Hello! Things have been so hectic at home and school, and I've been a really bad blogger! I wanted to pop in quickly and share a few freebies today. These gift card holders are perfect for a quick gift for a colleague, friend, or family member. Just print and add a gift card and you have the perfect, easy gift. They will be free throughout today, so be sure to click on the picture above and grab them now if you want them.

I wanted to share another freebie that I hope to blog more about soon. We have been learning about measurement, and this hopping bunnies activity is perfect this time of year. The students measure their bunnies, then they "hop" them, and measure how far they hopped. There are a few different sheets available in this set, including inches and centimeters. I found these bunnies at Oriental Trading Company here, but you can use the frogs that are sold at the dollar store too. Since this isn't really an Easter activity, you could do it any time of year. You can click on the picture below to download this pack. Be sure to check back, because I will have another measurement freebie with the same idea coming soon!

I hope you are able to use these freebies! Have a wonderful rest of the week and Easter! :)

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Inspired Owl's Corner

Happy Wednesday! I have to run off for a meeting, but I wanted to share my Shades of Meaning Freebie with you first! My ELD students enjoyed this activity so much, and I feel they have a deeper understanding of this challenging concept. 

We began by discussing general words like hot, run, and nice. I showed them how we could look up the words in the thesaurus and find more words that mean basically the same thing, but are more specific. We had some great discussions! They had a hard time deciding the order for some of the synonyms for run. I told them that sometimes I have a hard time deciding the shades of meaning too, but we looked at the definitions for each of them, and this is what the students came up with. They wrote their words on their shades of meaning pencils after organizing them on their white boards.  

The next step of this activity is to write sentences using five of the words. They will be working on this today.

You can grab the freebie by clicking on the picture below. 

This freebie is part of a larger Spring ELA set that you can find here. The pack has more shades of meaning task card practice, as well as apostrophe, commas, verb tense, homophone, prefix, suffix, and parts of speech task cards practice. I love using these in small groups and posting them around the room for my fast finishers to work on.

I hope you find this freebie helpful! Have a great week! :)

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Inspired Owl's Corner

Hello Friends! I've recently heard a few teachers say how slowly the second half of the year drags on. I always think the second half goes by faster than the first! Maybe it's because my class is finally trained and working well together and independently! I have been excited about a few things we are doing in my classroom, and I wanted to share them with you! 

I love the center/literacy station set up I'm using this year. I bought these plastic trays at Target at the beginning of the year. I have also seen similar ones here. Last year I painted the ones I bought at Target Dollar Spot. Click here to see how I painted those. Some of them are chipping now, but I plan to give them another good coat of paint this summer. (The pictures below are a few of the activities from my Spring ELA Pack.)

 

I've used literacy stations in a few different ways this year. One way I have used them is by having the students in numbered heterogenous groups. I've also numbered the centers with clothes pins as you can see in the picture above. I assign a responsible student to be in charge of the answer key for each group. Each group is rotated through a new center each day, so it's easy to keep track of which group needs to do the next activity. I have also had a parent volunteer work with the students who are struggling with a particular concept. This has really helped my struggling students. 

  

I have also use the same activities during my ELD time. We are required this year to spend an additional 30 minutes with our ELD students. (This year I have seven of them!) Some days we focus on reading, other days grammar or writing. Shades of meaning was a difficult concept for them, but we practiced during ELD time, and they became my experts, helping the other students when I taught the concept to them. I have seen a significant improvement in my ELD students' progress this year! 

 

Something else I've tried this year is using the clear plastic white boards shown above that I bought from Target Dollar Spot years ago, instead of recording sheets. Not only does it save me time, money, and paper, but I am able to immediately see the students' responses. Each student is required to write an answer for each task card, so everyone is participating at the same time. This works especially well when the students work with a parent volunteer or me. Sometimes I do like to see the students' recording sheets when they are finished working. 

Do you have any other ideas or tricks you use for center/literacy stations? I would love to hear how you use them in your classroom!

I wanted to share this FUN measurement activity we did on Friday. I really hoped that my measurement unit coincided with Easter this year, but we were able to finally complete this project! The students were placed in groups of five. Each group was given a measuring tape and a plastic hopping bunny. They recorded their measurements during five rounds of each person hopping their bunnies. I loved seeing them work as a team, each person helping to hold down the measuring tapes and the others determining the precise measurement. They did a great job! If you want to grab this freebie, click on the picture below. It also comes with measurement task cards. You can find the bunnies from Oriental Trading here. I have also found similar hopping frogs at The Dollar Tree in the toy section if you would rather use those. They work the same way as the bunnies.

I love getting to the point in the year when the students can work independently. Everyone's hard work has paid off, and now it's time to enjoy our last few months before we have to say goodbye. I plan to make the most of the time we have left.

Have a great week! :)

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Inspired Owl's Corner

Hello and welcome to our Growing Readers and Writers with Mentor Texts Link Up and Giveaway! We are excited you are here, and hope you enjoy our spring book suggestions, lesson ideas, and freebies! We've definitely got you covered for spring! 

Be sure to visit the other bloggers participating in this link up. You will see everyone's blog located at the bottom of this post. There are K-2 and 3-6 resources. Be sure to save each blogger's secret word to enter our giveaway! 

I choose All the Places to Love by Patricia MacLachlan as my mentor text. It is a beautiful story about a boy who lives with his parents and grandparents in the country. It opens with his birth, then continues to poetically detail the special places around his home that he and each member of his family love most, ending with the birth of his baby sister. 

I first read it to my class about 12 years ago. I had just returned to the classroom after taking a year off following the birth of my second child. I hadn't previewed the book before reading it to my students, only heard it was amazing from our school librarian. The words were so beautifully written and poetic. I was missing my girls so much, that by the time I was finished reading the story, I was a sobbing mess! 

When I read it to my class every year, they are moved. Boys and girls will murmur "Awww... that's so sweet!" aloud at the particularly moving moments in the story. I tell them that's precisely why I love this book! There are actually many reasons, but the one I want them to ensure they leave with is understanding the power of words. Even in a short picture book, words can move us. I also tell them to borrow what they learn from this mentor text and practice using powerful, descriptive language in their own writing. 

Before reading All the Places to Love aloud to my students, I pass out a few sticky notes to them. I ask the students to write anything that appeals to them or anything they notice about the story on their sticky notes. They can write memorable language, a connection they have, or anything else relating to the story. When I'm finished reading, I ask each of them to bring up their sticky notes and post them around the poster I have ready for them. We discuss what they wrote on their notes, and I point out the sensory language, similes, metaphors, personification, compound words, and vocabulary as we are discussing their findings. (There are so many teachable moments with this mentor text!) I let the students' observations drive our discussion. 

Next, I have the students take out their Writing Notebooks. As a class, we brainstorm and discuss some of their favorite places. Then I ask students to make a list of the places they love. They always want to begin writing details about their favorite places, but I tell them this is just a list to get ideas to write about. After about ten minutes, I ask them to circle the one that is their favorite. Sometimes it's difficult for students to narrow it down to just one place, but I tell them they can write about their other favorite places another time.  

After students have narrowed down their list to one favorite place, I give them the a Describing My Favorite Place organizer. We review the author's use of sensory details, and I encourage students to write down all of the sensory details they can think of that relate to their favorite places. When they are finished with that, I give them a second organizer to document memories of their favorite place. These two organizers help get them ready to write the rough drafts of their descriptive pieces.  

As an extension, students write a descriptive piece about their favorite place using their graphic organizers to refer to as they write. We go through all of the steps of the writing process, and students complete their final drafts on the writing papers I include in the freebie file. 

You can click on the picture below to grab your freebie! I hope you find this story as wonderful as I have over the years!

This freebie file is part of a larger file that includes spring themed reading and writing graphic organizers that can be used with any picture book and a bonus unit for All the Places to Love with additional activities. You can click on the images below to see this file. 

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Click on the image below to download and keep track of each blogger's mystery word. My mystery word is meadow. Thank you so much for stopping by, and good luck! 

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Inspired Owl's Corner

I am so excited to be hosting this linky with lots of help from my Peeps (the ladies from the blogs on the banner above). We talked about how we wanted to have a fun spring giveaway, and how many of us were reaching personal milestones on Teachers Pay Teachers and celebrating spring birthdays. We reminisced about our classes this year, and the spring resources we love to use. Then the idea for this linky was created! 

Well, I am celebrating a birthday on Tuesday! I won't tell you how old I will be, only that I don't feel that old! My husband plans to take me out to dinner to my favorite restaurant, and I will vow to not order the same thing, but I will! Their chicken piccata is my absolute favorite! They make the most delicious cheddar mashed potatoes and perfectly roasted veggies- whatever is fresh and in season-YUM! They make the best homemade cobblers with vanilla bean ice cream, but I never have room and end up taking half of this home for lunch the next day! 

Has this school year completely flown by for you? I seem to feel that it does every year, but this year it seems to be especially true. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I have had the best year of my teaching career with my 2/3 combo at my new school. Last year at this time I wasn't sure where I'd be, but I am so glad that things worked out the way they did! Don't be afraid to take the plunge and try something new, no matter how scared you might be. It could be just what you need to keep you going and growing as a teacher.

I'm also thankful for all of the amazing bloggers and teachers I have become friends with on Instagram and in the blogging world. You have become my friends and colleagues, my constant go-to's for questions, inspiration and ideas. I have an excitement for teaching that is as strong (or maybe stronger!) as when I stepped foot inside my first classroom almost two decades ago! Thank you for sharing your love of teaching with me! :) I love our community!

I LOVE to teach with seasonally-themed products! My kiddos have been practicing problem solving with this fun growing bundle from PAWSitively Teaching. Since we have gotten our devices, my students haven't gravitated to my task cards during their independent practice time like they used to. I found a solution to that- QR code task cards! The kiddos grab a set of these and off they go with their devices in hand!

What I love about these cards is they are challenging even for my third graders. I can pair students up, have them work independently, or in groups. Included are five sets of cards, and she will be adding more as time goes on. They are a steal at their current price! Click on the picture below to see the set!

Here is a freebie set for you to try out! My kids loved them! 

Both my second and third graders still need a ton of practice with telling time, so I'm excited to be prepped for next week! They are going to be so excited with the spring baskets! I love the versatility of these cards- they can be posted around the room for a fun scoot game or placed inside a cute basket or bag so students can grab them and go. This has been great for me with my combo! This set is a little easier- matching up birdies and baby birdies to the hour, half hour, and quarter hour. These would be fun placed inside plastic eggs and hidden around the room!

I think they are going to love the chick set with the chick eggs! This set is a little more challenging. Student have to read the card and use the clocks on the cards to answer the questions. 

This set will be GREAT for my kiddos who have a strong grasp of time concepts. They will really have to think! 

I've given my "Time for Spring" file a makeover! I loved the clip art in the other set, but I had requests for black line copies, and the clip artist I previously used doesn't sell it for that set, so I gave it a little makeover! Included are task cards and activities for practicing time to the hour, half hour, quarter hour, and minute. There is a complete set in color and black and white! You can click on the picture to see it on TpT. 

My kiddos are learning measurement right now. On Friday, we began part one of a hands-on measurement project. The second graders were "hopping" their bunnies and measuring their distances, and the third graders were "slingshotting" their bunnies and measuring how far they flew with a measuring tape. The students recorded their data for each person for each round. On Monday, they will create their own bar graphs using the winners' data for each round. Last year I bought the hopping bunnies from Oriental Trading Company, and I bought the slingshot bunnies at Target in the Dollar Spot. If you aren't able to find these, I have included a sheet of each with the data included in case you want to have your students make a bar graph. 

I've included a set of measurement task cards to help the students practice. Before they began their hopping and flying bunnies projects, they completed a round of scoot with these cards posted around the room. You could also use them in a work station- just be sure to put them in a cute basket or bag to add to the fun! :) This set comes in black and white too. 

 Click below to grab this freebie. 

I am so appreciative for all the bloggers who have joined us in this linky! Because of their generosity we have three amazing prizes to offer you! Be sure to follow their stores, Facebook Pages, or Blogs in our Rafflecopter to be entered to win! After you have done that, click on their blogs in the linky to see what they blogged about! (You may just find more fun freebies long the way!)

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Inspired Owl's Corner