I am cracking up as I write this.  We had so much fun today.  It is easy to get grouchy since we have been testing all week and still have a last review for SS test tomorrow.  My computer is shot!  I had planned on playing the Jeopardy game I made to take the kids through all of our history lessons.  Well, our computer tech guy came in today of all days!  I really wanted him to take my computer though.  So what do you think I did? No I didn't highjack the Apple truck.  Silly beans.  I came up with last minute idea.  You know the drill!  We are constantly thinking, sleeping, waking up in the middle of the night, jotting ideas down.  When I told my students we weren't playing jeopardy, they started to complain until I explained the multiple meaning word "flexible."  I pretended to stretch then I explained my job requires flexibility.  I told them that I came up with a different game and they will enjoy it just as much!  I wrote words from our SS review on sticky notes by dividing them I colors.  Pink was people.  Yellow was groups of people. Green was places.  Blue was things.  Then I wrote each of our main units on the board.  I handed out the sticky notes and they had to group them according to the right unit.    Next I did a walk through history and we talked about each of the words ( of course we had to move a few because my brilliant little ones are not perfect).  Then I divided them up into 6 groups and gave one student a headband from the game Headbandz.  I handed out index cards with the same words on them.  They took turns guessing what word was in their head!  They could start by asking "Am I a person?". Then go on to say "Am I from the Revolutionary War?" and so on.  Fun!  The following pictures show us laughing and learning!  Now, it isn't the neatest thing in the world because I wa rushing but it certainly was a blast!   

Not only are the covers of these journals creative, but my students' writing blew me away!  They really jumped into the 1840's and wrote with incredible feelings.  I actually found myself smiling, laughing, and even tearing up while reading them.  They know how to touch my heart!  We started off with the read aloud, Dear Levi:  Letters from the Overland Trail by Elvira Woodruff.  Then brainstormed hardships, friendships and things they encountered.





 I loved this one!  They got ahold of the feathers, yarn and beads that we used when making dream catchers in our Native American Unit so I allowed it.  Why not?  Creativity was busting out the seams!  This student took her booklet, folded and tied it.  It may not be the neatest or most colorful, but her description of what each thing was for was precious!

We are going 1:1 in ipads next year and I was able to get my hands on the ipad cart last week.  With our writing test around the corner, I decided to have the kids make imovies of what they learned in writing class this year.  It was hard to pick which ones to post!

The first one is the writing process.  Darius takes us through the writing process posters:

Here is a cute way to have your students practice parts of speech around Valentine's Day!  There are 68 words to sort into nouns, pronouns, verbs, and adjectives.  One of the girls on my team requested this so here ya go Brantley!  There are 17 of each.  I'm going to have students work in groups to sort the words.  I will tell my little Valentines that they need 17 in each group to help them make sure they are grouped correctly.  Then they will get to color the sweet printable.  Maybe they will even get a REAL sweet treat from me!

I am sorry I have been sooooo busy!  Not only do I work full-time, run my teacher store, and drive my kids around, but I was put in charge of our Sunshine Committee at school and planned our after Christmas Party.  Well, I can't do anything half-way so we had a blast!  I made little gift bags for everyone that had a lottery ticket, a good fortune cookie, mints, and adorable little similes that my students made and rolled up into scrolls and tied them with ribbon.  Everyone loved them!


Ok, onto business.  Since we have been moving right along in class but I haven't posted, I am going to post everything we did with the revision and editing stages!  Get ready!  We take a ton of time on these two steps!  Get out some colorful pens!  I love to see color when editing and making revisions!

REVISIONS:
I use the acronym DARE.  I don't know where it came from, but I've used it for over 15 years.

  Owl Moon by Yolen or The First Dog by Brett, Jan.

Since we were gone for two weeks and it is a new year, I wanted to put up a new bulletin board.  I thought I would put up a Martin Luther King Jr. board.  That way I can keep it up for the rest of January and it will tie into Black History Month.  I was so amazed by some of my students and their work!  How do these little minds come up with such big ideas?

We started off by reading a biography on MLK.  I actually wrote one to go along with the activity so the students would have enough information.  We read it together then we started working on a newspaper template.  We filled out the timeline together.  I explained the importance of increments in timelines.  Then we highlighted all the dates and added them to the timeline.  I also showed them how to find dates that aren't listed.  For example where it says two years later.  Then I explained that they will need to pretend they were reporters from back in the 1960's.  They need to choose 1 positive and 1 negative event from the bio.  I demonstrate how to create a newspaper title, heading, picture caption, etc. and then I let them write!  Here are some of their examples:

Oh where oh where did I leave off?  I am sorry if you have been waiting to see samples of the next mini-lessons!  I think all teachers have what I call TADD.  Teacher ADD.  We are all so busy with this and that and zero time to plan, meet individual needs, email parents, grade papers, etc etc.  I feel like the time just slips on by and the next thing here we are in November!  Half-way through November!  Now that I am done with my ramble, let's get to the writing lessons!

We are ready to move onto Narrative Writing!  I love love love our notebooks and referring back to our previous lessons!  I hold them accountable for the skills we already learned!  I even have my Math/Science partner on board and she is keeping up with it too!  After introducing the Narrative Writing elements, and looking at our checklist, we were ready for

Step One- Prewriting.  Woo woo!  Let the writing begin!!!!!  We reviewed this poster:

It is very helpful to talk out loud as you are brainstorming for the class sample!  I used "A Shattered Window."  I talked about why I chose it for my writing and how I could come up with many ideas to go along with it.  Then I showed this slide that shows different scenarios for my idea.


We added a few more ideas to the list.  For my GT class, I didn't want them using the same prompt.  Since we are currently studying mysteries, it worked out great.  I told them to think of ideas for a mystery story.  Then brainstorm different scenarios for it.  They had light bulbs to put in their interactive notebooks.  I told them to write their ideas on the front of the light bulb, then choose one idea and put it under the light bulb.  Here are some student samples:

We glued the base and the very top so they could lift it up to put their top choice.

Next we has a lesson on task, purpose, and audience.  I taught the lesson with this poster on my smart board and then talked through my sample.  Students took notes and then decided on the task, purpose, and audience for their own writing and added it to their notebooks:



Before moving on, I wanted my students to create a writing goal.  Since we have already covered complete sentences, fragments, run-ons, capitals, punctuation, and some spelling patterns, I told them to choose something that I frequently have to correct in their writing.  If I don't have to correct many errors (just a select few) then they may use things like using a thesaurus or adding figurative language.  I had a student say, "I can't wait to write this story!"  I love hearing their anticipation.  I explained that everyone who listens to the lessons and follows directions in the notebooks, should have no problem getting an A on the final product because we are going to go through this first writing piece step-by-step so they completely understand the best strategy to take them through the writing process.  Here are some of my students' goals.  I was proud of them for thinking about these goals.  I probably would have chosen the same ones for them!



Now this creative student took her goal and although I didn't provide or instruct for students to make their goal interactive, she took it upon herself to make hers more fun.  She made my day!  I loved her "Secret Door" with the goal inside!

And she had even more doors to open!

Graphic Organizer:  I showed them many different organizers that they may choose from at a later date but we would use the same one this time.  After placing this in our notebooks, I told my cherubs that we will go back to it after each lesson and add to it. 


Today, we focused on crafting a plot.  My students loved it so much that they asked me to do it again and then asked if we could videotape it.  I love being spontaneous and said, "Why not?"  Then they said let's put it on Youtube!  Oh geeze.  Seriously?  I said absolutely no at first.  I can act out in front of them but others?  Not so much.  Then I thought if they loved the lesson so much......why not embarrass myself completely and let other students be motivated in writing?  So here it is!  Enjoy the ride!  NO JUDGEMENT ZONE!!  Youtube Video on Crafting Plot This is the poster in the background of the video.


Although I had a printable for their notebooks, I recently was told that I need to start being careful of my copies!  Oopssss!  So I thought this could be one they can draw and take notes.