this post- Blogger is being a problem today :(   

Win A Tablet!

Teacher's Notebook is having an amazing contest to win a tablet!  Head over and enter! You can enter once a day!
Your get your choice of:

iPad Mini: See Tablet

Amazon Kindle Fire HD See Tablet

Nook HD See Tablet

See The Good: A 365 Photo Project #edugood

I love Krissy's project and I have decided to participate. I love the idea of looking for the good in education and then snapping pics of it to appreciate and share. Her suggestions for the month of January are up, but you can take a picture of anything that you notice or that inspires you.

Day 1 is New Year New Goals

In keeping with one of my goals of losing weight and using the treadmill for 20 minutes each day, I decided to snap a picture of the treadmill hubby got me for Christmas.  As a busy mom it is so hard to sneak in some time to take care of myself, but hopefully having this at home will help me multi-task - I am still here if my family needs me.

And another shot - not my calorie burn, but my 12 year old son Tyler is has also caught the fitness bug.  He is also working on eating healthier and he keeps asking, "Is this healthy?" before he eats anything right now. Love it!

My other goals for the year are here - if you want to help keep me accountable :)

January Currently

Linking up with Farley's Currently - I LOVE these - probably just because I am snoopy curious about other people's lives.
Listening: It is completely silent in my house (a rare occassion with 6 boys) because hubby took the boys to the hospital to visit his friend's new baby. He wanted to give me some "down time"! Love him!

Loving: Hubby got me a treadmill for Christmas.  Although it was my present, it really is a family present as both hubby and I and all of the boys have been using it faithfully since Christmas.  My 12 year old is putting in a good 3 miles a day while mom (who is seriously out of shape) is happy to get a mile walk in.  Hopefully my time and distance improves, and maybe ski season won't kill me quite as bad this year.  Our first ski trip of the season is scheduled two weekends from now - I can't wait!

Thinking: That vacation is never long enough to do all of the things I want to get done!  I don't have to be back until January 7th, but it still feels like it has flown by and my to do list has barely gotten any smaller.

Wanting: My book order from Amazon to arrrive. I ordered a ton of frog books because we are getting a class pet - a frog of course!  I'm hoping to integrate our new friend with the research unit we will be starting when we go back to school.  I will be posting the unit to TPT but, truthfully, I have barely made any headway yet. Hoping it will be ready for next week - Fingers crossed!

Needing: To go into my classroom without kiddos to get everything back in the order it was in August.  I feel like I can't find anything when I am looking for it and I hate that feeling.

OLW: Focus. I swear - I have ADD sometimes!  I start one project and then get an idea for another.  This year I really want to work on focusing on one thing at a time.  No more multi-tasking.

Hurry on over and link up with Farley. I can't wait to snoop!

My Holiday Break Writing Prompt and Freebie

I don't know about you, but I am spending my "vacation" planning for the next few weeks. Ah,,, the glorious life of a teacher! LOL! I know you are all planning too, so I figured I would share this great little find from Fun in K/1.

I have a few kiddos in my class who are still having a difficult time mastering writing the elusive paragraph.  This graphic organizer will be perfect for a small group lesson for that group. I know that they will be excited to tell me all about their vacation when we get back, so they should have plenty of inspiration to write about!

I am going to have them fill out the graphic organizer.  I will then give them an opening topic sentence to help scaffold the process.  Maybe something thrillling like, "You won't believe the incredible holiday break I had!" We will then turn the phrases in the graphic organizers into supporting detail sentences. Hopefully they can restate the topic sentence in their own words to close it out.  I will keep you posted with how it goes when we get back to school.

What fun lesson ideas have you been inspired by from other blogs? Do you have any inspiration to share? Leave the link and I will stop by and check it out!

Stick Pick - An app that lets you differentiate as you call on students

I just discovered an amazing app for my iphone/ipad that I can't wait to use with my students when we get back from vacation.  It is called stick pick. When I first saw the app I thought it was a glorified stick container - you know the ones that you use to make sure you are fairly calling on your students.  It was cute, but I wasn't sure I wanted to spend my money on it. 

But... then I looked a whole lot closer and realized that it was way worth the $2.99! Not only does the app let you pick students randomly (or intentionally - see the little peek icon?), but you can set each student up with an appropriate level of questioning - instant differentiation. Questions can be based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, English as a second language skills, and a degree of difficulty can be chosen for each learner.

When you pick the student, a list of questions  is shown that are tied to the learner's individual ability level.  You can change the level at any time.

I also love that you can use it as a record of assessment.  When you click on the student's stick you can also record their answer using this rubric.

This is perfect for me because our school is focusing on Marzano scales, so it shows my principal during my evaluations what I am doing to measure student learning.

The app also keeps track of a student's progress overtime.

I can't wait to use this with my students!
Do you have any ideas for using it? Have you used this app before?

2013 Resolution Solution Linky Party

I decided to link up with the 2013 Resolution Solution Linky Party from Teaching Madness!


The ideas is that you will be held accountable by your readers for keeping your resolutions when you post them to your blog.  Let's see if this works! So, with no further ado, here are my 2012 resolutions

For School

Neat and Tidy. I love the way my room looks so neat and tidy when I walk in first thing in the morning (thanks to an awesome janitorial staff) but within 3.7 seconds of my students walking in it seems as if a tornado has blown through - despite the fact that we are no where near tornado alley!  So, I would like to work on keeping our room cleaner. This means helping my kiddos to stay organized and not using my desk as a dumping grounds throughout the day.

I also got permission from my principal to get rid of some of the old outdated materials that were left by past teachers - YEAH!

Working Smarter Not Harder- Now that I have gotten my groove with a new grade I am going to work on bulk planning - math for a few weeks at a time, then language arts for a few weeks.  I think it will make my planning better as I look down the road at where my students will need to be.

Personal

Weight Loss - I know we probably all have this as a goal - but after 6 kiddos I definitely need it!  Hubby bought me a treadmill for Christmas, so my goal is to start each day with a 20 minute session each morning.

More Family Time - With 6 kids it is difficult to give each kid individual time, but I want to schedule time for each of them as well as with my hubby.

Blogging

Regular Posts - I would like to commit to at least 2-3 times a week.  I love the reflection time it gives me to think about the things we did, what the students learned, what I would change, etc.

Commenting More - I tend to be a blog lurker, reading and stalking but not really leaving any comments. I know that I feel appreciated when someone comments on my post, so I really need to remember to share the love.  I read posts and think "I love that!" but I need to remember to tell the blogger that!

Relationship Building - This really goes hand in hand with my other two goals.  I started blogging to help build my PLC and I really need to focus on that.  I know I have become a much better teacher from the blogs that I read and the TPT products I have bought, I also need to learn from other teachers through idea sharing as well.

What goals do you have for 2013?