Second Chance Sale

I was so excited when TpT announced this week's boost sale because there was so much that I forgot to purchase during the back-to-school sale! Hopefully I won't miss anything this time. I'm linking up with some amazing bloggers to get some great ideas for those MUST HAVES!

First up, something I did purchase in the sale...Little Red's Genre Posters. These are freaking adorable and fit perfectly along my reading wall. I even made small grayscale copies for my kids to paste in their Read and Respond notebooks.

This is something I have been wanting for awhile. I'm not much of a Star Wars fan or anything, but I just get a huge kick out of these Marzano scale posters! They catch my attention and I know they'll catch the kiddos attention to!

I'm not very good at tooting my own horn, but I really liked using this Poet BINGO set with my 5th graders last year and plan on using it again this year. Hopefully I'll get to do it in April when it is actually poetry month! The students get to choose a variety of poems to read and complete some in depth activities with the poems they choose.

This second chance sale is this Wednesday, August 20. My entire store is discounted, 20% off. Get the extra 10% off with promo code "BOOST" at checkout. 

What did you buy in the last sale? What is in your cart for this one?

BB Part 9 - Poet BINGO

Despite the fact that I have to go back to work next week, I'm getting pretty excited about finishing up my Blog Backlog series, and of course, for VEGAS!

I always tend to be a bit behind on some of those timely activities. Although I really wanted to spend April buried in poetry, we were caught up in other activities, so poetry got pushed into May. A colleague had a pretty neat activity for poetry in which students were to look for poems from different poets, but unfortunately it was a bit ancient and many of the poets were difficult to locate. So, I revised, updated, and added activities for Poet BINGO. 

Students were all give a bingo sheet with 24 different poets on it, some were classical poets, and some were modern. The middle space was a "free choice" space. Depending on time and what you would like to accomplish students can get one bingo, multiple, or blackout (great for differentiation). We checked out pretty much every poetry book from the library and I placed a stack at each table for students to peruse. 

The students kept track of the poems they chose, gave them a star rating, and wrote a comment about it to remember it. Then they used some of the poems to complete the analyze, synthesize, visualize, and compare/contrast. 

If you'd like a copy of Poet BINGO, you can find it here in my store. 

Mother's Day

Last week I was called "mom" by the majority of my class. For some reason I've been called "mom" more this year than any year previous, maybe because I'm getting older I'm more mom-like now. I think it is cute and the kids are less embarrassed when I make it a joke and call them "son" or "daughter" in return. One of the girls told me that she even called her dad Ms. W one day! Although I am not a mother I am mom to fur babies and during the school-day I am mom to my 5th graders. That's just the way I like it!

We've been working on writing some amazing poetry so one of the other 5th grade teachers came up with a really cute idea to make a paper bag scrapbook and fill it with poems written by the kids especially for their moms. It took a lot of time, but since we tied it in to poetry writing we could get away with it. It was worth it because many of the students came to school today talking about how their moms loved their gifts and I even had a mom write me a note of thanks.

To make the book we took 4 paper bags and folded them in half. This allowed the students to have 8 pages and 4 pockets. Inside the pockets the students placed a card with an original poem on it. On the first three pages of the book we were inspired by a pin from Brilliant Beginnings Preschool and did the adorable "Mom,  I love you...to pieces". Then they had the freedom to be creative and they added poetry/art/quotes to the outside of many of the paper bag pages. A couple of hole punches, half of an 12"x12" scrapbook paper, and a piece of ribbon bound it all together. My photos do not capture the greatness of their work. 

My mom came down for the weekend and we had a lovely time. I cooked delicious Persian food for my family and we made sure to appreciate my mom and sister, two incredibly amazing mothers! I hope that Mother's Day was special for you and the mother's in your life.