My Night in a Haunted House

Halloween is coming up, and in an attempt to add some fun to our Writing lessons, I decided to have the kids practice elaboration and word choice to describe what they would see, hear, feel and do if they had to spend the night in a haunted house.  I let them make paper houses and each of the sections is where they wrote about the different parts of the story.  I had them complete a rough draft first and then they made changes to spelling, grammar or parts that just didn't make sense.  Then they folded the paper houses and re-wrote and designed their house.  I hope you like it!

Here are a couple of close-ups of the houses that the kids completed.  You can see that after they wrote, they were able to go back and decorate the houses. The front left of the house is what they see, right across from that is what they hear.  On the inside, the left is what they would feel (physical or emotional) and across from that is what they would do.

Here are step-by-step, photo instructions on how to fold the paper houses.  You can also skew the "towers" by having them off-center when folding.  I also traced the outline of the towers on the front so the kids knew where to write on the inside.  

 

Begin with legal size paper and fold in half (hamburger fold). Then with the crease on the top, fold over the sides until they meet but do not overlap in the center.  Meeting in the center will make both towers equal in size.  If you want one short and one tall, have  them meet off-center.  

 

After both sides are folded inward, open one of the side flaps and push your finger up to the point and pop it out.  Then pull down the "roof" so it meets the crease line of the now formed "tower".

Repeat this action to the other side of the house.  At this point, I trace the top of the "roof" line and draw a line down the middle so the students know where to write.  I also have them draw a line across the roof line so they can decorate the "attic".

I hope this gave you some ideas for a fun, student created Halloween Bulletin Board!

Happy Fall

Do you decorate your classroom for the different seasons and holidays?  I sure do!  Living in Florida, the trees don't change and I really miss the different seasons.  I try to incorporate the change in season into my classroom decor.  I added some fake fall leaves over my essential question board.  I use to go along the whole length of my white board, but I just don't seem to have time to go staple crazy these days!  

I have put cobwebs around my apartment, draped around my art and spiders over my doors for years, this time I decided to put them up in my room.  The kids got a kick out of it, and asked me when was the last time the classroom was cleaned!  Haha!  (I did not cover the fire escape window!)

Dollar Tree has these cheap foam pumpkins right now.  I was going to do an elaborate project with them, but I came up with a more focused writing activity to do than the vocabulary activity I was going to do with these!  I decided to cover them in glitter instead and use them to decorate the classroom.

 I have seen variations of these "Where Are We?" displays all over Pinterest.  I decided to create one that goes along with my classroom color scheme and added a little monster holding a sign that identifies our current location.  I put magnets on the black strip.  SPA is what we call Recess.  I joke with my students the first few days that I think that's when they are suppose to let me relax while they do my hair and nails.  Surprisingly, a couple of them always agree that it would be fun!

This are "Common Core Talking Stems" that I found on Pinterest.  There are tons of conversation starters and questions that get the kids thinking about why they answered a question the way they did.  I put them on a ring and placed a set at each table group in their supply tubs.  A big focus at my school this year is Collaborative Pairing.  I incorporate it into as many lessons as I can.  It is very easy to have them answer a question independently and then turn to a neighbor and talk about it, or have them complete work together.

Last year, I made small versions of this math problem solving pencil that I pass out to my students when they take a math test.  I recently decided to make a bigger, poster sized version to hang up in the classroom.  This way, they can reference it during class and also when we take clicker tests on the computer.

Well, these are some of my more recent projects.  This week we will finish our Haunted House writing project.  I am so excited to share that one!! It is a version of a Snow Globe writing project I came up with last year.  It's on my Pinterest because this was long before I created this blog, but I will share it on here at the beginning of December!  Happy Fall, Y'all!! :o)

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

 The time span from September 1st to about January 8th is my favorite stretch of the year!  I simply adore everything about fall, it's probably what I miss most from up north.  (Aside from my family, obviously!)  Winter is my favorite Florida time of the year.  I laugh at my family who have to shovel driveways, scrape windows and need to get all bundled up to go outside.  Right smack dab in the middle of the best month of the year is my BIRTHDAY!!!  October 15th just sounds like a great day.  I'll post a classroom update another day, this one is for me!

To celebrate, my best friends and I went to Universal Studios for Halloween Horror Nights.  We had such a fun time!  The next day we hung out around Orlando, drove through Celebration and went to Downtown Disney.  We went on the 6th to avoid the rush of people closer to actual Halloween.  My brother and I made the mistake of going right before Halloween last year and had to wait in very long lines and only got into about half of the houses.  We made it into all of them this year and didn't wait in too many lines!

A picture I took of my calendar today!  Even though it was a work day and we didn't have kids, I HAD to change the date!  Like I said, best day EVER! 

My 4th grade team gave me a balloon!  It was a great surprise when I came back from a meeting at a different school!  Thanks ladies! 

The holidays are more magical at Disney World!  I would love to own one of these Mickey O Lanterns.  Any idea where I can get one?? Wait until I post pictures of Christmas at Disney!  Magical!  

The day after going to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios, my friends and I drove through Celebration, Florida.  They were having Oktoberfest.  Look at this amazing house decoration we found!  Phenomenal!  

 This year, since I have 44 kids and not the usual 22, I have decided not to make or buy cupcakes... Too much work and a waste of money.  Instead, I have opted to make them cake balls!  (None of my children have food allergies, so don't worry about that!)  I first baked a funfetti cake in a 13" x 9" pan.  Once it cooled a bit, I mixed it all up with half a can of frosting.  Then, I rolled it up into about 1" balls.  I let them set in the refrigerator overnight and tonight I dipped them in white almond bark.  They are a little messy looking, but I'm sure they will taste just fine!

 

I hope everybody is having as great of an October as I am!  Only a month to go until the House of Mouse deems it appropriate to decorate for Christmas, and I follow right along!!

Retelling Bookmark

I'm going to share something else that I use with my students.  I got the original idea from my amazing cooperating teacher during my Student Teaching, Lorissa!  I learned so much during those few months and am so grateful that she opened her classroom to me!  Hopefully, one day I will have my own "Intern" as they call Student Teachers in Florida.

This is a retelling bookmark that you can make with your students.  It can help them out in Reading, obviously, but can also reinforce what they do in Reading class into their own story telling in Writing class.  It is very easy for them to read and understand.  I have the students put it together themselves and talk about each part of a story as we glue the components onto the card stock bookmark. I have posted the file on my TPT account here.

Stretch a Sentence

Yesterday, I taught my students the joy of stretching sentences.  I made up a worksheet for them to complete and then we shared our work with the class.  You can download the file here!  Any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated!! I began the lesson with an Anchor Chart demonstrating how to stretch a sentence.  After the kids understood what I wanted them to do, they each wrote their own.  I had each student share their sentence with the class.  They did a really good job and really understood the lesson.  I then was faced with the challenge of how to display their work?!  Half-sheets aren't always the easiest to hang up in a nice looking way.  I decided to go the route of a quilt.  Since we did this on 9/11, I was in a very patriotic mood so I went with red, white and blue and stars for the display!  I love how it turned out.

This is the worksheet I made.  Be sure to download it!

Anchor Chart

Close-up of finished worksheets.

While we read the sentences they wrote, I called each student up like it was a game show! I would call their name and say that they were the next contestant on "Stretch That SENTENCE!!" and the other kids would say it with me... So fun!

*Cough, Cough*

It's been over a week since my last update.  I was attacked by germ monsters at school and have been resting up a lot.  In addition to being sick, I've been working very diligently on my ESOL certification class I'm taking right now.  Whoever says being a teacher is easy has no clue what they are talking about! Haha!  I have a couple things to share today and hopefully will finish doctoring up a super cool writing activity we did so I can share it soon!

First, I want to give a big shout-out to the ever fabulous VistaPrint!  I purchased the teacher contact information magnets that I gave my families at the beginning of the year from them.  They were wonderful quality and everybody was really impressed with them.  They also have a bunch of items you can get for free, you just have to pay shipping!  I go around every day initialing my students' planners to verify their behavior performance for the day and thought there had to be a better way!  There is, I got a FREE personalized stamp that fits perfectly in the designated spot in their planners.  I used a return address stamp that had a star.  Instead of putting in all 3 lines of information, I just put my name.  It automatically centers and turns out perfectly.  I know that some other teachers at my school are now looking into getting their own personalized stamps.  You should too!

So many of the ideas I find on Pinterest seem like such "Duh!" things.  I use to be a pretty creative person and I feel like Pinterest may be robbing me of my own inventing process.  I think it's making me lazy, if I want to get an idea I just type something in and *poof* hundreds of wonderful, already created ideas pop up.  This is one of those "Duh, why didn't I think of this" ideas.  Hot glue pom poms on the end of dry erase markers to make little erasers for the kids.  It's just like the big erasers I use on the board and saves on tissues or having dirty socks in the room.  I haven't used them yet, but hopefully the kids don't destroy them the first day... We all know how kids are with new things!

And, I leave you with a Transition Anchor Chart.  Hopefully I can break the kids of the "First, Next, Then, Finally" pattern of transitions!  

Writing Review Board

This has been a crazy few days.  I haven't been able to take pictures of any of the things I've done this past week at school, but I have been looking at my pictures from last year to refresh myself and wanted to share a couple of things.

The writing bulletin board was all ideas that my last years class came up with.  We were reviewing for FCAT Writing and were talking about all of the things we had learned.  They came up with the helpful hints and some of our favorite figurative language and verbs and such.

Our explosion of better word choice.  We came up with better ways to say things and discussed them and then wrote our better words on bright pieces of paper.  So fun!

Writing Review Bulletin Board.

Planning pages and helpful hints.

Transitions, Verbs, Figurative Language, Openings and SWBST.

Expository planning visualization.
We do an Oreo lesson at the beginning of the Expository unit to stress that it's just like a double stuffed Oreo.  There needs to be 2 reasons or examples and support for both of those!

Narrative planning visual. 

Metaphors and Idioms

SWBST.  I'll have to look and see if I have a picture of an anchor chart we made using this concept.

Strong verbs, the kids came up with all of these examples.

We took a day to brainstorm what the students thought was most important in their writing and then they came up with the examples and I typed them up and added the pops of color to display in the room.  It's always good to use the students' input and have their ideas validated by making them into a great learning and review tool.  I shared what we made with the other 4th grade classes too, so their work was shared with the whole grade level.  I will definitely be doing this again this year!