My Classroom Library

There are so many fun linkys going on this week, I just couldn't resist joining another one! This time I'm linking up with Amy from Literacy and Laughter! Like me, she also has an obsession with children's literature and is constantly buying books for her classroom! Gotta love that!

So here is my classroom library!

 The books on these shelves are organized alphabetical by author. The bottom right hand shelf has magazines (in the turquoise magazine holder) and then all of our big nonfiction books that don't fit in the baskets.

 On the right hand side of our library are the rest of our nonfiction books on top of the shelf. They are organized in four different baskets: science, animals/environments, California history, and sports. I obviously don't have enough baskets and so the books from some of the baskets are overflowing and the I would really like to have more specific categories. This is why I don't have tags up for all the baskets yet... I am still trying to figure out what I what them to be for the future! I should probably put something up for the time being, but the kids know by looking at the books what each basket is for!

 On the lower shelves are more fiction books organized by category. These shelves are tall and very deep, which is great for storing lots of things, but not so great for shelving books. I wish that they weren't square-shaped and that there was a third shelf, but hey, gotta work with what I got!

See what I mean about all the extra space? 

I can fit two more book baskets behind the ones that already are there!

Of course then the kids couldn't see the books as easily though, so I stick to just the baskets in the front.

We have several pillows that the students can either use in the reading corner or move around the classroom during our Daily 5.

I keep my library set-up the same all year. The student who is the "librarian" for the week helps keep it organized and changes out the books on display.

I completely forgot to snap pictures of my kiddos book baskets, so I'll have to take some tomorrow so I can post them up as well!

I would love to label all of the books according to the Fountas and Pinnell reading levels. I love the way they are arranged, but I just think it would be good to help my students make sure they are reading good fit books.

So there it is! Head on over to Amy's blog to see more wonderful classroom libraries!

Lunchbox Linky

I am linking up with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics, who is having her very first linky party!

Everyone so far seems to say that their lunches are not too fun and their lunch boxes are old, however, I have no lunch box (sad, I know!) and my standard lunch usually consists of a mini coke and a salad. Sometimes I will switch it up and have tuna and crackers or campbell's soup, but that is pretty much it for my lunch variety!

I love seeing the fresh fruit that some people have and am thinking I need to add that to my lunch too! I try to keep my lunch simple because it feels like I am always so busy and this is about as easy as it gets! A lot of times I will just pack for the week and bring in a plastic bag on Monday full of my salads and sodas for the week. I would love to have a cute Thirty-one bag like so many teachers have! They are adorable! And then maybe I could get more creative with my lunches... 

but until then, this is about as exciting as it gets!

As far as our lunch time, we start school at 8:15 and go to lunch at 12:10. The kids eat from 12:10-12:30 and then play from 12:30 until 12:50. I have lunch duty 3 times a week, two days I watch them while they eat and the third day I watch them while they play. It's nice because I always get at least 20 minutes to eat lunch. My favorite days though are the two days a week where I get a full 40 minute break! It is definitely appreciated! I just started a homework club this month so on the last Friday of the month, the kids who turned in all their homework for the whole month get to have lunch in the class with me and I will bring in a little treat for them! I am looking forward to this!

If you haven't yet, head on over to Tara's blog to link up!

She is also having a fabulous lunchbox giveaway, which I am really hoping to win because I could definitely use one!

And even if you don't link up, she has a super cute blog with lots of wonderful ideas, so be sure to check it out!

Cause & Effect and a great new blog!

Today I did a mini lesson with my kiddos on cause and effect. First we talked about what the words mean (cause = why something happens; effect = what happened). Then, using the white board, we wrote some fun sample cause/effect sentences and the students had to figure out which part of the sentence was the cause, and which part was the effect.

After they got the hang of cause/effect, I paired them up with a partner and sent them off to write a sentence with a cause and an effect. They had to write the cause in green and the effect in blue. Then they could draw a quick picture to go along with their sentence.

After the partners finished writing their sentences and taping them up on the board, we met on the carpet again and discussed what we noticed about the cause and effect sentences. That is that all of them started with the effect and ending with the cause. We talked about how this is not always the case and came up with some sample sentences where the cause came first, followed by the effect. Then I sent them off again to come up with another sentence that was written in this order.

They had a lot of fun coming up with silly sentences, as you can tell!

Also, I wanted to share a new fabulous blog that I found:

 Misty from Think, Wonder, & Teach started it recently and it is growing fast! It has lots of great resources for grades 3-6 and a super cute blog design!

Head on over there and link up with your grade level section!

Woo hoo for Grade 4 Frappes!

Paper Plate Weaving Step by Step

So as promised, here are step by step pictures to make the paper plate weaving I blogged about several days ago!

I have been having some trouble with uploading pictures to iPhoto recently and some of them turn up completely black... I have been trying to look into it to see if I can figure out what's wrong, but I haven't been able to find out why it's happening! Weird! So there are a couple steps that the pictures didn't show up, but I think these pictures should give you the idea!

Step 1: 

Cut an odd number of small slits around the outside of a paper plate. Make sure that there is an odd number, or else it will not work out right.

Step 2: Take a piece of yarn and wrap it around the paper plate so that it crosses in the front and the yarn is parallel in the back. Tie the piece of yearn in the front.

back

(this is a different color of yarn as the rest of the pictures because I forgot to take this picture the first time around with the purple yarn!)

 Step 3:

(and front view from step 2)

Tie a piece of the same color of yarn to one of the ties on the front of the plate.

(tip: count to make sure that the yarn is in the middle. For example, on my plate there are 15 slits on one side and 16 on the other side)

 Step 4: 

Starting on the side that has one more slit, wrap the yarn around the paper plate with the plate facing up. Going from my step 3 picture, the yarn wraps around the paper plate starting with the slit on the top to the right of the previous yarn, under the plate, and then bring it up through the slit on the bottom left. Then up and over to the right, then under and up on the left. Keep repeating until there are no slits left.

front

Then tie the yarn to another piece on the back.

Step 5:

Take another color of yarn and tie it to one of the ends of the tie on the front of the paper plate.

 Step 6: 

Start from where the yarn is tied and then weave over one piece of the purple yarn, and then under. Over and then under. Make sure that you do this higher up on the plate since the yarn gets twisted close to the center and it is hard to tell which piece of yarn comes next. After you have woven several over and unders at the top, then pull the string tight. Repeat

 This picture is after I have already wove over and under several times and then pulled it tight. It will look like it isn't working for the first few ones, but no worries! Just keep going and will start to come together!

 And now you can see the center starting to form!

 After lots of over and unders, this is what it should look like! The purple color of the original yarn slowly starts to be seen less and less. When you are ready to switch colors, cut the yarn that you are using, but leave enough room to tie a new color of yarn to it.

Step 7:

Pick out a new color of yarn and tie it to the previous piece you were using. As you weave, make sure you push the tied ends of the yarn down so that they stay underneath your weaving.

 Keep on adding new colors as you would like!

Here's another close up on one of the weavings.

 And here is a final product that one of my students made!

I hope that these pictures help give you a better idea of how to do the weaving! It is a really fun project and the kids LOVED it! The beginning can be a little tricky for some of the kids to figure out, so while the rest of my class was finishing up something else I worked with a small group to show them how to start their weavings. Then they helped teach the rest of the students how to do it. It was wonderful and I love to see my students teaching each other!

If you have any questions at all about the weaving, please let me know and I will definitely help you out!

Also, don't forget to head over to Erin Bradley's website to stock up on some of her amazing graphics at 20% off! Just use the code LessonsWithLaugher at checkout! Hurry over there because it ends this Friday, March 23rd! 

And the winner is....

Tara from 4th Grade Frolics!

Thank you all SO much for entering my giveaway! 

I really appreciate it AND am glad to have found so many new, wonderful blogs!

Hope you all had a great Monday!

I'm off to pack for our big field trip tomorrow... taking the train up to Mission San Juan Capistrano!

Woo ooo!

Word Clouds and last day of my giveaway!

Hope everyone had a wonderful St. Patty's Day yesterday!

On Friday we had our St. Patrick's Day celebration,

complete with leprechaun traps

(he got away)

green glitter (of course!)

leprechaun read-alouds

and lots of yummy green food!

We also talked about all the words we knew and learned that we associated with St. Patrick's Day.

Each student made a list of their favorite words and then we used them to make these fabulous word clouds using tagxedo!

Tagxedo is super easy to use and you can make word clouds in all different shapes and color schemes!

On Monday they are going to be uploading the pictures to their blogs so that they can all see each others' wonderful creations and post quality comments about them!

Also, today is the last day of my GIVEAWAY!!!

If you have not entered yet, make sure you head on over and check it out!

And I will leave you with some pictures from our fun St. Patty's day celebration!

Little note that the leprechaun left our class!

Streamers, gold candy, and coins everywhere!

(and it was quite a mess!)

Sorry it's dark the lights were off!

I will be announcing the winner of my giveaway tomorrow so be sure to check back then!

Shamrock BINGO freebie & Linky Party!

Before the St. Patty's Day week comes to an end, I wanted to share with you the fun game we played in math yesterday! We had our chapter math test coming up and I wanted to have a fun way for my kiddos to review for the test, so I created... Shamrock Bingo!

I gave my kids the answers to the problems they were going to be solving and they wrote each answer in a different blank. I told them to mix the answers around and that their Bingo card should look different from everyone else's. 

Then I gave them the question and they had to solve the problem and then find the answer on their Bingo card! They used their white boards to solve the problems. If the answer wasn't on their Bingo card then that meant that they got the wrong answer and they needed to go back and check their work. Then, after most of the kids had finished, I had them check their answers with their team to make sure they had all gotten the correct answer before we moved on to the next question! If someone at their team was struggling, then they could help them out! I love seeing them using great teamwork!

Head on over to my TPT store to download my Shamrock Bingo game for FREE!

Also, my friend Lorraine from Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies is having a linky party especially for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade teacher blogs! If you have an "upper elementary" blog (or if you would like to check out some great ones!) then head on over and take a look! 

Don't forget to sign up for my giveaway and get a great discount on Erin Bradley's designs if you haven't already!

Giveaway and Erin Bradley Surprise!!!

I am so excited to be having my first giveaway thanks to my AMAZING followers!!

I never would have imagined that I would get to over 100 followers this quickly and I am so excited that there are so many people out there who read my blog and who are inspired by my ideas!!

I absolutely love the amazing blogging community and am so thankful for all the sweet comments, emails, and advice that you all have given me!!!

First of all, as a thank you to all of you, I have a special treat!

Last weekend I blogged about our book recommendation tree and got so much wonderful feedback from it!

SO...

If you are interested in making your own fabulous book recommendation tree or if you just loved the beautiful, colorful tags that I used to make it and would like to check out more of Erin's amazing clipart and digital goodies, then head on over to Erin Bradley's website and enter the code: LessonsWithLaughter at checkout for 20% off!

The offer is good now through Friday, March 23, 2012, so make sure you head on over before time runs out! Erin is super sweet and creative and I am so excited for you to be able to check out her amazing work!

The second thing is my giveaway surprise! 

Because I am so thankful for all of my wonderful followers

AND

I love Target... both for its amazing classroom goodies and, well, everything else they sell...

1 lucky winner will be receiving a $25 Target Gift Card!

There are 3 ways you can enter:

(fill out the Rafflecopter below for each one) 

1. Follow my blog (1 entry)

2. Like my new Facebook fan page (1 entry)

3. Post about my giveaway on your blog (2 entries)

The giveaway ends on Sunday, March 18th at midnight!

Good luck and thanks again for being such wonderful followers!

***** It looks like you need to click on "Read More" under my signature to see the Rafflecopter in order to enter... If anyone knows how I can fix it so that it all shows up without having to click to see more, please let me know! *****

Paper Plate Weaving & Facebook

Hope you all had a wonderful Monday! I wanted to share some pictures of our weavings that my students did a few weeks ago when we were finishing up our study on Native Americans. One of the best teachers I know and my amazing mentor, LeAnn, showed me this fun weaving project that she does with her students every year. 

While learning about the different California Native American tribes, students discovered that many tribes used weaving to make all kinds of items, from baskets to blankets and rugs. Although they saw pictures of the final products that were created, they did not realize the process required for weaving. This was a fun way for them to learn and understand how weaving is actually done!

To get the plates ready, I first cut out an odd number of small slits around the outside of the plate. Of course I completely forgot to take pictures along the way, but if you are interested in seeing the process from the beginning let me know and I will recreate it and take pictures for you! But here are pictures of some of their wonderful weavings!

Also, I wanted to send a HUGE thank you to Stacy at Mrs. Johnson's First Grade! She had a special St. Patty's Day giveaway and I was one of the lucky winners! That is the first thing I have won from a blog and I was super excited! She gave me a $20 Amazon Gift Card AND her St. Patrick's Math Center Games! Of course I headed over to Amazon right away and my shipment is being processed as I type! So thank you SO MUCH Stacy for having such a fabulous giveaway!

And last, but not least, I just created a Facebook page fan page for my blog! 

Woo hoo!

Head on over here if you would like to follow it!

Thanks so much! I really appreciate all of you for following my blog and giving me so much inspiration from your wonderful posts as well! And I am planning to have the first giveaway of my own when I reach 100 followers! Keep yours eyes out for it!