Realism vs Fantasy

 Tyler was walking to school and stopped suddenly when he heard, "Hey kid, watch where you're going?". He looked down and saw an angry ant shaking its fist at him.

   

This is how I introduce realism and fantasy. I tell this story about one of my children and then tell a realistic version of the same story. I list the elements of both genres on an anchor chart and we practice identifying each genre during whole group reading using Reading Street.

  After practice during guided reading, I will put out books in a bag for reading workshop.  I choose books of similar themes, one fantasy and one realistic fiction. My freebie is a link to the printable the children fill out to compare the two books. I have also used the books in a bag as a take home activity. Click on the picture below to download.  

    This is a fun time of the year to use this activity with holiday books. Enjoy!

 

                                                                          

         

Balance Yourself

   So much of what we do each day is a balancing act. Balancing the needs of students, all the demands of our job, our families, etc.  Balancing time for ourselves can get lost in it all. 

 For me personally,  I feel out of balance if I don't take care of myself mentally and spiritually. I need to take time to relax and read something inspirational.  I found a website called The TeacherDevotion.   A new weekly devotion from The Polished Apple devotions is posted each week. This week's devotion talks about the importance of our words as we strive to make a difference in each student's lives. 

  It reminds me of the quote, "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did,  but people will never forget how you made them feel." -Maya Angelou

  So when I hit the ground running tomorrow, I will replay the words in my mind and keep my own words balanced with grace and encouragement for others.

Reindeer Regrouping

 I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving!  Of course I ate too much and still fill stuffed today.  I love this time of year though.  Planning lessons with the holidays in mind is so much fun. I'm also looking forward to Cyber Monday and all of the wonderful resources on TPT that will be on sale. 

   Keeping my current curriculum in mind, I created a three digit addition with regrouping freebie with a reindeer theme. My children have their Christmas program next week with that same theme, so I will give them the paper for morning work while playing the music for their program in the background.

  Enjoy the freebie! 

 

 

                                                           
                                                                            

                                

Thankful for Freebies!

  Freebie Friday!  After a long stressful week, I'm thankful for our three day week coming up. I'm looking forward to three days of Thanksgiving themed activities. 

  As I said in a previous post, my favorite read aloud at this time is T'was the Night Before Thanksgiving.  It is fun and rich with vocabulary. It is the perfect story for interesting words to do a word sort.  Terrain, clatter, aloft, etc. This year I made turkey word sort cards for the children to write the words on and cut out to sort. They also can use the words as a word bank for creative writing. 

  Enjoy your Thanksgiving and the Freebie Cards!

  

                                                                     


                                                       

Friday Flashback:Penguin Life Cycle & Veteran's Day

  I am linking up with  Teaching Madness for the Flashback Friday Linky party. (I know it's Sunday) 

  Flashing back over last week, we finished up our Veteran's Day thank you letters and cards. Our school has a Veteran's Day assembly and parade tomorrow in which will we give the Veterans the Thank You's. It never fails, each year I tear up as the Veterans march up the hallways with the Patriotic Music in the background.

                                     

                                        

    

We also finished up our Penguin Life Cycle projects. This is part of an integrated reading & science unit I created based on the story Penguin Chick in the Reading Street series.  The unit is available at my TPT store. I have a freebie also for download from a previous post. Here it is again.