Tall Tales

This week in reading, we have been focusing on tall tales.

 My students are absolutely engrossed in the unit. They love laughing at the hyperbole and imagining the lives of these tall tale characters. I took a trip to the public library this week to get "a few" tall tales books. I find that although the students get a good feel from the tall tales in their reading anthology, I want them to get to experience many writing styles of all the wonderful authors out there! My trip to the library for "a few" books turned into me struggling down the library stairs with a stack 10+ books high. What can I say, I got carried away. I was even able to snag a few different DVD's to cater to my visual learners. 

The kids begged me each day to read another one. I love seeing them excited about learning! I made sure to place all of the books across the whiteboard and they were certainly the hot commodity to read during silent reading. They were so disappointed to see them go at the end of the week when they were due back at the library. My little bookworms love to read. 

So to conclude our wonderful unit on tall tales, I wanted them to write their very own! Keeping in mind the hyperbole usage, character traits, and setting of the tall tales we read, my writers got to work. What they came up with was amazing. To make this experience even more exciting, I put an emphasis on the tall part of tall tales.

 I brought in receipt paper from a local restaurant (as a side note, all restaurant depot stores carry this tape) and created two clouds. We wrote our tall tales on this very skinny paper, henceforth creating some very tall tales. I love how they turned out! 

The students were hovered around the bulletin board in the hallway laughing at the hyperboles their peers had incorporated into their writing. It was certainly a hit with my class!

Park Sign Kiosk

What better way to get students engaged in their learning then to put them completely in charge of it? With this activity, students become tour guides and park rangers for your particular state.

We spent some time this week reviewing what we know about our great state of Michigan. The students took time to reflect upon what they have learned in third and fourth grade. It is important to recap these things and it can be a lot of fun doing so!

I wanted to do something different with the students'. I didn't want to pull out a worksheet and ask them to fill in a map of Michigan. Although these types of activities can be quite effective, my students have already learned this material and needed a refresher. I wanted a way to differentiate their learning.

I created a park sign kiosk that they would be in charge of decorating with facts and information about Michigan. Almost all of the students have been to a welcome center or a rest stop of any given state. Inside many of these locations is a kiosk that tells information and attractions about the area. I wanted them to create this for their own state! I explained that they would work in pairs to conduct research on given topics (trade, resources, attractions, bodies of water, etc...). Once complete, they would present their information to the class and we would display the kiosk in the hallway for passerby's to view.

After displaying our beautiful creation this week in our hallway, we had a visiting kindergarden class come by to learn a bit about their state! I love that my students got to see their hard work being used as a teaching tool for younger students. 

Onomatopoeia Comics

Have I mentioned how creative my kiddos are!? I could shout it from the rooftop! They never seize to amaze me with their ideas and passion for learning. They remind me why I love my job so much. I love watching them learn.

In writing, we have been working on our writers crafts. We have been trying to enhance our own writing by adding figurative language to engage our audience. Today, we focused on onomatopoeias.

 I introduced the lesson by reviewing what we already knew about the craft. In fifth and sixth grade, a lot of the things we are focusing on in writing is review. Most of my students have a pretty good handle on the idea. We talked about where we see onomatopoeias most often. They responded by saying things like, "children's books", "captions", and "comics". We centered our focus on the latter.

Some many of my students are so interested in comic books. I decided this was a wonderful way to incorporate this! I gave the students each a blank comic consisting of a variety of frames. They were in charge of creating a comic using onomatopoeias! One onomatopoeias had to be present in each frame. They turned out wonderfully! 

I gave them mine as an example:

The students' had so much fun reading their peers comics in the hallway. I loved hearing them standing outside my door reading the onomatopoeias with such emotion! "BANG! BOOM! CRASH!"

The hallway has been filled with figurative language excitement.

I Can Statements

I think it is imperative to have students be involved in their own learning. It is one thing to perform well on a test or quiz, but to be able to take away the big idea after the lesson is over. 

For this reason, I love the idea of "I Can" Statements. These statements are student-friendly versions of Common Core Content Standards. For example, if the CCCS is "compare two decimals to the thousanths place based on the meaning of the digit in each place" , the I can statement is "I can read, write, and compare decimals to the thousandths". These " I Can" statements can be easliy found on Teachers pay Teachers to correlate with your particular grade level. Many of the versions even show what CCCS the statement correlates to. 

I have begun to implement these into my lessons! What better way to open a lesson than to allow the students to understand what they should walk away understanding?  I wanted to create a system where I could easily display the statements and the students could read them daily. I also wanted to be able to easily interchange the statements as we move from standard to standard. This got my creativity flowing.

I created a hanging chart for my board! 

I found colorful scrapbook paper, listed each of my subjects, and left a empty strip where I could continue the statement, "I can:". I laminated the paper so that I could write and erase with a Expo marker. This chart hangs at the side of my board. I takes up very little space which I adore. I list the statements correlating to the CCCS we will cover that particular day.  I caught a peek of a few of my boys gathered around it today trying to guess what our writing lesson would be about. I love that they are so excited to learn! 

Personification Mobiles

Oh how I love to teach my students to be better writers! I love watching them blossom into better writers as the year progresses. I absolutely love taking time to read their wonderful writing.

Since my last post, we have been working on adding some figurative language to our writing to make it more intriguing to our audience. My students never seize to amaze me because they are SO good at it!

On Friday, we introduced the idea of personification. This can be such a fun lesson to teach and my students truly had a strong grasp on it before I taught it! They were already asking me if they could add personification to their writing at the beginning of the week- my little over-achivers.

So when I sat down to lesson plan, I was faced with a challenge. How can I engage the students fully into something they already have a strong grasp on? Then it came to me. I needed to create a little competition. We went to work creating personification mobiles.

We began by talking about personification and creating a brainstorm on our board. I love to play actual storm sounds in the background while we fill our whiteboard with all of our wonderful ideas. After we had many ideas on the board, I passed out a paper plate, a hole punch, and a stack of brightly colored paper. I told them they would  have until lunch to fill their personification mobile with as many personified phrases as they could think of. At lunch, I would tally them up and the winner would be awarded with a homework pass! 

My kiddos went straight to work! Every single one of them was engaged. I loved walking around the classroom and listening to their cooperation and ideas. My winning table got a total of.....*drumroll please*...... 42 personified phrases! Kudos to my creators.

Appetizing Adjectives ( With Printable Freebie!)

In our class we have been working diligently on adding details to our writing. We have talked this week about making sure our writing is crystal clear! We began the week by talking about adding adjectives to our writing. 

I love reading and my kiddos do too! I find that relating what they are learning in writing to what authors use in the books they love to read, really encourages them to challenge themselves. 

For this lesson, I asked the students to pull our their journal. Since it is still early in the year, the students  don't know a ton about me yet. I got them interested by saying, "I want to see if you can guess where I live. I will show you where I live but I would like you to draw it first. I'm going to tell you about my house and I want you to draw it in your journal. After you show me, we will check to see if you were close." I then proceeded with this very vague sentence, "My house sits on top of a hill." With that sentence only, I asked the students to draw my "house" in their journal. After about a minute, I walked around saying, "What! That looks nothing like my house!"

On the projector, I proceeded to pull up a picture of a giant castle.



The students were shocked and replied with, "You didn't tell us that! You just said it was on top of a hill!" This lead to a discussion about how I could have altered my sentence to include more adjectives to make it more vivid for my audience. They agreed that if I used words like, giant, huge, regal, and royal it would have been more evident that I lived in a castle. I even had one sweetie reply with, "Wait, so if you live in a castle, doesn't that make you a princess?" I had to agree with her reasoning.

I had the students try again. This time, I wanted them to draw my breakfast. I said, “ Coffee steaming, sizzling bacon, and butter melting on top of my three, steaming hot pancakes sat in front of me. The smell in the kitchen told me breakfast was ready."  I then asked the students to draw what I ate!

Again, the students held up what they drew. Their drawings were much more detailed and more accurate. We then discussed how adjectives  helped them to draw a better picture.

I wanted them to show off their skills at this point! In their journal, I had them list five adjectives describing their favorite food. I then passed out the napkin foldable. I created this by printing it two sided. (Word doc. here)

 On the foldable, I had them describe their favorite food without using any of the five adjectives they listed ! The best writers showcase versatility.

On their paper plates, I asked them to illustrate their favorite food. We matted the plates and the napkin foldable on a red piece of construction paper and we put together this adorable bulletin board! The students loved reading their classmates favorite food and guessing what they were. Let me tell you, my amazing authors made me hungry!

Picture books to Teach Writing

This week at school, we began to teach writing! It is always a fun experience to introduce a new subject at the beginning of the year to a new group of students. Every student learns differently and it is important to remember that as a teacher, it is our job to make sure we cater to each child's needs. 

I began by introducing the first of the 6+1 writing traits; ideas. I have worked on this particular trait all week, and I plan on moving on to figurative language this week.

My mind has been hard at work thinking of the best way to introduce things like idioms, similes, and other things that make writing so spectacular! I decided I would use picture books to introduce some components of figurative language.

I went on a bit of a Amazon shopping spree. If you have Amazon prime, it can be a wonderful and affordable way to get great books quickly and for a great price. Today, they came in the mail! I curled up with my Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte and read through them today! I love every single one.

Happy Fall ya'll!

I ordered the following books:

Misery Is a Smell In Your Backpack: This is an adorable book! The author goes through the pages of the book showing many takes on the term "misery". Many of these examples will get your class giggling because they are so relatable! I plan on using this book to teach details. This author does a great job with painting a picture and that is exactly what I plan on using it to teach!

Ralph Tells a Story: This is a book that tells of a problem so many of us have encountered at one time or another in our lives, having nothing to write about! Poor Ralph searches all over for an idea. Little does he know ideas are all around him! I will use this lesson to delve into the 6+1 trait of ideas. It is a wonderful tool.

My Best Friend is as Sharp as a Pencil: This book is great for teaching similes. In this story, a little girl tries to tell her grandma about her day at school but her grandma always asks so many questions! She decides she will make it crystal clear by using similes. This book is not only filled with wonderful similes, but also beautiful illustrations. I truly enjoyed reading this book myself and I can't wait to share it with my kiddos!

My Momma Likes to Say: I love this book for teaching idioms! It's packed full of adorable idioms that every grandma, grandpa, mom, or dad has said at one time or another. I love that every idiom is accompanied by an adorable larger-than-life illustration that depicts the idiom perfectly. Can you guess which idiom the cover depicts?