Fabulous Fourth Makeover and Sale

Happy Independence Day! The American Revolution Lapbook/Interactive Notebook was one of the first things I created for my class and for TpT, it also happens to be my bestseller! Well, because it was one of the first things I created the cover was unflattering to the product. I figured July 4th was the perfect time for a makeover! I found some pretty adorable graphics from Apples 'n' Acorns that are perfect, I wanted to use all of them, but settled on Thomas Jefferson and George Washington (sorry Ben Franklin!).

Doesn't that cover look so much better! Well, I also decided that I'd put this on sale. A whopping 50% off today! That's a steal! 

Since we are celebrating our country today I figured I'd make my Tour America: State Mobile Project half off as well. Get these two today! 

BB Part 5 - Donors Choose + Sticky Notes = Nonfiction Readers

I hope everyone is having a relaxing and fun summer. Mine is already half over, the first three weeks flew by, and I'm hoping the next three weeks are nice and slow. It's time for part 5 of my 10 part series, Blog Backlog: Playing Catch Up. Today's post is about my Donor's Choose project and a really great resource I purchased from TpT. 

We all know that with Common Core a greater emphasis is placed on reading nonfiction, which, if your school is like mine, lacks in the nonfiction department. Actually, even before CC I had realized the need for more nonfiction, especially as literature sets. When I taught sixth grade I used Donors Choose to get a set of books on Ancient Egypt, which I donated to our library when I moved to fifth. So, this year I decided we needed a class set of books on the Revolutionary War. Last year during our study of the war I had some students in my class "rooting" for the Americans and booing the British. I wanted them to understand that there were always two (or more) sides to a war, and always different perspectives. So, I read them George vs. George by Rosalyn Schanzer, and that helped. This book is at a great reading level for 5th graders, and they loved the graphic novel-like illustrations. I decided this would make a great book to use as a lit study, and so I set up a project through Donors Choose.

I am so grateful to all the donors that made it possible for us to get a class set of the books, they were a hit!

To make our study even more meaningful I purchased this amazing resource from Head Over Heels for Teaching: Reading Nonfiction with Post-its.

I picked out many of the pages from her resource that would coincide with the sections of George vs. George and made them all into a booklet. We glued on a copy of the front cover of GvG to make it official (sorry, forgot to take photos!). The students already had the 3"x 3" sticky notes that they use during Reading Workshop, but they needed the smaller ones for many of the activities. I found four packs of brightly colored ones at Dollar Tree and there were just enough in a stack for each student. 

Thanks Head Over Heels for Teaching for creating this super resource! I know I'll be using it even more this coming school year! And thank you Donors Choose for helping teachers get great resources and projects for our kiddos!

BB Part 1 - State Mobile Projects

Hello! Welcome to Part 1 of my 10 part series Blog Backlog: Playing Catch Up! I'm excited to get started!

Today I'm going to share our state projects. I've said many times how much I enjoy 5th grade social studies. We get to study the history and geography of our United States of America. My team has been trying to figure out how to best fit in the geography portion, which standard wise, isn't huge, but we feel is incredibly important for our kiddos to know. Last year the culminating project was a.....drumroll please...State Poster!!! So exciting - said no student or teacher - EVER. While my students last year did an incredible job on their posters, it just didn't have the novelty and pizzaz I was looking for.

I was inspired by Mr. Hughes NewYear New Me Mobiles. I've had my students create these mobiles two years in a row and I love how they look hanging in my classroom windows. It was time for those to come down and I figured a state mobile would make a beautiful replacement. So, thank you Mr. Hughes for the inspiration!

When I assigned the projects I cut up strips of paper with each state name on it and had students draw one. I took out our own state (which they studied in 4th grade) and other "popular" states that the kids knew quite a bit about already. Some were not thrilled about the state they chose, but once those projects came in, I could tell that they were excited about their project and had a new appreciation for a state they would otherwise not know much, or cared much, about.

Here is the part where I am a bit bummed out, the photos I took did not do their projects justice. I loved grading each one and reading all of the interesting things the discovered about their assigned state and the amazing art they drew.

 Don't those look lovely hanging in the window!

 Students carefully illustrated the state flag, and on the back the state bird and flower. 

 Each student had to locate the capital, two highly populated cities, and illustrate some geographical features on the state map. You can see that the title piece at the top also includes the state nickname. The back of the map included information about the state. 

 I want to visit that beautiful monument - time to travel to Nebraska!

 This was one of my favorite illustrations of an important person. I think Gerald Ford looks a bit like Kid President, don't you?

 A license plate and important person (I forgot who this is...maybe Margaret Mitchell???) from Georgia!

 This student was unexpectedly hospitalized and didn't get to put the mobile together, but he did a fantastic job!

So, that was our state project this year. It was a short, sweet, but meaningful at-home assignment. My class enjoyed completing it, and they loved seeing the projects that their classmates created. I will definitely be doing this again next year!

Interested in having your class complete these state projects as well? I've got the whole project ready to go in my TpT store.

Thanks for joining me for Part 1 of my Blog Backlog! I'll have Part 2 up in a few days!

Confined to the sofa

In my last post I promised more classroom photos, but we've been so busy learning I've been forgetting to take photos, and then, I did something to my knee. It started feeling stiff on Monday, so I figured some yoga would help stretch things out. The next day it felt a bit worse so I went to work anyway, bought a brace after school and iced it. On Wednesday it was even worse so I knew that I needed to get off of it. I went to the chiropractor on Thursday and he said no work for a few days. So I've been confined to the sofa, either in pain or uncomfortable, and having a hard time sleeping. The chiropractor worked on it a bit more on Friday, but I'm still here on the sofa, kinda miserable.

Lesson plans took about 4 hours, but I had a fabulous sub on Thursday and Friday. Today I ventured out to a coffee shop to meet my pal Laura from Daisy's Book Bag to work on some TpT stuff and get some crutches from her. Thanks Laura for the company and crutches! 

While I have been confined to my little nest I've been working on a few things...one new product and spiffying up some of the first things I posted on TpT. They are great products, but my covers weren't the most attractive. When I first started I was hesitant about purchasing clip art and graphics because I was new to the whole thing and wasn't sure what I was getting into. Now I'm kinda going crazy with the digital papers and cute graphics! 

First my new product! Last week I was copying my Biography of a Scientist mini-research project and one of the 3rd grade teachers was checking it out. She said she wanted one for explorers, and I thought, hey, we do explorers in 5th too! I should totally do this! So here is the Biography of an Explorer. Aren't the graphics sweet! 

It was makeover Saturday for a few of my other products! They are so shiny and new now!

       

Next week shall prove interesting. On Wednesday the entire 5th grade is off to JA BizTown and I am so glad that we finished all of the prep work before I had to be out. Hopefully I won't miss out on the simulation on Wednesday!

American Revolution Lapbook Part 1

I've blogged a bit about my American Revolution Lapbook, but it's taken us awhile to get started on it. We needed to read, research, and learn a lot first. But, now that we've started my class is doing a wonderful job. I am amazed by their thoroughness and the quality of their work (although some could do with less chatting and could accomplish more). Here are a few shots of some of our progress.

Some patriotic covers!

* Causes of the war petal book

* Vocabulary fan

* Accordion timeline

Interactive Notebooks - Social Studies

You know when you get in the habit of doing something, like going to the gym on a regular basis, and then something throws you off and it's difficult to get back into the habit. You might have good intentions and tell yourself that you will get to the gym and then it doesn't materialize, well, I was getting like that with blogging. For two weeks we were on fall break. I had a list of things to work on for school and had many blog posts that I wanted to write. But I couldn't get in the right mood to write them. Here I am forcing myself to post in hopes that it becomes more regular again.

Monday and Tuesday were workdays, which are great because you can ease back into waking up early and having a routine. The students headed back on Wednesday and we have been busy ever since. I have tons of things from first quarter that I didn't get to share. We'll see how much gets posted.

One of the new things I have been testing out this year is interactive-style notebooks. Last year I started getting into lapbooking and then found that interactive notebooks had a lot of the same elements. I even discovered that many of the foldables/mini books/etc. aren't that novel either. We set up all of our notebooks with a table of contents and most of the pages include graphic organizers, foldables, mini books, and more meaningful (and colorful) activities).

Today I wanted to highlight just a few from our social studies notebooks.

At the end of each quarter I ask my students to write me a letter telling me how their quarter went. I had several students comment on the notebooks and that they enjoyed the activities that we completed in them. I love that it forces students to read deeper (and not just skim and scan - like they might for a worksheet) and that they get to be creative. It's definitely more meaningful and, to throw out a buzz word, has built in differentiation!

And now, I am also getting back in the habit of going to the gym regularly and my yoga class starts in 25 minutes!

Lapbooking, and the American Revolution Lapbook

This past year I was introduced to Pinterest, which in turn, introduced me to lapbooks. Lapbooks started in the homeschooling community and are making their way into schools. I was immediately drawn to lapbooks because they encompass areas of creativity with the learning process and comprehending academic content. I find that lapbooks are most conducive to history/social studies. Very few materials are needed to get a lapbook started, which makes them that much better for schools in financial crunch.

As soon as I found lapbooking I knew that I had to try it out in the classroom. While studying Ancient China with my 6th graders we put together comprehensive lapbooks that included: the Silk Road, the silk process, the Great Wall, a timeline of dynasties, Confucious' teachings and sayings, Chinese writing sticks, and more! The students loved putting these together because they were constantly creating different foldables, pockets, and mini-books that they got to fill with their learning. The final product was a compact book bursting with knowledge!

This year I am moving to 5th grade and knew immediately that I wanted get those kids hooked on lapbooks too. I had heard the 5th grade team grumble many times about the dreaded social studies textbook and difficulty finding great activities. Well, I think they will be as excited as I am (and the kids will be) about the lapbooks I am designing for the 5th grade content.

So, I started with the American Revolution.....

Some lapbooks have more "pages", but I knew that I wanted to devote plenty of time to each activity, and to also leave time for other activities besides the lapbook, so I narrowed it down to 7 mini-books/foldables/pockets:

* a timeline accordion book

* causes of the revolution petal book

* life in the battlefield flapbook

* important people pocket and cards

* vocabulary fan

* Continental Army vs. British Army flapbook

* major battles tri-fold

I like that each mini-book/foldable is like a little graphic organizer, and the variety keeps things interesting. I also love that students understand that their textbook is not the sole vehicle for learning, but rather a resource that we use in the process of learning. Rather than assigning pages to read, students are searching for the needed information on their own, making learning meaningful and helping students retain information!

I hope that you will consider using lapbooks with your students too! A quick search online will reveal tons of resources (many free) and ideas! If you are interested in purchasing my American Revolution Lapbook which includes teacher directions, blackline masters for all mini-books/foldables/pockets, reflection page, and scoring rubric, please visit my TpT store.

Have you used lapbooks with your students before? What other ideas do you have for making lapbooks even more meaningful for students?