DIY Superhero Classroom Style

Tie on your superhero crafting capes my friends and get ready to create some colorful and useful accents, incentives, and accessories for your classroom!

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5 Easy Ways to Encourage Self-Selected Reading

One thing all teachers can agree on is that students need to read. We give them self-selected reading time during class. We assign 20 minutes of reading for homework. We encourage reading every chance we get, but sometimes we run out of ideas. Here are a few things that are working well to get my students excited about reading!

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Encouraging Words for Testing Season

For most of us, testing season is here. It's tough on everyone, but we can make it through with just a little help and motivation!

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The Reading And Writing Connection Made Easy

Have you heard of the book, Writers Are Readers by Lester Laminack? If you haven't, it is one to put on your to-read list. It is all about the reading-writing connection, and the great thing about it is that each chapter explains how to model a reading skill with a mentor text and flip the learning to writing with the same text. It is a great way to help students recognize how text structures, signal words, and story events are used to understand texts, but also how students can use these structures to help the readers of their own writing.

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Thanksgiving Teaching Ideas and a FREEBIE

Do you teach about Pilgrims? Your students will love getting their very own Pilgrim name during this unit. Here's a video to show you how I implement this in my classroom ~

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DIY Paint Can Back to School Survival Kit

With Back to School just around the corner, why not get an early start and do a fun, little DIY project? We've all seen those Back to School Survival Kits that you can make to give to teachers, but this unique kit is sure to grab some attention.  First of all, who knew you could buy brand-new, empty paint cans? When I discovered this, I just knew I had the perfect use for one of those shiny pails. Just look at this oh-so-inviting Back to School Survival Kit!

Here is what you need:

• A new, unused, empty paint can (I bought mine at my local Home Depot).
• Candy, school supplies, treats.  I included bubble gum, band aids, crayons, glue stick, travel size kleenex, life savers, paper clips, index cards, post-it notes, Milky Way, Jolly Ranchers, Nutter Butters, pencils, pencil sharpener, and erasers.
• Colorful ribbon
• Label for the outside
• Note to teacher with a list of contents and their meanings for the inside

 Assembling your kit is quite simple, once you have gathered your supplies! First cut out the paint can label and the Note to Teacher. You can create your own, or feel free to download the FREE labels as shown in the photo.

Next, start packing the items into the paint can. 

At first glance, it looks like you won't be able to fit everything in the can. With some careful packing, though, it can be done.  Just be sure NOT to forget your list of contents and their meanings in the can before it gets too full! 

Once your can is filled, add your Back to School Survival Kit label.  Glue the label to the front of the paint can.

Once the label is neatly in place on your can, add some colorful ribbon. I chose some spare red ribbon I had left over from another project.  I think it is perfect!

Now, the fun part: Give your Back to School Survival Kit to a lucky teacher! I can assure you that everyone will ask where it came from! Isn't it adorable? 

To download the FREE Back to School Survival Kit packet, click HERE.

Thanks so much for visiting!  I'd love to connect with you on my Facebook page, Appletastic: Blossoming in Fifth Grade!

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Summer Scavenger Hunt - Exploring Your City

Living in a city has its advantages. There are so many interesting cites to see. Ones that you just don't have time visit during the school year. A summer scavenger hunt is a fun activity to do as a family or students to do as a summer assignment. Many students don't have an opportunity to travel, so this is a great "Staycation" activity. My granddaughter had this assignment before the end of the year. We hurriedly traveled around Austin taking pictures for her scavenger hunt. Because we were so rushed to complete the assignment, we didn't have time to really explore each location.

To take the scavenger hunt a step deeper, try using Google Earth with the activity. Students can share photos of themselves at a landmark plus students can travel to the location using Google Earth.

I suggest that you have a list of 10 different places for your students to visit. You can keep the questions open ended so your students aren't taking pictures of the same location. Also, give the opportunity for students to be creative. For example: Where is your favorite place to swim? Most students' answers will be different.

For more information on creating a Google Tour or Scavenger Hunt, visit my Sweet Integrations website. (These are steps in creating a Google Lit Trip, but you would do the same thing for a tour or scavenger hunt.)

These cute Polaroid photo frames are created by our own Anita Goodwin.

And, don't forget to download your free booklet for your scavenger hunt. 

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Career Poster Project Using Technology

Do your students participate in Take Your Child to Work Day or does your school host a Career Day? I am sharing a fun poster product using technology with a free download.  Keep reading to find out how we safely research online, make our posters, and create a digital picture of students' future careers!

Take your child to work day falls on the third Thursday of April and each year I seem to have about half of my class opt to attend work with a parent and about half come to school.  I wanted to make sure the students in school had something meaningful to do, but I also did not want to move the curriculum along when so many students were absent.

Career Day Poster Project Overview

The last few years I have done a technology project for the students in school and out of school focusing on careers.

If your area does not "celebrate" Take Your Child to Work Day, this technology project will also work for any career day, community helper unit, or even a beginning of the year "Hopes & Dreams" lesson for those of you that follow the Responsive Classroom.

Set Up the Career Day Project 

To set up, I printed a set of bodies for students to write their information on and decorate.  Click here to download the pdf for free.

I printed these large across two pages using the Adobe .pdf printing settings I explain in my blog here.  I taped the pages together so everyone had one large body.

Research Careers

Next, students selected a career they were interested in and wrote the name of the job inside the head. Students that went with parents had the option of choosing the career they "did" for the day.

Students used KidRex to search safetly.

I recommend having students type the word "job" or "career" after their search term to narrow it a bit. I also always have my students select from the top five results that pop up as they are going to be the most relevant and cuts down on scrolling.

Students wrote facts around the outside of the body that they learned.  They had to find the training, schooling, day-to-day responsibilities, skills, and any fun facts about that particular job.

Make the Career Poster

Students then colored the body to reflect the uniform or everyday attire of someone in that career.

As an added extra, this year we used PicCollage on the iPads to make a mock-up of each student being that job!  I got this idea from the fabulous Teaching with Appitude's Instagram account.  She also has a sample on Facebook here.

We used the in-app image search to find a picture of the career.  Then we took a selfie in the app and trimmed around the head and popped it on the body.

Make a QR Code to Display Career Posters

I had students upload their finished images to Google Drive where I quickly made a QR code of each image using the process explained here.

I taped the QR code to the bottom of each poster and hung them in the hall.  Visitors can scan the QR code to see a picture of "from the future" of each of my students doing the job they researched!

Swing by my blog or catch my weekly live show on Facebook (Mondays at 8 P.M. EST) for more technology integration ideas!

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How To Host An End-of-the-Year "Pick"-Nic!

Hello Friends!

Are you wondering how to keep your primary students engaged during the last days of your school year?  Do you want to make some lasting memories with your class?  Then plan to provide a daily "pick"-nic of learning privileges for them to choose from!  Offering a choice of tasks they must or may do will keep them on target and on task!  

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Summer Reading Lists for Grades K through 5

Are you drowning in paperwork with the school year ending? If you're like me, then in addition to the overwhelming paperwork, you're beginning to get sentimental about the year ending and worry how your kids will do over the summer. Never fear, today's post will ease your mind and your workload. 

Today, I'm going to share with you several options you might find easy enough to implement without loads of stress on any one person and without adding to your to-do list.

Summer Reading Camp

As a reading specialist, one of my biggest worries with struggling readers is summer learning loss, otherwise known as, "Summer Slide".  We know from research that children lose about six week's of instruction when they go through the summer without picking up a book. For years, our leadership team has observed this and tried sending the kids to summer school or sending home books, but for our students, we just did not see the benefit. A few years ago, we heard about another division offering a "Summer Reading Camp", and this idea just meshed with what we felt our kids needed. Then, our school was lucky enough to partner with a local college that needed to offer a summer reading clinic for a small group of graduate students. Ah ha! The perfect match! We had a few staff members willing to come in for a few weeks with the relaxed atmosphere, and what we found is that our kids enjoyed it so much that they could not wait to come each day. Many would have been at home doing nothing, so getting books in their hands, experimenting, working on math, and other literature based activities was not "school" to them, but fun for them. To pay for it, we used Title 1 funding to provide the bus and pay for the personnel that's helped out, and overall, the cost has not kept us from being able to offer it. The other great thing is that it's helped us keep our library open for check out for others too.  For more information on the camp, you can check out [THIS POST] over on Virginia is for Teachers as well as some of the posts I wrote up last summer about the themes we chose.

Online Book Club

This summer, one new idea I am looking forward to trying is an online book club for fourth and fifth graders which I think will be lots of fun too. I am hosting it on a "sister blog" called, "Where Wild Readers Roam" which I had originally designed for classroom blogging. There are several wonderful titles that are being considered for use with the book club, and if you happen to teach in an upper elementary grade level, you might help me with making the best choice. Just click on the image below to put in your vote. I will announce on the blog which three titles I plan to use this summer on May 15th. In my posts, I will share discussion questions, a few project or journaling ideas, as well as other points that tie in with the chapters. All comments will be moderated, so there will be no worries of inappropriate comments going up. 

If I don't choose a book you think your students will enjoy, no problem. Feel free to organize a book club for them with a different choice. :-) Won't this be fun?

Recommended Reading List and Parent Tips

In addition to summer programming, one thing many parents appreciate are summer reading lists. Last summer, I put together lists for second and third grade as part of a blog hop, but I decided to extend the lists to other grades too. This freebie should be quite helpful to classroom teachers even if you decide to make your own list. It may or may not match your students needs, but it at least gives you a starting point and guess what?  It's ready to just print and use!

If you prefer a student formed list, you might check out THIS POST about making and using top 20 lists with your students. These lists are perfect for matching readers to the genres they prefer. There is a freebie included with that post to help you with student selected book lists too.

From these lists, I want to highlight a few of my favorites. I am sure you have favorites too, and certainly, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Kindergarten:

For kindergarten students, we need to look at books that have controlled vocabulary and limited sentence length. Rhyme and repetition are important, and for that reason, I love Mo Willems. His books have all of these traits, and kids just can not get enough of them. I also love Dr. Seuss for kinders because of the rhyming. This is a must for emergent readers to master, so reviewing this through the summer is important. For those kinders who are reading a little, my go-to books are Biscuit, Puppy Mudge, Tiny, and Mittens books. Kids love animals, so these are great choices to reel them in!

First Grade:

For this grade level, you need to start with the books at or around the first grade level. Most first graders are reading Clifford and Little Critter books at the end, and these characters are so lovable that for summer reading, they are like comfort food. On that same line, but with a little more challenge, Henry and Mudge might work. They are written at a second grade level, and they are no problem for many rising second graders. For fragile students, I also use many of the Green Light Readers (level 1 and 2) and Rookie Readers. Rookie Readers are often nonfiction, and it's important to get variety.

Second Grade:

For most rising third graders, there is a desire to move into chapter books. For kids reading a second grade to third grade level, I love Magic Treehouse and Junie B Jones books for starters. I also can not get enough of Mercy Watson and now, her newer series with Francine Poulet. I think it's the feel of the book pages. Do you love them too? (I am probably just weird about that!) For stronger students going into third grade, you might go with the Weird School Series by Gutman, Horrible Harry by Suzy Kline, and the Boxcar Children by Gertrude Warner. 

Third Grade:

As we move toward upper elementary, we get much deeper with the content. For struggling students, it is very important to not push them into advanced books faster than when they are ready. Certainly, they will prefer books with shorter chapters such as How to Eat Fried Worms or Stone Fox. For my fourth graders, the Captain Awesome series was a hit. They also loved the Heidi Hecklebeck series. Both of these are fairly new. For stronger rising fourth graders, I'd recommend Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume, Andrew Clements, Jeff Kinney, the Big Nate series, the American Girls, and 29 Clues. 

Fourth Grade:

We are getting into deeper literature with rising fifth graders because much of our content demands it. Certainly, students at this level have reading preferences, so it's important to match their interests. I love the Joey Pigza series, Because of Winn Dixie, Chocolate Touch, From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and anything by Dick King Smith for this level. This grade level might try books by EB White too.

Fifth Grade:

For rising sixth graders, you might explore Gary Paulsen, the Percy Jackson series, Avi, all of Kate DiCamillo's books, the One and Only Ivan, Wonder, Holes, Esperanza Rising, Bud, Not Buddy, Sharon Creech and Roald Dahl. Wow, there are so many great choices!  

Solutions for Your To-Do List

Well, I may not have all the answers, but I hope that the two freebies at least help you take care of a few things on your list. To download them, simply click the images below. 

    

I hope the end of the year goes smoothly for you, and just think, you only have a few more weeks to go til we hit summer! 

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3 Celebrations for the End of the School Year

Do you need some fun ways to celebrate the end of the school year? These 3 ideas will help your students remember their great year and look forward to more fantastic years!

1) Time Capsule

Who doesn't love the idea of a buried time capsule? This project uses empty bubble bottles. Students share some details about their year and even some dreams and predictions for the future. The bottle is sealed and can be opened at a later date. I'm encouraging my students to open it their senior year!

Empty a bottle of bubbles. Your students will be happy to help with this! Let them play with them at recess or plan a bubble day! Wash out the containers and let them dry.

Have your students complete this end-of-year packet about their school year. They will focus on their memories, favorite things, friends, future and predictions. Roll up the completed pages and secure with a rubber band. Put the bundle into a plastic bag to provide an extra layer of protection.

Put the bundle into the empty bottle. Seal the top with hot glue. Customize the labels (included in the Time Capsule resource) and add a message that the bottle should remain closed until a future date. Send home a note to parents (included) explaining the project. All of these form are editable if needed or you can just print and go. 

2) Awards

Many teachers use awards at the end of the year. As I was thinking about finishing another year, I was dwelling on the analogy of running a race. Athletes train for a race. They don't start out at their top speed. They improve. They practice. They work hard even when they want to quit. They don't always finish at the top and yet they have to be motivated to run another race. Sometimes they get hurt or have adverse conditions and must find the strength to keep going. They have to have the strength to finish strong. There are so many correlations to the life of a student - or just life! 

I shared some of these analogies with my students during our testing week. I'm going to remind them of these things at the end of the year. Then, we will have a  little "race" outside and each student will get to run through the finish ribbon. It will be a tangible reminder of the diligence that is required to be a good student. Then we will have an awards ceremony. Students will receive a gold medal that highlights a positive character trait or ability that they have displayed.

I made the awards using 3" circles of cork that were found at a craft store (Hobby Lobby). You could also use thin chipboard. You can cut circles out of cardboard, but that is time consuming! You could even just print the medal on cardstock and laminate it. I love the look of the awards on cork. I used a gold glitter spray paint by Krylon. It only took one coat to cover the cork and it is very shimmery! I covered it with a layer of sealant to try to minimize the glitter mess. The character trait awards were printed on cardstock and laminated. I attached it to the cork with hot glue. I attached the medal to a gold ribbon using hot glue. 

3)  Balloon Wishes

Students can write a simple wish and send it into the sky. They will write it down and then put it into a balloon. Encourage the students to write a wish about the next school year. Remind them that each year is a blank slate. There may be things about this year that were not the best. They can work on those things and make it better for next year! You can get balloons filled with helium at a party store. Have a fun celebration of releasing the balloons. 

I hope you were able to get some new ideas for your end-of-year celebrations! Our school year goes until the middle of June and it seems like we still have a LONG time :) but I know that it will go quickly. Having a plan in place for the end of the year will definitely make it go more smoothly! 

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Spring Poetry Ideas

Hey y'all!

It's Rachel from A Tall Drink of Water.

I love teaching poetry and figurative language!

Even though April is poetry month, I like to teach poetry all year long.

A few weeks ago in my class, we have really jumped into the discussion of figurative language!
You can find these super cute figurative language posters here.

We made these alliteration rainbows which you can find here.
They were a big hit!

My favorite thing to do is have my kiddos writing poetry.

My kiddos this year are huge fans of acrostic poems! 

We probably have written an acrostic poem for every holiday/season this year!

I created these Spring poetry writing pages for you to use in your class!

You can grab those here!

How do you use poetry in  your classroom?

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