Monday Made It

Today is my final day of summer break, silly me, I spent 5 hours of it at school starting to get ready! This Monday Made It is a bit of a cheat, it's very similar to the same one this time a year ago, but with one important change...

Last year I started using reading workshop in my classroom and I bought cardboard magazine files for the kids to use for book boxes . I even reinforced them with colored duck tape. This year I did the same, but improved them a million times by using....GALAXY duck tape ! How cool is this tape!? Not only does it look amazing, but it fits with our study of space.

The tape really helped reinforce the boxes and they lasted all school year. I ended up tossing most of them though because the white box became dingy form 5th grade fingers. Still, a good investment!

This year I also changed the number styles on the boxes. I did have Ladybug's Teachers's beautiful numbers last year, but I had to laminate and glue them, and several fell off. So, this year I chose a different font for each number, printed them on Avery labels, and slapped them on!

All ready to be filled with OUT OF THIS WORLD books!

Here is my Monday Almost Made It (4thgradefrolics, can you make that a thing?)! My mom bought me this meta cat puzzle. Not only is it a picture of cats, but the puzzle is shaped like a cat. That has made finding edge pieces a bit challenging. I was really hoping to finish it today, but it's not looking likely.

Anchor Charts to Worksheet Tutorial

Alright, I am attempting my first tutorial here! This is how I use PPT to make an anchor chart into a worksheet. It isn't perfect, but it is quick and easy! If you prefer to use Word, the tools and steps are pretty much the same.

We'll be doing a lesson on plot when we return from our fall break, so I created the basic anchor chart and left blanks where we are going to fill it in as a class. Then, I snapped a quick shot with my cell phone and emailed it to myself.

Drag the photo into PPT or use the "insert a picture" tool. I don't want my students to admire my pedicure so it is time to crop this baby!

You can use the "remove background" tool, which either does a fantastic job or a strange one, or just use the crop tool to get rid of whatever happens to be in the background that you don't want. Bye-bye toes!

Resize the photo so that it fills up most of the slide.

Since I didn't bother to get out my DSLR or even open the blinds this photo needed some brightening up. Your photo will probably be better quality than mine. Decide if you need to brighten it up or not.

There are two options that I have used to make my black and white worksheet. It depends on the photo quality, lighting, and sometimes the colors I used on the anchor chart. Here is the grayscale option. You can see that most of the chart is a gray color, and this will mean more ink when you copy it. To get more of a white try option 2.

I find that the "Black and White: 50%" tool usually gets a great contrast. Unfortunately, because I didn't consider lighting when I took the photo I got some nasty shadows on the side. If this happens I would either use option 1, or just crop the shadows off.

Now most of the shadows are gone and I am ready to print my worksheet! I hope my first tutorial was useful!

Reading Workshop - Turn Anchor Charts into Fillable Worksheets

I am currently smack dab in the middle of my fall break. Our district is on a modified year round schedule that I love! We finished up 1st quarter at the end of September and then get two glorious weeks off. This past week we helped my sister move into her new house (congrats sis!), I worked on some new resources (Calendar Math Semester 2 - on sale through tomorrow, and a new Lapbook/Interactive Notebook for the Age of Exploration!), played with my kitties and ratties, saw some friends, and rested my knee (it's still on the mend). Next week we are off on a mini-vacay to Disneyland and California Adventure. We're taking my MIL and she is so excited I think she was packed at least a week ago!

My to-do list is still longer than I will have time for but I desperately need to post some proper blog entries! Today I have a little tip for anchor charts, although I assume I'm not the only teacher that does this. This is my first year doing Reading Workshop and using anchor charts, but I wanted to make them more meaningful and useful to my students. Our first eight anchor charts we created together as a class, the students gave input, I wrote them out, and then I took photos of them and gave them a copy to keep in their notebooks to reference back to.

I promise they are easier to read in reality than on this photo. But I managed to fit all eight on one page. But, I still felt that there was something missing. I wanted the students to have their own mini-anchor charts to fill out as we did as a class. With a few easy steps I quickly turned our anchor charts into fillable worksheets. 

So, I decided to create most of the anchor chart and leave the "notes" part blank. I snapped a quick photo with my cell or point-and-shoot - nothing fancy- and then uploaded them to Word or PPT. Actually, I tried to use Picasa first, but I couldn't get a proper B&W contrast. Microsoft has a great photo filter that easily makes the photo B&W and printable. 

My before photo of the Theme Anchor Chart is sitting on my school computer, so just imagine that the inside of the heart was left blank. In the second photo you can see that my student wrote exactly what we wrote as a class inside the heart. This is hole punched and kept in their Reading Workshop Binders. 

My students were pretty impressed with this. Many couldn't figure out how on earth their worksheet looked exactly like the anchor chart in front of them. Minds were blown! 

Most of the anchor charts I have been using I've borrowed/adapted from Pinterest. Thank you to all those teachers who share their anchor charts for newbies like me. You can follow my anchor chart board to see some of the ideas I've gathered. 

UPDATE: Here is the quick tutorial for making anchor charts into worksheets using PPT.

Reddit Gifts for Teachers ROCKS!

Last year a teacher friend received a bunch of goodies for her classroom from an anonymous gift giver through Reddit's Gifts for Teachers. She reminded me about it this year right before the deadline. I didn't think I would be matched with a gifter as there were over 8,000 teachers applying and about 5,000 gift givers, but I was! A lovely gal from Texas sent my class 60 sticky note pads!

Each of my students has a pencil bag in their Reading Workshop binder that includes a pack of 3" x 3" sticky notes. My students use them daily during independent reading time and I knew that they were going to need more throughout the year, so I asked for this simple gift, but I wasn't expecting so many to arrive! When I brought out the giant stack and explained that an anonymous person gifted them to us they were so appreciative and also excited because now there are color options (I only purchased yellow for them).

Thank you to our awesome gift giver and to Reddit Gifts for Teachers for putting this together!

Reading Workshop - the first four weeks

The past four weeks of school have gone by in the blink of an eye. I've had hardly a moment to even think about taking photos for a blog post. But, I did want to make a quick post about my first experiences with Reading Workshop. I'm using a variety of resources to help me get started from Fountas & Pinnell to Pinterest. The only other teacher I know using it is at another school, so I am lucky to have her as a resource, although I wish we were closer.

So, what have we accomplished in four weeks?
* We built up stamina and we are now reading for 30-40 minutes!
* I have a student who is below a 3rd grade reading level but insists on reading above grade level material. I was able to hook him with with the Fabelhaven audiobook and he is now reading the entire time and is comprehending what he is reading.
* The first week I made some brief observations while the students were reading.
* It took me nearly two weeks but I interviewed each student about their reading. I loved these first conferences and getting to chat with my students.
* I was debating whether or not to complete a BRI assessment or just use the data from their AIMS tests. I decided more data and getting a chance to actually hear their fluency was the best way to go, so I started those last week.
* I'm hoping to get those assessments finished this week and begin small group/guided reading.
* We've completed a variety of mini-lessons with anchor charts and are already becoming better readers!
* We've reflected on our growth and areas for improvement.
* We've read A LOT!

What do I think of Reading Workshop so far?
I absolutely LOVE it! I wish I had learned about this sooner! I'm excited about the growth my students are going to make this year!

On Friday my students wrote me a quick letter about Reading Workshop and I had to share a few of my favorite. It really gives you an idea of how much the students are getting out of it already!

I wrote back to every single student and, although exhausting, I know the students will be appreciative and it will continue to support their growth in reading.

There were a couple of people asking me about the reading interviews that I completed with each student. The point of this is to actually connect with the students as a sort of first or pre-conference and show interest in each of them as a reader. This is not to be handed out for the students to fill out, but for the teacher to actually interview everyone. My Reading Workshop binder is filling up with data, observations, and their interview notes. The interview questions I adapted from Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop: Making Informed Instructional Decisions in Grades 3-6 by Sibberson and Szymusiak. You can get the copy I whipped up, for free, from my Facebook Fan Freebie page! 

Since I am still feeling my way around Reading Workshop I'd love more ideas/resources/links. Send them my way please!

And, I've already purchased some goodies from the HUGE Back-to-School TpT sale. Don't forget it is today and tomorrow only. All items in my store are 20%, plus use the code BTS13 for an extra 10% off!