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Happy Saturday everyone!

Happy almost Father's Day!

This post is dedicated to my Dad...

The most AMAZING father and grandfather!

He was taken from us too soon and I miss him like crazy every day.  Love you dad! <3

This is also for my hubby...

another great father!!

So my big push this past year has been non-fiction.  We have done so many non-fiction related activities, stories, and writing to prepare for the big time... third grade!  I wanted to do something with some left over "National Geographic" magazines that I had... OK admit it.. you have a stack somewhere in your room too.  

I decided to combine my love of those magazines with the Literature Circle idea.  I created 4 recording sheets for each group... 

one on telling the important facts of the article
 one for the group to illustrate their favorite parts of the article (or for your advanced students, they can research further on the computer on things they want to learn more about) 
one page on writing interesting words and defining them
 and finally a page on connections and questions they had as they read the article

I put the kids in groups of 3 and 4 and they went to work... 

Some groups wanted to learn more so they read some info on the computer.  
Other groups looked up and printed more pictures.

They used the amazing pics in the magazine to illustrate their own!

Its hard to tell, but they spent the first day reading and highlighting the most important information in their article.  They then used that information to write a summary.  We talked about how to write the summary using their own words.

This is my favorite part! They took all those sheets and designed a poster.  They could use pictures, text, or captions from the magazine and put it on their poster.  The groups got really creative!

I love how it's a mix of many mediums.

They finally presented to the class.  In total we spent 4 days doing this project.  It was great for the end of the year and to incorporate non-fiction!

The sheets I used for this project were not full of cuteness.

So NOW... behold... the new and improved sheets all bundled up in a nice little pack...
for FREE!

Yes, grab it up! (oh and leave some feedback when you do :)

Last thing... make sure you check out these GREAT giveaways from some of my bloggy friends!!

Pssst.... as of right now I am FIVE followers away from a GIANT giveaway i'm cookin' up!!  Stay tuned!!!

That's a wrap!!

Hey everyone!  I am SO SO sorry that I have been neglecting this poor blog.   I feel so bad 

 BIG SAD FACE ----> :(

The end of the year came and went like a flash!  Here are some highlights in pictures:

The countdown was an even bigger success than I anticipated!  I asked the kids to write about the things I should change and not change... #1 thing to keep was this countdown. You can see it here.

This was one of my favorite projects!

I got some GREAT advice...

"Here's the good news

I love reading now because I didn't know how fun it was"

MELT. MY. HEART!

We made our pledges to read...

"I will read 60 minutes and sometimes I will read an hour"

ha!!

Grab this book from The Teacher Wife

We had field day

Picnic lunch as a reward for our plant reading incentive!

I woke up to this on the day of our field trip to the Arboretum!  We had a be.u.tiful day!!

field trip!

The highlight of our field trip was the tadpole pond!

I spent the last couple of days packing up my room and I am now officially on summer break! Wahoo!

The first official day of summer I got this sweet email from one of my students.  I JUST LOVE MY JOB!!

My to do list is LONG!  I am/will be updating a bunch of old TpT files that desperately need updating.  First one is my Math Vocabulary Pack... it's now bright and fresh... LOVE IT!!  It will be uploaded soon!!  I will be making first and third grade too!

I will be spending as much time with this guy as possible!!

If you can't find me here on my blog... I am posting things almost daily to my Instagram account (I am slightly addicted!!).

Click pic to follow-- its fun and easy peasy!

I need to make a wish... look at my blog follower count!!

I'm hoping to reach 800 soon...so... send all your friends on over!! :)

I can't wait to have my next BIG giveaway!!!

Some fun projects and tips in the next blog post-- oh and some free stuff!

phew... thanks for reading... sorry I was all over the place today!!

Around the School #5- May!

Boy is the year coming to an end QUICKLY!  I can't even believe that we have only 8 more days- and they are a PACKED 8 days!

That is why I'm even surprised that I fit this last Around the School in before the end of the month! (and it will start up again this next school year- I'd looove to hear from you about continuing it- if you enjoy the monthly posts! :)

If you are new to "Around the School," it is a chance for me to share anywhere from preschool-fifth grade (each month will be different) the projects and activities that I see as I visit these different grades.  You just might see a new idea (or two!).

I hope you enjoy this tour!

Love these symmetrical butterflies- I think they might have been painted and then folded in 1/2 to get the same look- they look amazing hanging in the room!

Rainbows!

I can't tell you how amazing this looks in the room- and it's HUGE :)

Frog and Toad cuteness!  The kids chose their favorite character and wrote those traits in a 

paragraph!

The second graders are "growing" flowers by reading! (the word "occur" is a vocabulary word)

During the morning of our 1800's day the kids created a quilt square!  They "stitched" around the outside and then decorated it with symbols from long ago.  It looks amazing all together!

These were made with our uber talented Art teacher- they used copper paint- sooo cool!

More symmetry!

Bird research and wordle!

Great idea if you work with multiple grades!

Or would make a super cute bulletin board in your grade!

I just love our librarian! :)

Coming up....

~End of the year gifts

~End of the year countdown/activities

~About Bloglovin'

I'm also thinking about starting "Teacher Tips Tuesday" (click to check out one from last summer!!) back up - might just be my summer thing.  Anyone interested in being featured?  You write a "post" and I put it on my blog- then I send traffic your way (and you my way too!).  It's so fun to highlight new blogs and learn some great tips too!

Let me know!!

Five for Friday

Linking up again with Doodle Bugs- Five for Friday!

1. Plants!

I love to start this unit with the celery trick.  Celery is DRAMATIC! And after a day it looks like the pic above.  Don't worry...it always pops back up.  Then we fill the water with food coloring and watch the water travel up the stem to the leaves. :)

We also planted grass, lima beans and pinto beans.  I thought we were going to have no bean sprouts this year but AMAZINGLY we had two by the end of the day today!! Yippee!!  I had a reader suggest to plant the bean seeds closer to the top of the soil because they have a hard time traveling up through the soil... that is brilliant!  I LOVE when readers leave their ideas/tips... it just makes my day!!  

2. Plant Reading!

I just LOVE this!

Our students have been reading machines trying to grow their plants!

For every 30 pages they read, they get a plant part.  Until finally, they have an entire flower!

They can even read more and add "extras" to their flower like the grass, bee, bird, and sun.

This is a free item in my store.  See it here.

3. Countdown!

I'm starting to get our countdown to summer ready!!  I have decided to do the 5 day countdown.

It looks like this:

We will do activities for each letter until we reach the last day #3 for third grade!!  The kids are SO excited and dying to know what is in the envelopes! :)

Click pic to see this product 

(on sale right now!)

4. Assessments

I don't know about you but 'tis the season for assessments!  We've been doing reading and math testing for the last two weeks.  Ugh.

I got a kick out of this one...

"This is how I got to the point where I got done."  Yep... that sums it up... let's just get this done.  hehe

5. My cutie

He said to me, as he is putting a pencil behind his ear, "this is how you look smart."  :)

I didn't get this pic but then he put another pencil behind his other ear and said, "Look mommy, now I'm extra smart!"

LOOOOOVVE him :)

Have a GREAT weekend!