We've got a Winner and More Chances to Win

And the winner of the $50 Erin Condren gift card is.....

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Angela blogs over at The Teacher's Desk 6 AND She is also celebrating her one year blogging birthday!! How neat is that!?

Her giveaway is still going on so if you're feeling lucky you can head over there. 

It is like giveaway season in blog land right now!! 

Nick from Sweet Rhyme & Pure Reason is also celebrating a year of blogging with a fantastic giveaway. 

AND I'm helping out today with a giveaway over at I'm Lovin' Lit. Erin is also celebrating a year of blogging with a great big giveaway! 

Good luck on entering all the giveaways and thanks so much for reading my blog!!! 

Prefixes and Last Hours of the Giveaway {Five for Friday}

Happy Friday! It's linky time with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share 5 random things from the week. 

I don't know about anyone else, but it's been a rough week for me in the classroom! My mom sent me this little reminder before school this morning and it couldn't have come at a better time. Hang in there, friends! 

We had a 12-4 schedule on Wednesday and only 35 minutes with each class. YIKES!! Good thing I'd bought these prefix/suffix charts from Miss Giraffe during the big sale last week! We glued them into our notebooks and started brainstorming lists of word that had the same prefix and suffix. 

The day after our prefix mini-lesson I asked this question: How does adding a prefix to a word change that word? Then we each picked one word and drew a before and after prefix picture. They did such a great job!! The illustrations were a great way to drive home the point that prefixes change the meaning of a word! 

I'm an official ReadWorker!! I was contacted by ReadWorks.org and asked if I would be willing to participate in their program and of course I said yes!!! ReadWorkers offer feedback on the site's resources and share their insights and ideas as classroom teachers! 

They also sent a book with my package! It was delivered to my room while my students were with me and they were so excited. Everyone wanted me to read it right then. 

Anyone ever read this book? I'd never heard of it, but it is FANTASTIC!! Of course, ReadWorks has a great close reading plan for the book. I can't wait to use this with one. 

There are only a few more hours to enter my giveaway! Good Luck everyone! I can't wait to see who wins!! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Into the Book {Wonderful Websites for Workshop Wednesday}

Hi everyone! I'm linking up with Jivey for Wonderful Websites of Workshop Wednesday. 

I used my 2nd snow day of the week to think, think, think about a site I might not have shared on here before. After some lounging on the couch and TV watching it came to me - Into the Book!

In my mind when I try to think of this website I always refer to it as the purple site, just a little random side note for you! 

The site focuses on 8 different comprehension strategies: prior knowledge, making connections, questions, visualizing, inferring, summarizing, evaluating, and synthesizing. Basically, all the stuff my kiddos still need a lot of practice on!

There two different sides to the side - Kids and Teachers. Here is a screenshot of the teacher side of the site.

Just look at all the information available to teachers for each category!! The books section is awesome - just lists of books that are great for teaching the strategy. The student interactive tab gives you all the info you need before you turn your kiddos loose on the site to play. The links tab has additional teacher materials and even more sites where the students can get practice! 

The kids' side of the site is visually appealing. 

I clicked on the inferring magnifying glass and started on an activity about a pen pal letter. 

After reading the text the kids move the magnifying glass over parts of the text that support an inference and then choose what the inference is. 

Really, you've gotta just get on the site and play around. There are so many great features! I think I'll be pulling out the student site for my kiddos to work on during after school tutoring over the next few weeks! 

Do you use Into the Book? Is there any one part of the site you that you like best? 

Have you entered my giveaway? Click on the picture below to get signed up! 

Sunshine Blogger Award

Alison from Rockin' and Lovin' Learnin' nominated me for the Sunshine Blogger Award!! Thanks, Alison! 

Yay! What a fun game to play along with and get to know other bloggers. 

The rules of the Sunshine Blogger Award are:


1. Post 11 random facts about yourself


2. Answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you


3. Nominate 11 bloggers you think bring sunshine to the world


4. Make up 11 questions for your nominations to answer.

11 Random Facts About Myself

1. I hoard bags...purses, tote bags, any kind of bags. I can't get enough of them. 

2. I am a serial returner of things (like bags). Either I have a lot of buyers remorse or just talk myself into buying things I don't really need! 

3. I love chocolate. 

4. I am almost always cold. *brrr*

5. I live on a farm with horses, cows, pigs, dogs, cats, and chickens. I love it. 

6. Organizing is my thing. Except for the filing cabinets at school that have stuff in them from the 80's.

7. I like to sew and do other sorts of crafts. 

8. I used to clog dance with my sister and it was so much fun! 

9. Bubble baths are the BEST way to end any kind of day. Happy? Take a bath. Sad? Take a bath. Mad? Take a bath. 

10. I went to high school with my husband and never spoke to him until my senior year of college!! This still blows my mind. We even had a class together! 

11. I am an animal lover. Showing me a cute, furry little animal is the quickest way to derail my attention span! 

My questions from Alison: 

1) How long have you been teachin' and what is your absolute favorite grade to teach? (I know that's two questions, but they go together) 8 years and I liked 6th grade the best

2) If you had an opportunity to change one county, state, or national law about teachin', would you change anything? I would require students to take only Reading and Math SOLs (state tests) until 5th grade. At 5th grade Science and 

Social Studies SOLS would be introduced. 

3) Have you ever thought about teachin' abroad?  If so, where? Before I met my husband I thought about joining the Peace Corp and going to Nepal to teach. 

4) If you could go on a shoppin' spree for one day and buy anything you wanted(money would be no object), what would you buy? Organizational/home goods!! 

5) What is your favorite "me time" activity to do? Reading

6) What is one food that you could eat every single day and not get sick of? Chocolate

7) What is your all time favorite children's book title and why should I read this book? Tuck Everlasting because there are so many deep questions about life in there....

8) What is one app or piece of technology that you could not live without? laptop

 
9) If you were in charge of your school for one day, what would you plan for that day? Business as usual. I like a normal routine...and I guess I'm boring! haha 

10) What made you decide to start bloggin'? I'd been a blog stalker for so long I just had to join in on all the fun! 

11) Where should I go on vacation and what should I do there? Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, TN and you should go to Dollywood, Cades Cove, and eat everything!! And I'll come visit you :) 

The 11 Bloggers I nominate are: 

Hunter's Tales from Teaching

Joy in the Journey 

Reading Toward the Stars

2 Fulbright Hugs

Dirt Road Teacher

My Shoe String Life

Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late

Eclectic Educating 

The Techie Teacher

The Library Fox

Reading Queen

Here are the 11 questions for my nominees: 

1. What is one thing that isn't in your curriculum that you wish you could teach? 

2. If you could have an unlimited supply of one food what would it be? 

3. Have you always wanted to be a teacher? 

4. What is your favorite season and why?

5. What is the most unbelievably funny thing you've ever had to say to a child at school? (Don't lick the pencil sharpener?!)

6. Would you rather not have any books to read for 6 months or have to reread the same book for a year? 

7. What is your favorite vacation spot and why? 

8. What is your favorite thing to do on the weekends? 

9. How do you relax at the end of the day? 

10. What is your favorite subject to teach? 

11. What book should I read next? 

It's My Blogiversary and I'm Giving Away an Erin Condren Gift Card!!

On March 3, 2013 I hit publish on my first ever blog post. When I started on this adventure I had no idea how much I would enjoy blogging and getting to know all my readers and other bloggers. I have found this little community to be a place to go for support and  ideas and to share all the ups and downs of teaching. I can't say how much I appreciate everyone who reads my little blog. 

Thanks to The Library Fox for the adorable cupcake graphic! 

To show my appreciation I wanted to giveaway one of my favorite things - Erin Condren!! If you read teacher blogs you've likely heard of her by now. I love the Life Planner. I posted in detail about it here. I'm working on my 3rd Life Planner and I seriously never leave home without it!! 

If you would like to win a $50 Erin Condren gift card all you need to do is enter the Rafflecopter below. I'll announce the winner on Saturday morning. Good luck!! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Creepy Carrots {Must Read Mentor Text}

I've got Spring Fever! I skipped over all the St. Patrick's Day books and went straight to one with bunnies and carrots for today's Must Read Mentor Text linky. Well, on second thought this one may not be your typical Spring book, but it is pretty fun! 

I discovered this book last week at our public library and I just knew my kids would love it. The book tells all about Jasper Rabbit and his creepy carrot problem. I don't want to give away too much of the story because the ending is fantastic! 

Instead of spilling the beans about the book I'll share a few of my favorite illustrations. 

Before I share with you how I used the text in my class, let me just say that this book has some amazing potential for vivid verbs! I am thinking we will have to revisit it and look at that aspect of the book!

I was introducing QAR to my students this past week, so I decided this would be a fun text to use with them. They ate it up!! On Monday I'd told them we would reread the book again the following day and work more with it. The first question the kids had on Tuesday was, "Are we going to read that creepy book again?" 

We started out our QAR study by getting our notebooks prepped and looking at the question categories.

I tried flipping this picture and it looked all crazy and hurt my head, so just imagine it right side up...lol! The left notebook page has question categories and the right side has a foldable with question stems. 

I modeled creating QAR questions using Creepy Carrots on Tuesday and students pitched in on Wednesday when we revisited Love, Splat! Finally, they were ready to work with partners to get even more practice creating questions. 

We are no where near mastering the concept, but the group activity certainly gave me a better idea of who has a handle on asking questions and who will need some more support from me.

You can click here to check out my QAR resources in my TPT store. 

And since you have made it to the end of what feels like the longest post in the world, here is your reward. A little hint of things to come!! 

We're Famous!!

If you know a 4th or 5th grader in Virginia chances are you've heard of the Virginia Trekkers. They are a group of ITRTs from Henrico County who set out to create more resources for students in Virginia Studies classes. Their videos have been a fantastic way for my students in far Southwest Virginia to see the other regions of Virginia. 

Last year we had a 4th grader at our school win a visit from the Trekkers and now we are all famous on their website! The guys played a trivia game with our kids, talked with them about where they had been trekkin' in our region, and shot some footage for their video with our kids. It was like having celebrities in our building! 

We've been keeping a close check on their website and our video is finally up!!

You can click on the picture above to check it out.

Even if you aren't from Virginia you may want to give the Trekkers site a look. They have expanded and have videos from different locations all around the US. There are also a lot of great games and activities on the site.