Inference Christmas Riddles

I can't wait to use this Inference Christmas Riddles craftivity!  My students write inference riddles and always love going around the room to see if their friends can guess what they want for Christmas!

First, my kiddos write creative inference riddles about their present.

Then, they draw a picture of the present they are hoping to get.

After that, they color a giant gift box and glue it over the top of their picture.  They glue just enough to make it flap up when they are ready to reveal what's underneath.

Finally, they have fun around the room reading their riddles to friends.  The students use their inferencing powers to figure out what is hiding under everyone's presents.

You can get this fun craftivity in my TpT store!  Click the picture below. :)

Stone Fox

This story just melts my heart!  I cry at the end every time! My students are loving this story.  We finished it today and had to discuss what it means to have a bittersweet ending.


Stone Fox is about a little boy named Willy.  His grandfather is sick.  It is up to Willy to save the farm and Grandfather!  Willy is a tough little boy that faces his problems head on.  He takes on harvesting the potatoes by himself with only the help of his best friend Searchlight (a ten year old husky). He will have you rooting for him throughout the story.  The ending is bittersweet, but I will let you read it for yourself!

  

I love this interactive journal from Lovin' Lit!  I used her journal to introduce each story element I wanted to teach in Stone Fox.  It was so explicit for my students.This is a plot mountain diagram from her journal.  I'm definitely using her informational interactive journal for our next unit as well! 

I followed her plot diagram with a plot mountain from my Stone Fox novel study.

This is a characterization chart from Lovin' Lit's interactive journal that I used for Stone Fox.

After learning about character traits and how to look for evidence in the text, the students recorded traits on their own about little Willy.

My students answered task cards from my novel study after we read and discussed each chapter.

Happy reading! :)

A Minion Reasons To Be Thankful!

This minion craft from The Not So Common Classroom are so cute!  My students loved them!  My team teacher and I cut everything out before our Thanksgiving celebration to make assembly easy peasy for the kiddos.  

I also purchased her Christmas Minions to make!

Bunnicula

This book is awesome!  It's a big hit with my kiddos every Halloween!  It is just spooky enough to be appropriate for elementary students.  The family dog, Harold, narrates the story. While the family cat, Chester, entertains readers with his eccentric behavior.  Chester is definitely one of my most favorite literary characters because of the humor he brings to the plot.  The story is about a family that brings home a bunny from a Dracula movie.  Chester believes the bunny to be a dangerous vampire and sets out to prove his theory.  In the end, Harold asks readers to decide.  Is he or isn't he a vampire?

We decorated pumpkins for Halloween and our Bunnicula turned out so cute!

  

The students loved creating a storyboard of the book as we read Bunnicula!

All of my Bunnicula Task Cards and Novel Study ideas are at TPT!

Donovan's Word Jar

I love this book by Monalisa Degross!  Donovan is a little boy that loves collecting words.  He has a problem when his word jar is full and calls on his family to help him find a solution.  This is a heart warming story about about how a little boy's love of words help others.

My students loved turning our door into a giant word jar during Literacy Week at our school!

My Donovan's Word Jar Task Card Set and graphic organizers are at TPT!  

Report Writing: Learning Around the Globe

I am so excited about this writing unit!  My students were so interested in researching how other kids around the world are learning.  They were able to compare and contrast their typical day with other students in other countries.  My students loved finding the country that they chose on our class world map!  This was a great way to integrate Social Studies!  The kiddos were so excited about what we learning that it was a refreshing experience!  

This is our Report Writing anchor chart that I used to guide us through the process.

I modeled an introduction for the students.  I used my Hooking the Reader activity to model an intriguing beginning.  Then, I showed the students all of my facts that I wrote down.  We worked together to sort them into categories for our body paragraphs.  I was able to use these to teach complete sentences, main idea statements, and conclusion sentences.  I really like this Scrambled Paragraphs Unit for extra instruction and practice with students that need the support.

After we glued our body paragraphs down, I modeled a conclusion paragraph.  Then, I gave my kiddos a transition word list to use as a resource in their journals while we added transition words to our rough draft.  Finally to make sure we were ready to publish, we used our report writing anchor chart to label our rough draft with all of our elements to make sure we were ready to publish.

This is a report about schools in Germany that my student typed after making her rough draft.  Being able to tyoe was a great motivator for my kiddos!  I showed them how to add pictures and captions which was awesome getting to tie in lessons on text features!

To get this writing unit with teacher modeling examples, go to 
Report Writing: Learning Around the Globe!

My students need more instruction on paraphrasing and quoting before our next research project.  I love these task cards from Teaching with a Mountain View.  
Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting

Tomas and the Library Lady

I love the story Tomas and the Library Lady!  It sends a wonderful message to kids about reading with their imagination!  The story is great for introducing visualizing.  The little boy Tomas has learned all of Papa Grande's stories so he goes to library to learn more.  He becomes the new family storyteller and makes stories come to life for his family.  I have a few Spanish speaking students this year and they loved getting to hear the Spanish words during the story.  My other students felt like they were getting some lessons in speaking Spanish.  The kids just loved this book!

I made graphic organizers for the story for the kiddos to use when identifying the central message, summary, and character traits.

I also made comprehension and vocabulary task cards to go along with the story.  I love task cards!!

You can get all of the activities here at my TpT store!

Happy reading! :)

Wahoo! We are getting an iPad mini!

We are getting an iPad mini!  I just love Donors Choose!  Our donors are an inspiration!  I am so excited to be able to share an iPad mini with my students!