Oh Snap! It's Almost September

Back to school is almost here, and it's a goal this year to get prepped and planned out better so I can spend as much time with my baby girl as possible. I'm pretty excited to have stumbled upon this linky this morning, if for nothing else than to keep myself looking ahead to the coming month and all that I need to do!

One of the classes I teach is writing {I'm departmentalized}, and the end of August/Beginning of September is reviewing and laying ground work for the rest of the year. Somehow, summer brain seems to take hold and the vast majority of my students seem to think words like "verbs, subjects, adjectives" etc. are foreign concepts. {I know both their former 3rd grade teachers and myself pull a little hair at the blank stares as I know these concepts have been taught before... thus the review!}

I read a book by Jeff Anderson a few years ago about mentor sentences and the writing process and he had several great ideas. One tricky concept, is remember subjects and predicates. Just having the long word predicate is tricky enough on it's own for many of my students to remember. Jeff had a great activity, "sentence slap" where students create the smallest sentences ever. We build from the simple subject and simple predicate to other parts of speech as we review simple sentences and go on to compound and complex sentences.

Students enjoyed being able to "slap" their sentences down on the black board.

We move on, talking about what makes up a simple sentence, what is a fragment, and the various types of sentences. I made up a review pack and recently updated it with a sentence spin game as well. Click here or the picture below to see more about this product.

From simple sentences we move on to the wonderful world compound and complex sentences; covering clauses and conjunctions along the way too. Each year I tweak things, prepping a little more, trying to make or find more resources that help with tricky concepts, and hopefully nip some problems in the bud before they truly blossom the following year. I've added more and tweaked to my simple,  compound, complex pack. You can check it out here or by clicking the picture below. There is also a set of posters only too if you'd rather.

One of my favorite resources, that combines my love of children's literature as well as spiraling back and reviewing parts of speech and sentences all year long, are mentor sentences from my good friend Jivey. To read more all about these and how to implement them, check out the post here.

What do you do to review/teach various types of sentences?

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BTS Flash: Curriculum Must Haves!

I loved bopping through this linky last week--- so many teacher must-have's that were new to me-- and added to my Amazon cart. This week, I'm ready to read everyone's posts as I get a jump start on planning viewing everyone's curriculum must-haves.

My tried-and-true product is an interactive chart for writing goals with a reflection sheet for students. I created this a few years ago, and I've used it every year since then. It even worked well with the Journeys curriculum that we adopted last year. Each writing piece had a focus that ties in nicely with these goals. You can check them out here or by clicking on the picture. 

My students and I LOVE post-it's. Joanne is the post-it Queen! What I love even more, is that Joanne has created resources that use post-its easily and effectively. Students really dig into nonfiction with this fabulous product! You can see it here or by clicking the picture above.

I cannot wait to purchase this product from Teaching in Room 6. After reading this post on NOT starting paragraphs with the topic sentence, I had a total "aha!" moment and  knew I needed to explore things further. Come the TpT sale, this product will be mine!

 

Lastly... if you missed it... click on the picture above to enter to win a Kindle Fire or Creative Teaching Press Gift Card!  

I can't wait to hop around to see all the other curriculum must-have's.. what are some of yours?

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Back to School Prep: 5 for Friday Edition

Fair started this week and for me that's the final sign that summer is over and back-to-school prep starts to kick into high gear. Today you'll find a mix of tried-and-true plus new ideas for the school year and I thought I would share with you too!

I found a WONDERFUL organizational tool from Meg at Fourth Grade Studio: Dry Erase Labels!! Last year, we started a math intervention time before lunch. This was a thirty minute block of additional math practice that included a spiral review then a time to practice and apply skills through math games and apps. I like to try and give students a variety to choose from as well as differentiate to the necessary skill level. Print-and-go games and card games are my favorite: this gives partners and groups a chance to work as well as a chance for me to work with students individually.

All of the choice and leveling is great, but it can get disorganized quickly. This is where the labels come in handy. Using my 10 drawer cart, I have enough room for all of the centers we are using + supplies needed. Then, when I switch to a new set of games I don't have to peel off the label, just wipe and write! Love it! Double plus, my hand-me-down drawers have two colors, so I can eventually have a red level and orange level for a visual reminder of which games to choose from.

These are the centers we will start the year off with!

As I'm making my annual pilgrimages for fun office supplies and materials I'm adding  index cards to the list thanks to a post from The Panicked Teacher. How fun is this all about me tower? Click the picture to see more from the original post on how to set things up + all the necessary labels.

I'm also picking up all of the necessary items for one of my favorite team activities: Save Fred. I've used it the last two years and each group of students have really enjoyed trying to save my poor friend. You can read more about how to the the activity here or by clicking on the picture.

I wanted to share the link to 50+ ideas submitted by readers a couple of years ago. So many wonderful--- oldie but goodie ideas, you don't want to miss out! That's one thing I love about blogging: the sharing of ideas and learning from others!

I've done a lot of planning this last spring and summer to gear up for the new year. We adopted the Journeys curriculum last year, and if you have this curriculum and missed yesterday's post, you may want to check it out here or by clicking the picture below for tips, tricks, and ideas for the coming school year. 

  Also, come back tomorrow... something BIG is going to happen!

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Journeying Through Journeys: Tips, Thoughts, & Goals

Last year my district adopted Journeys K-5. It was quite the switch up, at least in 4/5 where we had primarily done novel studies before the basal. Here is a peek at how my teammates and I navigated and tried to tame the beast that is Journeys.

First of all, starting in 4th, we are departmentalized. There are five fourth grade teachers, one who teaches only science and social studies, two who teach one section of reading and the rest are math, and then myself and another teacher take the rest of the reading and all of the communications (writing) blocks.

As the ELA team,  we divided up lesson plans for the week, one going through the book jotting down the reading and shooting the lesson out to everyone, the other did the communication plans. By the time we went through the books to make these, my daily "at a glance" plan was usually on a sticky note, that I would tuck from page to page as needed in the manual.

Each of our periods is a 55 minute block. That is very little time for all that Journey's contains. We did the very best we could to hit it all, but it felt rushed at times. We adjusted the schedule a bit, and ran on 6 day weeks throughout the year. This helped greatly with our communications periods, so that we had a little extra time to work on our writing. This also made for five days of teaching and one test day.

I would try on our Day 5  to run centers to review what we had covered. For one class section, one day with 4-5 centers to rotate through was good enough. Another section, review and one on one work occurred on Day 5 and on into Day 6 as well. Depending on the group of kids in each section, and how things are going, we might focus more on decoding in one class and the target skill more in another section. Having centers throughout the week in addition to what the program itself provides, helped to give my students a chance to apply and practice what we were working on.

My district is also blessed to be a 1:1 iPad district. Having a review on Kahoot was always a class favorite. Finding ways to do the same practice from the workbook in a hands on way on the iPad made things more meaningful than just the worksheet.

Writing was tough. The amount of projects that are to be completed, the time allowed, add in all the hectic things that come into a schedule made it nearly impossible. We adjusted some. Not writing every writing piece. Elongating the project time, so that students could really dig in, especially when the topic was of interest. A favorite for all was during the persuasive writing unit. Students still needed to write in the form of a poster or brochure, but they also had a to create a commercial on the iPad using various apps to persuade their audience as well.  I also made mentor sentences a priority, making sure to have 5-10 minutes a day for the authentic and spiraled practice of grammar--and it worked wonderfully!

In my state, 4th grade is a heavily assessed grade. There are so many standards that need to be taught and met for students to succeed on the testing. Schedules are crazy. Weather is crazy, although it's said wait five minutes and it'll change if you're in Kansas, and days you didn't expect to get off are suddenly cold days or snow days. Students get sick. There are field trips. The list goes on and on.

It takes a few years to truly get into a groove with a basal system no matter what system you use. It takes time to figure out the pace of a single lesson. It takes time to figure out which concepts are truly important to focus on and which are great if you can get to it this week, but if you have to, wait until the program spirals back. Know that, especially in the first year of implementing the program, it can't all be done, but as the great educator that you are, you can focus on what's important and help your students get what they need from the program. I know, now that we've had a year under our belt, we will be able to manage time better through pacing and incorporate even more of all that the program has to offer.

While having a basal is great for subplans, it's been a huge adjustment for me. I'm still learning how to work with it best, but I do know there a few things I want to do this upcoming year. 

1. Give as many opportunities in my reading and homeroom times for kids to read. There is a lot of extras to Journeys. I truly feel that it's important for kids to read, to have choice, to talk about what they are reading. I want to make this more of a priority. 
2. I want to continue to make Journeys work in my room. When we first implemented the series, the iPads became a glorified paperweight collecting dust. Things were rushed, it just wasn't working to the full potential. Including more hands on use with iPads, centers, etc. is a goal for me. 

Here are some of the units that I have prettied up from the school year. I have full units 110+ pages for each story {I'm trying to complete everything with plenty of time for prep, as I'll be laminating along with everyone this year.. rather than my 'quick hot of the press let's try this' centers and projects of last year.} For information on how I'm going to attempt to keep it all organized see this post.

For more information please click here or on the pictures above.

I've also broken a part some of the units, for quick skill packs. A sample of these packs can be found  by clicking the pictures below.

I would love to hear from others who have this series or any other and how you get the most from the basal.

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Organizing Curriculum Units

If I put something into a filing cabinet, even with all of the wonderful intentions of colorful folders and labels, the items housed there seem to fall into the "out of sight, out of mind" oblivion.  I just don't go back to see what I have often enough, sometimes even making another copy of an activity, just because I forget I already have it prepped and ready to go.  {Hopefully, I'm not the only one that has filing cabinet issues.}

I love to store digital files on the computer. It's easy to see what I have and access them, but that's all they are: digital. At some point they need printed and often laminated, and then I go back to the metal conundrum at the back of my classroom.

This year will be different.

We started the Journey's curriculum last year. It was a hard adjustment for me. I loved novel studies, creating curriculum and activities. It was a change. It's still different, but I'm adjusting.

There is a lot to Journey's. Some of my students catch on quick. Others struggle with the concepts. Although the program offers some centers and worksheets, I've found the program at times to be a little boring. So I did some creating, to make centers and activities {especially for when working with small groups}. I don't want to forget an activity in the great gray abyss this year.

Introducing my binder system.

I love binders. I love the ability to flip through and see everything with out having to open and close a gazillion folders. The whole unit is sorted. For my Journey's units there are sections for vocabulary, spelling, target skill, decoding, affixes, and grammar activities; quick and easy to find.

 

The binder is big. However, I have all of the centers prepped. I like to take a day before testing to run 4-5 different centers for students to practice. I also mirror my classroom, so two groups are working on an activity at a time.

I co-teach with the special education teacher, so I'm hoping that this system works out a little better with sharing resources. The binders will be right by my desk, organized, and it'll be easy to take out an activity or two as needed. At least that's the hope for now.

How do you organize big units? Have you tried a similar system? How did it work for you? I'm hoping I can make things a little easier on myself!

{If you are a 4th grade teacher and would like to take a look at the resources I have for Journey's please take a look here}

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TpT Seller Challenge: Make Over Madness!

There have been many blogging and TpT hiatuses over the last few months. I love being a mom, and baby A is worth the reprieve from the computer. However, the #TpTSellerChallenge taking over social media, may just be the kick in the rear jump start I needed to get things going again.

The first challenge is to make over something currently in your TpT store (to read more on the challenge and join in please read this post from The Peppy Zesty Teacherista). I first started in 2012-2013 during my first year of teaching. Boy have I not only come a long way in my teaching since then, but thankful, my design techniques have grown too.

I'm a wee bit ashamed to show you one of my most pinned items: Common Prefix & Suffix Flipbooks.

Scary isn't it? Back when I started freebies seemed to be more of an after thought. Why invest in them if they are free? Well, they are a great advertising opportunity and I missed out greatly over the years with this one. I'm surprised it's been pinned so well seeing as 1) there was no cover page, 2) no advertising to bring people back to my store for related products 3) worst of all-- Comic Sans was used in part of this product. Eeek. My font addicted heart cannot believe I had that in a product!

Now...

So much better!
1) A cover that goes with other related products on the same topic. Crisp & clean.
2) I have pictures and links going to related products.
3). Best of all---better and easier to read fonts!

To see it yourself and download.. please click here or on the picture.

The to-do list is long, and I'm not sure how fast baby girl will let me get to it all, but this is the first step in the right direction to giving things a bit of a facelift!

Be sure to check out even more by visiting the link up here.

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TpT Sale Wishlist Linky!

Hello, friends! I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving and you were able to keep your sanity on Black Friday! The hubs and I finished up our Christmas shopping, but we didn't venture out until about 9 am. Sleeping in, still finding fabulous deals and getting to sleep in.... that's what I call a win!!

Maybe by now you've heard of the upcoming TPT sitewide sale...

...but have you entered to win one of the five $25 TPT gift cards yet? Today is the last day to enter. If you win, that extra cash will come to your inbox just in time for the sale! Click the image below to enter if you haven't already... winners will be announced tomorrow! If you haven't checked out some of these teacher authors you need to! I know I frequent their blogs and stores for ideas and resources for my room!

Now, let's get down to business! What is on your wishlist? I love seeing what other people are buying for their classroom. As if I need any other excuse to buy products from TPT...

Feel free to grab the banners and link up, too! Share two items that everyone has on their wish list from your store and one item that you have on your own wish list that you'll buy during the sale.

The number one thing people have wish listed from my store is my Differentiated 4th Grade Place Value Centers. There are 6 centers with differentiated games to reinforce what your students are learning about place value!

The second most wish listed item is my iPad Interactive Notebook! There are graphic organizers for each of the literacy standards. Videos, tutorials, and app suggestions are included. However, you can also print and use the graphic organizers as well (though not quite as interactive as using the iPad to enhance them.)

I like to try and make my ELA writing projects a little on the holiday-themed side this time of year. I think it helps to keep my kiddos engaged (as if they are not already thinking about the holiday season!) The Gingerbread ELA Mini Unit from Pinkadots Elementary looked perfect! A nonfiction text paired with comprehension questions, research opportunities, and graphic organizers. Looked like a pretty sweet deal to me!

What do you have on your wish list? Be sure to link up, I'm always curious to see what others are buying so I can load up my car even more!

An InLinkz Link-up

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