Thankful November, day 21: Small Business Saturday

I posted this message on my facebook wall, but felt it warranted appearing here too.

I wanted to say thank you to those who have supported one of my small businesses ({Jamberry}, {TeacherspayTeachers}, and/or {Younique Products}).

Your support helps pay for books and supplies for my students.  (Specifically glue sticks, thousands of post its, and everything Rick Riordan writes in mass quantities.  You'd figure nine copies of the same book would be enough, but it's not enough.) You helped pay for Waffles's pet adoption fees, shots, obedience school, and toys.  (So many toys).  You're helping us pay for our wedding, because we're trying not to go in debt for this fabulous dinner party we're hosting.  Your support helped us afford the new computer B needed for college (because his laptop was eight years old).  Your support helps cover expenses because teachers took a pay cut this year and well, that sucked.  I need to double check my courses, but I'm pretty sure I just finished Masters +32, that I may or may not receive a pay raise for...so small businesses help cover the difference. 


Thank you for supporting me.

Notebooking idea: types of sentences

While this activity does take a large amount of post-its, I do think it's useful for going over types of topic sentences:

I know my fifth graders struggle with openings and having this in their notebooks helped them with peer revising.

Students would write the definition of each type of topic sentence, put my example, then generate their own examples with their table teams or partners.

Declarative Statement:
Introduces the topic, usually with facts or a rhetorical question.

Situation/Stance:
Gives the author's perspective and sets the tone.

Number Statement:
Uses numbers

List:
Creates a list with related topics to generate interest

FANBOYS
Conjunctions: For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So

Good luck!

Small Groups

Small group reading is my favorite part of my day because I love watching my young scholars get so excited about their novels!

I really like researching about new strategies and trying them with my small groups.  This week we used the stop and jot strategy with post-its:

I had my Number the Stars group focus in on the Nazi soldiers' midnight visit.  They recorded their thinking while reading and then used their recordings to guide their own discussions.

Homework:

I wish I had time to meet with them daily but I simply have too many groups to make that possible.  So we meet every 3 days and they have independent reading and homework in between:

I give them four or five questions to respond to and use evidence from the text to support their answers.  I love when they do such a great job with details!

They also are taking more ownership and creating charts about their novels:

Which we store in a magnetic bin at the front of the room.

I used a regular plastic bin and hot glued on magnets to make it work for my classroom.

I like how my students are so open to new ideas and strategies as well!  It's wonderful to keep learning together :)

Stop and Jot, part 2

We've had some trainings on close reading and one of the things I took away was teaching my munchkins to "read with a pencil".

Granted, this wasn't earth-shattering information, but rather an affirmation that I'm doing the right things with my reading groups. It's always a relief to hear that what I'm doing aligns with best practice theories.

Here's our "stop and jot" poster with when students should stop to record their thinking.

As you can see, there's lots of times students should pause to record their thinking!  I'm glad they're getting used to annotating and showing their thinking.

(We did review how to use post-its when it's a book you shouldn't write in as well!  They do love their post-its.)