Setting Goals for a Productive School Year

Each year I have my fourth graders set goals.  We revisit and revise them frequently throughout the year.  This year, after inspiration from a Pinterest Pic from Teaching Idea Factory I decided to have students post their goals in the hallway.

I took photographs of each child making a thoughtful face.

They cut them out and pasted them to some colorful paper.  They wrote their goal for the school year on a thought bubble and glued that onto the paper as well.

This made a cute display for open house.  Do you have students set goals for the school year?

The MonStore Freebie

I love monsters.  Each year, as Halloween quickly approaches, I hold a monster mash party in my classroom.

This year I found a fun new book to add to our repertoire:  The MonStore by Tara Lazar.

This book is about a boy named Zack who wants to purchase a monster from a store called the MonStore to scare his sister out of his bedroom. 

I created some reading and writing activities to go along with this book.  You can find them here in my TPT store.

I also created a fun math worksheet freebie for you.  Download it here.

Want more monster fun?  Check out last year's blog post about our Monster Mash fun!

Purchase my other monster theme items here.

Have a Marvelous Monstrous Day!

New Products Posted and TPT Flash Sale

I wanted to take a moment to give you an up close and personal peak at two (kinda) new items in my TPT store:

My Iroquois Unit and my Common Core Aligned Interactive Math Notebook for Multiplication and Division!

My Iroquois Unit contains lesson plans, reading passages, worksheets, activities, vocabulary posters, quizzes, rubrics and more.

 Take a look at what's included.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

My Common Core Aligned Math Detective Notebook for Multiplication and Division lines up with Engage NY's Module 3 for fourth grade.  It contains all the printables and foldables you'll need to meet the Multiplication and Division Common Core Standards as well as photographs of finished notebook pages to use as a teacher's guide, and a quick print version to save on paper and time.

Here is a quick peak at a few of the notebook pages you can create with this pack.

You can also purchase my notebook pack for Place Value and for Metric Measurement.  I'm just beginning to work on one for Fractions as well and hope to have it up in my store in a few weeks.

You can snag both of my new products, plus many more, ON SALE now at my Teachers Pay Teachers Store!

Teachers Pay Teachers is holding a flash sale.  Enter code FB100K at check out to receive an additional 10% off your purchase!  As a special October treat, I'm offering an additional 10% off all items in my store! 

Hurry before the sale ends!

Currently October

October has finally arrived.  It is one of my favorite months of the year....the cool fall breeze, hot apple cider and donuts, pumpkin picking, the works!  And with a new month brings a new Currently!

I love personal white boards.  They keep students engaged during whole group and small group instruction and allow the teacher to see quickly what students know (or what they need support with).

However, this year our district purchased new materials and manipulatives to use with the Engage NY Math Modules.  I am loving these Reusable Dry Erase Pockets that my district purchased from School Specialty.  We have been using them the most during whole group math instruction.  You can slip a place value chart or number line inside.  What a great manipulative and HUGE time saver during our lessons.

See....focused, engaged, and happy!

Due to my high risk pregnancy, I have been closely monitored these last few weeks with twice a week appointments.  I have had weekly ultrasounds since 32 weeks (Monday I hit 34) but sweet baby Natalie has continually hidden her face from the camera.  Until Monday....my birthday!  She decided to give me a wonderful birthday surprise and peeked out for a brief moment.  Just long enough for the ultrasound tech to snap a picture of her adorable face before she squirmed away.

Only a few more weeks until I get to meet her.  October is sure to be an exciting month!  Link up with Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade for more Currently fun.

Bic Brite Liner Highlighter Tape Winners Announced

Thank you to all who entered my giveaway to win a pack of Bic Brite Liner Highlighter Tape.

 

Here are the winners:

Diana Hutchens

Ursula Gamler

Eilidh Husby

Karen Ganon

Yashika Slaughter

 

 

I have passed along your mailing address and a Bic representative will be mailing out your sample of Bic Brite Liner Highlighter Tape shortly!

Congratulations!

Constructing Support with Scholastic News & Bic Brite Liner Highlighter Tape

I was contacted by a Bic representative a few weeks back and was asked to review one of their new products:  Brite Liner Highlighter Tape.  I graciously said yes and they sent a whole class set of highlighters for our class to try out for free!   



We have been working on constructing support.  We have been highlighting supporting details from within a text, using the lovely constructing support graphic organizer mentioned in the Common Core, and forming detailed responses to text-based questions.

Since we are still spending a good chunk of our time modeling and practicing reading center procedures, I've been trying to keep the text we use during guided reading short and sweet. 

I LOVE Scholastic News.  One of their most recent articles is about eating bugs?  How cool is that?  I can't think of a better way to spark student engagement than looking at the cover of Scholastic News with a real life photo of a bug covered candy apple.

So, together, with our Scholastic News and constructing support diagram in one hand, Bic Highlighter Tape and pen in the other, we dug in deep to this fascinating text on bug eating.

We previewed the article and discussed our initial thoughts, reactions, predictions, and questions we had.

Then we read the whole article through once to understand the flow and overall tone of the passage.

We looked at the question/task that accompanied our constructing support diagram:  "Will eating bugs benefit you and the planet?"  

After taking a few moments to discuss our opinions, students determined that, "Yes, eating bugs would benefit people and the planet."  

Our next task was to find details in the article to support our answer.

Students reread the article and highlighted the evidence within the text.

We took some time to discuss the supporting evidence students highlighted and used it to fill out our graphic organizer.

These innovative highlighters add vibrant highlights in either yellow or pink and provide the ability to erase after use.

Students were extremely motivated to highlight with these fun highlighters.

Want to know the best part?  They didn't bleed through to the next page.  So tomorrow, when we read our next article, students won't be distracted by today's highlighting.

Want a free sample?

Bic has offered to give away 5 of their Brite Highlighter Tape packs, one to each winner!

Enter with Rafflecopter below for your chance to win a package of Bic Brite Highlighter Tape. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!

Five for Friday - September 20th

Just popping in real fast to show you a few photos from the week while linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the Five for Friday link-up!

Here are 5 reasons why this week has been fabulous:

1.  We are now halfway through the first Engage New York Math Module!

2.  Math centers have finally begun.

3.  Our new t-shirts came in this week.

4.  The amazing staff at my school held a baby shower for me this morning.

5.  Bic donated Bic Brite Liner Highlighting Tape for our class to try out. 

I'll be posting how we used these amazing highlighters, along with Scholastic News, to construct support when writing about our reading.  Stay tuned!

Happy Friday!