Valentine's help!

Valentine's Day help!

Here are some great resources for 

Valentine's Day!!

STEM Challenges

Do you enjoy STEM challenges? I know my kids do! Here are a couple things you can do with your kids for Valentine's day!

Are you looking for fun, easy STEM challenges to use with The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond? Look no further! I created this packet with two easy STEM Challenges: a winter bird feeder and dancing hearts.The winter bird feeder is great for teaching life science where the dancing hearts activity is great for physical science. This product begins with a short blurb about why use STEM at all. Then I review the standards this addresses and for which grades (K-2). I added the design challenge for each activity and the recording sheet for the kids. Have fun with the kids!

Cumulative Plot Structure

Looking for something to do with Language Arts? Just in time for Valentines Day! Teach your students about cumulative plot structure (aka toppling stories) and then have them write mini-books! They can share them with little ones! Afterwards there is a fun science activity you can do with candy hearts. Enjoy!

This product contains:

-An explanation of the craft
-A list of books you can use with it
-How I used it in my class
-A graphic organizer to analyze the story structure of I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rose
-A Valentine word bank
-A Brainstorming sheet in color and B&W
-A planning sheet for their writing
-A feedback sheet for reviewing each others' writing
-Sheets to copy to make the mini-books
-Science lesson with candy hearts

My kids had so much fun doing all the activities. We finished it up with reading their books to Kindergarteners!

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Pennants

Looking for a quick activity to do with your kids? Maybe something you can put up as a bulletin board? Here you go!

Three versions:
I love...
Things I love...
Favorite Valentine's day book, song, movie

Check out these great blogs!

Inlinkz Link Party

You can find me on these platforms (as well as my blog!)
  

How can I make your job easier this year?  Let me know in the comments.  If I use your ideas for a blog post, you will win $10 to Teachers Pay Teachers.  Even better, if I use your ideas to make a resource in my store, LisaTeachR's Classroom, I'll send you a free copy of that resource! 

Goal setting for the New Year: One Word

One Word

I'm sure you've seen them all over Instagram and Facebook:  One word.  What one word is going to focus you for 2019?  

There is even a website you can log it in and get ideas.  It's a way to focus and center yourself.  As oneword365 says, "It will take intentionality and commitment, but if you let it, your one word will shape not only your year, but also you. It will become the compass that directs your decisions and guides your steps." 

If you'd like to have your students be intentional this year, here is a free Google slideshow that you can use.  Just make a copy to your drive first and share that copy with your students.  

You can create one slide show and just make a slide for each student or give each kid their own copy (Schoology).   Just click here to go to the Google slide show and get your copy.. 

Google slideshow tip:
Sometimes you need to organize or layer images.  Just click: 
Command, shift, up (or down ) arrow
That will move your image forward or back.  

Now go check out these amazing blog posts!

An InLinkz Link-up

        

Close Reading of Images with the help of Google Slides!

Close Reading of Images

You've heard of Visual Thinking Strategies, right?  It's where you go deep into an image.   They have a powerful three question protocol:

• What is going on in this picture?

• What do you see that makes you say that?

• What more can you find?

So I've found that sometimes the questioning needs to go deeper and I have to guide it a little more.   I wanted my kids to look deeply at The Bloody Massacre on King Street by Paul Revere.

You've all seen it, right?  We can go superficial and say "I see men shooting" but there is so much more!  I asked things like "What do you notice about the light?", "What signs do you see and where are they? Why were they placed there?" and "Look at the faces.  What do you notice about the people on each side?"  I made an image in Powerpoint and inserted it as a background in Google slides.  I do that so the kids can't delete the picture accidentally.  Then I made a new slide for each question.  It really helps the kids understand the image through different lenses.

I love putting it into Google slides for different reasons.

1. I can assign it through Schoology for easy grading.
2. You can create multiple slides with different questions.
3. I don't have to make any copies!
4. The zoom tool is great to allow the kids to go in close to see details in the picture.  

This can be done with any art you like.  I just thought this was great for studying the British occupation and propaganda.  

Try making this for your kids about any piece of art.
If you would like this specific digital activity, you can find it here! 

        

Questioning Strategies

DoK Questioning Strategies

According to the Depth of Knowledge (DoK), there are four levels of questioning:

• Recall
• Skill
• Strategic
• Extended

The recall level involved recalling basic facts and information.

The skill level is a little deeper with explaining, describing or comparing.

Strategic questioning involves going even deeper with solving, concluding and critiquing.

The deepest level of questioning of all is extended.  That's where kids judge, justify and investigate.

Let's see how this works with a specific book, The Word Collector by the incomparable Peter H. Reynolds...

Recall level

• Who is the main character?
• What does he collect?

Skill level

• What were the words he collected and what were the groups he collected them in?

Strategic level

• What were some of the reasons he collected words?  Do you agree with him?  Would you collect the same types of words?

Extended level

• Do you agree with Jerome and what he ultimately did with his words?  What would you have done with a collection of words?

Hope this is helpful!

Check out these stellar blogs to get more strategies!

An InLinkz Link-up

You can find me on these platforms (as well as my blog!)
  

How can I make your job easier this year?  Let me know in the comments.  If I use your ideas for a blog post, you will win $10 to Teachers Pay Teachers.  Even better, if I use your ideas to make a resource in my store, LisaTeachR's Classroom, I'll send you a free copy of that resource! 

Constitution day is September 17!

Constitution Day

Constitution day is September 17!  Here are some resources for you...

Have you heard of Mr. Bett's class?  He has amazing videos that he sings to modern songs.  His channel is:  https://bit.ly/2xmU76S

Check out this one about the Constitution.  It's a Despacito parody.

If you're looking for a close reading activity, here is one from Fifth in the Middle on TPT.  It's perfect for grades 4-7.

In case you didn't know, there is an actual Constitution Day web site!  Check it out!  

Here is a lesson you can do.  

Start with the constitution!

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Then use a word cloud generator such as wordclouds.com or wordle.  They need to choose 7-9 key words.  The words chosen the most will be the largest.

Using the largest key words, they can then create a summary sentence.  They should post that sentence on a padlet.  Make sure to sign in and create your Padlet first.  You can sign in with your Google account.  The you will have all their work in one place.

Hope this is helpful for you!!

You can find me on these platforms (as well as my blog!)
  

How can I make your job easier this year?  Let me know in the comments.  If I use your ideas for a blog post, you will win $10 to Teachers Pay Teachers.  Even better, if I use your ideas to make a resource in my store, LisaTeachR's Classroom, I'll send you a free copy of that resource! 

Do you know Yuyi Morales?

Do you know Yuyi Morales?

I first discovered Yuyi through her book Viva Frida! in 2014.  The art was so beautiful, vibrant and different from anything I'd ever seen, I knew she was great!

Viva Frida 

Frida Kahlo is one of my absolute faves!  I want my students to appreciate her work and influence as much as I do!  The art with puppets is absolutely beautiful.

Niño Wrestles the World

She does it again!  Fwap!  Crunch!  She writes and illustrates this fun book which will teach your little ones about cultural elements of Mexico.  It's so funny and my kids love it.



Dreamers

This is her latest work and it is just magic!  It's about Yuyi and her son and their experience as immigrants.  The text is lyrical and dreamlike.  The colors are vibrant and bold.  You have to have this book!

Enjoy these magical tales!!   If you'd like some resources for these, check out my TPT store!  Hope they're useful for you.  

Check out these blogs for more ideas!

An InLinkz Link-up