Post your favorite author study!

Hi all!  Which author studies do your students L-O-V-E?  I'm looking ahead and hoping to do an author study in the coming month.  I've put together several author study activities for authors I've loved in the past, but I'm really interested to see the online world's thoughts and add some variety to my old favs.  Can't wait to read your comments!

New Tsu Social Media Site--PERFECT for Teachers!

Woohoo!  I'm excited to be part of the Be Inspired by Teaching Strategies Blog Hop & Giveaway!

So many cool teaching tools you can win!  I've honored to have my "Author Study BUNDLE" in this mix of amazing teachers' products!  Best of luck to everyone!

My favorite "Be Inspired" teaching strategy is incorporating teamwork into my classroom.  I love throwing a quick speed challenge to my students after the mini lesson to get them really fired up about our current topic.

For example, when discussing text structure, I print off a set of these mini text structure bookmarks for each group and laminate them.  I toss a stack of classroom books (usually from our "lost books" bin) and have the table search the texts for clues about each book's text structure.  They scavenge, they debate, they hurry and scurry, and they are super thrilled with themselves when they throw their hands in the air and shout, "TEXT STRUCTURE!" (That's our own little play off of "Bingo!")

You can see the mini bookmarks above, but I actually tie this into our much longer (and one of my favorite units of the year), text structure.  I use an "I Have, Who Has" game, graphic organizers, text structure passages with QR codes, and text structure reference bookmarks to make the topic fun and support my learners while they work.  I put the entire text structure bundle on TPT, both individually and as a set in case you'd like to check it out!  :)

Actually, I just posted my FREE Text Structure Mini Bookmarks (that I discussed above) on Tsu just a few minutes ago and tagged it #teacherfriends.  It now pops up with plenty of other amazing resources that are free!  Love it!

What's Tsu, you ask?  And what in the WORLD does "be your child" even mean?!  Well, the new Tsu social media site (pronounced "Sue") is organized into virtual family trees.  Anyone that signs up under your code (mine is http://www.tsu.co/teachering) becomes your "child" and future members that join under their code become your "grandchildren".

Why do this?  This is the the coolest part!  It's all part of their profit sharing model!  Yes, they SHARE PROFITS with members, because the members are the ones creating the content.  Members are the ones posting pictures, TeachersPayTeachers goodies, and Ryan Gosling memes, so Tsu wants gives back to its content creators.  I love this concept!

Basically, Tsu is used just like a facebook account or blog for sharing content, but the content creator (YOU) gets a cut of the revenue generated on the site because of your entertaining, quality posts.  Not that I'm quitting my job and planning to get rich from posting and sharing my usual content, but hey, currently I don't get a dime for all those posts I share on facebook posts, and I'm more than willing to support a company that values its members.

I'm getting my page set up as we speak, and loving the community of teachers and educational resources I'm discovering.  For example, #teacherfriends is already being used to identify FREE teaching ideas and products, so by searching for that hashtag, you find awesome teaching tools!  

     

Sign up for an account and add me as a friend or follow me for more freebies! See you Tsu-n!

An InLinkz Link-up

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sunday Spotlight!

I'm excited to be taking part in Countless Smart Cookies's Sunday Spotlight!  I knew I just had to spotlight my favorite techie product, my Camping Themed Making Inferences QR Code Game, which will be on SALE for the next 2 days!  I post these camping themed cards around the room and have students roam the room during guided reading groups to complete the accompanying student response sheet.  Students read for clues, make inferences, and take turns checking their answers using our couple Smart devices.  They love the bright, labeled, camping photographs that appear when they scan each card's QR code (go ahead, try it on the QR code below!).  I love how engaged and independent they are while I'm working with another reading group!

Next, let me tell you a little about my awesome friends' TPT stores!

Beth, creator of ElementsofLearning, teaches 3rd grade and her store is filled with great products to kick off your school year and make Math super fun in your classroom.  My personal favorite is her Multiplication Array Scoot!

Terri, creator of Teacher Antics, is our amazing Science Lab teacher and was my partner in crime last year when we both taught 5th grade.  In her store, you'll find some great Science Writing prompts.  She even has one set for free here!  

Their stores are growing all the time, so be sure to check them out and leave some feedback love on their freebies.  :)

Check out even more discounted spotlight products and super teachers at the link up below.

Author Study Fun

Do you conduct author studies in your classroom?  In the past, author studies were a totally foreign concept to me, but I have to admit that I recently became slightly obsessed!  Author studies don't have to include loads of prep time or even lots of teacher knowledge about the author.  Let the students do the learning!

Take note of an author that students seem to enjoy, or ask the Media Specialist for suggestions, then check out every single one of that author's books from the library!  It's the "Find the books, and they shall come" theory.  ;)  Once students see the giant stack of books, their excitement and curiosity steers the project.

 

Buddy reading works really well for author studies, because students naturally enjoy talking about similarities between books they read.  My students simply use their independent reading time in the morning and during Guided Reading to read these books.  After a few days of independent and buddy reading of the author's books (or longer if the author writes novels rather than picture books), I give my students this "Find Someone Who Has Read" activity.  Students roam the room, searching for students that have read each of the books on the page (all written by our author study author, of course).

Afterwards, students buddy up to talk about two of the books they've both read.  They use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the books.

Finally, after loads of lively verbal discussion and note taking, students write 2 paragraphs comparing and contrasting two of our author's books. The writing is always top notch, because of all of the discussion that has taken place prior to this activity.







And there you go!  Author studies can be as simple as that.  You can really do a mini-author study every week. In fact, that's what I'm planning, so I created author study activities for 14 of my favorite children's book authors.

I'll link them here in case you also have a love for author study fun!  :)

Aliki
Byrd Baylor
Chris Van Allsburg
Cynthia Rylant
David Shannon
Dr. Seuss
Eric Carle
Eve Bunting
Jon Scieszka
Judy Blume
Mem Fox
Patricia Polacco
Roald Dahl
Steve Jenkins
Tomie dePaola

Halloween is Coming!

Halloween is my favorite holiday for many reasons, with one of the highlights being the excitement my students have when sharing their weekend fun when they return to school.  I used to allow students to share their festivities by sitting in a circle and taking turns; however, I found that some students were so anxious to share that they would interrupt, others would speak for much to long, and still others were not comfortable sharing in a large group.












I developed a "Find Someone Who" game to allow students to roam around the room talking about their Halloween festivities while practicing listening and speaking skills.  (See the "Find Someone Who" sheet to the left.)

I noticed my students were very excited when they realized they shared a common activity with a classmate, so we decided to take the activity a step further, but having partners create a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting their Halloween weekends.

Students were so into the comparison/contrast activity, that I thought I should try to carry that excitement into writing.  I have a range of writing levels in my classroom, so the comparison/contrast writing form was structured to support all levels with key word boxes and a self-checklist.






I look forward to this activity every year!  How do you welcome your students back from breaks and holidays?  Please share your awesome ideas in the comments below!

Happy Halloween, and happy Teachering!
-Amber

Man, I love this little baby.

This SCOOT Pre/Posttest answer document was born out of a desire to document student learning to show students the progress they were making.  Some of them have NO IDEA how much they are learning and improving!  I set out any set of task cards and have students write in their answers on the left had side.  We then grade it together and graph the PRE side of the Pre/Post graph.  At the conclusion of our unit, I fold the left side of the paper back  few times to hide their previous answers, and then students take the SCOOT assessment again.  They record their answers on the right side this time, we grade it, and then graph the new number correct.  It's so exciting to watch students realize how much they've learned and improved their score!

A happy realization after the fact was that it would also work beautifully as evidence of learning and assessment for my teacher evaluation.  (Nothing like the productive feeling of killing two birds with one stone!)

Water Cycle "What Am I" (I love QR codes!)

Just finishing up teaching the water cycle to my fabulous 4th graders, and thought I'd share my little obsession with you all...I'm in love with QR codes!  Combine that with my love of vibrant photographs, and you get my newest QR code inference game: Water Cycle "What Am I" Task Cards and Picture Match!

Students venture around the room and read the clues.  They are so into it!  I literally have never heard my room so SILENT!  After they've finished writing their responses (check out the student response answer key below), they scan the QR codes check their answers.  

A labeled pic pops up to show them an example of the vocabulary word.  I then print the pictures off for a matching game and for my word wall.  Don't have any way to read QR codes?  No worries, I also created this Water Cycle "What Am I" and Picture Match without QR codes!

How do you use QR codes?  I'd love to hear!

Happy teachering!

-Amber

GIVEAWAY!

I'm taking part in my first ever giveaway!  Countless Smart Cookies is hosting a birthday giveaway today through Wednesday.  Sign up to win!  

There's me!  Down in the left hand corner.  Can you tell I'm excited?  :)

Ever have those student that seem to spend mysteriously large amounts of time in the media center or running errands around the school? I have a few of these, and I found a simple (and cheap!) solution–Dollar Store Timers!  The timers shown are from the Dollar Tree, but any digital timer will work!

First, attach the timer to the media center pass. My library pass is on a long necklace, reducing how many times it’s lost while students search for books. I wrap the necklace string around the plastic stand piece on the back of the timer and then make it stay with a piece of masking tape.

Next, with your students, determine how much time is needed to get to the media center, search, and get back to the classroom. You can even have a few students run some time trails during their media center trips that day. You can always tweak this time as you see fit if it’s too much or too little time. My students use 4 minutes.

Then, teach the students how to set the timer for your chosen time and also STOP the timer’s alarm. I did NOT want my students to be causing a ruckus in the media center, so we practiced hitting the stop button as quickly as possible. This way, IF the timer did go off in the media center, they wouldn’t be distracting others.

Finally, teach the students WHEN to start and stop the timer. The beeping isn’t loud, but I asked my students to set the timer as soon as they stepped out of the classroom and just outside the door when they returned. This way, they weren’t distracting anyone with the tiny “beep beep” the buttons make.

This process really improved the efficiency of every media center visit, made students plan what they would search for before ever reaching the media center, and helped with their time estimation skills. ALSO, the Media Specialist LOVED it. She told me that she wished all the teachers would use the timers, because it eliminated the fooling around that she had to deal with in the media center! She said the students would look down at the timer and then pick up the pace in making their selection.

How do YOU encourage your students to use their time wisely? I’d love to hear your ideas!

Paragraph Attack Video

This is a silly (and educational) video I created to assist my fourth grade students in breaking down reading passages on assessments. I call it "Paragraph Attack!" and it includes circling the title, numbering paragraphs, underlining topic sentences, boxing in important words, and eliminating wrong answers. I have found this strategy gives struggling readers confidence in attacking passages at higher reading levels than they generally read. It gives them a place to start and reminds them that they have the necessary skills to gain meaning from any text.  (If YouTube won't play at your school, like it doesn't play at mine, you can also find it here on TeacherTube to play it for your students!)

Text Structure Bookmark Freebie!

It seems to me that text structure questions come up an awful lot on standardized tests.  I prepare my students with these mini bookmarks.  Students use them to identify the text structure in their book (or a stack of books that I dump on their group’s table during whole class activities).

Print, cut apart, and give each student or group their own set.  Laminate for longer life and reuse again and again!

Make it a game!  Students love the challenge of finding one of each type of structure.