MyView: Eleanor Roosevelt

I just added another booklet for my fellow MyView Teacher Friends.  This booklet is designed to go with the first grade biography, Eleanor Roosevelt.  You can head over to TPT to check it out (simply click on the image below). 

 

MyView Flipbook- Before the Railroad Came

Our district adopted the MyView reading curriculum this year, so it's been a VERY busy year for me.  I'm not only adjusting to a new grade level, but also learning a new reading curriculum on top of that!  The biggest issue I've had is finding additional resources to go along with the stories included in the adoption.

I have created reading flip booklets in the past for second grade, and I really wanted to incorporate some for first grade as well.  Right before Spring Break we will be reading the story, Before the Railroad Came, which thankfully will go great with Texas Public School's Week. For my fellow teachers that are also using MyView, I put together this fun little booklet to go along with the story.

  You can check it out on by clicking the image above.

Reading Flip Booklets

Our district uses Reading Street as our Reading Adoption and there are some really fun stories included in the series.  A few class favorites are always Henry and Mudge and The Bremen Town Musicians.  I created a simple little flip booklet to go along with a few of these Reading Street stories. The Henry and Mudge flip booklet works great with any Henry and Mudge book.  The flip booklets focus on story elements and when put together, turn out super duper cute!  I simply staple the sides once they are completed.  They also make a great portfolio piece.  You can click the images below to check them out in my shop.

  

 I'd love to give a flip booklet to the first 3 people that comment below.  Simply leave your e-mail and choice of a flip booklet above  (Giveaway has ended).   Happy Summer!

Nonfiction Conventions

We just finished up learning about nonfiction conventions and it's always a favorite unit of mine.  I have taught it so many ways over the last 13 years, but this year I wanted something really simple and concise.  I created templates that could easily be placed within a reading journal, so they could be referred to throughout the entire school year.  We have on going conversations about text features and are constantly referring back to our conventions in all subject areas!  We are in the process of writing All About Books, and our text features have come in super handy.

You can check out the resource by clicking below:

There is also an assessment that can be used to assess your students' understanding of the conventions.  I usually hold off until they have had lots of opportunities to explore text features.  We practice finding them in class stories, text books, and especially their library books.  My students get super excited when they are able to locate the text features in their own  library books.  They also notice which text features are missing from their books.

Quizlet is also a great way to practice matching text features to their definitions.  I created a flashcard set using the definitions in this resource that is available to the public.

 

TPT Seller Challenge: Make Your Masterpiece

This is the third week of the Seller Challenge hosted by Third in Hollywood, Sparkling in Second, Peppy Zesty Teacherista, and Teach Create Motivate. This week is all about CREATING.

I am super excited to share my newest product.  I had so much fun creating a product all about Miss Nelson and Viola Swamp.  I also loved having a chance to create some clip art especially for this product.

I love starting the year off with Miss Nelson.   My little ones always make great connections to the story and the themes are so easy for them to relate to.  I can't wait to introduce these activities to my incoming second graders.  Here's a little peek at some of what's included:

There are other great activities included to teach your students about writing friendly letters.  A friendly letter template is included, so students can write Miss Nelson or Viola Swamp a letter persuading her to return to Rm. 207. There is also a Miss Nelson poem that students can place in a reading response or poetry journal.  It's a great poem for students to visualize and make connections to.  The Diamante poems will be a little more challenging for little ones, but I have included word banks to make it as easy as possible for younger learners.

If you love Miss Nelson and Viola Swamp as much as I do,  I really hope you'll check out this resource.   You can click on the image below to head over to TPT to check it out.

As always, I'd LOVE to give away a free copy to one lucky teacher.  Simply leave a comment with your e-mail and I'll draw a name later this evening.  

TPT Seller Challenge: Product Makeover

I am super excited to join the #TPT Seller Challenge hosted by Third in Hollywood, Sparkling in Second, Peppy Zesty Teacherista, and Teach Create Motivate.   The first challenge is to make over a product.  For this challenge, I decided to give some love to one of my personal favorites.  This product contains my mighty message or theme posters.

 

The posters pretty much stayed the same, but I did add one more mighty message to the set.  It was time to add RESPONSIBILITY.  My students requested that I add it to our posters, since it's a theme we started to see frequently in many of the books we read.

 

If you purchased this product in the past, you are in for a surprise.  There are a couple of additions to this resource that I think you'll LOVE!.  Now included, you will find the Mighty Messages on a ring.  I absolutely love these!!! My eyesight is not so great, so sometimes I have trouble reading my posters from afar.  It will be nice to have these cards right at my fingertips.

 

 The cards can be printed 2-sided.  The back contains lines where you can record book titles that correspond with each of the mighty messages. 

 

I also added these tabbed journal pages that can be used to introduce each of the messages.  Students will also use these pages to keep their own list of book titles for each of the mighty messages.

This is one of my favorite resources and it's one that gets used daily by my little ones.  I love that my students often explain the mighty message of a story without any prompting from me.  This truly makes my teacher heart burst with joy!

Check it out in my TPT Store!!!

I'd love to give away a free copy of this resource.  Simply leave your e-mail in the comments and I'll give a free copy away to one lucky winner tomorrow evening.

And the winner is...

 

Tall Tale Extravaganza...

We had such a great time learning about tall tales this year.   It's honestly one of my favorite units in second grade.   Slue-Foot Sue has always been ones of my absolute favorite tall tale heroes.  I mean she rode a catfish the size of a whale...you just gotta love her!  I found the Idiom worksheet below, which is part of the Evan Moor's Tall Tale Literature Pockets resource.  When I saw the title of the page...I knew I'd have to create a downright silly Slue-Foot Sue to match.  They had so much fun with idioms, and it certainly looks like Slue-Foot Sue bit off more than she could chew!

I get all of the Tall Tale stories that I read aloud to my students from the Evan-Moor Resource.  It's an amazing resource.  The Slue Foot Sue template we used can be downloaded below for FREE.

You certainly can't learn about Slue-Foot Sue without learning about Pecos Bill.  I mean she is his better half.  We worked on these webs after learning about Pecos Bill.  Click here to get the free download.

We made the same posters as last year and I really fell in love with their illustrations! You can check out last year's post here if you're interested in reading more about the posters.

We always learn about the four tall tale heroes in the graph above.  But, this year we added a new tale to our list.  I had the opportunity to correspond with the author of the story, A Rip Snortin' Tale of a Toad.  The author is Ruth Bates and I was super excited when she reached out to me to share her adorable tale.  I really couldn't wait to share it with my students.   I'm always thrilled any time there is an opportunity to incorporate new books about Texas into the curriculum.  My students just fell in love with Rip and they are still talking about him today.  I also found out via Instagram that apparently there in a parade for Rip each year in Eastland, Texas.  If only, we could travel that far for a field trip.  How cool would that be?

Here are a few of the activities we did along with the book.  There are so many cross-curricular activities that could be done with this book.  We spent a week on this story, but we could have easily spent another week on it.

 

All of the Rip activities can be found by clicking the image below.

If you are interested in this adorable book, you can purchase A Rip Snortin' Tale...of a Toad directly from the author, Ruth Bates.  Her e-mail is listed in the image above. 

 I'd love to give away a free autographed copy to one lucky reader.  Simply leave a comment below with your e-mail and I will contact the winner via e-mail.  I will choose a winner Friday, April 3, 2015.