Our Very First Mystery Reader!

This is once again a Beth Newingham idea!  Family members were asked to sign up to come read in the classroom.  Tyler's uncle sent in some hints about who he might be and my kids tried to determine who was coming in.  I want to get some of the school's staff to do this for me too!  It was a lot of fun.  The book that Tyler's uncle read is called Salt in His Shoes about a young Michael Jordan and how he was not happy with not being taller.  His mother told him that he could put salt in his shoes and that would help him grow more quickly.  I love this book and it was nice to hear a male read it to the kids.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/salt-in-his-shoes-deloris-jordan/1102255161?ean=9780689834196&itm=1&usri=salt%2bin%2bhis%2bshoes%2bmichael%2bjordan%2bin%2bpursuit%2bof%2ba%2bdream

What's Been Going on in 4th Grade Isla Jamestown!

So much going on that it is hard to get to do the fun things I enjoy like searching blogs, pinteresting, and face book!  This weekend I hope to get caught up enough that life gets sort of back to normal!  Since I have been a fourth grade teacher, we have done quite a bit of work in the classroom.  I am sharing some pictures of some of the fun activities that we have been doing.  Most of them I found while surfing through blogs and the web in general.  Not sure where some of them came from because I would find something interesting and just save it to use (hopefully) later.  I would love to give the credit where credit is due...if any of these is your idea, please let me know.

This is a Beth Newingham idea!  I love her and ALL of her ideas.  We are waiting for postcards from everywhere!  Mrs. Newingham's website

This is a CRISS strategy.  A missing person's poster to help with inferring character traits.

We read The OK Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and wrote about the things we were ok at and the things we were fabulous at.

I love Jack Prelutsky...we read Green Giant to get an idea about developing a mind movie when we do our own writing.  The kids kept their eyes closed while I read the poem aloud and then drew what they saw in their minds.  

To practice writing with details, we picked the favorite part of our favorite birthday ever and wrote with details to describe that one favorite part!  This was a wonderful idea from my new teammates!

This is one of my favorites!

I love this one!  This student's favorite part of her favorite birthday was the ring that her dad got for her!

New Position!!!

Today, I was offered and accepted a position at Sabal Elementary in 4th Grade!!!  SO excited!

Target Gift Card Giveaway!

Who doesn't love Target?!  Head on over to Kleinspiration for your chance to win her 500 follower giveaway for a Target Gift Card.  Deadline is Tuesday Aug. 9th.  Follow her directions...there are several ways to be entered!

While surfing around the web today, I came across POM POM POINTERS!  I found it on the NBCT website (National Board for Professional Teaching Standards) ...they were shown oh so briefly in a video of National Board Certified Teachers.  The teacher in the video was using them in a group and announced to use your Pom Pom Pointer and show me this word or that word.  Very cute.  To experiment, I purchased assorted size dowels and assorted size glitter poms.  It's very easy to hot glue the poms to the dowels...takes no time at all.  Very cute idea I thought I should share!  In this Tim Horton's small coffee can are 24 assorted Pom Pom Pointers!

A little book shopping...

So I am in Ottawa for my last weekend.  I leave next week for home.  After the movie today, Joe and I went by Chapter's.  I found some nice bargain books but I came across a book that I had never heard of and it is fabulous!  It's called The Black Book of Colors by Menena Cottin and Rosana Faria.  The whole book has a black background but it talks about different colors on each page...how they sound, or smell, or taste, or feel.  The book is also written in Braille.  The cool thing to me is that after each color is described, the next page is embossed with an image.  For example, the description of red included as tart as a strawberry so the next page had embossed strawberries on it.  I love it and am already thinking of ways I might use it in my class next year!

I can't figure out how to link Barnes and Noble here so you can see a description, but they do have it!

Changing things a bit...

I have not been keeping up with my Canadian adventures on this blog very well...Sorry Jen!  I am hoping that using it as a record keeping tool of my classroom will be more fun for me!  Right now, just looking for a job...hoping that more get posted as we get ssssoooo close to the new school year.  I have learned so much from reading other teachers' blogs and websites this past year.  I really have nothing new to offer...I am tweaking ideas, activities, and lessons for use in Jamestown 2011-2012.  My imaginary classroom is fabulous!  I so hope that I am able to make it all a reality soon.

Stay tuned...