A movie review...

So I'm sure you know that teacher who shows movies all the time.  I have a really hard time with this.  I feel like the kids deserve better - I mean at least during Centres Time they are working on Social skills right?  But being a Zombie and watching a movie is not educationally sound.   But I do really enjoy Read Alouds, and a lot of my favourite children's novels have become movies.  And seeing as most kids these days are really dialed in to movies and TV, they truly enjoy watching movies in class. 

But how to justify it pedagogically???

Well I read my class Charlotte's Web.  I have the 50th anniversary edition which has coloured pictures and much larger pictures from the original publication.  There's also an appendix which gives a lot of information and pictures of EB White and how he wrote Charlotte's Web.

Then I stumbled upon this freebie from Ashley Hughes last year.  I cannot find a link to this file anywhere on Teachers Pay Teachers.  But I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this download.

First I read them the story, then we watched the movie. 

Then we took a few days to complete the booklet.

 

I printed out colour copies of the DVD case for them to glue on

They LOVED it.

This page was great because it starts out about Vocabulary, and that's an important part of Charlotte's Web .

Of course, listing the characters showed understanding of the story.

 

Analyzing the parts of the story meant we needed to discuss the setting.

I especially loved this part about making connections...

 

 And then of course, choice and choosing the favourite part of the story is an important critical thinking skill

 

And then the all important skill of making connection was a part of this packet.

Talk about fantastic.  I am currently reading Pippi Longstocking, and I can't wait to show them the movie and then analyze the story.

 

Word Work Centres and Currently

Here's a peek into my morning today. I finally organized my literacy centres with some freebies from TPT.  I'll come back tomorrow and post the links to the creative people who made these wonderful centres, but of course, that info is at school, and I am here at home.  Ever have that happen to you?

As you can see, Some of these centres are seasonal, and out of season, but the kids don't mind.  And it's all I have for now.  Next year, I'm going to be super organized and make sure I dont' have to use centres out of season.  the kids love them though, and they're good practice, especially for early finishers.



And I'm joining up with Farley over at Oh Boy 4th Grade for her monthly Currently.
Here's mine.

 

Yeah I know that bucket list is more of a New Year Resolution list.

But it's what I want to do this summer.

 

Hippity Hoppity Easter Fun!

I had great aspirations...

 

 

 

 Well, I had great  hopes...

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I started out with a fabulous idea, and just not enough time to finish it.  Sometimes life just gets in the way right? 

 

 

With the tragic demise of my computer last week, I have been struggling to finish up this Easter Unit for you.  I have managed to finish up most of the Language Arts and Math portions to this unit.  So I have prepared a mini unit which has lots of Language Arts activities, centres, and worksheets as well as some Math lessons and worksheets which are all created with Differentiated Learning in mind.

 

 

 

Some of my activities allow for each child to work at their own level using the same materials and activities as their classmates, and some of my activities provide several different copies of similar looking worksheets with each learner's ability in mind.  This way, although they will not be completing exactly the same worksheet as all their classmates, they will be completing an activity which appears the same.

 

 

 

I took some of my favourite lessons and ideas and "prettied them up" a bit.

These are all tried and tested by me in my over 20 years of teaching experience. 

 I will finish up this unit in the future and add lessons and/or activities in Science, Social Studies, Art, and Music.   And when I do, I will raise the price of this package.  BUT if you get it now for the basic price, which includes only the Math and Language Arts lessons, you will be able to download the complete unit for FREE with all the extras.   Currently it's 37 pages, but in the future it will be close to 100 pages.

 

CLICK HERE

to go to my TPT store and get your own copy!

 

Please, please, please, send me any feedback.  I would love to make sure that this package works for everyone.  I have used the American spelling for 'color' and if you would like it changed to the Canadian/ Australian/ British spelling, just drop me a line, or a comment on TPT and I will fix it up for you.

 

 

 

Fairy Tale Language Arts

I am sooooooooo excited about this unit.

Many, many years ago, I developed this unit with a teaching colleague.

It's designed to work on higher level thinking skills.

We decided to use Fairy Tales as the framework as most children have some experience with these kind of stories.

 

This is the unit on the 3 Little Pigs.

 

I am super excited because I actually made all the visuals myself.

 

Yes, you heard me, I actually created the images all by myself.

I used My Digital Studio to do this.

 

Here's a quick look at some of the images.

Anyway, here's a summary of the unit itself.

 

 

 

This unit includes a full-color story which has very repetitive text, for beginning readers in First Grade.  The idea is to build the child's confidence and comprehension of what they are reading.  Each page has a lot of text, but most words are from the Dolch 100 pre-primer sight word list.  Included are a few worksheet activities to go along with this, and a Class Book activity which creates a  pattern book that they can all participate in making and they can all enjoy reading.  There is also a poetry activity, and a Student Book activity where each child can make their own pictures to go with the story and have their own little book to take home.

 

CLICK HERE

 

to download your own copy.

 

Check back here in the future.  I have plans to do several more fairy tales.

 

Thanks for stopping by today!

 

Currently and my Latest Creation...

Welcome to March.  I am so happy that Spring will be here soon.

Scroll dow to see my latest creation or

click on my blog header and check out my full blog.

I've posted up a LOT of FREEBIES lately.

I know that some of you have just finished your break, but my March Break starts in 2 weeks!

 

And right now, life at home

 

and at work is,

 

CRAZY!!!!

 

I

 mean really

really

really

 

CRAZY!!!

 

You know, right now

 

 

I have Report Cards Due,

A Student Teacher

A Musical with 75 student to perform in 2 weeks

Packing to take my family to California

(Yes, despite what my hubby believe, I pack for all 4 people in the family - even him)

blah, blah, blah

 

Filling out this form was very easy to do!

Hop over to Farley's blog and check out the linky party.

 

 

 

Here's my latest creation.

 

I'm kinda proud because I made some of the clip art myself.

 

But that cute little leprechaun comes from KPM Doodles.

You can check out her blog here.

 

 

 

Here's a few pages for you to preview.

 

 

 

You can download this off of my TPT store.

 

CLICK HERE

 

to download now.

 

And please, please, please, let me know what you think.

I have been working hard and have a ton of these kinds of units to post up over the next week or so.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

Post Card from Santa Freebie

 I'm super excited to share this new creation of mine with you.  After having so much success with my Falling Leaves little books, I have decided to start a new series called SUCCESS AT THEIR OWN LEVEL.  It's my approach to differentiated learning. 

 

This is a letter to Santa activity which is good for children of many levels of development from K to 2.  I've broken it up into 3 levels.  The beginning level is good for Kindergarten, Level 2 for grade one, and level 3 for grade 2.  But of course we always have those struggling readers who need a bit of extra support and those more advanced readers who could use an extra challenge. This program would allow a primary class to all write a post card to Santa at their own ability level. 

 

If you'd like your own copy, hop on over to my Teachers Pay Teachers store, or click on the link below to get your own copy.  Remember that I love feedback and would love to hear from you.

 

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

 

 

 

 

And after all of that, I have finally found the time to link up with Farley's Currently over at Oh Boy 4th grade.  Click here to check out the other links.  Don't get me started on how C-R-A-Z-Y this week will be for me.  I'll fill you all in later. 

 

Thanks for stopping by.

Fall Leaves Art and Poem and a FREEBIE!

Here's a cute Art / Language Arts project for Fall that we did last week.

 

 

 

I need to apologize again for the terrible photos, please bear with me.

This is how we made the painting.

First we painted the background.  We used pucks of tempra paint.  I showed the children how to mix blue and black to make a stormy sky.

 

 

Next we painted black streaks on brown construction paper.  When the paint dried I gave the children a tracer to trace and cut out the tree shape.

 

Then we also painted with red, yellow and orange on watercolour paper.  When the paper was dry, we punched out the leaves with the Petal Punch from Stampin Up.  Any leaf punch will do.  The small maple leaves were a punch from the dollar bin at Michaels.  We also used some old scrapbook paper in fall colours that I had lying around.

Next we wrote the fall poems using a frame. (Scroll down for a free lesson prinable!!!)  The kids then typed them in the computer as best they could (with a little editing from me) and I printed them out.  I attached them to some purple construction paper and the kids cut them out using fancy scissors.

This was a very simple activity, but the kids got to experiment with colour mixing, watercolouring, composition, and paper collage.   Adding the language art component added the children's understanding of not only Language Arts and Fine Arts but also of Science.

 

Here's my latest FREEBIE over at Teacher's Pay Teachers.

We used this lesson to generate the poems and put a copy in their Songs and Poems books, then the typed version was added to this art project and hung up for display. This FREEBIE includes the blackline master, a coloured version if you want it for display purposes, a step-by-step guide to the lesson and a 'cheat sheet' to help explain the lesson form.

 

 

 

CLICK HERE

to download.

 

Falling Leaves Freebie Once Again!

Well it's been a cr-aaaa-zy start to the year.

Let's just say that not only do I have a very large class, I also have a very needy group.

Although I teach Grade 2, I've had to think back to when I taught

kindergarten and try and pull out some of my old tricks.

needless to say, this poor little blog has been

sadly neglected.

 

But I digress...

 

So I'm pulling out an oldie, but a goodie.

 

This little puppy has had over 15,000 dowloads so far

so you might already have it,

but if you don't it's FREE

(my favourite four letter word)

FREE

FREE

FREE

 

 

You can click on the photo above to access it,

or click below.

 

Here's what I wrote when I originally posted this puppy!

 

"This little download has 4 mini books about falling leaves and signs of fall. It's perfect for your 4 levels of guided reading in a grade 1 class. The skills and objectives range from fine motor and tracing, to comprehension and higher level thinking skills. I hope you enjoy this little "puppy". Please, please, please leave me a comment and tell me what you think. I've been busy working on a few other units which I hope to post up tomorrow."

 

So click below for your own FREE copy

 

DOWNLOAD HERE

 

New FREEBIE product on TPT !!!!

I'm totally excited about this new product I just posted on Teachers Pay Teachers. 

And the best part????

It's FREE!!!!!

This is a SCIENCE unit great for any animal study/ biology unit for primary

AND

It's a great unit for teaching beginning Critical Thinking Skills.

Here's a few sneak peeks at the pages.

There are labelling ideas.



Some Language Arts ideas...

Some Art ideas...

And scope and sequence and making decisions ideas.

Please download this FREE product and please let me know what you think about it.

I have plans to make many more units on this theme and I'd love to hear your feeback.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

FOR FREE!!!!!

The Lorax Language Arts

So here's a simple Language Arts idea for Earth Day. 

This lesson idea is easy to apply to any book you may read to your class.

First I read my students The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Then we went over the storyline.

With a little help from me, we came up with 19 steps to the story.

Next, gave the kids some tips on how to draw the main characters of the story.

Next I cut the chart paper into strips and gave each student a sentence to copy down.

I used the Lorax blackline master from What the Teacher Wants' "Going Green" Earth Day Unit.

Click here to get your free copy.

I drew a picture for the cover as we are going to put all these pages into a class book.

After the cover is laminated, I will put all the kids pages together and bind it as a book.  I'm glad I numbered the strips and I made the children write the number down on their page so that I can assemble the book in the right order.

Below are a few examples of my student's pages (in no particular order)

Some of their pictures really made me laugh.  I'm always amazed at children's creativity.  Aren't you?

  

I'm also joining up with the Linky Party over at Sunny Days in Second Grade. 

Click on the photo below to check out other free ideas for Earth Day,

And also joining up with the Linky Party over at

Little Blogfish.