I'm hosting a for fun linky over at Thinking of Teaching all about the great books you are reading during your down time this summer.

No, not professional books!

Trashy romance novels.

Gripping thrillers.

Tasty cookbooks.

Got a great book?

Come on over and share.

The linky is up and running and I'll be back soon to post my favourite reads of the summer so far.

Sequencing (freebie and a giveaway)

Do your students need practice with sequencing? As you know, this is such an important comprehension skill. In addition to practicing sequencing while reading books together, we do a little activity that we call, "Read and Sequence". I know, not very original. ;) I started making these years ago to go along with my literacy centers. Last year, I bundled all of my Read and Sequence pages into a year-long pack. It was targeted toward first grade but also worked well for 2nd. Most recently, I modified the pack to work for kindergarten. The kindergarten version has picture clues for every sentence. There are also fewer words used. I tried to use mostly sight words, sound-out words, or words that were content-related. 

Most have a 4 step option and a 6 step option.

 

Head on over to my blog to read more about this set of activities!

You can find a camping freebie that I posted last year here:

For fun, I thought I'd give a copy of the COMBO (both kinder and 1st) away here at A Classy Collaboration. Leave me a comment with your email if you'd like a copy! I'll pick a winner and email it tonight. :) (Check the comments tonight for the winner.)

Communication in the Math Classroom!

Hi everyone!
It's Tina from Tina's Teaching Treasures!

This year I have really been focussing on my numeracy program. I felt my kiddos just weren't grasping 'number sense' the way they needed to in order to become successful mathematicians in the upper grades.  Enter: Number Talks!
I was lucky enough to have an AMAZING math guru in my school building and she introduced us to the idea of "number talks".  Kristin, our grade 8 math teacher is seriously amazing (and also super nice and adorable, some people have it all!) and she lead a staff learning journey on Number Talks in the classroom.  It was amazing to see how quickly you can get these up and running, norms set and kids engaged with this strategy.

The book by Sherry Parrish is an amazing place to start.  It is easy to read, had LOTS and LOTS of clear examples and photos and is very teacher friendly. I highly recommend it.

Look at one my student's responses to number talks by the end of the year, that sort of math thinking and awareness makes my teacher heart skip a beat! I love that this easy, '10 minute a day' strategy can help my students in such an important way.

For more math communication ideas, check out my blog post on "Communication in Math"

How do you increase communication and make student thinking visible in the math classroom? Tell me in the comments below!

The 7 Habits, Behavior Management, and Data {with a FREEBIE!}

I am lucky enough to teach at a school that has become a part of the Leader in Me family. We are getting ready to enter our 3rd official year as a Leadership School, and I cannot wait to see the impact this program will have (again) on our students and staff.

When we made the transition and began to incorporate the 7 Habits into our daily routine, I knew it would have an impact on my classroom management strategy. You can read about that decision here.

When we entered this year I found myself with a rather (ahem) challenging group of kiddos. They kept me on my toes and taught me a LOT about patience, love, and perseverance. I also got to know a lot of parents very well, very quickly. :) One of the tools I used when I was talking with parents was this editable clip chart data form.

I filled in the dates for each month across the bottom of the page. At the end of the day, my clip chart coordinator would shade in the box beside each kiddo's name. The clip chart coordinator brought it to me to check after they were finished. This let me keep track of how everyone ended their day.  It also became a great conferencing tool when I sat down with parents and kiddos alike. The kids kept track of their personal behavior on a calendar that went home each day.

When we needed to, I sat down with kids one-on-one at the end of the month and helped them set goals for the following month. We checked in with each other once a week (in the mornings, before school started) to see how they were doing in making progress to meet their goal.

You can grab either of these freebies by clicking on the pictures above or by visiting the 7 Habits page on my blog!

Enjoy!

Books-to-Movies Paddington!

http://thepaddingtonmovie.com/

Raise your hand if you love to see favorite books come to life on the big screen!
Yeah....me, too! A few weeks ago at the movie theater, I was intrigued to see that they're actually making the classic children's book Paddington, into a movie! How cool is that?

It's always interesting to see how the director/producer/actor visualizes a story and compare it to the way I've always visualized it myself. In fact, I really like using books that have been made into movies to support visualization. After all, a movie truly is a visualization of literature!

If you've never incorporated the book--movie--let's compare our visualization to the director's, you should give it a try! We always have the most interesting discussions in the classroom! And it's such a neat activity to compare/contrast our visualization to the director's.

Have you ever met Paddington? The first book was published back in 1958, and there are actually more than 20 books! The visualization being depicted in the movie is sure to be interesting...it's being directed by David Heyman, who also directed Harry Potter! Hmmm....that could be interesting! The movie comes out at Christmas (field trip, anyone? I'm thinking about it!).

If you aren't familiar with Paddington...here's a description from the movie: 

PADDINGTON tells the story of the comic misadventures of a young Peruvian bear who travels to the city in search of a home. Finding himself lost and alone, he  begins to realize that city life is not all he had imagined - until he meets the kindly Brown family who read the label around his neck that says "Please look after this bear. Thank you," and offer him a temporary haven. It looks as though his luck has changed until this rarest of bears catches the eye of a museum taxidermist.


It looks adorable...doesn't it? If you'd like to check it out more, just click the top pic to go to the official website, or go check out Paddington's Facebook page! (Yes. He has a Facebook page!)
Now I'd like to hear from you.......

• Do you use movies to support visualization?
• What's your favorite activity to do when working on visualization?

It's Summer! How about a GiVeAwAY?!

Oh my gosh...what a whirwind end of the year! End of the year is exhausting, isn't it?! We ended school on a Friday, & Summer School started the next Monday. Phew! Can you say TIRED?! I did a 2 week summer school stint then a week of work at the SDE Conference (which was also tons of fun!)...I feel like SUMMER HAS JUST BEGUN!!

And what better way to celebrate the beginning of summer than with a giveaway?! I've got some prizes that will help you enjoy your summer just a little bit more.....

Check out my wine sippy cup. LOVE it! Can't you just imagine sitting outside enjoying the view & relaxing? Yup! Kady over at The Printed Poppy makes all kinds of sippy cups...you'll definitely
want to take a look around her store. She graciously offered this adorable (& clever) "I teach therefore I wine" sippy for one of YOU!

I ran across a gal who makes the neatest skirts! She actually makes these uber-adorable skirts from up-cycled Ts! So fun & comfy to wear in the summer. I get loads of compliments on mine! You know what's really cool? You can gather some of your T-shirts, send them to her, & she'll make a custom skirt from them for you! How cool would it be to have a skirt made from all of your concert shirts...or your running shirts...or your kiddos' sports team shirts? I know...right? The one pictured to the right is mine....the one in the pic below is the one the winner will get. Super cute...right?! I'm so excited to be able to giveaway one of these neat skirts on the blog.

Rafflecopter will be choosing TWO winners next Monday - one for the wine sippy and one for the upcycled skirt! Just click the entry options in the rafflecopter below & cross your fingers!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Writing Thief

What have you been reading this summer?

Well, I've been reading The Writing Thief by Ruth Culham.

I definitely could have used this book last year when I was writing the 5th grade writing plan.

Our school was looking to improve our scores on the 5th Grade Georgia Writing Test, so as literacy coach, I wrote the plan. It included daily journal writing, weekly mentor sentences, power writing, paragraph building, practice writing tests, and writing lessons based on the scored domains using mentor texts.

Ruth asks for and embraces change in what we are doing in the classroom to promote writing. We have clear definite scope and sequences for reading, math, science, and social studies but seem to be lacking the same clarity in teaching writing. I find this to be true where I am. A simple thing to note is that when I am in a first grade class, I am teaching capital letters at the beginning of a sentence, and I am doing the same thing in 5th grade classes also.  I am only doing it in 5th because my observations of student writing indicate that they need it. Where is the breakdown? Are we expecting the same mastery of skills in student writing as in reading and math? Something to ponder.

Ruth goes on to discuss some of the dumb things we are doing and how we can turn them around, the relationship of reading and writing, and the importance of excellent teachers teaching the 4Ws of writing.

And that's just the first chapter! Stop by ...

on Monday for more on the 4Ws and using mentor texts to teach writing!