Summer Reading Love

Ahhh…summer reading.  It feels so decadent to just laze about reading any book of my choosing! I was so excited to find that We Read, We Blog, We Teach is doing a book study on The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller.  Head over and follow their blog so you don't miss anything!

This book has been on my “To Read” list since it first came out, but I have just haven't gotten to it yet.  I had already picked it up and began devouring it before I found the book study, so now I will slow down and pace myself so I can share and collaborate with all of the other fabulous teachers out there!

Other Professional Books on My List

Creating Innovators by Tony Wagner

I am so excited to read this book!  I was actually at the school interviewing for our third teammate last week and I snagged it from a table in my principal’s office.

Drive by Daniel Pink

  

This one has been on my reading list for my role as Personalized Learning Lead Educator.  It looks great, and I heard great things about it from some amazing teachers at a training last week.

Visible Learning for Teachers by John Hattie

Snagged this one from my principal too.  My teammate read it and has recommended it several times over the past few years, so I’m excited to dig into it as I begin thinking about the coming year.

Poetry Mentor Texts by Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli

Our fabulous literacy resource teacher/instructional coach has a passion for writer’s workshop and she’s awesome about building our professional libraries with resources for literacy.  This is just one of the many writer’s workshop books that she purchased for our grade level.

The Dream-Keepers by Gloria Ladson-Billings

This is actually the 2^nd edition. I read the 1^st edition years ago, and in this one she revisits the teachers from the 1^st edition and has included some new ones as well.  This one was a gift from the hubster.  I started during the school year, but just couldn’t get back to it once school was in full swing.

I'm sure that I will also have lots of reading for my STEM classes this summer, but I will have to wait until next week to find out all the details!

Children’s Lit.

The Sister’s Grimm (books 8 and 9) by Michael Buckley

My kids and I have become obsessed with the show Once Upon a Time.  We’re not big TV watchers, but it has become a Sunday night ritual.  It has also lead to an obsession with all things fairy tale, especially fractured, for all of us.  I started this series this spring because I was so brain-dead at the end of the day but I really wanted a fun, light read before bed.  I read the 7^th book in one afternoon/evening the day after school let out.  So I must finish books 8 and 9 because I need to know how it ends!

Who Done It? by Jon Scieszka

This one I plan on reading with my middle school son and 9 year old twins. We are huge Scieszka fans, and they are all little bibliophiles, convinced that they will be the first to solve the mystery based on their superior knowledge of children’s/YA literature and authors.  Game on kiddies!

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

I have read so many fabulous reviews of this book, and it was also one of the new titles for Battle of the Books for this year. I will definitely be doing something with it for the Battle of the Books team, but I also want to use it in my classroom too!

Walls Within Walls by Maureen Sherry

I originally picked this up for my middle schooler, who promptly turned his nose up at it and deemed it "elementary," so it's been collecting dust.  It looks like a fun read, so I'm adding it to my summer list before adding it to my classroom library in the fall.

Other books begging to be read:

States of Mind by Brad Herzog

The hubster got this book for me years ago.  I love that it is comprised of vignettes from across America and his reflections, a mosaic of sorts.  I’m geared up for a vicarious summer road trip!

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

My inner nerdy English major, who secretly wants to be a history junkie, wants/needs to read this book.  I hope it is all that my mind has built it up to be.  Even if it doesn’t quite rise to that level, I’m sure it will be a good read!

One Big Table: A Portrait of American Cooking by Molly O’Neill

And it's one big book!  It totally outweighs The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - seriously - it weighs a ton! This was a gift from my children.  What can I say, they know my love for reading and food, but I think their real motivation lies in being the recipients of all the yumminess within.  Each chapter opens with a history of food in America. Each recipe that follows tells who the recipe is from, where they live, and a backstory on either the cook or the recipe.  Love it!

All this talk of books is making me want to grab a cup of tea and curl up with one of my many books, but first I’m off to see what's on everyone else’s summer reading list.  Follow me on over to All Things Elementary and check out the Professional Reading Linky Party! 

In Love With My New Look!

Is it wrong to be in love with your blog design?  No way! Not when it looks as fabulous as my new blog!  I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my new design by Kimberlee from iTeach 5^th (formerly Teacher Takers).  She has a new design site, Digital Doodle Designs.

When she read about my move to 4^th and my need for a makeover, she offered to do a custom design for me!  Now, if you know Kimberlee, you know that she is an amazing teacher and blogger, and she shares so many fabulous resources for free on her blog!  I was so excited to be supporting an amazing teacher, blogger and designer! I knew whatever Kimberlee designed would be fabulous, but she hit it out of the park!  

I was giddy over an actual real blog design where everything coordinated (as opposed to my former hodgepodge) and had the look and feel of the new direction I am heading in.  

I had a hard time articulating exactly what I was looking for, but Kimberlee read my mind and worked her magic!  She’s like my blog fairy godmother!  I couldn’t be happier!  Thank you so much Kimberlee!

If you need a new design, please go see Kimberlee at Digital Doodle Designs.  Heck, even if you don’t “need” a new design, why not treat yourself to a little makeover? Kimberlee is amazing to work with!  You won’t be disappointed!

Here's to summer blogging!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Wow, almost 6 months without posting, and what a crazy 6 months it has been!  Full of adventure and changes, both personally and professionally.

I graduated my last class of kinders!

And next year I will be teaching 4th grade!

This past year I spent quite a bit of time with the intermediate kids doing after school clubs, and I really rediscovered how much I love working with the older grades.  I am so excited to make this move, and I can't wait to work with my new teammates!

My school is moving forward with a STEM initiative, and I was accepted into a STEM Certificate program in conjunction with the Space Foundation.  We will be focusing on integrating space-related STEM content across the curriculum with an emphasis on impacting English language learners.  We had a one day seminar in April, and classes start next week!

I'm not quite sure what to do with my blog, do I keep it, start a new one, just change the look?  Any thoughts?  
For the time being I will continue to posting here, but either way, I need to find a fabulous designer to do a little blog design makeover magic!  Any suggestions would be welcomed!

It's Gingerbread Time! {Fabulous Follower Freebie}

We are beginning our gingerbread unit this week, and I am so excited!  This is one of my favorite units to teach.  I will have more gingerbread goodies to post later in the week!  

I want to thank everyone who supported my Teachers Pay Teachers store during the Cyber Monday + Tuesday Sale!  I purchased some fabulous products that I will share in a later post!  

For all of my fabulous followers of my little blog and my Teachers Pay Teachers store, I have a sweet little freebie to say thanks!  We will be using it during our gingerbread unit.  Click on any of the pictures below to download.

Thanks to Pink Cat Studio for the adorable gingerbread clip art!

Cyber Monday (and Tuesday) on Teachers Pay Teachers

Cyber Monday is here! Everything in my Teachers Pay Teachers store will be 20% off and if you use the promo code: CMT12 you can get a whopping 28% off!

Happy Shopping!

Beginning Sounds Baby!

I just realized that I had posted some beginning sound activities on Teachers Pay Teachers and never posted about them!  We are hitting beginning sounds hard!  Not all of my little lovelies know all of their letters yet, but they are getting there.  We have been using our Itty Bitty Beginning Sound Books as we have learned the letters during our literacy workstations.

Itty Bitty Beginning Sound Books on TPT

We have also been using activities from my Beginning Sounds Bundle during literacy workstations and in small groups.

Beginning Sounds Bundle on TPT

As with everything I post on TPT, I have to give a few away.  If you would like a copy of Itty Bitty Beginning Sound Books and Beginning Sounds Bundle, enter below.  I will pick two winners on Monday morning!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Saturday Snapshot...Apples, Pumpkins and Fall

A Peek at Quite a Few Weeks...

We began by reading Apple Farmer Annie.

Each day we were studying apples, we tasted an apple food and graphed our results.  We tasted red, green, and yellow apples and graphed our favorite.

For the remainder of apple tasting, students showed their response with a thumbs up or down.  

If you would like to download printable thumbs, you can grab them by clicking on the pic.



We also added an apple poem in our Poetry Journal, circled the letter A, and added a cute torn paper apple.  

The poem and torn apple came from Mrs. Meacham's site.  You can find it here.

We also made individual "apple pies."  I have tried mamy different ways to make apple pies in the classroom, but this is by far my favorite!  I saw the idea online a year or two ago, but I can't remember where.  If you know whose fabulous idea this was, let me know so I can give them credit!

Begin by peeling and coring the apples.

Next, give each student 1/4 of a pie crust.  They make a small pile of apple pieces in the center of their pie crust.

Sprinkle a small spoonful of sugar over the apples and top with a dusting of cinnamon.

Pull up the edges of the pie crust to the center and pinch closed.  Place on parchment paper on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until browned. Cool and enjoy!

While one group was peeling their apples and making their individual apple pies, the rest of the kids were rotating through apple investigation stations.  We used Mrs. Lee's Apple Investigation Sheet.  

We did lots of activities with pumpkins, most of which I didn't get pictures of.  We made our annual trek to the pumpkin farm and did our pumpkin investigations with our pumpkins when we returned. You can find an investigation sheet that we have used the last few years here.

Growing pumpkins in a pumpkin has been my absolutely favorite pumpkin activity EVER!  The idea came from Growing in Pre-K.  It has been absolutely amazing to watch.  Here are a few photos of our experiment in action!

Our first signs of growth, about a week after adding the soil.

About 2-1/2 weeks after adding the soil.

3-1/2 weeks later!

The kids are having a blast watching it grow and recording their observations in their science notebook.  I am even more amazed that it's doing so well in the florescent lighting.  I don't have any windows, and we aren't very good about remembering to put it outside for some natural light on the warmer days.  I'm hoping that we can keep it going indoors throughout the winter months and then plant it outside in the spring!  I'll let you know how it goes!

One last little fall project to share...

Inspired by this pin

By Style Unveiled on Pinterest via Adventures in Kindergarten

It was designed to be a fingerprint tree for wedding guests, but with a bit of twist, it was a perfectly simple fall project.  I printed the tree and then instead of fingerprints, we dipped the eraser end of a pencil in tempra paint and dotted our fall trees.  I love how they turned out!