Friday Flashback Linky: Hallelujah!!

You might be thinking that I put "Hallelujah!" in the title because it's Friday.  Nope.

That "Hallelujah!" is because my blog is finally back to normal!!  If you missed seeing my blog as a HOT MESS, just click on yesterday's post to see a pic of it!  Yowzer!

I was about to lose my mind up in here...up in here.  If you are still having trouble with your blog, I would suggest contacting photobucket via their twitter feed.  THAT seemed to get me on a "priority" list.

And, I MUST give a shout-out to my blog designer, Diana, from Custom Blog Designs.  EVERY SINGLE TIME something happens to my blog or I have a question, or I can't figure something out, I go running to her {poor thing!}  And, she is BEYOND awesome about helping!

She immediately put a "fix" on my background yesterday so at least my blog was readable...and she kept checking in and was ready to help me move to a different image host if that was the route I wanted to take {I was oh so close to kicking the {photo}bucket!}

So, if you EVER need a blog makeover, check her out....you can NOT beat her customer service!!

I realize I'm supah late for Friday Flashback seeing that it's almost Saturday now.  I didn't think I was going to post because even I didn't want to look at my hideous blog, but now that it's fixed.....let the good times roll!

I really don't have many pics to share this week.  I really have no excuse for not snapping more.  Well, I sort of do.  If you'll recall, I took a little "day off" this week for this....All Bon Jovi...All Night...

....I'll post more about that on Sunday.  I also had a half day sub the day before that due to balanced literacy training at my school.  You know how it is when you're out of your classroom....you seem to play "catch up" for a while.

But, here are some pics I did snap.

We learned about Paul Bunyan, that giant lumberjack who combed his beard with the top of a pine tree and created the Grand Canyon when he dropped his axe.

We learned about Swamp Angel, the giant from the South who single-handedly beat the fearsome bear called Thundering Tarnation and drank an entire lake dry while doing it!

We learned about Annie Christmas, Queen of the Mississippi River, who added a bead to her necklace every time she whooped a man on her keelboat!

We learned about Johnny Appleseed, the real man and the tall tale legend!  Did you know his feet were so tough even a rattlesnake couldn't penetrate them!?

Our Tall Tale Wall of Fame is quickly filling up with these larger than life heroes and sheroes {my girls just LOVE that word}!  ;)

I finally got students' "Boo Boo" Memoirs up in the hall....and the Memoir Unit is now available at our TpT shop if you've been waiting on that.

I love how the BIG BANDAIDS turned out...as soon as the kiddos saw them, they said "OH! The paper is the white part of the bandaid!"  Yes, clever, I tell ya! :)

We've been working VERY hard on How-To writings this week.  Remember I showed ya this new book...

Boy, did it spark some CA-UTE writing!  After reading it, I had the kiddos write their own based on babysitting an adult of their choice.  They chose everyone from Uncles to Moms to Principals to Football Players (in general) to Ray Lewis (a specific football player) and they LOVED every moment of it.  We had to let EVERY ONE share theirs with the class....they were that excited about them.

Here's one that I snapped a pic of...How to Babysit a Principal

7

Pizza Box Portfolios & Memoir Writing Unit

A quick post today all about writing.  Y'all know, I LOVE some writing!  I've been holding onto the students' published works in the classroom this year since I usually do the whole "pizza box portfolios" at the end of the year and send the treasured keepsakes home at once.

However, my classroom was busting at the seams with writings already, so I picked up some pizza boxes this weekend {oh yeah, and some pizza, too, of course!} and let students create their portfolios today.

They always turn out so unique and special!  We stuffed all of our writings in there and the kiddos took them home today!  I think I actually like the idea of creating these now rather than at the end of the year....maybe even at the beginning of the year so the kids can take them home and have a special place to put their treasured work at!   This way, I don't have to store everything...and they can take it home and show it off immediately! :)

Speaking of writing, we just wrapped up Memoirs in our classroom and have moved on to "How-To" writing.  Well, we've finally got a new Memoir Unit posted at the Clubhouse with some of my most favorite activities from our unit.

I hope you'll love it as much as I do!  There's everything from prewriting to celebration included....along with lots of published pieces and, of course, some of my writing discussion cards.  I think it is SO important for the kiddos to TALK about writing before actually writing!  For example, right now students get in small groups and use writing prompt cards to go around the circle adding "next steps" for how-to's until they've successfully told how to complete tasks.

In the memoir unit, the discussion cards have them work with a partner to tell about special memories and then the partner asks questions about what they've just heard.  This is so wonderful because it lets students know that their readers want to know MORE and it encourages them to add all of those details to their stories!

Anywho....here's a little preview of the activities included, but you can find the unit HERE if you're interested in it!

9

Friday Flashback Linky: Tough Lessons

Whew!  We're headed out to dinner tonight and boy do I need it!  This has been a tough week.  My sweet, sweet class seems to have come down with a sudden case of the "sibling syndrome."  This is what I call it when your class has been together so long that they begin acting like siblings.

You know.  Annoying each other.  Arguing.  Bickering.  Tattling.

Yi -Yi -Yi!  It is TOO EARLY in the year for this to start, so I have had to nip it this week!

Yep, we also had to have the talk about fun learning activities being a privilege and how we don't HAVE to learn in fun ways if we can't handle it.  {sad face}  Yep, they learned this the TOUGH way yesterday!  The fun activities went away and they were in for a shock!  Today was much better though! ;)

With that being said, I'm surprised I have anything that resembles a fun learning activity to share this week, but I'll give it a try!

Social Studies
We began learning about the regions of the U.S. this week.  I absolutely LOVE teaching this unit and making our scrapbooks of our travels!

This week we visited the Northeast Region!  Here's a sample of one of the scrapbooks...

 

Our instruction is led by a PowerPoint and we travel to different states to learn about the region the first four days of the week.  Then on Friday, we sum up our learning with the "snapshots" page and have a lil "celebration."  This week we had will have a tasting of ice cream + syrup and pickles + syrup which is a tradition in Vermont where they produce TONS of maple syrup.  

Writing

We've been working on memoirs this week.  Most of them are inspired by Patricia Polacco books....I'm working on a new bundle for this unit, but here are a couple of our activities so far.

First of all, we started out by creating our own "Keeping Quilt" to keep special memories that we might want to write about during this unit.  Here's a sample....

They can all be displayed side-by-side to create a HUGE classroom quilt of memories.  

Then, we read Some Birthday and students wrote about a special birthday memory of their own!  We displayed them in these cute little "gifts."

I'm crossing my fingers that I can get this unit finished this weekend so I can share it with ya! :)

Reading

I didn't snap any pictures of our Fable Puppet show practices, but I'll  definitely snap some next week!  Then we'll be starting Tall Tales {MY FAVORITE!!!!} and I'm working on a new Tall Tale Craftivity pack, too!!  Here's a little sneak peak...he's still in the works, but I plan to have a craft for all of the characters we study.  Do you study Tall Tales?  If so, who is your favorite??  I LOVE Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett and Swamp Angel!

Link up to share a bit about your week with us!

16

Writing Workshop Series: Post #7 - Writing Memoirs/Personal Narratives

Thanks so much to those who have stuck with me during this writing workshop series of posts!  I hope you've been able to get a couple of new ideas for writing from them.  I'm going to wrap them up next week with a post about writing assessment, so this will be my final writing genre post...for now. :)  I'll definitely be posting about the units I'm teaching throughout the year.

Today's post is about our Memoir Unit.  I L-O-V-E this unit....mainly because it's all inspired by my favorite children's author of all time - Patricia Polacco!  Her books lend themselves so well to this unit.

One of the first books I read is The Keeping Quilt.  After reading it, we discuss how this quilt keeps so many special memories for Patricia and her family.  We brainstorm kinds of memories we want to hold on to forever (the BIG ones and the small ones).  Then, each student creates his/her own "Keeping Quilt."  We do this using a piece of construction paper with six post-its of various colors stuck to it (we draw dotted lines around each post-it to look like "stitching").  At the top we write "____________'s Keeping Quilt" and then the kids draw a picture on each post-it of a special memory they want to keep.  They lift the post-its and write a sentence telling about the memory.  These make a for a great prewriting activity for this unit and give children ideas that they can write about when they're stuck.

Of course, pretty early on, we read Thank You, Mr. Falker since that is such an amazing book that tells a lot about this author.  After reading this book, students write about something that was hard for them and required them to practice, practice, practice to get good at it.  Then we talk about people who helped them improve on this skill and students write a "thank you letter" to that person.

We have a LOT of fun with the book My Rotten, Red-Headed, Older Brother.  Almost all of the kiddos have experiences with an annoying brother/sister (those only children can use a cousin or friend).  They write about memories with their chosen siblings and title them similar to the book (ex. My Stubborn, Blue-Eyed, Older Sister...or My Whiny, Freckle-Faced, Baby Brother).  They turn out SUPER cute!

After reading Some Birthday! students write about a special birthday memory they want to keep.

Thunder Cake is one of those books almost everyone is familiar with and probably already read to their classes.  This book is PERFECT for having students write about a fear and how they overcame it.  Another fun activity to do with this book is to actually MAKE a Thunder Cake in class to enjoy while students share these memories.  Now, you know that I can't cook, bake, or boil water (okay, I think I can handle the water), but this recipe is so easy that even I can make it.  By myself!  And, it's edible.  In fact, the kids BEG for the recipe!  (It really is pretty delish...I think it's the pudding that makes it soooo moist and yummy.  Plus it leaves your classroom smelling delightful!)

{Click to download}

Another of my favorite Polacco books is Chicken Sunday.  After reading this book, students write about a time they (or someone close to them) really wanted something badly.  They write about how they got it, what they did with it, etc.  I've also had students create hats like the ones that are in Mr. Kandinksky's shop using a paper plate and paper bowl.  We just cut the inner circle of the plate out and insert the bowl into the hole and staple around.  It creates a hate with a brim.  Students paint them and then add ribbon or tissue paper flowers.  They write about what they will do with the hat (who they will give it to, where they will wear it, how it will make them feel, etc)...makes a super cute display!

We don't just stick to Patricia Polacco....we also read books by other authors during this unit.  Another great one is Cynthia Rylant.  The Relatives Came is a great one for having students write about a special time they spent with extended family.

Celebration
After writing TONS of memoirs, students choose their favorite FIVE to publish onto a special project.  For our celebration, we hold a "Memory Walk."  Students work with a partner to trace themselves on bulletin board paper.  They cut out their life-size bodies and decorate them to look just like THEM!  Then, they glue their five published memoirs onto their bodies (they are "keeping" those memories close).  We put these out in the halls and take a "Memory Walk" reading each others' memories.  I love to give students several post-it notes to leave comments on their classmates' memoirs.

A lot of people like to start the year with personal narratives (which makes sense), but since I start the year with sentences/paragraphs and then move into story writing, I often save memoirs for the end of the year.  The "Memory Walk" usually takes place during the last couple weeks of school which is perfect since I've taken everything else off the walls anyway!

Speaking of the sentences/paragraphs unit, I've had a few emails asking what I do during that unit.  It's just like it sounds...I am teaching them to write complete sentences (simple to complex) and then solid paragraphs.  We do have a new sentences unit at Teacher's Clubhouse that includes a lot of the posters, games, assessments, and PowerPoints I use during this unit, if you're interested.

 
All posts in this series:

#1 - Writers' Notebooks

#2 - Writing Workshop Schedule & Story Tees

#3 - Publishing

#4 - Friendly Letters

#5 - How-To Writing

 #6 - Persuasive Writing

#7 - Writing Memoirs/Personal Narratives

11