Labels...Labels...Labels

I LOVE LOVE LOVE labels! I use them all throughout my classroom. Today is the last day to get 50% off all Avery brand labels at Staples. If you do not have this coupon, feel free to email me or leave a comment with your email address and I will email you the coupon right away.

Here are a few things I have used labels for in my classroom :)

100 Topics to Write About Cards- Full Sheet Size & Pocket Sized

I just love Mondays!!! Time again to link up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made it!

Last week I made 100 topics to write about pocket sized cards. I received emails requesting to make these pocket sized cards into full sheet size cards and I did just that. These cards can be used in conjunction with my pocket sized cards shown below.

Included in this pack are 100 FULL SHEET size cards that are the match to each of the 100 pocket sized cards avaialble in my TPT & TN store.

Happy Monday everyone!



100 Pocket Sized Writing Topic Cards & Must Read Picture Books

Hello All!
I am once again linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for her Made It Monday. I am also linking up with Lindsey from the Teacher's Wife for her Must Have Picture Books.

This week I wanted to share with all of you my topics to write about pocket sized cards. I created 100 writing topic cards that can be displayed in a pocket chart in your classroom, used in centers, or used as writing prompts. Here are a few samples from this awesome pack! Click on any of the pictures to check these cards out.

My MUST Have Picture Books to Read:

Get the Scoop on Story Elements, Comprehension Skills & Strategies

I am linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics with her Monday Made It.

I wanted to share with all of you my story elements, comprehension skills & strategies "scoops" that I made. I made these mini scoops to display in my classroom. I think I am also going to use them in centers as well. I plan on putting magnets on the back of each scoop and displaying them on my whiteboard. These scoops will be a great reference for students.

These "scoops" are great for introducing various reading elements, skills and strategies. Each scoop has a short description on it as well as a corresponding picture. You can check them out by clicking on any of the pictures below.

Happy Monday!

A Day in My Shos- International Blog Hopping Day

I am linking up with some great bloggers for Teaching Blog Addict's National Blog Hopping Day linky party. Click the picture below to link up!
  Soooo..A day in my shoes goes a little something like this:

5:45- Alarm clock goes off
5:50- Finally get out of bed
6:00  Shower & brush my teeth
6:15- Time to curl my hair (Ummmm yes it takes 45 minutes to curl my hair..YIKES)
7:00- Get dressed
7:10- Get my things ready to take to school
7:20- Hop in the car with my mom (Yes my mom takes me to school still..lol that is only because we teach at the same school together- I love it!)
7:20-7:50- I put my make-up on in the car..ahhh the benefits of catching a ride with my mom
7:50- We arrive at school (sometimes we stop for breakfast on the way)
8:00- I have duty in the morning at the school store
8:25- Bell rings, school store closes
8:30- I race back to my classroom and let my kiddos in
8:30-9:00- We squeeze in some science (usually work in our science journals)
9:00-10:30- Reading block
10:35-11.00- Lunch
11:00-12:00- Math
12:00-12:30- Writing
12:30-1:00-Recess
1:00-2:00- Recource (We have resource on T/W/TH for an hour)
2:00-2:30- Social Studies
2:35- Dismissal for Kindergarteners
2:35-3:00- Bus Duty
3:20- My school day is over (rarely do I ever leave on tme)
4:00 or so- I get home
4:30-Nap time (I usually nap for an hour or two- I am a night owl)
6:00- Dinner
7:00- Bedtime- I usually work on stuff for my classroom or watch t.v.
Then...I wake up and do it all over again :)

I am definitely a shoe person. I have TONS of shoes!! Some of my co-workers think I am nuts for teaching in heels. I am short and heels and wedges make me feel a little taller ;) Here are some of my favs:

4th of July Freebie- Scientific Method Posters

Happy Fourth of July Everyone! I hope you all enjoy this little freebie. You can download for free by clicking on any of the pictures or at my Teachers Notebook store. Have a fun and safe holiday!

Poetry Journals/Notebooks to Teach a Wide Range of Skills

I am very excited to share with all of you how I incorporate poetry notebooks into my instruction. Yesterday, I posted about math journals and using them in my math instruction. Soooooo, I thought I would share with all of you how I use these notebooks in my class.

At the beginning of the school year I use these notebooks to teach letters and sounds. My goal is for my students to master all of their letters and sounds by October. I use alphabet letter poems along with a set of letter sound cards I acquired from a former Kindergarten teacher to accomplish this goal.

Each day we review our letter/sound cards pictured below. I absolutely LOVE these cards and swear by them. They are old, but let me tell you they are fantastic for teaching letters and sounds. They are from the Scott Foresman reading series. Our school purchased the Alpha Motions cards and a few of my co-workers use them and have had  much success with those as well.

(Scott Foresman Cards: Students learn phrases to go along with cards; Cracking nut, cracking nut K-, K, K!

Beating heart, beating heart B-, B-, B! Ticking clock, ticking clock T-, T-, T! Fighting cat, fighting cat F-, F-F, F!)

After reviewing these cards, I introduce a letter poem. I try to introduce one letter a day; however, we usually end up spending a day or two extra on the vowels. As a mentioned in my previous post on math journals, I am all about consistency, so students learn to go to their next available page in their poetry notebook (no skipping pages in my class!), date the top left-hand side of the page and then glue their poem below.

We then read the poem together, go over the letter, the sound it makes, etc. We go back through the poem and look for puntuation marks and any sight words we have learned up to that point. We highlight sight words in one color and punctuation marks in another. I love this because students are mastering their letters and sounds and also learning/reviewing sight words and punctuation.

After this, we discuss the details in the poem and what the poem is about. With the letter poems we will underline a main word or idea to label in our drawing, thus incorporating labeling and main idea into our learning. We brainstorm ideas of what details we can use in our illustrations and also what MUST go into our drawings according to what the poem was about. 

At the beginning stages of using this notebook I will show them my illustration of the poem and discuss all of the details I have included; sky, sun, birds, trees, grass, etc. Students are then free to illustrate their poem on the right-hand side of their notebooks. Before they finish they must label their drawing with the word we chose and underlined in our poem. 

As the year progresses, we do about one poem a week and do so many skills with that one poem. The poem is usually theme based on what we are learning about that week. I LOVE Google and find most of my theme based poems there. Sometimes these poems are assigned as center work. I may have students read the poem with a buddy and then go through it with their buddy and highlight sight words and punctuation marks or we may do this together. Other days, we just read the poem and discuss the meaning and the re-read and illustrate on another day. There are so many ways you can use this type of notebook in your class. The options are just endless!

Students store these poetry notebooks in their book box, so they can read through them during silent reading and buddy reading. The following are pictures of the poetry notebooks my students have completed in the past. You can get a good idea of how to set these up and tweak them to your liking. Check out the details in their drawings (These are all from different students)!!!

A co-worker and I recently came up with 26 letter alphabet poems we will be using this upcoming school year. We wanted to incorporate more color words and rhyming words into our letter poems to help students master these types of words as well.

Check them out by clicking on any of the following pictures.

I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I did! :)

I just LOVE all of the learning that takes place with just one notebook!