Fiction Friday

Happy Friday! This week has been so crazy with the fourth. I feel like I am just floating from day to day, haha.

Time for Fiction Friday!

My first book for you today is a picture book, sort of! More like an Easy Reader I guess - Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa: Partners!

I recently finished No More I'm Done and the author suggested reading this book to introduce the idea of writing partners to the students. Now, I don't know about you, but I find that is WAY more effective to teach things in the context of a read-aloud than it is for me to just sit there and talk at the kids.

Anyway, this was a cute story about Kate and her cowhorse, Cocoa! There were 4 little chapters in the book detailing different little adventures they had - like trying to find a lost calf and getting new horseshoes for Cocoa. You might want to spread this over a few days, reading a chapter a day, when introducing Read to Someone in Daily 5 or when introducing writing partners, like the book said!

My second book for you is a chapter book: Anything But Typical.

This story is narrated by a middle school boy with autism. It basically goes through his day to day life, and you get to peek inside the head of someone who lives every day with autism. It was very interesting and eye-opening, especially because I've never worked closely with a student who has autism. I am just in awe of people who dedicate their lives to teaching students with autism - that is such an important and difficult job.

The only complaint I had about this book is that the author, Nora Raleigh Baskin, didn't mention how she came to write this book. Does she have a child with autism? Did she ever work with a student who has autism? Or was everything she wrote just based on research? I would have liked to know how true-to-life the story was.

Go check out the linky party for other good reads this week!

What I'm Loving Thursday

I missed my WILW post yesterday! Too busy having fun. :)

I'm loving the fourth of July. :) I forgot how fun it is! Everyone just chills all day, everyone is smiling, and you get to spend time with people you love! Yay.

I'm loving outlet malls! Today I went with my brother to one and it was amazing! I bought some linen crop pants, a new shirt for school, and a scarf, and I saved $50 compared to what I would have paid in the real New York and Company store. Any ideas of how to store my scarves? This is what I have now and it is kind of overflowing... haha!

I'm loving that I'm going sailing tomorrow! So excited!

I'm loving that there is going to be a Chicago area blogger meetup! Click on the picture to go to the Lesson Plan SOS blog so you can get your evite!

I'm loving that my cousins and I made t-shirts for the fourth of July. They were pretty much the cutest things ever and we had a great day together! I am in the middle here. :)

What are you loving today?

4 on the Fourth

Happy fourth of July!! Here in the Chicago area it was excruciatingly warm but I survived. :)

Today I am going to link up with the lovely Ms. M for her 4 on the Fourth linky party!

For this party, we need to talk about four things we are going to try this year - brand new stuff!

This is timely for me because during my ESL grad class yesterday, I got bored and started making a list of all the new stuff I want to implement! It was longer than four things but I will pick my four favoritos. :)

(1) I want to do writer's workshop this year. Last year I was kind of flying by the seat of my pants and doing my best teaching writing, but I know it wasn't as good as it could have been. I just finished No More "I'm Done!" and it was awesome. This combined with Mrs. Meacham's writing workshop lessons is hopefully going to equal happiness in my life next year. :)

(2) I want to expand my calendar routine to incorporate some of the Teacher Tipster's ideas to make it more well-rounded and comprehensive. I also want to move my calendar routine to the afternoon since I teach math at that time!

(3) I want my class to fill out their planners/assignment notebooks first thing in the morning next year. It seems like a little change but I think it will be a big difference in the day. Last year I would have them do it right before dismissal and it was a mess every day. Now I'll know that everyone has the right information and parents will know exactly what's expected of their kiddos!

(4) I want to forego my weekly newsletter to parents. It was a lot of work and stressed me out every Friday! Instead, I already set up a Tumblr page for our class to update parents on spelling words and upcoming events, and I'm going to implement News Notebooks in my class. Hopefully I'll write more about that once the school year starts - if it's going well, that is!

I have a really good feeling that this upcoming year is going to be, like, 8492749832 times better than this past year. My confidence is super high and I feel unstoppable!! :)

Skippyjon!

In case you haven't heard already, Kohl's has Skippyjon Jones books AND matching plushes right now for only 5 dolla dolla bills.

I picked up one of each.

The plush cracks me up; its head is HUGE. 

I'm thinking about putting Skippyjon in a basket so the kids can read to him during Read to Self time next fall. It might make reading a little bit more exciting for them. :)

Also, I have been legit bombarded by awards, which of course I so appreciate!! Thank you so, so much everybody for the Versatile Blogger Award and One Lovely Blog Award!

Check out these super nice lovely ladies' blogs. :)

and Alyce at Mrs. Bartel's School Family!
I hope you have a super happy and fun 4th tomorrow!

Monday Made It: Cloth Erasers!

Hi friends! Happy Monday Made It!

This weekend, I made some cloth erasers for my student chalkboards that I have in my room. These could also be used for student whiteboards if you have those instead (which you probably do...). I've heard of other people using socks to erase or other cloths, but I didn't have any of those, so I made these instead! They are based on the directions I found at maya*made.

If you can use a sewing machine at all, you can make these in a snap! Here's how you do it.

First, you will need to get some cotton batting. This can be found in the bolts at any fabric store. I bought a yard, which will make about 27 erasers. Once you have your cotton batting, cut rectangles that are 5 inches by 10 inches.

Next, take one rectangle and fold it like so:

Then, you will sew all the way around it. Sew about 1/4" in from the edges. It's really not that big of a deal if it's not perfect, just remember... it is an eraser. :)

After that, sew parallel lines. Make as many as you want to, as far apart or as close as you want to. If you are a Type A sort of personality, yours will look much more perfect and beautiful than mine. I"m cool with that. :)

Then that's it! The original directions said to use pinking shears and cut all the way around. That does make it cuter ... but my border around isn't really thick enough.

So here is a little pile of them! They all look different, just like snowflakes!!

Each eraser took me about 3 minutes to make. Just sew, sew, sew! My sewing machine skills are like... first grade level (if first graders use sewing machines), so if I can do it, so can you!

I made some of these last summer for my class and the kids LOVED THEM. Absolutely 100%. They are really cute and they erase well. And if you use them for dry erase markers, just throw them in the wash after a while.

And I leave you with a little funny today:

Haha! Have a good week!

July Currently

It's July?!

I am a HUGE Froggy fan! I was first introduced to him when I did a clinical in a sixth grade class. My cooperating teacher used a Froggy book as a mentor text for writing. The sixth graders LOVED IT and I did, too. Froggy's First Kiss is one of my favorites because it is so super cute and has a little twist at the end.

Reading with Meaning rules too! I need to reread it and try to work toward a reading workshop model next year. I can't do it full out because of my scripted reading program, but I can work in some stuff here and there.

Hope your weekend was aaaaaaamazing! Mine was! Off to my sleepover! :)

Fiction Friday!

Wow, it is already Friday!! This week went super fast, and I think it was because of my summer class! It is pretty boring, but I'm already a third of the way done!

So today I am linking up with Amanda at The Teaching Thief for her Fiction Friday linky! 

Do you teach about figurative language, idioms, or figures of speech? Well, then you are in luck, because I have a book for you!

More Parts, written by Tedd Arnold, is about a little boy who is absolutely BOGGLED by the crazy things that adults say! For example, when his dad asks his son to "please give him a hand," the little boy gets super paranoid and glues gloves onto his hands - just to make sure they stay on, of course.

This book is very funny and cute, and it would be a great addition to any mini-lessons on figurative language! As an extension activity, you might want to have students choose a specific idiom and illustrate both what it sounds like it means literally and then what it actually means. It could be a cute display of learning and would increase your students' vocabularies for sure!

Moving on...

I recently just finished a fantastic chapter book - The Mighty Miss Malone by the amazing Christopher Paul Curtis. Do you love him as much as I do??

The Mighty Miss Malone is sort of a companion book to Bud, Not Buddy - but it's not imperative that you read that book first. This is the story of Deza Malone, an 11-year-old girl living in Gary, Indiana during the Great Depression. While reading this book, I was reminded of how incredibly difficult the Depression was and I learned how it affected children and morale overall. It was also really interesting (and, of course, heartbreaking) how race relations were so different in cities like Gary compared to Flint, Michigan.

You could use this as a general read-aloud, as a vehicle to discuss character traits, or as a supplemental text if you teach about the Great Depression. Students might enjoy hearing the story because they can relate to Deza and can imagine themselves in her tattered shoes.

The author's note at the end of this story was especially sad when he pointed out how many American children live in poverty every day. He wants Deza to be a face for child poverty so people want to take a stand against it. How can you argue with that?

What have you been reading? Feel free to check out my Goodreads widget in my sidebar to see what I'm currently reading! :)