Teaching Fact & Opinion with Candy

I've created a full five day lesson/unit to help students distinguish between facts and opinions and I'm super excited!

It's a five day plan that starts by introducing the concepts of fact and opinion and ends the week with a short assessment of the skill.  In the middle, there are 3 hands on lessons that are engaging and fun for the students! I'm sharing some pictures below, then linking up the actual product at the bottom, which includes all of the details for these lessons.

Day one lesson plan focuses on introducing fact and opinion:

Day Two is Hershey Bar/Twix Day:

  

Day Three is Skittles/Starburst Day:

  

Day Four includes a hands on Fact/Opinion sort, applying skills learned from the first three days:

Day Five includes a quick assessment to check your students' understanding after the week of learning the differences between facts and opinions: 

 If you are interested in purchasing this 5 day lesson plan unit, see my brand new product below on TPT. If you aren't sure, be sure to Wish List it, just in case there is a sale that pops up soon and you can try it for an even lower price!

An EASY way to SAVE $$$ on Teaching Resources

If you are an avid Teachers Pay Teachers buyer, you may think I'm nuts to write this post.... BUT you wouldn't believe how many people don't know how important it is to leave FEEDBACK after you purchase items on TPT. Let me just give you some examples. I was looking over some of my statistics the other day and I have some of my more expensive bundles that I've sold 500+ of and only around 100 of the buyers have left feedback!

You may ask, why do I care? You may say, we don't have time to leave feedback! You may say, yes I see those emails come from TPT over and over "reminding me" to leave feedback on my purchases, but I just Don't-Have-Time! You may say, when they remind me to leave feedback, I haven't even USED the product yet, and I'm not going to leave feedback on something I haven't used in my classroom yet. (Very valid answer, but don't forget to go back and leave feedback later!)

Once you realize what leaving feedback can DO FOR YOU, you will realize that you can't AFFORD to not have time! Every time you leave feedback, YOU GET CREDITS TO PURCHASE YOUR NEXT ITEMS! Stop right there! Go to TPT now! Start leaving feedback! This is SO HELPFUL on your future purchases! What teacher doesn't need a little "store-credit" to use!? 

Let me share some real info with you, I'm copying this directly from the TPT site. (Click on MY TPT, then click TPT Credit Balance and you'll see the details there too, plus you'll see if you have any existing credits.)

From TPT:

How it Works
Earn TpT Credits for purchases on TpT. You get one TpT Credit for every $ you spend on TpT. Thing is, you only get the Credits after you Provide Feedback -- both a fair rating and a fair comment -- on the items that you purchase. We will round up for you, too! If you provide fair feedback on a $4.75 item, you will earn 5 credits. Every 100 Credits is worth $5 that you can apply towards future TpT purchases, but there is no need to wait until you have 100 to redeem them. 50 credits is worth $2.50, for example.

The program is retroactive to feedback provided on purchases since August 1, 2011.

How to Redeem TpT Credits
You can keep track of how many credits you have accrued here or on the top of the site after login. When you check out, you will be given the option of applying your TpT Credits to your purchase, thereby discounting your purchase price accordingly.

So, for every DOLLAR you spend, you get a credit. This is why it shocks me that so many people have purchased $20 units from me, but they haven't left feedback! They have 20 credits just waiting for them! Please, take the time today and try completing this. Remember to leave thoughtful feedback about your purchases (That makes it helpful for other potential buyers! Think about what you'd like to know about a product when you go to read the feedback before purchasing.)



Easy steps:

Sign into Teachers Pay Teachers

Click My TPT

Click My Purchases

Next to Sort by: click the pull down menu and click Needs Feedback

Click on each product that needs feedback, leave your thoughtful feedback for each product you have already purchased, then watch your credits rack up! Feel free to let me know in the comments below if this post was helpful, if you already knew this but never have time, and even better, after you go through these steps, tell me how many credits you rack up! Have fun!!!

12 Books of Christmas

I'm excited to be teaming up with 11 other AMAZING bloggers to share some of our favorite Christmas and holiday books in a fun 12 Books of Christmas Blog Hop!

Along with FREEBIES for each book, we are also giving away a copy of each book. Make sure you read all the way to the end of this post to find out how to WIN!

For my book, I chose The Not Very Merry Pout-Pout Fish. Love all of the Pout Pout Fish books and I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one!

I have created a packet of activities to go with it. I have a variety of activities to choose from to use after reading the book as a read aloud with my class! Please download the freebie below to use a few of my activities after you read the book. Remember, if you don't own the book yet, you'll want to enter the raffle for a chance to win ALL of the books above! What could be more fun than that?

Thanks so much for stopping by! Before you hop onto see my sweet friend, Abbie over at Tales From the First Grade, don't forget to grab my number! Each blogger will have a number at the end of his/her post. Collect all the numbers along the way, and when you're done, add them all up and enter the total number in the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy hopping!

Bear Says Thanks {Read Aloud Lesson}

Good morning! I wanted to share a post that I wrote over at Classroom Tested Resources, a collaborative blog that I'm part of! I was featured just yesterday with this post!

In case you haven't read it there yet, I wanted to share it here too! PLEASE be sure to head over to the CTR blog though to see tons of awesome ideas that a collaboration of teachers share DAILY! There are a variety of topics and grade levels covered...and some GREAT ideas!

I'm always looking for fun ways to teach (and review/practice!) nouns. I'm going to share how to use a simple read aloud and have your students help you find nouns in the story by recording them in their reading notebooks. Also, you could easily modify this by you (the teacher) creating an anchor chart as more of a shared lesson. It would depend on the age of the kids. My second graders can be kind of in between when it comes to the ability on this. Sometimes it's just easier for me to do a shared anchor chart together, rather than wait for each kid to "keep up" with us in their own notebooks. In doing this, I would have my own notebook under the document camera and I'd be working right along with the kids, so it would still be a "shared/guided" lesson.

First of all, I love The Bear Books by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman. My girls at home love them and my students love them. They are adorable and fun stories! (They are pretty quick reads, too!) For this lesson, I used "Bear Says Thanks".

I started by doing a quick mini-lesson with my students about what nouns are: person, place, or thing. However, I did add in ANIMALS to my list, too.  This can be kind of a questionable subject I have found, some teachers think you should just put animals under THINGS, which I agree with since they are THINGS. However, for this particular story, it worked well for me to actually add the extra category of ANIMALS because this book is all about animals and there aren't any PEOPLE included in this story. So, in this case, I had to show them that you won't always find something for all of the noun categories in a story because sometimes people or animals aren't included. I did keep the PEOPLE category on the simple chart we made though. We have done other activities where they have practiced finding PEOPLE as nouns, so I felt comfortable doing it this way.

Next, I started the read aloud and told students to listen for nouns that they hear in the story. But, I reminded them that we will read it a second time, so they won't if they don't remember all of them! (I just wanted them to enjoy the story first!)

Next, I asked students to just verbally name some animals, places, and things that they remembered from the story. We are sitting on my carpet (where we always do read alouds) and they raise their hands and share with the class some nouns that they can recall from the story. They could name quite a few!

After that, we head back to our desks and take out our reading notebooks. In my own reading notebook, I model how to draw a quick, simple chart (nothing fancy!!) and they copy it into their notebooks too.

Then, we opened up the book (under the document camera) and I started rereading the story while the students followed along, and we searched for nouns. We stopped on each page and started filling them into our chart together. They helped me and I helped them. 

We all worked together and my students loved it! I found it to be a fun and easy way to "come up" with nouns instead of just trying to think of them on their own. Especially because authors of some of these awesome books use such GREAT vocabulary in their writing that students would most likely not think of on their own. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't think of them either!!

Obviously, this idea could be used with ANY book that you choose at any time of the year! I also think this has helped my students with not only knowing what nouns are, but giving them some ideas for better vocabulary when it comes to their own writing! 

I've created a freebie to go along with this story as a special gift for reading my blog post today! You could easily put it into a workstation after teaching this lesson, just to reinforce the skill. Also, if you notice some students just not quite grasping the concept, this would be a fun and easy activity to do afterwards in a small reading group or one-on-one. 

If you really enjoy this book Bear Says Thanks, please visit my store for a full literature companion pack that contains multiple centers and activities to go along with the book. It's coming soon!

Don't forget to check out the CTR blog for some awesome ideas from a great variety of bloggers! Click below to head over there now!

Prepping for a New Month in the Classroom

One of my favorite things (when I'm in the classroom, that is!) is to change things out for the new month. I love changing the calendar, the literacy and math centers, and I usually change out table cloths that I have around the room with themes for each season/month. I love it! Something new for me and new for the kids! Well, with the new month approaching, I wanted to share all of the NOVEMBER goodies that I have and LOVE to use in my classroom! Plus, I'm putting my whole store on sale this weekend, so now is the perfect time to stock up and get ready for the new month!

Here are a few pictures of how I change out my table clothes around my room. I don't put them on tables that kids actually have to work because I feel like that'd make life difficult. I put them on some tables that I have made into more of a "counter" to keep my small group materials, etc. on, then under the table I store things, so the table cloths cover up those items! Also, I put one over the table that I have my projector, doc camera, etc. on. I always purchase them after the holiday for the next year, super cheap and they have all lasted me years! I love them.

Here's how I prepare my centers. I do this once, and they have last through two Novembers, hopefully they last through this year too. But if not, the time it takes to put them together and prepare them is worth it to last at least two years! It just depends on your class, I've found, and how they are with materials. Some classes are much better than others. Also, I find that if you have A LOT of centers/games to choose from, instead of just a few, the wear and tear isn't so bad because they "spread the wealth." {Haha}

I have a lot of people ask how I put my stuff together. After printing, the only thing I cut before laminating is the cover page, to put on the front of an envelope, and I don't even glue it on, I just stick it on the envelope, and slide them both in between the laminating sleeves. Also, another common question is about the metal prongs on the manila envelopes. Yes, I leave them on and sent it right through my personal laminator. Works fine! I've probably put hundreds of them through and no problem! Here are some pictures that show me preparing my Thanksgiving centers a few years ago! These are totally RAW pictures, taken at my kitchen table and in my classroom. Real life, nothing special! :)

Slide envelopes into laminating sheet. (these are larger envelopes and I have to cut the top off, so they don't close, the pieces will later just slide in the top, no big deal!)

Laminating!

Laminating, I only put them in Ziplock bags to transport to school, otherwise they just stay in the envelopes and are nice and sturdy!

Here is an example with the smaller envelope, you can see how I put it through. This cover I just left full size and lay the envelope on the back in the laminating sleeve. Again, I don't even take the time to glue it. The lamination will hold it all together. No wasted time! :) 

When it comes to the game pieces/cards. I DO NOT cut those out BEFORE laminating. No way! No extra work for me! I laminate the WHOLE sheet, then cut afterwards. They all stay together just fine! I see a lot of teachers post pictures that have cut out each piece, then put in lamination, then they have to cut that all out again. NO WAY! Call me lazy...but I only cut once! I've never had a problem w/ the lamination using this Purple Cow laminator or the Scotch Brand one. (I like that one better!)

Here's a good shot of how I just slide the game pieces into the envelopes (I slice the envelope open with the end of scissors after laminating is done.) The envelopes don't close, but the pieces stay in! You just have to teach the kids to put them RIGHT SIDE UP in the bin/baskets when they put them away!

At my last school, here's how I would set up the envelopes on display for kids to choose. Math one one side of the shelving unit, reading on the other.

I've BUNDLED all of my FAVORITE November items. That way, you can purchase one thing and have everything that I use from my own store in my classroom in November! I honestly love all of these products and this is my FAVORITE month when it comes to centers and activities that I pull out of my NOVEMBER box. :)

If you already have some of the products in the bundle, or if you just don't want all of them. See each products below individually. Also, some examples of pages from each product!

  

Coming soon*** A blog post about my newest literature companion pack that goes with the book Bear Says Thanks. It will include a freebie! Stay tuned!

Break a Leg! {Personal Update plus some DOLLAR DEALS}

Hello everyone! It's quite the week around here...full moon, parent teacher conferences, and of course HALLOWEEN! Although it's on a Saturday, I'm sure many of your schools are having parties earlier in the week. My school does not have school Friday due to parent teacher conferences late on Wednesday and Thursday, so the Halloween parade and celebrations are on Thursday, then teachers stay until 8pm for parent/teacher conferences! All of these Facebook posts that I have seen say they are glad Halloween is on a Saturday...I'm not sure that matters around here because now it's just a LONG and extended Halloween celebration, as I'm sure it is for many of you too! However, kids will have some time to rest over the weekend!! Whew!

Well, my own interesting news is that I'm NOT actually AT SCHOOL through all of this. I'm currently off for an undetermined amount of time due to an unfortunate accident. I'm having a hard time being away (although I'm not sure I feel too bad about being gone during this crazy week! LOL!) I'm missing out on all of the fun!

If you follow my on Facebook, you've probably already seen a few posts about my accident and staying home for awhile. Long story short, I was hit by a car on September 30th. (I can't believe it's already been a month, it will be 4 weeks on Wednesday!) I was leaving a meeting downtown in our city, crossing at the crosswalk with some other teachers from my district and I was struck by the car about halfway through the crosswalk. It was an extremely scary experience, but I'm SO LUCKY TO BE ALIVE! The bumper of the SUV hit my left leg right below my knee, sending me straight down to the pavement on my knees. SO THANKFUL that I didn't hit my head, go onto the hood of the car, etc. At first, I was in such shock that I was just SURE that I was fine, just a bruised leg...as I laid on the street corner, unable to walk. (I can laugh now!) I was taken to the ER by ambulance and we soon (well, not so soon...hours later) found out that I had a fracture on the plateau of my tibia. Sounds kinda fancy, huh? Well it is fancy alright, fancy as in it will require a very LENGTHY recovery time because of the location of the fracture. I had surgery to reconstruct everything and I am now the proud owner of two metal plates and four GIANT screws inside of my leg. (I got to see the x-ray of it this past week...OOOOO MMMM GGG!)

I have to give a shout out to my school, my school district, my neighbors, friends, and family! I have had a constant flow of people here at the house, willing to help with anything we need. My husband has become Mr. Mom/Dad/Housekeeper/Cook/Chauffeur/EVERYTHING. I'm so fortunate to have him! He is seriously amazing!  Mentally, I'm getting better and laughing more about it all, but physically, I'm still restricted to the couch all day, everyday. My favorite thing is when I get to move from the couch to bed for the night! (Sad, right!?) I start PT this week and hopefully I will beat the odds and be back on my feet in LESS than the 3 months that my ortho has restricted me too. We shall see!!! :)

Although I know it could be worse, and I'm so thankful that it wasn't.... Please just never take things for granted... Life can be TOTALLY FLIPPED UPSIDE DOWN in seconds...literally. 

Now...for the SPOOOOOKTACULAR part! The Indiana Bloggers have planned a dollar sale! I have four items that I have marked down to ONE DOLLAR. They are all honestly a great deal for one dollar! Check them out! (I can't wait to shop myself!)

Click on my pictures below to go directly to my product and add it to your cart for one dollar, then at the bottom of my post, you will see all of the other products that are posted by other Indiana teachers for ONE DOLLAR each!

An InLinkz Link-up