Great book for young students. My students have enjoyed reading the book and now it’s time to share it with the others in the class. My reading group has just finished reading, “Because of Winn-Dixie” and I was wondering what to do to wrap it up and found these great sites.  I intend...
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                Literature Circles are great and there are a lot of ways to do them.  I was assigning my students different “jobs” but I felt like some of the students were missing out of the vocabulary building and summarizing work that they needed more practice at, so...
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Chinese New Year is an important Chinese holiday. A few interesting details: It’s believed that it is important to start the New Year off on the right foot, so eating something sweet for breakfast symbolizes a sweet and pleasant beginning. Having new clothes for the New Year is important. It is considered unlucky to...
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While reading “Chasing Vermeer” I found some Vermeer websites to show my students so of his art work.  Then they did this activity of being a reporter for the Hype Park Times.  They could select through paintings by artists, what kind of article (mystery, art fans from outer space, time travel, inventions and honors...
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  “Chasing Vermeer is a puzzle, wrapped in a mystery, disguised as an adventure, and delivered as a work of art.” This activity mirrors what is happening in the story. Calder in the story uses pentominoes to figure out problems. Pentominoes are 5 squares attached on one edge that make 12 different pieces.  They...
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Fact families are really not families of people full of facts but they are groups of numbers that when in addition or subtraction (also multiplication and division) equations work!   The great thing is when kids learn one fact they really know 4! For instance: 3 + 5 = 8 can also be 5 +...
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Looking for something fast and very fun?  I’ve never had a group of children (or adults) that don’t enjoy playing, touching and experimenting with this mixture.  It has many names; Oobleck, Slime, Glurch or Goop and is like Silly Putty. The name Oobleck comes from Dr. Seuss story “Bartholomew and the Oobleck”. Reading the...
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April is poetry month so everyone selected a poem to read to the class.  There were some classics and then there were some that will became new classics!  We had lots of gross ones that made the students laugh.  It was a great way to introduce a variety of poetry to the class. Then...
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Enjoy a small selection of Dr Seuss Quotes to inspire your day. Classic Dr. Seuss – The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat Last week Venee and I kicked off our reading challenge to our classroom of scholars.  If they read 15,000 minutes by 3/28 the director of the school will do something...
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My students are deep in their individual study (we call it Museum) of a chosen topic and I’m having fun learning new things like: Did you know that the Statue of Liberty has a broken shackle on her left ankle?  It represents the breaking from the bondage of slavery. That baby giraffes are 6′...
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