Unbelievable Teacher Bargains and Folktale Mentor Texts

Hooray for Spring Break!  

I am so happy to have the week off but a little sad that I am not traveling to a warm place.

I am moving in 10 days so will spend the time packing.

And also........blogging!

This past Saturday a friend and I found unbelievable teacher bargains at a sale held by a local company to benefit Habitat for Humanity.  

Have you heard of School Specialty?  

They run this sale every year but it's usually in November.

There are always good deals, but this year seemed to be especially good.

When I got to the check out I pulled out a twenty dollar bill, and the clerk said, "That will be $6.75."

WHAT??

Here's an overview of my purchases:

Big Books for a quarter???

I picked up a couple extra for my Kindergarten teacher friend.

Yes! Those are complete bulletin board sets - 2 for 25 cents!!

I teach a class for beginning educators at Concordia University so grabbed some goodies for them, too!

I'm also happy to be joining Collaboration Cuties for their Mentor Text Linky!

We worked on Folktales recently and I found some great reads for my third graders.

The trickster tales by Gerald McDermott have colorful illustrations and easily explain lessons that Folktales are know for.

These trickster tales are great for comparing and contrasting texts.

We also loved the illustrations in the book The Polar Bear Son - such a heartwarming book.

We used the Folktale Exploration Booklet from my Teachers Pay Teachers store to reflect on and analyze the Folktales.

One of my students said, "I love these books!"

That's an endorsement any teacher would love!

  

Check out the Collaboration Cuties' blog for more great mentor texts!

Miss V's HUGE Giveaway and Fractions Mentor Text

I am so happy to be spending my first Sunday night of the summer NOT worrying about all the things I have to do at school tomorrow.  Instead I am able to blog about a HUGE giveaway, and the Mentor Text linky hosted by Collaboration Cuties.

 

First, Miss V at Miss V's Busy Bees is having ginormous giveaway this week in honor of her blogiversary.  I have an item included in the giveaway, and I am so happy to be a part of it! Welcome to the new followers who have stopped over here as a part of the giveaway. 

 Next, I am joining the Collaboration Cuties for their weekly mentor text linky.  This week the mentor texts are related to fractions (ugh).  We worked on fractions during the last three weeks of school.  It was really challenging, and I plan to tweak the timing of these lessons next year.

One of the books I used to introduce fractions is Apple Fractions by Jerry Pallotta.

 

 

Through this book students learn about identifying parts of a whole as fractions, adding fractions with same denominators, and they also learn about the many different kinds of apples.  It's also a great book to use in the Fall to get students thinking about fractions (which I will probably do next year).

 

One of the things I did to get my students to connect to fraction concepts was to catch one of them making a "profound" statement as we reviewed.  Then I made an enlarged picture of their head with a speech bubble including their "profound" statement, and placed them on our math focus board.  They loved it!

 

Hope you'll check out both Miss V's giveaway, and the Collaboration Cuties Mentor Text Linky.

 

Must Read Mentor Texts Linky - The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Those cutie patooties over at Collaboration Cuties are hosting a linky on must-read mentor texts for literacy lessons.  I am going to go old school here and suggest that you read The Tale of Peter Rabbit to your students.  It is a classic tale that readers will love. 

I have used this book to not only introduce the esteemed author Beatrix Potter, but also to teach point of view (and letter writing).  After reading the book aloud and in small groups, the students would write letters from one character to another.  For example, Mr. McGregor could write to Peter, or Peter's mother could write to Mr. McGregor, or Flopsy could write to Mopsy.  In each case my students showed unique perspective in writing creative letters from that character's point of view.

 

I also wanted to share an idea I used during RTI time the week before break, and will use this coming week.  I originally got this idea years ago from a Mailbox Magazine.  I call it "Scrambled Eggs", and the students have to unscramble words on strips of paper that have been placed inside plastic eggs.

Last week the words were from our Science units on Rocks and Minerals, and Simple Machines.

The students record the unscrambled words on a sheet that is turned in to the teacher.  They can work alone or with a partner in unscrambling the words.
This week I have scrambled math words in the eggs.  This activity is always a big hit!

Check out Collaboration Cuties for more Mentor Texts suggestions.