OMG! Book Clubs on Steroids!

::Flashback to 2005::

It was the day of Parent Orientation (the Thursday before school began).  I was a third year teacher on a fourth grade team.  We were departmentalized and I was set to teach Math and Science...my LOVES...until {dun dun dun} one of the Reading/LA teachers accepted a position at another school leaving the team to hire a substitute-turned teacher in her place.  The curriculum coach turns to me and says, "I need you to teach Reading and Writing."  {insert tears}  I was beyond nervous, beyond scared, beyond bummed.  I understood why she "needed" me to teach Reading and Writing to these fourth graders - the state tests!

I had only taught kindergarten before teaching 4th grade Math/Science.  I didn't know WHAT I was doing.  This was before Pinterest, before blogs, before basically Facebook lol

The curriculum coach was so helpful.  I can never thank her enough.  She introduced me to Book Clubs and my kids fell in LOVE.  I still use them to this day...

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Mother's Day and Earth Day

*sigh*

So I'm a new mom (yay!).  I've been on maternity leave for 9 weeks.  My little guy is such a great baby (not that I have anything to compare it to - but I've heard worse stories about other kids).  With that being said, we've pretty much mastered the afternoon nap and thus, TIME TO WORK ON SOME PROJECTS!  Here's my man :)

I just finished my Mother's Day Writing Craftivity for Primary.  I had my "nieces" make some samples. Here is the one by the first grader. She listed main ideas on her plan and added the details to her essay:

Her plan

Pages from her Essay to Mom

The template is available in my TPT store for just $2!

Now I'm working on something for Earth Day... which is RIGHT around the corner!  Stay tuned!

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Division FREEBIE!

Calling all 4th grade teachers!!

***Division Freebie***

I don't know about you, but grading papers is my LEAST favorite part of teaching lol.  Somehow, I remember LOVING these self-checking worksheets when I was a kid.  So I'm trying my hand at'em

Enjoy!

Summyr

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Main Idea and Details...my thoughts

Big Big News!!  I have finished the first of many graphic organizer activities :)  This one is for main idea and detail.  For years, I've taught main idea and detail at the beginning of school because I start off with essay writing.  It's just an easy correlation between reading the writing. So before we dive into writing, we analyze nonfiction articles.

A few years ago, I was conducting writing trainings for teachers.  In those trainings, I would ask, "How do you teach your students main idea?"  Sooooo many teachers would say, "I tell them to look for the sentence that the article or story is mostly about." Then with a slanted smile I say, "Ok, I'm going to show you this primary article and you write down the sentence that has the main idea on your post-it"  I showed a primary nonfiction article from Ranger Rick's Your Big Back Yard and guess what... the main idea is not there... point taken.  At this juncture, I have to retrain teachers to not lead their students down the path of hunting and searching for the main idea but rather to generate main ideas on their own by using what the author DOES include in the article which are the details.

Here's an equation I use in my class:

Main Idea = Topic + what the author is telling about the topic

Also, I had all of the teachers close their eyes and I say, "OK, I'm going to give you a main idea and I want you to picture it in your head.  My mom takes me to the best places."  Once everyone opens their eyes, we share what they pictured: the beach, the mall, Disney World, and the list goes on.  This is when I point out that a main idea CANNOT be drawn or pictured but a detail CAN!  Try it with your class :)

So here is the first of my main idea/detail graphic organizer activities with the article included!  Check it out at my TPT Shop!

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