Thanks for hopping through with us!  I never say good luck to my students, instead I say, "Do what you know how to do and be your very best!"  Be sure to enter to win the $50 Starbucks Gift Card AND the Test Prep Bundle.  We hope you can use these to make your life a whole lot easier over the coming weeks.  Winners will be notified on Monday morning!  Happy Hopping!

Win THIS...

AND all of THESE...

ENTER to WIN!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A Time for Giving

My school means a lot to me.  Not just because that's where I work or because the kids are great (which they are).  It's the school where I went in elementary school and high school.  I had some of the same teachers who are still there now.  They have a heart for what they do.  So, as my school gets ready for its annual auction, I thought the best thing I could do was try to give a little bit back.

A group of teachers donated products to create this bundle for upper elementary teachers.  All proceeds from the sale will go directly the my school.  We don't receive any funding outside of our tuition and individual donations, so this auction is a big deal. There's about $130 worth of products bundled together for $25. Awesome deal for some awesome products!

Please check out the specifics in the link below.  And if you think this is a worthy cause, please pass along the link.

Thanks!
Martha from "The Owl Spot"

Poetry Prompts

This Friday, my fourth graders will participate in the 4th annual Poetry Slam at my school. It is actually something the music teacher and I cooked up a few years ago, so my students have an opportunity to share their favorite original poem with each other and their families. 

Before our school music teacher gets involved, my students study five different figures of speech and create five poems that demonstrate each figure of speech at least one time. Writing poetry can be intimidating for kids, so I break down different poems and types of figures of speech into simple activities to help students create their own poetry.

• Take an existing poem by a famous author and borrow the structure, repeated words, or style. While reading the novel, HATE THAT CAT, we use the poem, "Love That Boy" by Walter Dean Myers to create an "inspired by" poem.  My students keep the beginning of most of the lines and develop their own simile (so I get to teach simile at the same time). My son is actually in one of my language arts classes this year and his "inspired by" poem made me cry. He does not know I am reprinting his poem here... and sharing it on Facebook... and Tweeting it... and Google+'ing it because I thought it was so sweet.

• I try to match up adjective and adverb grammar lessons with my poetry unit. Give the students an everyday object and ask them to generate a list of adjectives that describe the object. This year, I had my students use one of their shoes as the everyday object. They used a template with blank lines and dropped the adjectives onto the lines and then designed a concrete poem.

• I have a big list of topics that I cut into little strips and put into an envelope. Each student draws a topic from the envelope. I like to choose topics from nature like a cloud, mountain, tree, flower, sunset, or ocean. The students write five sentences about the object, but each sentence must use personification. We spend some time talking about human traits, and I provide a traits list on their class activity page. The cloud could offer comfort. The mountain could glare down at you. The flower could dance. The students list the five sentences and then move the sentences around a little and edit to create a poem.

• A fun activity I used with my early finishers during our poetry study was book spine poems. You may have seen book spine images floating around on Pinterest. I have a vast classroom library, and the students stacked books to create a poem from the book titles. This year, they took a picture with our class iPads and inserted the image into a PicCollage and added an explanation of their poem. In previous years, students have used MSPublisher to publish their book spine poems.

Poetry can be fun for students and offer a creative way to express feelings students might not share otherwise. I have also started to realize how much poetry enhances all areas of language study and because poems are often short, it provides a great literature alternative when teachers run short on instructional time.

Need some new poetry resources? 

Here are links to great products by our Lesson Deli members:

TheRoomMom's Poetry Unit and Figures of Speech Game (includes activities listed above)
The Owl Spot's Robert Frost Author Study (and other author studies)
Teaching Ideas 4U's Poetry Writing Unit
JB Creations' Revolutionary War Poetry Unit

Happy Writing!
TheRoomMom

20 Things We Should Say More Often

I love Kid President. This is a good one to show any time of the year. Some of the words on the list are please, thank you, excuse me, I'm sorry, you can do it, and just to say nice things.

www.simonesmathresources.com 

Super Bowl Sunday Sales LINKY

Whether you are trying to get your lesson plans completed before the start of the game, or it is the end and you are scrambling to get your school week organized, we can help!  Check out each of the ON SALE store links below in order to find resources to make planning your school week CHEAPER and EASIER.  We hope your team wins or won! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Making Number Lines

A great resource for making number lines. 

A great number line is hard to find. Now there is a site where you can custom make number lines to suit your needs for free.

At math-aids.com there are many options to choose from.

1) You can generate blank number lines. Your options include positive or negative numbers, and different ways to break up the number line into whole numbers or fractions.

2) You can create worksheets to add or subtract numbers on a number line.

3)You can create worksheets to locate fractions, mixed numbers, or decimals on a number line. This also includes positive or negative numbers.

http://www.math-aids.com/Number_Lines/

www.Simonesmathresources.com 

Novels...to Test or Not to Test?! A Novel Resource Round-Up LINKY

As a language arts teacher I always love encountering other upper elementary language arts teachers in other districts and states because I love hearing what takes place in other classrooms.  Questions I seem to find myself asking most frequently:

What novels do you love to teach?
How do you group kids?
Do you utilize a reading program? 

With so many tests being administered to my students on a daily basis one thing I NEVER assess my students on are the novels they are reading.  Perhaps this sounds crazy, but here is a breakdown of a typical week on my 6th grade instructional team...Pro-Ohio reading assessment, Pro-Ohio math assessment, weekly reading fluency assessment, weekly math assessment, spelling test, and maybe a science or social studies test.  EVERY WEEK!  So when we complete a novel unit as a whole class or students complete a novel independently, I seek out project-based resources for my students to complete to extend their learning.

This is my favorite sight in my classroom...

As a language arts teacher, I have spent countless hours sitting in the book store hovering over pages of different novels in hopes of finding the perfect tales to engage my students and make them enthusiastic readers.  I want them to reach the point in each novel where putting the book down is the hardest challenge they face, not worrying about the assessment at the end to check their comprehension.  To enhance their reading ambition, I created this I'm Finished...End of Novel Projects for Grades 4-6 resource in order to make completing novels even more fun for my students.

Click on the image for a sample project:

Teaching for 15 years makes a teacher wise…As teachers we are always looking for resources to make our students’ time in the classroom most meaningful and productive.  Like you, I don’t have a moment to waste with my instructional time.  Rather than TEST, complete some sort of book report, or answer MORE reader response questions, I want them to extend their thinking as well as share what they have learned and enjoy sharing about the book that has just been completed.  My hope is that another student might find the project so intriguing, they can't wait to read that book as well.
 
I would love for you to comment, link up a blog post, or link any free or paid resource that you utilize in your classroom to reinforce a love of reading in your classroom...

An InLinkz Link-up