Non-Fiction Fun - Summer Stash Blog Hop

It’s Wednesday and time for anther blog hop with Minute Mommy. This week we are talking about nonfiction books. And in tune with my book choices from last week, I am again picking Fall books! We are coming up on my favorite time of the year! Can you tell?? Don’t curse me yet, I am NOT wishing summer away, as it is going fast enough on its own.

Can you take field trips? Do they have to be “tied” to something that you are teaching? That is the great thing about this time of year, you can easily tie in what you are teaching to a field trip! At the end of September/beginning of October we start teaching nonfiction. We talk about the basic things to look for in nonfiction books, make anchor charts, and all that good stuff. We apply what we have learned to the books we are reading. Fall is perfect to teach nonfiction, not only for reading, but you can get in Science and life cycles too! So if you choose to read books about apples, and then a little later – pumpkins, you can take a field trip to an orchard that has both! And then you are fulfilling your need to be standard based.

You can use any books you have available to you. The ones in the picture are a few of the ones that I have in my classroom. There are PAGES of books about pumpkins and apples if you search it on Scholastic, Barnes & Noble or Amazon. It all depends on the grade level you teach and what you want to use it for. I've created a quick FREEBIE below to use with any apple and pumpkin book!

Now hop on over to Just Add Students and see what nonfiction books she's picked out!

 Hop hosted by Minute Mommy!

 Sorry for such a short post today, I am fighting a migraine, and it's bed time!

Great adventures await you!

~Kari

An InLinkz Link-up

Summer Book Stash Blog Hop - Seasonal Books

I am back this week with the Book Stash Blog Hop! It was so much fun last Wednesday hopping around and seeing all the different books that other teachers use to teach character education. I even picked up a few new book ideas myself.

This week we are talking about our favorite seasonal books. The two holidays I picked, just happen to be my favorite – Halloween and Christmas! So, keep reading to pick up a  Halloween FREEBIE!

I am sure you have heard of The Little Old Lady Who Wasn’t Afraid of Anything, by Linda Williams. It is a cute story about a little old lady walking through the forest and pieces of clothing follow her, but she isn’t afraid. They follow her home and assemble to make a “scarecrow” with a pumpkin head. She ends up putting him in her garden to scare away the birds. I love reading this story with my kids because of the onomatopoeia that is woven throughout. Each piece of clothing makes an appropriate sound, "the boots went clomp, clomp". My students love to get up and act these out! After reading the story we usually do a sequencing activity and then a fun craftivity of making the scarecrow, in which the kids glue their own faces on the pumpkin! A quick Pinterest search pulls up hundreds of activities to do with this story. 

My second Halloween story is Halloween Sky Ride, by Elizabeth Spurr. This is a cute rhyming story about a witch on her way to a party, and along the way picks up some friends who need help. This is great for a sequencing activity or you could do a writing activity and change the characters that Witch Mildred picks up. Now click the link below, to pick up a worksheet to go along with it!

Now on to my other favorite holiday, Christmas! I love using this gingerbread man unit the last couple weeks before Christmas vacation because both the kids and I need a fun break. These still align with curriculum, and now because you did something academic, you can do something crazy - like make a gingerbread man, or frost and eat one!

I like how the books mostly stay true to the original story, but each take their own little twists. In The Gingerbread Girl, the main character is obviously a girl, while in The Gingerbread Cowboy, he is a cowboy. The only story out of the pictured versions that is really different and doesn’t really follow with the original story is The Gingerbread Pirates. But who doesn’t love doing pirate voices!? The Gingerbread Baby and The Gingerbread Friends, do follow the basic outline of the story, with little changes. These stories lend themselves so well to comparing and contrasting, because there are a lot of similarities, but still some differences. Click the picture below to check out my 2 week long gingerbread man theme unit – You’ll Never Catch Me.

Now seeing that this is a hop, bounce on over to the next blog and see what great seasonal books they have in store for you at Inside and Out with Karen and Kelie!

I hope you are enjoying your day!

Great adventures await you!

           ~Kari

Shout out to Minute Mommy for organizing this hop!

An InLinkz Link-up

Guided Math in Action - Chapter 2

Happy Independence Day! I hope that you are enjoying the holiday with great people!

Chapter 2: Guided Math in a Numerate Environment was mostly the breakdown of each part of a guided math schedule, and a brief description of each. The important thing to remember is that students need to be engaged in independent activities that are meaningful. Talking about math out loud and a student’s reasoning behind their thinking is very important to guided math. Which brings me to another important point Chapter 2 makes, that talking about math vocabulary, both new and old is extremely important. How can a student explain their thinking without the proper background vocabulary to do so?

Here is an example of what the book says a guided math period should contain: 

5-10 minutes *each - calendar, problem/number of the day, math strategy practice

10-12 minutes *each - whole class less/mini lesson, journal/share time

12-15 minutes - (1-3) rotations of math centers/guided math group

So if you do the math, on the low end of the minute spectrum, your math block would be about 70 minutes long. If it was on the long end, it would be about 100 minutes. I have kind of brainstormed how I could cut this time down a bit. Seeing the first month or so would be teaching procedures and how things would work, I would take this time to teach "how to" do the calendar and problem/number of the day. Then when they are independent, these will become a "center" to go to instead of a whole group time. 

Okay, let's break down the sections guided math contains.

Calendar & Word/Number Problem of the Day

It is recommended that students have their own calendar folders, where they each keep their own individual calendar with different activities that go with it. These can also be individualized based upon the students level of expertise. Number of the day is the students taking the given number and showing it different ways: drawing base ten blocks, addition and/or subtraction problems, tally marks, show it in word form, money, or any way that the students can represent the number. 

Whole Class Mini Lesson

This time is a great time to bring in a different way of learning, for example: watching a video clip or reading a book about that days topic. You could teach a song or make an anchor chart about that skill, play a game or introduce a new skill. This would also be a great time to review and or introduce math vocabulary.  

Number Talks and Energizers

Number talks and energizers can be done whole group or during your small group time. You are talking about different strategies or the different ways to model a problem. Energizers help to build fluency. They give an example of a game called "I'm Thinking of a Number". In this game the teacher thinks of a number and the students ask math questions to try to arrive at that number. For example: is the number larger than 50?

Rotations/Math Centers

During this time the teacher is pulling small groups and the rest of the class is working on independent math centers. Here they said that a rotation should only last as long as the age of the student, plus a few minutes. You would do 1-3 rotations based on the amount of time you have for your math block. They also make note to make sure you are seeing your expert groups too!

Share

They stress to not skip this part of your day, because it brings closure to the math time. It also allows for some sharing about what a student did that day at a particular center.

Reflection Questions

1. In what ways do you give students an opportunity to think flexibly about numbers throughout the year? I currently do math whole group, and stick to a worksheet, so that doesn't leave a whole lot of room to think flexibly. We talk about numbers pertaining to what we are learning, but there is no freedom in that. 

2. Do you use a variety of instructional strategies to launch discussions about your current unit of study? The way that math time is run (see above) does not really give students the time to think and explore. 

3. The end of your math period, how do you summarize the learning? Do you write in a class journal to document key takeaways? No, I usually do not summarize our learning for the day. We usually just move right on to the next subject. I also have never used a math journal. I have bought them, with the good intentions of trying them out, but never followed through.

Sitting here just reading my reflection question answers makes me feel terrible. I am missing out on some great math opportunities in my classroom. But I am not just keeping on, here I am on summer vacation reading and learning something new, so that feeling of terrible is going away a little.

I already have several ideas brewing in my head about how I can make this work. My biggest hurdle is going to be student behavior during centers. But I think that if I take that first month and build stamina and hammer procedures and expectations, make my "centers" engaging and keep the time frame on the shorter end, we will be okay!

Thank you for reading! I hope you will stick with me for the whole book, I'm planning a guided math freebie for the end!

Great adventures await you!

              ~Kari

Schools Out Blog Blowout!

I'm teaming up with Kovescence of the Mind and several other teacher bloggers for a Summer Blog Hop! Check out my post and then "hop" on over to the next fabulous blogger for fun, FREEBIES and a chance to win a $100 TpT gift card!!

I'm reading and blogging about three different teacher books this summer, in hopes of expanding my teaching style in the fall. The one that I am most excited to finish is Positive Discipline in the Classroom. It’s all about changing how you approach your students and how you can help them become independent, self-aware learners! And ultimately, isn’t that what we all want!?!

To offer my appreciation for what you do “in the trenches” every day, and for taking the time to read my fledgling blog, I am offering you my “Chewy” Plural Noun Sort for FREE! Grab it today it will only be free till next Saturday (7/9/16). Click the picture above!

Would you like a $100 gift card to TpT? Follow on me on Facebook (Adventures in the Mitten) for a change to win!

Now click that link above to "hop" on over to The Vivacious Teacher to see what goodies she has in store!

Great adventures await you!

              ~Kari

School's Out Blog Blowout

It's still Friday, right?!

I'm really late tonight with my foodie post. I went to the doctor for a sinus infection, then to Kohl's which turned into "Back to School" shopping for my son. I figured I'll pick up a few things here and there, and then I am not buying everything all at once come August! Then it was groceries, which was mistake given the HUGE crowd at Meijer. I finished up my blog post for tomorrow (I promise, you'll want to check it out), and now finally sitting down for today's post. Luckily it's a meal I have made hundreds of times. It's T's "favorite pasta".

This recipe is originally from The Cheese Pusher, and of course I found it on Pinterest. It is another chicken and pasta dish, which is basically what we eat here, because it is something my kids will eat without complaining. I’ll try to do something beef next week.

Creamy Garlic Pasta

I have turned this into a “one pot” meal. As with last week’s post I cook my veggies on the side, because my family likes them soft. So I start my cooking with cutting up my broccoli and putting it on my steamer.

Then I put about 1-2 T of oil in the pan, cut up my chicken and pan fry it with a little garlic and onion powder. While the chicken is cooking, dice up 2-3 cloves of garlic. When it’s finished, I put the chicken in a bowl off to the side.

Add 2 t of olive oil to the pan and sauté the diced up garlic. Then add 2 T of butter and melt. I skip the olive oil part (I occasionally count caloriesJ), and just sauté the garlic straight in the butter. The pan is already messy from the chicken.

Add 3 C of chicken broth and bring to a boil. Put in 8 oz. of angel hair pasta, and continue to boil, but turn down the heat.

 While the pasta is boiling you want to take a block of parmesan cheese and grate it until you have 1 C. I like to make it an overflowing cup. Occasionally stir the pasta! You want to cook the pasta until there almost no liquid left. If you have too much liquid left you have a runny pasta sauce, if you let the noodles absorb it all, it’s an almost sticky pasta sauce.

Throw in the grated parmesan cheese and stir until all the cheese is melted. Add ¾ C of heavy whipping cream and mix together. Return the chicken to the pasta, and serve, but don' forget that broccoli!

I hope you enjoy this quick and simple dish. It is super tasty, and a weekly family favorite!

Great adventure awaits you!

        ~Kari

Summer Book Stash Blog Hop - Character Traits

I am joining up with Minute Mom on Wednesdays for a blog hop about the books I stash away for read alouds! This week we are talking about books that we usually read in the beginning weeks of school – character education/I am special books. These books are a great place to start right out of the gate, because you want to set the right tone for your classroom. Now obviously these books aren't only for the first weeks of school, but throughout the year when things need to be revisited. Now these books are just a handful of 100’s of great books out there, they just happen to be some of my faves!

Have you read Odd Velvet, by Mary E. Whitecomb? It’s a book about this quirky girl, who doesn’t mind being the odd-man out. She brings “different” things to school for show and tell, lunch, and presents for her teacher. The other kids are nice to her, but at the same time very skeptical of her. Velvet has a birthday party, and invites the class to come. They are all hesitant at first, but at the same time curious about what her house is like. So they go to the party and have a great time. Over the course of the school year Velvet grows on them, and they realize she isn’t odd at all, but just a little different. I love the illustrations in this book because they are so colorful! 

This book leads into a great opportunity to talk about how each child is an individual, and how we can celebrate each other’s differences. I am attaching a FREEBIE to go along with it! Click the picture below to pick it up!

Have you had liars in your classroom? Or at home for that matter! I have an almost 6 year old who lies about the most ridiculous stuff! You can bet we will be reading this next book before it goes back to school! Lying Up a Storm, by: Julia Cook is a story about a little boy and his "itty-bitty lies". He talks about how he doesn't tell big lies, but just small insignificant ones. The kids at school pick up on how he tells small lies about everything, and nickname his "Le-Lie". His mom sits down with him and talks to him about how clouds gather to storm when he lies, and with each lie the storm gets bigger. He goes back to school the next day and instead of lying tells the truth and feels great about it! The rhyming makes for an easy read, and the pictures are nicely done as well.

Oh tattling...how I loathe thee! At school or at home, it follows me everywhere! It

is hard sometimes for kids to understand the difference between tattling and reporting/ warning someone. I think that sometimes a lot of it boils down to simply attention, and they don't know how to get it appropriately. In comes one of my next faves - A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue, by: Julia Cook. Do you see an author theme brewing?! She writes great books for hard life problems.
The boy in the story tattles on everyone for EVERYTHING! No one wants to be around him. Then in rides the Tattle Prince, who gives him the rules to tattling vs. reporting/warning someone. When he tattles, his tongue turns yellow with purple spots and grows longer. He learns and uses the tattle rules and all is right in the world (obviously with some happenings in between!) The tattle line is catchy and my kids always love saying it with me. Afterwards we make an anchor chart with the rules and I use the freebie from Run! Miss Nelson's Got the Camera!  (click her blog title to go to the post!)

I'm sure we all have someone whom we didn't like till we actually got to know them! Enemy Pie, by: Derek Munson, is a great example of that. The story is about a young boy who doesn't like Jeremy Ross, another boy in the neighborhood. He seeks his dads help, so dad makes him a pie, and calls it "enemy pie". He won't tell him what is in it, and then gives him stipulations on it. The main character has to play with Jeremy all day before they can have pie. After spending the day with Jeremy he realizes that he isn't so bad after all. He goes to feed the pie to him, but doesn't want to because he likes him now, but there is nothing wrong with the pie! Dad knew that if he got to know him, he would like him. A great activity you could do with this is to have kids write the ingredients to the recipe for a good friend. Another one is there are a few ideas on Pinterest about friendship salad.

I have enjoyed sharing a few of my favorite character education books with you! Please share your faves in the comments below.

Now hop on over to Kelsey at Whole Hearted Teaching for another great list of books! Click that logo below!

Hop hosted by Minute Mommy

Happy reading!
~Kari

An InLinkz Link-up

Guided Math in Action - Chapter 1

It's Monday night, and I just got home a little while ago from my nephews championship baseball game, which they won! My kids are finally asleep and I can sit down and write. I am going to switch my Guided Math books around. So tonight, it's Guided Math in Action, by Dr. Nicki Newton. 

Chapter 1- Guided Math an Introduction is pretty basic. It is an overview of what a guided math lesson in action looks like. Guided math is all about meeting the needs of your students, and giving you the time to pull small groups in order to achieve this. 

While the teacher is meeting with their small group, the rest of the class is working in various centers and independent work, which is also at their level. 

At the end of each chapter are reflection questions to help you think through the chapter.

1. Currently, do all the students in your class feel that they can learn math? I am on summer vacation, but if I think back to my most recent class, no I feel like some of did not feel like they could learn math. It was a struggle for them.

2. What do you do with the students that are frustrated? I would try talking to my kids, seeing if there was an underlying problem. I would ask them if they are honestly paying attention, are they participating in the discussion, are they trying their best? Most of my students would have a problem with one of those three questions, and we would address the best way to solve that problem. If they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, then we would sit down and figure it out. 

3. Does everyone participate in mathematical discussions? The answer to this is definitely no. And the reason why I am reading this book. I am looking for better ways to engage my students, so that I can help them love math, and not be frustrated by it.

4. How do you promote perseverance in your classroom? We talk about giving up, always trying your best, what to do when you get frustrated. I had a student that would instantly shut down every time we took a test. He would complain that the didn't know what he was doing. We sat down and talked about how his attitude would effect the grade he got on the test, and what he could do to fix it. Eventually when I passed out tests and recognized the look, I wouldn't give him his test, I would just tell him to come and get it when he was ready. He almost always did okay once he came and got it, and usually passed. 

This chapter was a short and easy read, but didn't give a whole lot of meat. I can't wait to delve into the upcoming chapters, and learn how I can use this in my classroom in the fall, and make it work! See you next Monday for Chapter 2 - Guided Math in a Numerate Environment; or tomorrow for Chapter 1 of Guided Math: A Framework for Instruction. 

I hope you are having a great week!

Kari

It's Foodie Friday!!

It’s Foodie Friday, and I am super excited to give you my first recipe! It comes from Spoonful of Flavor and a dash of Life. I’ve made it one other time, and the family really liked it (which means something for my picky eaters). I love it because it’s a “one pot” meal. Which means less dishes, and who doesn’t love that?!?

**Disclaimer: I am not a crazy good chef (I like to keep it simple & follow recipes), and am by no means a professional photographer- so please excuse the sorry pictures!

One Pot Creamy Chicken Pasta 

First I cut up the carrots, onion and garlic. I put the carrots (about 1 C) in a boiling pot of water and the garlic (1 clove) and onions (1/2 C) in a large pot with 2 T of olive oil. In the original recipe, you sauté the carrots with the onions, but they didn’t cook well enough for my family last time, so this time I cooked them separately.

Once the onions were good to go, I added the chicken, salt and pepper, and covered the pan so the chicken would cook quicker. While you are waiting mix 3 T flour with about ½ C milk. Once the chicken is cooked, pour in 1 ½ C of chicken broth, and then the flour and milk mixture. Add another 1 C of milk and stir. Once it’s combined, add pasta (8 oz. fettucine). You may need to add more broth to cover the noodles completely, about ½ - 1 C more. I went to use my fettucine, and didn't have enough, so I subbed penne noodles. I figured 8 oz of any kind of noodles, should be the same, this turned out to be a bad idea. They must be thicker or something, because they took 3x as long to cook, and probably 3x as much broth added! No harm done, we just had to wait longer to eat. :)

Bring the mixture to a boil, turn down to low, and cover and cook for 20-25 minutes (or a lot longer if you switched noodles) or until the pasta is cooked to your liking. Make sure to stir it often as the noodles tend to stick the bottom of the pan. At this point, if you haven't already, turn the carrots off and set them aside, leaving them in the water. I added frozen peas to the water, but you don't have to. When the noodles are done, take the lid off, and let sauce thicken for about 5 minutes.  Then add 1 C of shredded cheese, mix, and enjoy!

This is a pretty quick (about an hour all said and done) and tasty dish for the week night. Go ahead and give it a try!

See you next Monday for the first installment of Guided Math! Check out my summer reading/blogging schedule below!

I hope you are having an amazing and restful break!

Kari

Summer Blog Series

Are you ready to join me on a teacher learning adventure? This summer I am going to be reading several different books in hopes of adding their knowledge to mine! You can join me in a couple of different ways: read the book with me and comment below, just follow along and pick up some new skills that I am blogging about, or read along with me and blog about it too. Either way, I hope you will come along with me! Below are the books I am reading and their “tentative” schedule, because you know it is summer vacation after all!

On Mondays I am going to blog about the book: Guided Math: A Framework for Mathematics Instruction. Two of the four books are about Guided Math. I want to incorporate small groups in math, and this seems like a great place to start.

Tuesdays I am joining Anna over at Creative Teacher Resources in reading: Guided Math in Action K-5. This book is about how Guided Math should look, and how you can differentiate your instruction. And should be a good companion read to Mondays book.

Wednesdays are going to be all about behavior with: Positive Discipline in the Classroom. I am looking for something to help change my classroom environment and atmosphere….which starts with us, the teacher!

Friday is going to be all about food! I am looking forward to giving you a simple and quick meal that you can cook on a school night. I may even throw in a crockpot meal or two! If you are like me, you are tired a zombie after school and the last thing you want to do is spend two hours in the kitchen cooking dinner. And don’t get me started on the dishes that come with it!!

So join me once a week – or get crazy and join me all four days! I’m looking forward to a summer of learning, and getting some reading done that doesn’t happen during the school year!

Have a great night, and see you tomorrow!

Kari