Informational Text Book Club Packets

Are your students reading enough nonfiction? I have been focusing on getting more informational text into my guided reading plans.

I bought sets of National Geographic Kids books with my Scholastic book club points and made these book club packets.

 I included questions on text features as well as comprehension.

 There is even a related descriptive writing assignment about weather.

I found related videos and included the links in the packets with an optional QR Code for fun.

I grouped them by reading level so you can grab Frogs and Weather or Sharks and Penguins.

As always, I will give away a copy of each new product. Thanks for being a loyal follower!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congrats to Karyn Wilbur on winning the DJ Inkers Gift certificate from my last giveaway!

QR Code Crazy Verbs

My class is CRAZY for QR Codes so I made a verb center for next week.

Click on the picture to visit my store.

 I like to use it as a Read the Room but it could also be used as a traditional center.

The students record the verbs from each card in the box with the matching picture. When their recording sheet is full they go back to each card and scan the QR Code to check their work.  

If you haven't tried QR Codes yet, you need to! Using technology makes learning more fun and this is a super easy way to incorporate it.

If you haven't grabbed my Thanksgiving freebies and entered my DJ Inkers Giveaway click the picture below to take you back to that post.

DJ Inkers Giveaway with Thankful Freebies!

Do you love DJ Inkers clipart? Do you love freebies?

To show my thanks to all the wonderful teachers who share their work and make my teaching better, I have a bunch of freebies for you and a DJ Inkers GIVEAWAY!!

Freebie #1 (click HERE to download)

Clipart By DJ Inkers

Have you tried a QR code center yet? My kids went CRAZY for it! All you need to do is download a free QR Reader app on your iPad, smartphone, etc. and the kids can manage it easily.

Clipart by DJ Inkers (November Dazzle)

I used this as a Read the Room center. The kids went around with their recording sheet on a clipboard. They read the sentence and wrote down the nouns. When they were finished they got an ipad and went back around scanning the QR codes to check their answer!

Freebie # 2 (click HERE to download)
Thanksgiving ABC Order cut and glue. I included 3 options: 1st letter, 2nd letter and 3rd letter!

Clipart from DJ Inkers

On to the GIVEAWAY!!
The nice people at DJ Inkers are letting me giveaway a $10 gift certificate to let you pick out your own clipart!

Just enter via the Rafflecopter Widget below.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A Chilly Update

My furnace won't turn on. It tries, it clicks and hisses but no warm air blows out. Of course this happened over the weekend and when my husband was out of town. My chilly fingers are going to have to make this update brief.

My 2nd graders did the disguise a turkey project I have been doing for years. They wrote their own version of the turkey's escape.

This hamburger had real sesame seeds!

A pile of leaves.

An alien.

A Dodgers player.

A chef

Since we only started cursive a few weeks ago I let them choose if they wanted to write their final draft  in cursive or not. Most were excited and did. Love these kids!

My 1st graders are working on nouns so I adapted this turkey Cara shared a couple years ago. We wrote noun on the belly and brainstormed people, place, and thing examples for the feathers.

The 1st graders also enjoyed reading The Great Turkey Race by Steve Metzger and writing where they think the turkeys went at the end. This worksheet was from Tammy Lee.

I LOVE the Statue of Liberty!

I think the turkeys went to Paris. (See them climbing up the Eiffel Tower?)

The turkeys went to Hawaii.

I'll be back soon with some new things I'm cooking up. Hmm...maybe I should turn on the oven to warm up. 

Thanksgiving Nouns Freebie

We are working on nouns in first grade so I made a quick sorting center to use this week. I plan to use this as a Read the Room but it could also be used at a student's seat.

Click on the picture or {HERE} to download this FREEBIE. I'd love to hear from you if you download it.

I'm off to watch my new favorite show Reign on the CW.  I know they can be kind of cheesy but CW shows are my guilty pleasure since I don't do the Housewives, etc.

Freebie Mental Images, Read the Room and More!

I've been a bad blogger. Sorry friends, you'll have to put these goodies away for next year. I have my 3rd cold so I am not going to beat myself up about it. I am feeling beat up enough already.  :-(

Here's what I have been up to:
 I used this center with my 2nd graders. It practices changing nouns ending in y to plurals. Read the room is always a hit!

Click on the picture to see it in my store.

I found this Halloween poem to use for a mental images lesson with my 1st graders.

 I read the poem twice and then asked them to draw a picture of their visualization. Afterward, each student had a chance to show their picture under the document camera. This led to a great discussion of missed details. For example, one girl made the hat purple instead of black. Check out some of these cute bald witches!

You can grab this freebie by clicking {HERE.}

I used the Skeleton Hiccups and the q-tip art project I usually do with my 1st graders with my 2nd graders instead but I had them write their response in cursive! 

Aren't they doing awesome for only 9 days of cursive instruction?!

The 1st graders read Spookley the Square Pumpkin and LOVED getting to make their own and write about it using descriptive words. This class was into making Spookley babies! LOL.

Okay, I've just finished a WHOLE box of Kleenex so I am calling it a day! I hope my body gets used to the germs at this new school soon!