Baloney: A Post of Sunday Randomness

There has been so much going on the last few days that I feel the need to link up with Sunday Smorgasbord as well as share a great mentor text for language arts: Baloney.

First up, there is a HUGE giveaway going on where EVERYONE wins! A summer planning linky with packs for lessons and decor. The packs are divided into K-2 and 3+ so you can pick and choose which pack fits your needs/wants the best. You can sign up to win more than one pack. All you have to do is follow the scavenger hunt from blogs to TPT or Facebook, find all the secret words for the pack and your golden! To get started visit I'm Lovin' Lit's page!

 

Second, my 300 follower giveaway is still going on! Chance to win $25 TPT gift certificate and items from my store. 3 prizes two ways to win! Click the picture below to learn more! 

 

Third, I'm loving all of the link ups each week for my summer linky and I'd love for you to join in to! It's a summer recipe swap of sorts. Link up your favorite recipe, a recipe from Pinterest, a restaurant recommendation {basically, anything food related!} You don't have to take pictures if you don't want to either. I post a new link up that is open all week each Monday, all summer long! Be ready to pin, there have been some really great meal ideas/desserts and drinks posted!

Fourth, one of my good blogging buddies is celebrating her birthday and bloggiversary with a chance to win $50 gift certificate your choice to either TPT or Amazon! Click the picture to enter.

Last, and certainly not least... the linky that is the reason I want to win that $50 Amazon gift certificate: The Collaboration Cuties Mentor Text Linky! If you haven't been following along, this linky is chock full of amazing texts that you can use to teach from. {My amazon wishlist grows exponentially each Sunday!}

Here is a quick pitch from my friends at Amazon:

Henry P. Baloney needs to come up with a very good, very believable excuse for being late to szkola yet again--or he's in big trouble with his teacher Miss Bugscuffle. But never fear! Henry has a doozy of a story. You see, it all started when he misplaced his trusty yellow no. zz zimulis. One thing led to another, and before he knew it, he was on a razzo blasting off into space, where he eventually landed on the planet Astrosus. All went well there, as the intrepid explorer entertained the Astro guys with his funny piksas--until they decided Henry and his piksas would be entertaining to eat. Things go on in this vein until somehow, miraculously, Henry P. Baloney ends up back in his classroom, a mere seven minutes late--but still one writing utensil short!

Trust the ultracreative author/illustrator pair, Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith (The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!, the Time Warp Trio series, and more), to mastermind a plot this bizarre and yet somehow familiar to any school kid. Sure, Henry P. Baloney is a cute, saucer-eyed, green alien, but he has problems just like you and me--such as the threat of Permanent Lifelong Detention. Remarkably, as Scieszka reports in his afterword, when he received and decoded the transmission of this story (directly from deep space, mind you), it was written in a combination of many Earth languages, including Finnish, Swahili, Latvian, Esperanto, and Inuktitut (decoder included). Go figure.

Last year, one of the classes wrote their own frindle stories, and after reading this book I thought the same could happen. With our MTSS/RTI activities, I thought I could restrict students to come up with a nonsense word that fit patters that they are working on (long vowel pattern, r-control, etc.) {Nonsense words/word attack skills are a challenge for many of my students.} The story filled with excuses for Henry being late, provides a bit of humor as well as a chance for students to use context clues to figure out what Henry is talking about.

A fun book, I'm wanting to try later this school year. What mentor texts do you use to teach language arts skills? Be sure to link up!!