St. Patrick's Day Freebies!

St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner!  Here are some freebies that you might find helpful during March.  The first is a set of riddle bookmarks with graphics from the3amteacher.



The next is a board game focusing on words with -oo- with graphics from Scrappin Doodles.

Just click on the activity titles to download yours from Google Drive.

How does your class celebrate St. Patrick's Day?  Does the leprechaun wreck havoc in your room?  Do you have a party?  Or is it business as usual?  We'd love to hear.  Leave a comment below or on our Facebook Page.

Read Across America Celebrations

Today, I'm sharing with you how the school my children attend celebrate Read Across America Day.  It's also where I taught before becoming an instructional coach.  They celebrate all week long and it's quite a fun event.  Here's a bit about each of the three big events:

1.  Class reading goals.  Each class creates a collaborative reading goal.  Each student is given a tracking sheet to record the minutes they read throughout the week.  The goals are set to hopefully be a bit more reading than required, like a goal for each student to read 25 or 30 minutes instead of 20 minutes a night.  The recording sheets are turned in the Monday after the celebration week.  Then, those classes who met their goals are rewarded by the principal with a small treat, usually a Popsicle.

2.  Family Reading Night.  On Wednesday, families are invited to read in the halls throughout the school.  Popcorn is provided in small bags and people are encouraged to bring their pillows and blankets.  Staff members read aloud picture books in our small auditorium throughout the night for families to enjoy.  The PTA also runs the Scholastic Book Fair throughout this week and has it open special this night for families to add to their home libraries.  At only an hour long, this family night encourages families to read together, brings the community to the school and is an opportunity for fundraising.

3.  Read Across America Day.  Toward the end of the celebration week, the entire school participates in "Reading Across America" one morning.  Every employee chooses a state.  This includes the principal, secretaries, technicians and custodians.  Each chooses a state and prepares a lesson and activity to teach about the state.  Students are divided into heterogeneous groups consisting of students in grades K-6 all together.  The groups are small due to the number of adults helping out.  The groups rotate to 4 different states during the morning.  Teachers try to share either a fiction or non-fiction text with the students about the state or something that relates to the state and do an art project or game with the students.  It's a very fun morning that the students look forward to and enjoy.

If you can't celebrate as a school, try doing some of this on a smaller scale in your classroom.  It would be fun to have centers around the room about different states.  Include your own state too.  Parents who have lived in other states might be willing to come share what they know and their experiences with your class.  You can get all the official information about Read Across America Day at the NEA's site here. 

If you'd like to hold your own reading goal, you can get a tracking sheet that is ready to go on google drive here.

We'd all love to hear what your plans are for celebrating Read Across America Day.  Comment below or on our Facebook page to share your ideas.

Mother's Day Gifts

 We have our Mother's Day gifts ready to go.  We made these flower pens and notepads for Mom.  We had our district printing do these notebooks for us.  Each page of the notebook is the same.  Every student chose 1 sentence and the way they wanted it to be signed.  For example:  You are the best Mom ever!  Love, Pumpkin.  (Sorry, I didn't think to take a picture of the notebooks)  Many chose to sign using the nicknames their mom calls them.  If you can't do personalized notebooks, I'm sure you can find some cheap ones and have students personalize the cover.  Then students made the flower pens using flowers and florist tape from the dollar store and pens I still had from the fall penny sales at Staples.  (If we're really keeping track, I made about half of the pens)  I taped the flower to each pen started the floral tape on them, but I'm sure you already know the ones that will be at your side as soon as you've given the project to them.  Some of my fellow teachers put the pen making as their art center for the week so a few students a day worked on them throughout the week.  We put them together in these cute butterfly gift bags, also from the dollar store.  Each student wrote a note to his/her mom on the first page of the notebook.  We had a class full of cute Mother's Day gifts for just a few dollars.  What are you doing or have you done in the past to help your students celebrate their mothers?

Happy Easter

Hope you are spending time with those you love.  Happy Easter and may God be with each of you!

UCET and Jackie Robinson

I've been busy attending the UCET (Utah Coalition for Educational Technology) Conference this weekend and haven't posted for a few days.  Don't worry, I'll post some of the tidbits I learned while I was away over the next few weeks.

I wanted to share with you what I did (well what I planned and the substitute did) with my class and other students on Friday to celebrate Read Across America Day.  In the morning the entire school was cross grade grouped (K-6) into groups of about 17 students.  Students were given "passports" and they toured the U.S. "Reading Across America."  Every adult in the building represented a state and shared a book and an activity that somehow related to the state.  Students rotated 5 times, to visit 5 different states.  Each rotation lasted 20 minutes.  It's a little crazy, but a lot of fun.  I chose to represent Georgia.  I lived there for 2 years.  I discovered that Jackie Robinson was born in Georgia, so I focused on baseball.  I introduced a few facts about the state and then introduced Jackie.  Then read this great book Teammates   to the students and discussed it.  Then, each student created their own baseball card using this fun template.  Students drew a picture of themselves on the front and then wrote their "stats" on the back such as name, age, grade and hobbies.  I don't have pictures since I wasn't there, but I think it went well.

Remember the giveaway that I currently have going on.  

Go here to enter.