The Night Before Thanksgiving

I can't even begin to express how much I needed this Thanksgiving break. 

Not wanted, 

not craved…

NEEDED…

too much on my mind :) 

I dropped my kids off to spend their Thanksgiving with their father and now I am sitting

*by myself* 

at the bookstore. Sad, but happy at the same time… such a conundrum. 

I have been working….working…working… on some Magic Tree House units.

I decided it would be a great idea to add an Interactive Notebook component to the latest unit - Christmas in Camelot. 

I will upload a page for you all to look at - please - 

I would love to hear your ideas and feedback! 

Ideally - I would like to add things like this to most of my units… my issue will be time…

I'll leave you with a picture of my workspace and a freebie… :)
ETA: click on the picture below and it will take you to my dropbox…
You can download the pdf from there! :) 

Night friends!

Favorite Halloween Literature

Last week I posted about a few of my favorite pumpkin books to use in the classroom. I wanted to share a few of my favorite Halloween books this time. I know many schools are not allowed to do anything 'Halloweeny'... So - if that is you - I'm sorry!

For those that are allowed....

 Here are a few of my faves... (I have almost 25 Halloween books.... so I picked a few...)

Monster Town

A cute book about different monsters throughout the town. This would be a great read-aloud followed by a monster writing activity! Students can cite information from the text to describe each monster and use this in their writing also! :) 

Haunted Castle on All Hallow's Eve

This is a fun Jack and Annie book that can be used as a read aloud over a week or two. Mary Pope Osborne provides a lot of opportunities for the children to practice visualizing since there are few pictures in the story. I can always find journal prompts from Magic Tree House books that the children enjoy completing quick writes about - so that is a great way to build writing endurance and practice writing about a given topic. 

Skeleton Meets the Mummy

Super cute story about a skeleton that is going trick-or-treating.... but gets a good scare! This can be used to practice sequencing and order of events. Point of view can also be discussed while reading this book, or in a mini-lesson before. As a response students can be asked who they would rather meet on a dark night in the forest and why - using some information from the text in their response. 

Nate the Great and the Halloween Hunt

Here is a favorite character to follow through the holidays! Nate and Sludge are at it again... this time trying to help Rosamond find her cat. Lots of adventures and costumes along the way! This would be good for sequencing events in a story, or story structure of a fiction book.

In The Haunted House

This story follows two children as they explore a haunted house. The characters are rarely seen, mostly just their feet - so this would be a good story to incorporate character traits and inferring character actions or ideas - the children should be able to put themselves into the character's place fairly easily. 

This can also be used to practice identifying rhyming words! :) 

Go Away, Big Green Monster

I love using this story for sequencing and a monster craft! Even though the story is about a monster, it is not very scary... pieces of the monster are introduced one page at a time... and build the while monster in the middle of the story. The children love getting to yell at the monster and watch as each turn of the page makes the monster disappear. This is wonderful for sequencing and making predictions! 

Halloween Is...

An illustrated nonfiction book to introduce children to the origins of Halloween. A KWL would be a good tool to use before reading this book, and then work in groups to compare and contrast what they thought Halloween was before reading, and what they know Halloween is about after reading. This is written by Gail Gibbons, she is one of my favorite non-fiction authors for little learners! 

Some other cute books that I love....

Skeleton Hiccups

Room on the Broom

and of course...

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything 

:)

Praise to the Fudge!

OMG. I am SO HAPPY to be finished with this book companion.... 

FUDGE-A-MANIA

I can't adequately express how excited I am to be finished! I was in high school when this book was published, so I never read it in grade school.... I missed a whole bunch of fudge! :) 

My second graders will be reading this when we get back to school so I wanted to be prepared for the first nine weeks! WHEW. I have comprehension questions for the kids, for the teachers.... a writing prompt, a graphing activity, journal ideas....

OH!

And a flip book of the story elements!

I have spent most of this week on FUDGE....

and I am so happy to be finished! 

Head over to TeachersPayTeachers to check it out!

Want one for free? 

Leave me some love and I will have my DD pick a lucky number when we get home...

Don't forget to leave your email! 

To celebrate... we are heading to IKEA today! 

I can barely contain my excitement.... 

and then there was wireless....

So - It's been a very busy week, unfortunately - I wasn't at work for it... My sweet little grandma passed away on Sunday - she had been very sick so it is a blessing, but hurts at the same time. While I was at the funeral my ex and I had some....'issues'.... and when I got home - my phone and internet had been disconnected. OOOOPPPSSSS!

Teacher stuff - I am working on a few things since I got back home and I will be updating very soon. One thing I was able to finish while I was gone - My Reddy Freddy - Perfect Present unit! So super excited! One of my tpt followers suggested those books, which I never thought of, and they are so cute! I also started Christmas in Camelot - wow - long book! I have all the questions for the chapters and vocabulary written out (Call me old school...) now I just need to type them up and upload them... That is the part that takes me the longest. I am such a perfectionist - I'm so sure there is always a way to make them better, or cuter, or more fun - LESSON - if you buy a unit from my tpt store (or tn) check for revisions! :)

BUT - here is a little teaser of my latest product. :)

love these Spring Hill graphics! :) 

abe love and a freebie

So, for as long as I can remember I've been obsessed with Abraham Lincoln. I recited the Gettysburg Address in school. I studied battles of the civil war, specifically Bull Run. We went on a family vacation to Washington, D.C. ... and I made my parents take me to the Lincoln Memorial. I've been to the theater he was assassinated  at - I know which play he was there to see (Our American Cousin). I saw the room he died in and the house they took him too. I've been to the photo archives and found pictures of his funeral procession. I know, I know... But I warned you! :)

SO - Since I'm so in love with honest abe I ran screaming through barnes and noble was so excited when I saw that Mary Pope Osborne had another Magic Tree House - WITH - Abraham Lincoln. I have been working on a unit (more like a mega-unit - since it's already 40 pages and I'm half-way done) to go with the book. I wanted to offer up some vocabulary freebies tonight and get you pumped up for the debut of MTH#47! 

Here are a few pictures of what I am giving away tonight - It's just two pages of vocabulary and a writing prompt... click on the pictures and they will take you to my tpt store to download it. I'd love you forever if you left me some feedback... (: 

fall break....

Need I say more?  :)

I am sitting in Barnes and Noble, pretending that I am working...while eyeing all the beautiful macbooks. One day, my pretty! :) I enjoy visiting my parents...in small segments of time...I love them, really - I DO! But it is really nice to have a break from 'mommy' reality every once in a while. (Can I get an AMEN!)

SO, I'm sitting here trying to figure out what to make and what unit I need next (more like, what I need for next week)...I'm being very productive - Can't you tell? :D

I plan on starting another literature circle with Magic Tree House and the Abe Lincoln volume. I really love doing literature circles with my kids. In my experience, children who weren't the strongest readers - did really well once they were outside the basal. Even with books that were above their level, where they had to work to comprehend - they just enjoyed it so much more. It would show in the connections they made, the journals they wrote, and the way they would discuss books within their groups. How many of you do literature circles in your classrooms? What are your thoughts?

In honor of my lit circle blog post - I'm putting my lit units on sale at tpt - head on over! I've recently updated three of them to include common core alignment and I can posters. Check them out!

All 25% off for a short period time! Go get them!

working my fingers to the bone

I have been hard at work this weekend - updating my tpt units for fall! Since this is my FAVORITE time of year I wanted to add a few literature circle units to my tpt store. :)

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/A-to-Z-Mysteries-Super-Edition-Mayflower-Treasure-Hunt

This unit is now 25 pages long AND has Common Core posters and I Can statement posters :)

The next one that I have been hard at work on.... Magic Tree House: Thanksgiving on Thursday. I am planning on adding to this one but if you'd like to review it for me, please let me know!


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Magic-Tree-House-Thanksgiving-on-Thursday

MTH: Thanksgiving on Thursday

I just found the rest of my set of books for my next big literature circle. I have downloaded it to my nook, but it just isn't the same as reading a real paper book. I think what aggravates me the most is having page numbers that don't match up with the actual story. I know in theory they do... but to me they don't.
I wish we had a few weeks to work on the book so that I could incorporate the research guide as well.  Those research guides are such a great idea to work some more challenging information into the story. It seems like the series has gotten harder over time - as Jack and Annie grow too. I finished Night of the New Magicians with my group about two weeks ago, and it had so much more information, facts, non-fiction ties, history, and historical references than Dinosaurs before Dark, or Dingos at Dinnertime. That was so smart - what a way to tie in non-fiction and fiction - I so love the Magic Tree House books :)

When I grow up I want to be Mary Pope Osborne :)

Now to think up some wonderful activities to tie into the book. I am so happy I arranged my curriculum to work on Native Americans in November - it was a good way to bring our social studies and Thanksgiving into the curriculum. I was thinking about building a Native American village and a Plymouth town for the kids to compare and contrast. We are actually studying the Creek and Cherokee Indians - so maybe they can c/c the southeastern tribes to the northeastern tribes... sorry - thinking while typing :) Any other ideas???

Makeover

My blog got a makeover! Special thanks to leelou blogs for the awesome (and free) blog templates! I wish it was this easy to make over my house! :D What am I most excited about??? My super cute favicon! {I must admit: I had NO IDEA what a favicon was until I downloaded the template} BUT it is now one of my favorite things on my page! Yep - it's the little things that keep me happy! hehe.

It has been one yucky, overcast day here. The sky has been threatening rain all day, but so far I've only see a few drops. I have kept the kids inside all day and they are about to run a muck. I haven't been in my classroom all week and I feel so ... ... unprepared??? BUT- my books came in from Amazon and I am super pumped. I need to go and pick up some of the MTH: Thanksgiving on Thursday books. That will be my next literature circle for my high reading group. So keep checking tpt for that unit! Any other books that you like to use in your classroom during this time of the year? Any awesome Native American activities? I've been searching pinterest, without much luck.