Two Bad Pilgrims Freebie

If you head over to We Give Books, you can read this fun story from award-winning author Kathryn Lasky and illustrator John Manders that reveals the lives of America's first troublemakers - as well as tons of fascinating Pilgrim facts-with kid-friendly humor.  It would make a great listening center or a whole group activity on a Smartboard.

Please Don't Eat The Turkey! Fun Writing Prompt

This week we were inspired by this book to write a persausive paper pleading with readers not to eat turkey for Thanksgiving.

This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase using one of my links, which helps to support the blog.  All opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I have used myself and truly love.  

We pretended we were the kids in the book, and are working on persuasive essays asking people not to eat turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Our school uses Write From The Beginning, but I have found it challenging for my students to use the circle map and tree map to write an essay - it just wasn't scaffolded enough for them.  So, I created graphic organizers for this prompt - and so far it is working great!  I can really find the areas that they need help on, and it has helped focus the students as writers.

Here are a few samples of the graphic organizers from today -

And the final product:

I updated this resource in 2021 and the new pictures are below:

I have the packet on sale in my Teachers Pay Teachers store here if you would like to try them with your students.

Morning Message

Every morning I post a morning message that reviews something we have been learning, or showcases something we are about to learn that day.  In the message I purposely make errors that I see the kiddos making in their own writing (not capitalizing proper nouns, forgetting to indent, etc.). The kids have to find my mistakes, and when they do they earn a sticker in our sticker economy.

Here is our message from today - pre-corrections: (Excuse my yucky handwriting - I was in a rush this morning)

I tried something a little different today with a find a word activity.  I had the students see what words they could make with the word "veteran". I had some interesting results (just a few shown below) and some teaching points to work on.

Do you use a morning message with your class? What things do you include?



Thanksgiving Gift Card Giveaway!

Thanksgiving is a great time to show appreciation and a few of my favorite blogs have gotten together sponsor a "Thanksgiving Thank You- Gift Card Give Away"  

They will each be sending the winner a $20.00 gift card.  Here is what the winner will receive:

Teresa at Fun in K-1 will be giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to Target. 

Cindy at Granny Goes to School will be giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to Old Navy.




Rikki at  The Hive will be giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to MAC Cosmetics.

Megan at Mrs. Wheeler's First Grade is giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to The Limited.
 

Ash at Pixy Stix and Teacher Tricks is giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to Target

 

Head over to Granny Goes to School to enter now!

Teaching Non-Fiction - Freebies!

This week we begin our unit on non-fiction.

One of the resources I will be using are these 3rd Grade Reading Comprehension Worksheets from K12.com.  The site also features free reading comprehension worksheets for other grades as well.  I will be printing out worksheets from the other grade levels to help differentiate for my kiddos.  I have a few kiddos reading at a first grade level, and a few reading at a 5th grade level, so I love that I can do this.

The site features 36 free printable passages (you could use one a week or pick a few to focus on during a non-fiction unit like I am).  The passages include a a cross-curricular focus on earth science, physical science, history, social sciences, mathematics and life sciences. This allows students to build their reading comprehension skills and reinforce knowledge in other subject areas.

Hope you find them as useful as I did!

November Currently

Well, I missed a few months, but decided to get it in gear for this month with Farley's Currently!

Sending Home Good News

       The other day I handed a free lunch notification letter to one of my students (they come in envelopes for the student's privacy). 
      
       She asked, "What is this? Is it bad?"

      I know that as teachers sometimes we get so bogged down with all of the other things that we do, that the only communication that goes home is negative.  I hated thinking that my kiddos think that whenever a note goes home to their parents it means that they did something wrong.

      So... I started sending home notes that celebrate their successes!  I started with just  a few students this week who had STAR tested (Accelerated Reader) or had 100% on Accelerated Math.  I added a few personal notes to make it even more personal and special.

What ways do you share good news with your parents?