Turkey Time!

Turkey Time! I love holiday themes. I could spend hours creating activities around these themes.  However, in order to keep my time well balanced, I've created theme materials to coordinate with my November lessons. 

   We are estimating sums and differences in math by rounding  right now, so I have Turkey/Thanksgiving creations centered around this. My mini Thanksgiving Unit contains an Estimating Sums by rounding color code activity. The students color a turkey's feathers based on the rounded sum for each feather.                             

                                
 I also noticed that my students are able to add well, but are weaker in basic subtraction facts. I created subtraction fact cards with Thanksgiving Clipart, laminated a couple of sets, and put them in freezer sized plastic bags with the laminated answer keys. I put the bags out as extra practice when finished with work.  My Turkey Subtraction Facts are free at my TPT store.  Enjoy!

I'm linking up with Beach Sand & Lesson Plans for Thanksgiving ideas.  Through this link party we are sharing favorite Thanksgiving read alouds. One of my all time favorites is T'was the Night Before Thanksgiving. It is fun and the children love it.  



                                                        

                                                                                 

  Keep it Balanced,

           Tammi                                      

                                                                                                      


                                      

                                            

Buddy Bookmarks

   I balance my reading workshop time with elements of Daily Five along with my traditional workshop format based on the 4 Blocks.  While I meet with guided reading groups, the other children are also reading. 

  I have laminated bookmarks for buddy reading in a basket that the children use to guide the discussion before, during, and after reading.  

  I am sharing the bookmarks that I have created for fiction and nonfiction reading. I hope you find them useful. Click on the picture below to download.    

                                                                          

                                                                          

      

                                                          

                           

                                        

Good Readers Ask Questions

  Yeah it's Friday! I'm celebrating with a freebie that goes along with the Good Reader strategy of asking and answering questions based on the text.

   My class read Penguin Chick from the Reading Street series today and practiced the strategy. I am sharing the page I created for this. I am in the process of creating a whole penguin unit based on the nonfiction common core standards that will be available on TPT soon. I hope you enjoy the first part of this unit that I'm sharing. Happy Friday! 

                         

                                                                      

                     

         

We are Thankful for Veterans

                              

This  Freebie has a combined theme of Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving since both are celebrated in November. The download contains a template for students to write a thank you letter to a veteran. The template has Thanksgiving and patriotic clip art.
A thank you letter checklist is also provided for student use or teacher assessment of the letters.

Enjoy!

 

        

                                                                                              







       

In addition to the freebie above, I am linking up with Where do you get your graphics linky party . Many of my graphics come from My Cute Graphics, & Graphics From the Pond. I also use clip art from Sweet-n-Sassy. Those are my main sources.                                     

The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs: FREE LANGUAGE ARTS LESSON - “Character Book Project”

The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs: FREE LANGUAGE ARTS LESSON - “Character Book Project”

Fill Your Bucket with Good Character!

                                    

Have  you filled a bucket today? Our school wide theme for character education week was based on that wonderful book by Carol  McCloud.

   We named the week " Filling our Buckets with Good Character".  Every classroom had a bulletin board based on the theme. Among many other activities, the school had a bucket to fill with change that went to charity.  

  Here is a picture of my bullentin board. A student showed me how to  fold  an origami  bucket, so I made a large bucket and had the children each make their own. Throughout  the week, we filled out tickets when someone filled our buckets or when we were bucket fillers. The tickets were put into our buckets on the bulletin board. I'm sharing my tickets for this below.  I also have resources pinned on my Fill a Bucket Board on Pinterest from other wonderful blogs.

Bulletin Board by Dena Snyder  Buckets in a Heart Shape

Freebie