Non-Fiction Know-It-Alls

It's been several months since my last blog post. 

But, no excuses! Just happy to share again...

We just started really getting into non-fiction in my class. Although my students have been exposed to non-fiction texts all year, I am now on a mission to make them "Non-Fiction Know-It-Alls"! My district will be adopting the Common Core standards next year. However, I'm trying to get a jump start with the new standards. I am working on different ways to expose my kiddos to non-fiction texts. We have started with Scholastic News. I have been using the following two printables to help them summarize and understand non-fiction texts.

This week we will really get into the different non-fiction text features. I plan to use the following note sheets to have them take notes and record examples

This last printable is based on the 4th grade common core standards for reading informative texts. My students are truly going to be non-fiction know-it-alls and common core ready!

Click on the pics to share these non-fiction resources. Enjoy!

(Font Credits: Candy Randy, Simon Script, Janda Happy Day, LT Nutshell Library)

Monday Made It (on Tuesday) + a Freebie

Every week this summer I have been over at 4th Grade Frolics checking out all of the Monday Made It projects that so many teacher bloggers have created. I so wanted to participate, but couldn't quite find the time. I had purchased "pieces" for many of the projects I wanted to create, but didn't get around to it UNTIL......TODAY!!!!

I found the idea of using a Lazy Susan to store supplies on Pinterest (where else?). I thought it would add a nice touch to my Writing Center table. Last year, my students sometimes had trouble sharing and passing the supplies at the table. I am hoping this will help...

{I know...Terrible iPhone pics}

I bought the Lazy Susan at Ikea for about $8 and 7 pencil holders at Target for a dollar each. My husband spray painted the Lazy Susan for me and I added some wall decals that I had left over from last year to give it a bit of color. I am so happy with how it turned out and so glad that I finally MADE SOMETHING!!!!

In other news... I have been working on lesson plans using mentor texts and one of them covers the skill Compare and Contrast. I realized that it would be helpful for my students to have a list of words that are used to compare and contrast so that they can identify them as signal words in their reading, and so they can use them in their own writing. Here is the list that I created...

{Click on pic to share!}

My school starts a week from tomorrow and I have so much left to do. I have so many fun things in the works that I can't wait to share!!

*Fonts from "WORDS USED TO COMPARE & CONTRAST" are from dafont and Hello Literacy!

Back 2 Blogging + Show Me the Evidence

I have been such an unfaithful blogger. It has been 8+ months since my last blog post. Life has been very busy for the Rojas family. When I first started my blog, I was at home with a brand new baby girl, who slept most of the day. That gave me plenty of time to create and share while the hubby and big sis were off at school. Somehow that sleeping infant turned into a crawling, walking, running, climbing toddler, who gets into everything!!! Add to that going back to work full time, being a wife and a mommy to 2, and trying to buy, decorate, and create a brand new home. Now, when I finally find a quiet moment alone…I sleep.

                                                                       

Luckily during all of that time, I had an amazing school year! I had the best group of students who were hard working and eager to learn. Plus, I had an amazing grade-level partner. We put together a wonderful fourth grade program that I am very proud of.

Once again, I am on a mission to find and create new resources for the upcoming school year. Of course pinterest has been my ultimate inspiration.

I recently stumbled upon this anchor chart from Polka Dots & Teaching Tots:

 

Reading responses were a big part of our language arts program this year. However, I wish I would have spent more time emphasizing the need for EVIDENCE in my students' responses. Next year I plan to create a similar chart. I would also like my students to have a reference sheet in their language arts notebooks and/or homework folders to refer to when writing their responses. With permission from Polka Dots and Teaching Tots, I created the following:

Click the pic to share!

Be sure to visit Polka Dots and Teaching Tots. She has some amazing ideas!

Lots & Lots of Lists {11 Freebies!!!}

Are you a LIST LOVER like me??? I am constantly making lists for ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, at home and in my classroom. It occurred to me yesterday that my list-making habits have really rubbed off on my students. They have become quite accustomed to creating and using a variety of different lists in our classroom {thanks to their wonderful teacher of course!!} I love when I see these lists out on my students desks, being used to record or support their learning. So, I thought I would share! Feel free to click on the pics to download your own copies!!!

The following 3 lists are kept on clipboards in a basket on top of my book shelves. My students use these to recommend books to their classmates, find book suggestions, and suggest books that they would like for our classroom library. 

   

These next 3 are lists that I have provided for students to use during reading and writing. The character traits list we use often when discussing characters in our read-alouds and in students' independent reading books. Students are often asked to record traits and evidence, and this list is a good jumping of point for them. {This list is two-sided}

The Strong Verbs list was actually put together by my students from last year. They collected words from their own reading and then we put them together in a class list. They found so many great verbs, that I thought I would use the list this year while my current students work to create a new one. {This list is two-sided}

The All Kinds of Adjectives List is a compilation of adjectives from many different lists I found online. I was looking for a resource for my students to use to help "spice up" their writing. However, it was difficult to find one printable list that I liked, so I combined a bunch to create a list that worked for my kiddos. {This list is two-sided}

            

Next I have 2 lists for students' independent reading books. The Someday List is a list of books that students want to read at some point. Maybe someone else has the only copy... or maybe they don't feel they are ready for a book just yet... or maybe they just have so many books they want to read, they just need somewhere to write it down! Either way they record these books on their Someday List.

These last three lists are where my kiddos collect strong verbs, descriptive adjectives, and favorite quotes from their own reading. I have plenty of these on hand because they are filling them in like crazy!!!

At the beginning of the year I was a little worried about overwhelming my kiddos with so many lists. But they love them!! They love to record their learning, and they love to have a place to go to as a reference. I hope that you will find some of these useful in your own classroom!!! ENJOY!!!

A Few of My Favorite Things {about this year} #1

I can't believe how busy I have been since the school year started! I don't know if my life has ever been this busy. I'm not sure if it's my very active and feisty 7-month-old -or- all of the changes I have made in my teaching -or- maybe a combo of both. Either way, I have been so busy that I have only posted twice since the school year began.

Then suddenly tonight I find myself sitting here in front of my computer with 2 sleeping kiddos and no planning or grading to do. While my husband takes a quick trip to the store I thought I would take a few moments to reflect on some of my favorite things about this school year. Unfortunately, I am short on time, and completely overwhelmed with ideas that I want to share. So, I thought that I would start by sharing one SMALL THING that has had a HUGE IMPACT in my classroom...Status of the Class...

{click the pic to share}

I have read about Status of the Class in different books about teaching reading and many of the teachers at my school used it last year and raved about it. I reluctantly gave it a try this year, thinking that it might take too much time, that it might not have the impact that I intended, and on and on with the excuses. However, it has been such an amazing and invaluable tool in encouraging and monitoring the readers in my classroom.

Here's how it works...

• I copy one of the forms above for everyone of my students and wrote their names at the top. I keep them in 3-ring binder. 
• Each day during "Reading Zone" as my students read independently, I call out their name and they tell me what book they are reading and what page number they are on. I then record the info on the sheet. {If they are reading the same book from the previous day, then all I record is the date and the page number}
• I also record an "F" if they "finished" a book or a "Q" if they "quit" a book. 
• Then I repeat the process the following day. {I usually do it 4 out 5 days a week}
• In the beginning the process takes a bit of time. However, now that my students and I are used to the routine, it takes me less than 5 minutes to get through all 29 of my students!!}

The Benefits:

• I always know what my students are reading.
• I know how quickly they are finishing books, and how often they are quitting books. 
• Students know that they are being held accountable for their reading.
• I am able to praise students when they finish books or when they have read a lot from one day to the next.
• I am also able to slightly urge students to spend more time reading if I see that they are progressing slowly through a book.
• Most important, students look forward to it each day because they simply can't wait to report what page they are on compared to the previous day, or because they are so excited to share that they finished a book!!!

Status of the Class is definitely worth a try and it's never too late to start. 

I am LOVING it!!!

Remembering 9/11 with a Picture Book

When I woke up this morning, I planned to write a post about remembering 9/11. First, I read a bunch of posts from other bloggers who did the same. I came across a touching post at Clutter-Free Classroom, where she tells a story from her morning and the morning of 9/11. Finally, I headed back over here, and realized that today I have 911 followers. What a strange coincidence.

During my first few years of teaching, I would always do something with my 6th grade students to remember 9/11 and to celebrate our pride for our wonderful country. Between the passing of time, and my change in grade levels, in recent years my students have not been old enough to remember 9/11 because they were not born yet.

9/11 is a huge and important part of our history that my students will one day need to learn about. However, I find that many of them have very little knowledge about what happened. At their age, I do not feel that it is my responsibility to be the one to discuss it with them.

So, I simply "remember" the day by reading them The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein. My mother bought me this wonderful book during my first year of teaching, and I read it every year to my students on {or after} 9/11.

It's a nice story to celebrate the memory of the Twin Towers without raising too many questions. The students love the pictures and stories regardless of what they do or do not know. I can't wait to read it again tomorrow!

Top 10 Awards!!!

I was so thrilled to find that I have been awarded a Top 10 Award 

from some of my favorite blogger friends!

I decided to award 10 amazing blogs with the same honor:

Why do they deserve to be awarded? Click on these beautiful buttons below to visit these inspiring blogs and see for yourself!!!

{These are in no particular order}

Click here to learn how to bestow this amazing honor upon others!

Post-It Poster #2

Awhile back I posted about a Story Map poster that I made that uses post-its:

{Click the pic to view original post}

Well, I've been at it again. Today I started teaching students about Making Connections, so last night I created another Post-It Poster to help teach this concept:

If you did not read my previous post, here are few of my inspirations for creating this poster:

Pinterest {of course!}

Welcome to Room 36!

Kim Adsit

To make my poster, I used the following doc:

{Click Pic to Share!}

I am thinking about making a new poster for each of the comprehension skills I teach. Stay posted for more!!!

Look What We Made...

I had so much fun with my new kiddos during my first 3 days of school. We did so many fun activities and projects during our first week. At the beginning of each year, I have my kiddos draw Self Portraits. For an added touch this year, I had my kiddos make their very own frames to accent their portraits. 

Here's how we made them...

On the first day I had my students each pick one piece of construction paper. After school I cut the paper to be 8 1/2 x 11 and copied the following on to each.

 

                                          {Click Pic to Share!!!}

The next day we made the frames. 

I had my kiddos fold their papers in half, like so....

...and cut out the middle rectangle.

Then they folded them to make an 'L' shape. 

From there, they cut their own design around the edges.

And voile!!!

Last, they added them to their Self Portraits. 

Don't they look beautiful???

It's been 10 days...

Okay, so it's been about 10 days since my last post. Here I thought I could do it all... go back to work after 5 months home with a new baby, take care of my family, redecorate my classroom, learn a new math curriculum, revamp my language arts program, start a new school year with a class full of amazing kiddos, AND keep up with blogging. APPARENTLY I CAN'T!!!! Unfortunately, blogging had to be the first thing to go over the past week and a half.  However, things are starting to settle down a bit, and I hope that I will be back to blogging soon. I have so much to share about my wonderful first 3 days!!! Be back shortly!!!!

Great Picture Book Find w/ Printable

I recently stumbled upon a very interesting picture book called The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups by David Wisniewski:

The book takes the form of a Top Secret Handbook that shares the 'real' reasons behind all those grown-up rules. It's so much fun to read and the pictures are great! It's definitely worth checking out!!!

To follow up this story, I planned a writing assignment to go with it.  I plan to have my students think of a 'rule' that they constantly hear from grown-ups, and come up with an alternative and creative explanation for that rule. The worksheet below is formatted to match the format of the book.

{Click the pic to share!}

Kids constantly complain about rules (at home and school), and I think they will have a lot of fun coming up with their own bizarre and funny ideas. Plus, it will make a great class book!!!