Thank You's

One of my students brought me this:

The gesture is sweet but I think she's secretly trying to bribe me into letting her read Tuck Everlasting. Her group just started Number the Stars and she's convinced it's the best book, ever.  She's on chapter three but has already proclaimed this book as her favorite...ever.

These are my students.

Just doin' my job...

One of my parents came to me today with a very pressing issue.  

She had a doctor's appointment later that day and needed a book to read.  Naturally, I came to mind as someone to recommend a new book.

This makes my heart so incredibly happy that I'm immediately thought of as a credible person to recommend books.

I know she's read Number the Stars, Tuck Everlasting, the Bad Beginning, and Who Could That Be At This Hour? with her daughter this year.  So I recommended one of my new favorites:

I gave her a quick synopsis and she was sold!  If you haven't checked out this book, I highly recommend it!

Fun Writes!

I'm pleased to announce my newest station is available on TpT! 

In this "fun writes", I pose a series of task cards for students to write about.  These task cards are novel specific and challenge students to make connections between texts! Students can also make self to text connections, like with this question:

 Plus it's a lot of fun for students and truly challenges their thinking :)  For an added challenge, have them justify their answers with evidence from the novels!  With over thirty different fun questions , this is great for extension activities, whole group or small groups!

Snag yours here!

Freebie TpT product!

My students and I collaborated on a game for Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting, so I posted the product as a freebie on TpT!

You can snag it here.  If you like it, please rate it and leave feedback.  If you can think of a way it can be improved, let me know that as well!  (Keep in mind this was student designed and they wanted to share what they made with others).

Upcoming Products

I'm in the process of reformatting some centers based on my students' feedback and they should be available on TpT by the end of the year!

Chronological Order Sorts:
The Miserable Mill (#4 in the Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket)
Gossamer by Lois Lowry (posted 12/08)
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordian (posted 12/10)
The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordian (posted 12/10)
Steal Away Home by Lois Ruby

Novel Units:
Harry Potter novels (1-6)

Quote Sorts:
Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games trilogy

Other various stations:
Tuck Everlasting character analysis 

Be sure to follow me on TpT to see the latest products and check out sales!

TpT

As I'm sure you're well aware, I have a store on TpT.  (Teachers pay teachers)  I have been in the classroom for five years now and am proud of the rigorous novel studies and centers I've made.  Nothing in my store was made for the sake of posting it on TpT, but rather created for my own classroom and shared with others.  I know that I work hard and more importantly, my students make great academic gains.

Here is a short list of what is available on TpT

novel units (questions, answers, vocab, extension activities, homework questions)
Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief (1)
Percy Jackson & the Sea of Monsters (2)
Percy Jackson & the Titan's Curse (3)
Percy Jackson & the Battle of the Labyrinth (4) 
Percy Jackson & the Last Olympian (5) 
Steal Away Home
Loser
Gossamer
Holes
Hunger Games
Catching Fire
Mockingjay
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Number the Stars
Tiger Rising
The Giver
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

literacy centers/stations
Percy Jackson "Who am I?" center with answer key (based on books 1 & 2)
Hunger Games & Catching Fire "who am I?" center with answer key
Harry Potter "Who am I?" center with answer key
Series of Unfortunate Events "Who am I?" center with answer key
literacy stations bundle
Percy Jackson quote sort for the Lightning Thief
Percy Jackson quote sort for the Sea of Monsters
Percy Jackson quote sort for the Titan's Curse
Percy Jackson quote sort for the Battle of the Labyrinth
Percy Jackson quote sort for the Titan's Curse
editing & revising sort (writing)
Tuck Everlasting quote sort
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone chronological order sort (freebie)
Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets chronological order sort
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban chronological order sort
Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire chronological order sort 
Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix chronological order sort
Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince chronological order sort
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows chronological order sort 
Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets quote sort
Hunger Games chronological order sort 
Catching Fire chronological order sort
Prefix concentration, CCSS aligned
Roots concentration, CCSS aligned
Suffix concentration, CCSS aligned
Catching Fire quote sort

math centers
math taboo (vocabulary activity)
math centers bundle

science centers
mixtures & solutions sort 
types of maps sort (geography)
"I have, Who has?" landforms review
5 themes of geography ppt (freebie)

misc
table of contents organizer for notebooks (multiple academic areas)
back to school activities bundle
teacher forms guide bundle
Teacher name plate


Coming Soon!
math strategies sorts
prefixes, roots & suffixes sorts
Harry Potter novel guides (1-6)
Harry Potter Quote sorts
Mockingjay chronological order sort
Teacher guides for the Series of Unfortunate Events
Teacher guides for Hatchet

and more!  I just need a time travel device :)

Our small groups

I love my small group discussions about novels.

It's a little tricky to manage 12 groups and they're still a little loud at centers, but it's a work in progress.

Here is our daily schedule for small groups:

Yes, making sure I set the timer is the first task! I need my small kitchen timer to hold me accountable to time :)

Here are some of our updated "keeping track of character charts":

I love how well they're doing with pulling out crucial details to see how characters develop over the course of the novels.

We also got our copies of Tuck Everlasting! Thank you donors :) I can't wait to use them with my young readers!

Our updated reading board, now that we've established what we are working on in class:

I also created folders for each novel:

Inside are various novel-specific thinking maps for them to glue into their small group reading notebooks to organize their thinking, make predictions, look for figurative language, etc.

To help with many of our word work and phonics centers, I created a smaller version of CLOVER to help students remember how to identify syllable types:

Happy reading!

Don't bother me, I'm reading

We got our copies of Tuck Everlasting this week.  Again, a huge thank you to my donorschoose supporters :)

Some of my after school helpers were very, very excited about our new books:

I got the "don't bother me, I'm reading" death glares. 

 I couldn't be more proud.

-Happy reading!

Trying to be positive

As mentioned in my rattled post, I've received some negative feedback on TpT.  I didn't take it well.  I received another piece of feedback on the same product but this one was less malicious and did cause me to be self-reflective.  Perhaps I need to look outside of my school district for professional development in terms of the Common Core.  I know Nevada is frequently at the bottom of educational rankings, but that's due to a plethora of factors, many of which we as teachers can't control.  Maybe I should look into other school districts (since there's really only one in my state) and how they're "ramping up the rigor" for the Common Core.

But at the same time, I don't think I'm unqualified.  If I was, I wouldn't be sharing my materials.  I've written assessments for my school and district for a few years and was on the unwrapping task force for both math and social studies when CCSD adopted the Common Core.  I've been CASL trained and I know what makes rigorous, valid assessments.  All of my materials have been field tested in my own classroom and tweaked as necessary.  I am a DENstar with Discovery and one of our district's DENambassadors (Discovery Education).  I attended DENSI last summer in Vermont and was the sole representative of my state.  Yes, state.  The summer before that, I attended both the Mickelson Exxon-Mobil Teacher's Academy and the Mount Vernon Teacher's  Institute, again being the sole representative of my state.  My list of qualifications goes on and on, so I think I'm a knowledgable teacher.  Of course, I'm never done learning and developing as a teacher, as evident with my current task of working toward masters +32 (so close!) then working on National Board Certification.  Yup, I'm a type-A teacher and I embrace it.  I know I work hard and my students learn.

I don't think rigor comes from worksheets.  I think rigor comes from discussions and analysis of the text.  Rigor comes from close reading, re-reading, deep discussions and interaction with the text.  I can offer those deeper level questions, which I do, in my discussion guides but it is up to the teacher to drive the discussion and challenge students to think deeper.  As with any teacher guide, you have to make it your own and implement it in the classroom.  

I stand by my products and I am trying not to let two bad reviews ruin my outlook on selling products online.  Last time I checked, 79 people had purchased a product with several hundred more downloading my free ones.  If out of that, two had an issue, I'd say that's pretty acceptable.  I do feel bad that my product didn't meet their expectations but it did meet mine.  For those of you that know me personally, you know my standards are meticulously high.  I don't like wasting time and I wouldn't feel comfortable wasting other people's time.

However, I'll let you judge for yourself.  I have three products for free on TpT: a novel quote preview for Tuck Everlasting, a chronological order sort for Harry Potter and a 5 themes of geography ppt.  Download them here.  If you like them, please rate me accordingly.  If you don't, I'd love feedback either here or on the site about how I can improve them.  Please don't tell me it was a waste of money (since it's free!) or a waste of time.  Offer concrete examples of how you'd like it improved.  I'm always open to constructive feedback, especially if it improves my instruction and benefits my students :)

Thank you,
Ms. Vice

Thank you!

I had a little bit of a rough day.  Our entire team had substitute teachers so we could administer AIMSweb RCBM benchmarking (oral reading fluency) and give the CORE test to students to see where they break down with phonics. 

It was also the second day of switching, so we are still working on procedures.

The students didn't make the best choices behavior wise and the substitutes didn't quite follow the lesson plans we left.  

Afterwards, we discussed as a grade level some switching that needed to occur between reading rooms based on student data and the next thing we knew, it was five pm.

Exhausted, I packed up my crate of things to work on this evening.  Tomorrow is open house, which means another late night.

However, I got home and received an email from donor's choose telling me another project had been fully funded.

This put things into perspective for me.

I am so grateful that I have supporters both near and far who are willing to help my students.  Whether it's classroom parents who donate extra supplies to corporations to strangers to family members and friends, I appreciate you all.  

Thank you for believing in me, but more importantly, in my students.

Thank you, Elder AWE, for supporting my students and donating to my project about copies of the amazing novel Tuck Everlasting.  

Thank you to Cynthia, Judy, Laurie and Kia motors for supporting my latest project on vocabulary centers and other resources for my classroom.  With my double dose of small group reading, I had to prepare for twelve different groups!  Your support makes this possible and I'm excited for trying out our new vocabulary centers with my students.

Thank you to my blog viewers, to my TpT supporters and to my fellow teachers who can always offer a kind smile or words of encouragement.  

Thank you all for reminding me about the joy in teaching.

-Ms. Vice

Book suggestions

So I just sort of realized that running two different reading blocks means I need more novel suggestions to read with students.  Since I send my kiddos home with the books as part of their homework and written responses to literature, it's not like two groups can share the same book at the same time.  I mean, I will pace out the groups as best I can so one group is always ahead of another with book series (Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, etc).

However, I need some other book suggestions so I can work on teacher grants or visit the library.

I am currently reading Jerry Spinelli's Loser and loving it.

I am part way through Rick Riordan's The Lost Hero and have the two sequels on my coffee table: 

 

I have these books ready to read with small groups:

 

 

So what else should I read? I'm looking for book suggestions for DRA levels 40-60 or grade level equivalents 4.0 and up.  

Please recommend novels and why my munchkins should read them :)

First Product! Tuck Everlasting Quote Sort

After a productive afternoon, fueled by Netflix and tea, I have published my first products on TpT, which you can grab the freebie here.  It is a novel sort for Tuck Everlasting, which is one of the exemplar texts for the Common Core.  More importantly, it's a timeless novel (pun intended) that my students absolutely loved.  After we finished the novel as a class, I introduced them to this sort and had them analyze which characters said which quotes.  During their discussions, many referred back to the text to confirm their answers and groups were discussing how they knew it was a certain character based on the author's word choice.  Thrilled by the success of this center, I went on to create more based on the readings we'd done in class.

It is a freebie of the full sort, which you can get here. I have created similar sorts for the Harry Potter series, Percy Jackson's adventures, Number the Stars and the first few books in the Series of Unfortunate Events.  

I laminate the sorts (fifth graders can be rough on centers!) and color code if the book is part of a series.  For example, each of the Harry Potter sorts was printed on a different color so when I inevitably find a yellow quote of "Or worse, expelled!" by Hermione Granger, I can immediately figure out which baggie it goes back in, thus eliminating the headache that always comes with finding missing pieces after school :)  More importantly, my munchkins can be responsible and clean up after themselves and ensure that they're putting the center back nicely for the next group.

Hopefully you find it useful and if you can think of ways that I could improve, please let me know! I thrive on constructive feedback :)  (Although compliments are nice too!)

Ms. Vice