As the school year continues to fly by, I have been reflecting on some of my favorite parts of my new experience in 5th grade this year. Hands down, the reading community that my students have built is my absolute favorite part of this year. Helping build a reading community has really helped me reaffirm just how vital loving/enjoying reading can be to our youth and how lucky I was to find my love for reading at a young age. My parents read to me all the time growing up. My mom, who is a preschool teacher, has always encouraged me to read, explore books, and appreciate a good story. I am the avid reader that I am today because of the reading opportunities and encouragement that I had in my youth. I know that not everyone has parents who love to read or have role models who have encouraged them to read so helping students embark on their own reading journey has been one of my missions this year. As I prepared for this year, there was no question in my mind that reading was ...
reading
Holiday Book Classroom Countdown
For the last couple of years, my students have enjoyed visits from Duende', our Elf on the Shelf. The whole holiday elf tradition is a blast, and I have really enjoyed the thrill of getting our elf ready each morning. However, I have come to believe that the elf tradition may not be the best fit for every class so I began to search for something different to prepare for the holidays in our Learning Cottage this year. I am very fortunate to have a group of students who are big time readers this school year, and I really wanted to do something holiday themed around their love for such an important skill. My aunt sent me a link about a book advent activity, and I knew that I had to do something like this in my classroom. I needed to keep the price low so I began searching for winter/holiday themed books at our local used book stores. I also grabbed a few books through Scholastic using their dollar deals and my book club points. I was able to get 25 books for ...
Wordless Wednesday-Hamburger Learning
I am using a Target Dollar Spot find (from last summer!) to help my students put paragraphs in order as well as find the main idea and key details. How would YOU use these hamburger coasters in our classroom? (Blog post and a freebie on this tomorrow!) Leave a comment and share your ideas. I LOVE hearing from you! Head on over to Sugar and Spice to read about other Wordless Wednesday ideas. ...
