How bright is your smile?

February is packed full of special holidays and themes-- Groundhog Day and Dental Health Month to name a few.  Let us help you get preapred for all that is to come!  Last week I posted my Hibernation & Groundhog Day Unit and now I've teamed up again with Randi from Teach it with Class to create a Dental Health mega unit!

Head on over to Randi's TPT store to check it out!

It's a February must-have!

--Mrs. Pollard



Rockin' Writing

After finishing up this last round of testing in my classroom, I made it a personal goal to focus on my students' writing.  I'm sure you know how it goes... you have all of these wonderful lessons planned and then reality happens and you just don't get everything done the way you want.  {Please don't tell me I'm alone with this!}  So, I have been stopping anything else that we're doing so that we can write and I have been overjoyed with my students' writing so far this week!  Some of them still have a long way to go, but to see them trying and engaged is a huge step in my eyes.

On Monday we did our weekend story.  We do this every Monday so they are very familiar with the routine.

Here are a few samples:

Yesterday we used  a writing activity from The Teacher Wife's Awesome Adjective Unit about superheros.  Yes, you heard me, superheros.  My kids just about fell out of their chairs when they saw the superheros on their papers.  And, did you know that superhero is a compound word... my kids did and they were pumped!  First, we brainstormed descriptive words as a class and then they went to town writing.  Our class minimum is 3 good sentences, but 4 or 5 are encouraged.  Some kids just couldn't help themselves and went above and beyond to 10 sentences!!

{I'm not sure-- Is Green Lantern.... green?}  :)

Today we did a squiggle story.  Have you heard of these?  You seriously just give the kids a paper with a squiggle on it and they turn it into a picture and then write a story about their creation.  Amazing!  They are so into their writing because they are writing about their creation.  To introduce squiggle writing and get their juices flowing, you could use either of these books: "The Neat Line" {thanks to my teammate for the suggestion} or "Harold and the Purple Crayon".

Here are a few samples:

Tomorrow we'll be writing about a magazine picture/ad.  Students usually love this lesson.  My mom has been so helpful in collecting a huge selection of pictures to use for this activity.  {Thanks, mom!} The uses of magazine pictures are endless.  I highly recommend you start collecting now if you haven't already.  I've run mine through my personal laminator so they should hold up for years.  On Friday, we will be doing a sticker story.

I just love how engaged and excited my kids are about writing this week!  Check out my TPT store to download my newly updated {free} writing paper pack.  It includes weekend story paper and squiggle story paper!  Please leave me some feedback on TPT if you download it!

How's writing going in your classroom?

--Mrs. Pollard

Hibernation Station & Groundhog Day Unit... plus a {freebie}

Hey y'all!  I have teamed up with my teammate Randi from Teach it with Class to make an 84 page unit about hibernation and Groundhog Day.  I am so darn excited about it!  It has loads of stuff in it-- including reading, math, and writing ideas, 4 literacy stations, 4 math stations, 2 crafts, and lots of graphic organizers and writing pages!  My kids always love doing activities about hibernating animals and learning about the silly groundhog who pops up to see his shadow.

Click {here} to check it out in my TPT store!

And now, about that {freebie} promised in the post title.... head on over to Randi's blog to check out all of her wonderful ideas and resources.  If you become a follower and leave your email in her post comments, she'll email you a 10 page groundhog freebie!  How awesome is that?  She also has tons of other freebies in her TPT store.  Check her out!

--Mrs. Pollard