Valentine's Day Topper Freebie

Well, my three-day weekend has officially begun and it's going to be a chilly one, but I have just the thing to warm you up! It's my annual Valentine! This year, I grabbed Annie's cheddar bunnies (one of my favorite snacks - extras for Mrs. O!) from Target. I made a cute bunny topper that I wanted to share with you! I used the blue and pink, but I did make two versions and included both in my freebie! Click on the picture below or my freebies tab above to download this freebie.

Have a Happy Valentine's Day! 

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Flashback: Turkeys in Disguise

Last year, when I posted my Turkeys in Disguise product, my students had not yet completed their work. As I prepare to use this in the classroom, I wanted to finally post the work of last year's group!

My Turkeys in Disguise  resource is for intermediate students. I loved all of the Turkeys in Disguise that were out there, but the activities weren't challenging enough to justify their use in a fifth grade classroom. Since we were working on inferring, I decided to come up with my own activity where students disguise their  turkey, but they have to give hints about the disguise so that other students can guess what they are. We did a gallery walk as students put their hints on their desks and made guesses about each one. Then we did a second walk where their "undercover identity" was revealed. My students were engaged and really recognized the connection between this activity and what we had been learning. It was awesome! Here's some of their creations, as well as the bulletin board that I put up that was a big hit in our school!

 

If you're wishing that you had known about this BEFORE Thanksgiving because you would've loved to use it in the classroom, you're in luck! I actually have one of these for Christmas too! You can find it here: 

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Halloween Bulletin Board Idea

Today is a super quick post. I actually did this last year and then totally forgot to share it. So here's my Halloween Bulletin Board from last year:

I googled "haunted house silhouettes" then I found the one that I liked, put a black piece of butcher paper on my board and put the image up on the paper with my document camera. I traced the windows and the outside with white crayon then cut the image out, as well as the windows. I put yellow tissue paper behind the windows and then cut out some ghosts and a fence. It was really quite eye-catching and by calling it Spooktacular Work, you aren't limited in what work you choose!

Just wanted to share that idea with you before October speeds past! I can't even believe that October 15th is THIS WEEK! Slow it down, fall, slow it down!

Have a wonderful Monday! I hope that today is the start of a great week!

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'Twas the Day Before Christmas Break and All Through the Classroom...

My break is officially here! Well, it actually arrived at 12:30 on Friday, but I'm a tad late in posting. I thought that the last week before break was going to be rough, with students jumping out of their skin knowing that break was just a few short days away, but I worked very hard to make sure that we stayed busy, and I kept them engaged by being more entertaining than usual. My biggest concern was the last day, as it was a half day and we had a sing-along mid-morning. I gathered an arsenal of activities thanks to my own creations, TpT, and a couple of great finds via Pinterest.

The first thing that we worked on was my Christmas Wish Assignment. Students enjoyed acknowledging special friends, teachers, and staff and of course, the fact that they were able to decorate their Christmas wishes didn't hurt either, since we don't do a whole lot of coloring in fifth grade.

Download this freebie by clicking this link to TpT

After we finished these up, we had fun with Rachel Lynette's Christmas Would You Rather Questions. These always make for great discussions and I pretty much love anything that Rachel creates! 

I also found a super fun game at Happy Home Fairy. The link to the game can be reached by clicking here: A Super Fun Christmas Game. The students put a paper plate on top of their heads and follow directions (don't we always need practice with that?) to create a holiday picture. It was hilarious and so fun. In fact, my students asked if we could please do it again, so I'll be thinking of some ways to incorporate this in for a brain break. I'll be sure to share when I come up with some different descriptions. I am also thinking that we could tie it in to visualizing somehow. I've got lots of ideas now that I've seen how much fun this was for my class! 

To wrap things up right before our holiday sing-along, we played Christmas I Have, Who Has. What I love about this set from Jason's Online Classroom is that it has great descriptions so students really had to pay attention to determine what the clue was talking about. I love all I Have, Who Has games, and this was the perfect activity to wrap up our time together before the break.

So now I'm on break. I've got a to-do list a mile long but a lot of it simply includes relaxing. It's been a fantastic, but long first four months, and I have been in need of a break for awhile so while there's 1,000 things I could be doing for the classroom, I'm actually going to be sure to enjoy some me time too. I've already started my first read of the break and it's not even a book for the classroom, it's a John Grisham just for me! 

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a relaxing break filled with fantastic memories. My biggest wish has already come true. My husband is home for Christmas. Last year he was deployed to Afghanistan, so I'm thrilled to have him home with me for the holidays. That is surely the greatest gift of all. 

Merry Christmas and thanks for following! 

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Undercover Santa

Well, it's official! I've created another fun inference resource! Since my Turkey in Disguise was a HUGE hit with over 2,000 downloads in less than a month, I decided to keep the fun going with Undercover Santa. I could not have created this resource without the help of Michael Rawls, over at
Monster Wrangler Mike on TpT. I have had a ton of pleasant experiences with him and I just adore his clip art! I've requested two items from him, including these Santas in Disguise and he not only created them, but did it in less than 8 hours! The man is awesome! He's also got a blog over at Crunchy With Ketchup.

Get Undercover Santa Here

This activity was created to support a focus on making inferences in the intermediate grades. If you were to do a web search for "inference riddles", you would see that there are many resources available. One of my favorite ways to teach making an inference is to use riddles to model connecting text to background knowledge or schema. This holiday-themed activity will be a great  reinforcement after a lesson using this riddles.

This activity includes a background story on the "Undercover Santa", which includes the assignment to create a disguise for Santa, who needs to save Christmas from an evil impersonator. There is a brainstorm page, a Santa disguise page (one in boxers and one in long johns, in case you have a preference), and a page to create a letter with clues so that students in the class will be able to read their classmates riddles and infer what Santa's disguise will be BEFORE they see it. An example is included for students who need a visual. I've also included suggestions for use for this resource. 

I'm super excited to do another one of these with my students. As I talked about in my last post, making inferences is a great challenge for my students, and anytime I can make it fun, I'm thrilled! Maybe I should start thinking about other holiday characters that I can disguise! I see more of these in my future.

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Wanted: Turkeys in Disguise

Goodness, gracious! The time certainly does fly. I've been on a bit of a blogging hiatus and I have so much to share, that I am truly not sure where to begin. I hope that you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving with your loved ones. Are you, like me, already on the countdown to Christmas break?

We've been working hard to understand how to infer as we read. This is my sixth year with fifth grade and I always find this to be such a hard strategy for students to use. I've been focusing on it in both science and reading, but my students are still building their way to a solid understanding of this important strategy. They've been working so hard that I really wanted to give them a bit of a break for the short week. I wanted to find something fun to do that would reinforce making inferences. I have always loved all of the wonderful Turkey in Disguise ideas, but none of them were very appropriate for the fifth grade classroom, so decided to take that idea and turn it in to a fifth grade activity by making it an inference riddle. My oh my, what a fantastic time the students had with this! They are already asking if we can do a Santa one (and yes, one is in the works).

Shout out to Monster Wrangler Mike, who makes some fantastic clip art. He posted turkey in disguise clip art which made my creation 1,000 times easier! I used his clip art to decorate the bulletin board outside the classroom and let the students begin to wonder what our assignment would be.

Then it was time to introduce the assignment to the students. They were so excited to disguise the turkey that they took the riddle creation quite seriously and produced some fantastic work. I will take pictures when I return to school on Monday and share the board with all of their fantastic work on it! They loved creating the riddles, disguising their turkeys, and keeping it all top secret from friends. When all were finally displayed, they shared their riddles and guessed what they were before viewing the picture. We had a great discussion about how they had made inferences based on the clues that they read. I think we are finally getting there, and having some fun along the way! Hooray!

I have great news! This whole thing is a freebie on TpT! Get it here: Turkey in Disguise Inference Activity

I wonder if any students will disguise Santa as a turkey when I create the Santa one? Heehee!

Enjoy your last couple of days of break! Keep an eye out for a Santa inference activity soon!

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