Freedom Quilt and a Freebie!!!

Wow, double "free" in my post title tonight!!

First of all, I am SUPER excited because I uploaded my first item EVER to TPT tonight! Wooo hoo! I had been wanting to make a desk fairy note forever, and then I found these adorable St. Patty's Day monster graphics by the amazing KPM Doodles and decided to make a desk monster note instead! I know my boys will probably like this more than a fairy. :) So here it is.... my first freebie!

Click here to go to my TPT store to download the freebie!

If you use it, please leave me a note and let me know! 

I would really appreciate it!

Next up... our class freedom quilt!

After reading many wonderful books about the Underground Railroad, including Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt by Deborah Hopkinson, I put my students with partners to work on making a square for our classroom freedom quilt. In the story, Clara learns how to sew and makes a quilt with a secret map sewn in from scraps of fabric to show slaves what to look for on the path to freedom. 

Students worked with their partner to create a quilt square from scraps of construction paper that they ripped up. Their squares included symbols and pictures that provided information for the slaves on the Underground Railroad. Then the students had to write what they depicted in their quilt square. Here is the final product!

This lesson was inspired by a lesson that Dr. Nan McDonald did during a reading conference I attended this summer. Dr. McDonald is a huge advocate for integrating the arts into classroom lessons and is so inspirational! Here is her book that includes that lesson along with many other fabulous lessons! 

 Hope you had a great day!

Blogging about Dr. Seuss

So after reading all the exciting Dr. Seuss happenings that are going to be going on this week in many wonderful bloggers' classrooms, I was inspired to let my kids get in on the Dr. Seuss blogging action!

So I logged into our class blog (kidblog.org) and posted this tonight:

One of my favorite Dr. Seuss books is none other than The Lorax!

Another reason I LOVE Dr. Seuss is he is a genius with words. 

Really.

I love so many of his quotes that it was hard to pick out only a few (ok, 8) but these are my favorites that I wanted to share with my kiddos...

Also tomorrow we will be talking about writing quality comments. Some of my kiddos have already posted their first book reviews to our blog, so next step is teaching them how to comment on each others' posts! I am going to be using a WONDERFUL video that Mrs. Yollis created with her 3rd grade class. You can check it out here:

http://yollisclassblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/learning-how-to-comment.html

Hope you all have a spectacular Dr. Seuss Week!

My First Award!

I was so excited to sign on the other night and see that Josh from Mr. B's Beach Brains had awarded me the Liebster Blog award! He has a GREAT blog and I have already gotten so many wonderful ideas from him!

Liebster Award: Given to blogs with less than 200 followers and passed from Blogger to Blogger, each hand picked by the previous recipient. It originated in Germany and means dearest or beloved, and Liebe is the word for love. <3

Here are the rules to accepting the award:

• Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.

• Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you.

• Copy and paste the blog award on your blog.

• Present the Liebster Blog Award to blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed.

• Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog.

I have only been at this for a week and have already found so many wonderful, inspirational blogs! Here are the ones that I would like to give the Liebster Award to:

Krista at Steller Students: I am so glad that I found Krista's blog! She has so many wonderful ideas and we share a love for Erin Condren planners!


Eryn at Elementary Organization: I just found Eryn's blog today on pinterest and it is adorable! She is a fabulous organizer and has adorable labels for EVERYTHING! She also has a great solution to help students remember their login information, which I am definitely going to do for my kiddos!


Vicky at Traditions, Laughter and Happily Ever After: Vicky is another great blogger with lots of ideas to share! I loved reading about her "Mystery Reader" on her classroom website (which she has a link to on her blog) and am thinking about starting something like that with my class!


Cortney at Once Upon a Substitute: Super sweet blog by a substitute/future amazing teacher! Great resources and she even has a TPT store set up!


Michelle at Apples and ABCs: Michelle is my 5th wonderful blog choice! She is a kinder teacher with super creative ideas!! I am already working on a fabulous shamrock math idea that I found on her blog for my 4th graders!


Please check out these great blogs when you get a chance! You'll be happy you did!

Black History Month & My Book Obsession

I am absolutely, positively, obsessed with children's books! It's great for my classroom library, but not so great on my wallet... but I just can't get enough of them! It's literally a joke in my classroom... many of our Mondays begin with a discussion about where I went over the weekend, and the kids all know immediately that I will be talking about some great new books I picked up for them at the bookstore! They even know the name of my favorite bookstore, (and no, it's not B&N)!

We have been reading lots of great books the past few weeks for Black History Month, and the kids have been so interested in learning about slavery and the Civil Rights Movement that I just HAD to go see what other books I could find on the topics! After a trip to the bookstore this evening (not my favorite... it was already closed for the evening), I came home with this bunch:

And here are some of the other great books that we have been reading this month: 

AND I just ordered this one online and should be getting it in the mail this week!

What are you doing for Black History Month? Any good book recommendations I should add to my list?

Kidblog, iPods, & laptops!

So I recently discovered this wonderful site that allows teachers to create a safe blogging environment for their students! I created an account for our class, which includes a blog for me and for each of my students. The blogs are free and private... you can only access them if you have a login and password, so my students (and their parents) can see their classmates' blogs, but no one else can see them. My first post asked students to reflect on their favorite memory from our recent college field trip and they LOVED going on and posting comments! Their next assignment is to post a book review to their own blog. They can even upload a picture of the book to their post! They are so excited about writing their book reviews and being able to read and comment on their classmates' posts and I am thrilled that they are so excited about writing! I am so excited for what else is in store for their blogs, including Wordle creations, Voki character talks, Animoto videos, and character education videos... I will post more about them as they come along!

Also, I recently found two old iPods that I cleaned out and we are now using in our classroom! Some of the apps that my students use the most are Fast Facts (great for multiplication practice because they can choose which facts they need to study, along with how much time they have to answer!), BrainPOP, and Dictionary. We also use the timer for our power writes, Lightning Rod multiplication tests, and to time transitions! I have begun my search for more great iPod apps for the classroom, so definitely let me know if you have any recommendations!

I Education Apps Review is a great resource for finding great apps for the classroom!

I also have two (newish) laptops for my students to use in the classroom now! I am so excited for our technology overhaul after months of only having 2 computers with no hard drive or flash! Hope you all had a great Monday off!

My Teacher Bag

The Clutter-Free Classroom is having a "Let's see your teacher bag linky party!" I love, love, LOVE my teacher bag! I got it on an after-Christmas trip to the outlet mall and was obsessed with the pink interior! I told my hubby I HAD to have the bag, since it was pink! He didn't quite understand why I wanted a bag that I mainly liked the inside of, but that's ok because it's now my bag and I love it! :) AND as a bonus, I have been able to keep it much neater than my old teacher bag! I love the motivation that comes with getting new things! Here's a peek inside: 

 My three FAVORITE books that I carry around with me everyday! Love them!

Notebook from one of my kiddos and notepad for all my random notes and to do lists

 My Erin Condren teacher planner and life planner!!! These are AMAZING and make my planning so much more organized and colorful! AND right now the life planners & gift labels are 40% off! 

 Weekly planning section... Ahhh, isn't it amazing?!

 Thank you notes from our recent field trip... delivering these this weekend

Box of girl scout cookies that I bought from one of my kiddos for one of my trainers

and of course my computer

And that's all! Still nice and clean [and it's been 2 whole months]!

Classroom tour!

Hellloooo everyone! So after months of following lots of AMAZING blogs, I decided to create one of my own! I have been inspired by so many wonderful teachers and hope that maybe I can inspire others by sharing a little of my classroom with all of you! :) I always LOVE looking at other teachers' classrooms, so I thought I'd start off with a little classroom tour of my own! I didn't have time to take recent pictures, so here is a collection of pictures that I've taken since the beginning of the year! Enjoy!

 Back table for group work and meeting with students... this one turned out a little blurry, sorry!

 CAFE board, genres, and reading corner

 Front of the classroom with some wonderful [colorful!!] printables I found on pinterest.

 Side view of the classroom... I LOVE all of the windows and the light they let in!!

[Spooky banner from Halloween... this picture must have been from October :)]

 Student book baskets from the Dollar Tree!

Of course they are now filled with lots of great books!

Thank you Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for the idea!

 The Writing Process board with post-its for each student with their name

 Another shot of our reading corner

 Our reading and writing notebooks! 

More on these later...

 View of the front door, our theme wall, and our bucket fillers board (which now has student names on each of the pockets!)

 Our vocabulary word wall and student picture frames

One last one of the reading corner and jobs board!

[and some fun Chinese lanterns from my wedding! :)]