Talking about vacation in a creative way

I am super excited to be linking up with some incredible ladies from the Middle School Mob to share some of our favorite New Year's teaching ideas... and host a giveaway! Check out my New Year's teaching idea below, and don't forget to enter to win some of our best selling products at the end of the post.

Oh, winter break. How I loved and cherished you, and how sad I will be to see you go. But, since it's time to get back to the grind, let's talk about what to do with kiddos that are excited about vacation. Let's be real, they all want to share everything they did on their vacation. I do want to hear about their holidays and times with their families, but there just isn't time smack dab in the middle of the day. In the past, I've had them write about what they did and share with a partner, but it just wasted enough. So, last year I tried something new that worked really well. I took an old game that I used to play in school, and put a fun creative writing twist on it.

The concept is simple. The kids get into small groups (4 or 5 students would be best) and share one quick story about their vacation. The story can be really interesting, or it can be kind of boring. Totally up to the kiddo! After they all share their stories, they all pick one as a group. This is the hard part, as we all know. Getting it narrowed down to one story can be a real challenge! I had a bit of trouble with that last year, and think this year I will ask them not to choose their own story to see if that helps. 

Then, the story that they have picked will be the story they all write, pretending it is their own story. They will have to put themselves in the narrator's shoes and invent some of the creative elements of the story. They should try to describe things as much as they can to make it believable! The kids then each read their version of the story out loud to the class and the class tries to decide who actually told the story to begin with. 

This game is super simple, fun, and has some great academic elements. The kids are using perspective, point of view, and narration skills in their creative writing. They are super motivated to write the story well because of the game aspect of it. I let the kiddos who "win" and trick kids into believing the story is theirs when it is not pick something from my prize bucket. Best of all, they are sharing a story about vacation like they want to do while also staying on track academically. It's an all around win!

Don't forget to head over to the rest blogs and check out their New Year's ideas, and DEFINITELY don't forget to enter the giveaway. There are some seriously great products up for grabs!

An InLinkz Link-up

Lit with Lyns - Argumentative Writing Process & Task Cards
EB Academic Camps - New Year's Unit & Activities for Middle School
Caffeine and Lesson Plans - PROBE Notebook: A Creative Yearlong ELA Research Project
Just Add Students - Poetry Analysis - "A Day" by Emily Dickinson
Raising Rigor and Readers - Winter Reading and Writing Activities
Anchored in Reading - ELA Text Dependent Analysis Questions - Author's Craft Task Cards
Teach Inspire Change - Student Behavior & Parent Communications Binder
Mrs. Spangler in the Middle - The Giver Reading Comprehension Games - Four in All!
Tori Gorosave: A Middle School English Teacher's Journey - Expository Close Reading: The History of New Year's
Edison Education - Multiplying and Dividing Integers
Koch's Odds 'N Ends - Student Worksheet for Self-Review / Analysis of Test Results
The Marvelous Middle - Looking Back Looking Forward New Year's Activity

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Currently 2016

The first of month and the first day of a new year! Linking up for one my favorite monthly linkys, Currently by Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade.

Listening

Oh, the sound of the Roomba is magic to my ears. My hubby spoiled me a couple months ago with the Roomba 980. It's definitely my favorite household appliance, hands down. I used to vacuum every other day to keep the cat hair and dust off the floor. Now, I only have to vacuum once a week... and I could probably skip a week and no one would notice! Did I need the Roomba? No, definitely not. No one needs a Roomba. But, I sure do love it!

Loving

Do I even need to explain this one? Christmas, family parties, New Year's Eve, and cuddles with my little guy. It doesn't get any better than this!

Thinking
Ok, I realize it is strange that I am thinking about new pens at 11:00 on a Friday night. I am a bit odd, but I think most teachers with a love of school supplies can relate! I have always been a Frixion pen lover because they erase SO well. I use them in my planbook and for grading. I love that I can make a mistake, erase it, and try again. I am super pumped because I just bought these new Frixion markers because of their thicker writing point. I can't wait to try them out when we get back to school!

Wanting
I am so stuck in a rut with my hair style. I need to get to the salon and let my hairdresser do whatever she thinks will refresh my look. Sounds crazy, I know, but I've known her since we were 8 years old and I definitely trust her opinion. Keep an eye on instagram- things might get crazy! :)

Needing
I just need more time in my life, in every aspect. No matter what I am doing, I feel like I could do it better if I just had more time. I wish the Time Turner that Hermione had in Harry Potter was real!

One Little Word
I am trying so hard to express my gratitude more. I have always felt it, but I have not been great about expressing it. I have an incredible family, great friends, amazing co-workers, and an all around fantastic life. My goal for 2016 is to show my gratitude more and tell people just how much they mean to me.

Happy New Year, my friends!

A New App for a New Year: Bloomz

In a moment that will surprise no one, I am back with another great app to share! 

I love technology. It's practically a sickness. I'm always on the hunt for an app that will make my life a little bit easier. Sometimes it backfires, though, when I end up with 15 apps to meet all my needs. Who has the storage for that? Not only that, who can remember it all and keep it all together? Definitely not me. I am super pumped I found an app that meets a few different needs and eliminates some of the excess. Best part? It's totally free. Bloomz is a sort of private social network that connects a teacher and the parents of students in his or her class. It's sort of like facebook, but way way better because parents of kids in your class can't creep on pictures posted by your college roommate. That can get ugly fast, people. 

    

from bloomz.net

With Bloomz, you can upload due dates and events into a class calendar, ask for volunteers, make a "wish list" of supplies, communicate with parents, and even send pictures. You can choose to send updates to one parent, a group of parents, or the whole class. Parents can then like, comment, or share on what you post. If you have an issue with a specific parent, you can even "mute" them so they can't post anything but they can still receive updates. This one app replaces google calendar, email, google drive, and even some paper notices. I am all about simplicity in 2016, people, so this app is definitely being implemented in my classroom.

Happy New Year! 

Currently December 2015

It's December- the most wonderful time of year. Lights are twinkling, decorations are hung, and festive Christmas music is playing. Does it get any better than that? I'm linking up with Farley from Oh Boy 4th Grade for Currently!

Listening: Have you ever seen Peg + Cat? It's a PBS cartoon that focuses on math for pre-schoolers. If you are a parent of a little one or teacher Kindergarten, you have to check it out! I first saw it when my little guy was only a few months old but he only recently started to be allowed one show a night. The NCTM conference last year featured a session about using this show for teaching math in the lower grades, too. Not to mention one of the main characters is a cat, which is my favorite animal. It's a win!

Loving: The Christmas season! How can anyone dislike this time of year? I think I have an extra special love for the holiday this year because my son is starting to get it. He loves to find his elf on the shelf every day and listen to Christmas carols. Is there anything better than the look in a baby's eyes as he stares at the Christmas tree? The best.

Thinking: This may be a little contradictory, but my goodness, teaching in December is HARD. As a fantastically hysterically teacher in my building said, "it's one long game of whack-a-mole." So true!

Wanting: Our school laminator broke down a few weeks ago, and I really miss it. I have a personal laminator to do small items, but I can't do anything larger than a standard 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. I miss being able to do bigger projects, like nametags and anchor charts. Here's hoping Santa brings our school a new one!

Needing: Oh, report cards. They are always a ton of work, but this year is extra tough. We have a new computer system for inputting grades and the glitches haven't quite been worked out yet. I can't wait until they are all worked out!

Real or fake: This year, it's fake. With a little guy at home, I just don't want to have clean up after a tree. Vacuuming up dead needles, watering it, and keeping the cat out of it is all just too much this year. We got a nice fake one with lots of volume. You can hardly tell it isn't real... especially after we light our Christmas Tree candle. :)

Enjoy the season!

Community Involvement

I'm blogging over at Middle School Mob today, with some fun and easy ideas for community involvement in the classroom! Working together to help others has made my students better teammates and cooperative learners. Check it out!

Get your students started in writing (with a freebie)

I was sitting with a reluctant writer last week, conferencing with her on a personal narrative. She had only a few sentences down, even after she had been writing (or trying to) for almost 20 minutes. She was disinterested in continuing, and said to me, "I just can't get started. I know what I want my story to be about, but I don't know how to start it and make it sound good." This isn't uncommon- so many of my fifth graders struggle with the same issue! So, this week I really focused on helping those struggling students find some way to start and helping the rest of my students enhance their beginnings.

We worked together as a class to create a continuum of beginnings. We thought about all the different ways we could begin a story, and then arranged them with the more sophisticated beginnings at the top of our chart, and the more basic beginnings at the bottom of the chart. In retrospect, I would have added an arrow to the side.... but there wasn't room left when I was done, so I just added it on the whiteboard next to it.

1. Use a motion word or sound.

2. Pose a question. 

3. Use a quotation.

4. Just jump into the story and start "talking" to the reader.

5. Restate the prompt. Rearrange the words to create an opening paragraph.

My students really responded to the idea of a "continuum" of beginnings to chose from. In another conference after this lesson, one student said that he liked that the could "start with number 5" as a beginning to get over his writer's block, and then edit it later to be something more interesting. As a teacher, I loved how this lends itself to differentiation for the students!

Best of all, I made a little miniature anchor chart for my kiddos to paste in their notebooks- and thought I'd pass it along to you as a freebie! I left it at full size (8.5 x 11) and they fold it in half to paste it in. I like the words to be big enough to be easily read. If you prefer it slightly smaller, though, it shrinks well on the copy machine! I made three versions (all included)- one blank so the students can fill it in, one with just the ways to begin and a blank spot for the students to fill in their own examples, and one completely filled in.

Download the freebie here!

Winner!

Thank you to everyone who entered for the Classroom Friendly Supplies pencil sharpener contest! The winner is....

Gabby L

Look for an email for me soon- that pretty purple sharpener is coming your way.

Happy Wednesday!