Teacher Appreciation

Oh my goodness!! Feeling SO spoiled today!

This was such an amazing year looping with this group of kiddos. Thank you families and students for such an awesome year!  Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to all my fellow teacher bloggers!



Our PTO did a Super Hero theme...that's me and my class! What a great surprise!

Do You Use Donors Choose?

I am such a HUGE fan of DonorsChoose and I just want to make sure people are aware of this AMAZING resource! New teachers this is THE GREATEST SITE to get FREE RESOURCES for your classroom!

My school is high poverty and our salary isn't great - especially for CA- so having a way to get materials for my kiddos that isn't out of pocket? Fabulous!  It is one of my favorite things to tell *NEW* teachers about!

Ok so here's some of the amazing things I have gotten over the years -- totally free!

Multiplication Materials

Gold Rush Materials

Super Comfy Rug and Bean Bag Chair

   

Leveled Non Fiction Books/Bins

Supplies to start the year and make my huge B2School Shopping list MUCH easier- and cheaper! (We pay out of pocket in our district- no reimbursement either. Talk about a LIFE SAVER! I)


You shop online from DonorsChoose partners, tell people what you will do if you were lucky enough to have someone fund your project. That's it! Then if your project is funded you take some pictures of how happy your class is to have these resources and write a thank you letter. Easy-Peasy and SO worth it!


Do you use DonorsChoose? What projects have you posted? I love looking at other projects to spark my creativity!

The CA Gold Rush

CA Gold Rush is HUGE in California for 4th grade. I was shocked how hard it was to find resources in my classroom and on the web.  So I turned to Donorschoose and got really lucky to have wonderful donors support my project! Thank you Donors!! Now we can RESEARCH to learn about the Gold Rush.





 The most loved book we got was The California Gold Rush Interactive (You Choose) book from Amazon

By: Elizabeth Raum

This is like the old books I used to read in the dentist's office or even more recent Give Yourself Goosebumps by R.L. Stine. The students LOVED getting to pick what they would do and see the results. How to get out west? You choose! I would read the choices let them think of what they would pick and then turn and talk and try to convince their partner to agree with evidence from our social studies readings. The conversations were SO detailed and animated! Thank you Elizabeth Raum for such a great book to have students interact with history!

We used the books to complete our Workshop Unit on History to Life! 

Word Pictures!

I love to read other blogs and borrow fabulous ideas like this one from Tara at Fourth Grade Frolics. (Again! I'm not sure how I would be surviving 4th grade without her!)

We use Words In Action in our school for Vocabulary. I like how it's similar to our Workshop model, uses picture books and has prompts to help our ELL kiddos. Each week with had 5 focus words and and the end of a month we looked back and selected our favorites to make the pictures for.

Halloween

I don't have much to post today but my room moms did SUCH a cute job on our party I had to share!

I'm NOT this creative with food ideas! My room moms made pumpkins from oranges and celery, "Zombie Boogers" (green colored kettle corn), Mummy cupcakes....

Ghost pizzas, Too cute the students LOVED this!

This cute pumpkin was NOT my idea but, I can't remember who I got this idea from -( tell me and I'll give you credit!! )
But I absolutely loved these! 

Reading Responses aka "The Green Folder" !

My school uses TC Reading Workshop and I found it can be really hard to see if kids are "doing the work". I've tried a few different ways to have students really share their thinking--without taking away a love of reading. It's can be a hard balance! Enter "The Green Folder". When I asked for 32 folders all we had in the supply closet was green and the kids dubbed it "The Green Folder". ( Despite my awesome teacher label of "Our Completed Books and Thoughtful Responses". =) Hey-I tried!)

A few tried to get away with writing "nothing" at the beginning but it was a great way to say, "Hey this kid needs a conference or a skill group on... connections!" (Some summary help and explaining the "choose your own" aspect of this book too.)

I have shared these with a lot of colleagues in 4th grade and we all found these folders to be an insightful way to make sure students were thinking each week and about each book. We also use post-its and they select their "best" post-its to include on the back. This becomes an easy conference tool but also a great way to track progress and  leave helpful tips for kiddos they can refer back to. It's not exactly how I want it, but it really worked out well. This year I'm planning to make these more genre specific. They aren't graphic fancy, but they get the job done! Do students LOVE The Green Folder? Not exactly, but they really grew this year and I could see their thinking get more sophisticated. Great tool for teachers, students and parents- they loved to see these too. They can see my feedback and see if their student is reaching to meet their new goals. Does anyone else use something like this?

Getting closer and closer to organized and ready for students! Finished my welcome sign, my 3 Rs (our school's PBIS buzzwords)  group points, and...a little teacher motivation! ;) 32 desks feels like a TON!

Inspired by Tara @ 4thgradefrolics