Tried it Tuesday-Published Books

Happy Tuesday everyone! I'm excited to link up with Holly for her linky party Tried it Tuesday.

At the end of November I blogged about a book that my students were writing. The students were working together to create a class book. Each student wrote a different page of the story. We then sent the book to Student Treasures to be published.

Earlier this month the published books came in! My students and I were so excited to rip open the package.

Cover

Title Page

The student's parents had a chance to order a copy of the book. I received a free copy. As I was looking through my copy, I discovered that my book was made of the originals. I was so excited to have them bound together in a book, and my students were so excited to be able to take their books home to their parents.

If you are looking for a fun way to motivate your students to write, I highly recommend you check out getting a book published. It was well worth the time and effort!

Players in Pigtails (Social Studies Mentor Text)

Time certainly does fly by! I can't believe it has been over a week since my last post. I'm excited to link up with Collaboration Cuties to share a social studies mentor text with you.



I'm always on the lookout for books that teach students about something they have never heard of before. Players in Pigtails by Shana Corey does just that. This book is during the time period of World War II, all the men were heading off to war and President Roosevelt became worried that the nation's national past time, baseball, was going to fall apart. Philip Wrigley decided to open it up to girls, and that is how the All American Girls Baseball League began. 


My students love the book. Most of them have never heard that girls played baseball, in fact a few of my boys tried to correct me and tell me that girls play softball. They were amazed that the book was based on a true story. I love using this book during our Historical Fiction Unit.

Do any of you have a favorite mentor text for something that isn't very well-known to students?

Special Things are Happening

Happy Saturday! I hope you have all had a wonderful week! I am so excited to share the big news with you!

Glen and I are so excited! I'm 12 weeks along, and baby Hunter is due July 29th. This means that this will be my last year teaching for a little while. I've always wanted to stay home when our kids were young, and now it is here.

So what does that mean for my little blog? I'll still be keeping this blog devoted to education. I have lots of mentor texts and years of activities/ideas that I look forward to sharing with you. This will mean that as I make new products I'll need some of you, my sweet blogging friends, to try out some stuff in your classrooms. Hope some of you don't mind letting your classes be guinea pigs...

I'm looking forward to my next adventure, and looking forward to sharing it with you!

Fraction Mentor Text-Math Curse

Happy Sunday everyone! I hope you have had a fabulous week. I'm excited to link up with the ladies at Collaboration Cuties to share a math mentor text with you.

Last week my students and I started our fraction unit together. It was a bit interrupted due to a snow day and an early dismissal (pipe burst due to the cold) but we are working on gaining and understanding of fractions. One of my favorite mentor texts to share with them during this unit is Math Curse by Jon Scieska.

Every year that I share this book, my students love it. It starts with a student starting his day and his teacher tells him this:

Everything does become a math problem.

My students laugh at all of the problems and then have an "ah-ha" moment when the student manages to stop the problems. (Which is where the fractions come in.)

I normally share this book with my class as a read-aloud, and then put it at a center for the students to attempt to solve some of the problems that are found in the book. the back cover has the answer key.
 My students love the playfulness of the book.
 

What's your favorite fraction mentor text to use with your students?

A Cold Day Home...and a Giveaway!

Happy Tuesday my friends! I am home today on a "Cold Day." To see the joy on my students' faces when they found out yesterday afternoon that school was cancelled today, you wouldn't have known that they had two weeks off!

Have you heard about a fabulous giveaway going on right now? Two of my favorite bloggers are doing an amazing giveaway! Joanne from Head Over Heels for Teaching, and Holly from Fourth Grade Flipper are doing a HUGE giveaway to celebrate having 1,000 followers! If you stop over there today you can enter to win my Informational Writing Unit as well as other great TPT products and an Amazon gift card!

Hope those of you in the north are staying warm today!

Thursday Throw Down-Making Ornaments

Happy Thursday! It's hard to believe it is already January! I'm linking up with Erin at I'm Lovin Lit for her Thursday Throw Down linky.

Each December my students and I study the genealogy of Christ during our Bible classes. To make the study more interactive and memorable the students make an ornament for the major people that we study.

To kick-off our study, the students make a Christmas wreath using their hands the day before our Thanksgiving Break.

When we come back from Thanksgiving break the students and I start our study. We study the "major" people; Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Rahab, Ruth, King David, King Hezekiah, and King Josiah. Then we also make an ornament of a mini nativity, and a dove-standing for the peace God wants to give us.

Abraham Ornament

Jacob and Issac Ornament

The students love making all the ornaments, and it gives them something to help them remember what we are studying in Bible. It also gives them something to take home at the end of December. Many of the kids hang the wreath in their room, I've even had previous students come back and tell me that they still hang their wreath with the ornaments every year (and they are in high school!)

What do you do to make learning more interactive in your classroom? Head over to Erin's blog to check out other great ideas!

It's Currently 2014

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful, safe night ringing in the new year. I'm linking up with Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade for Currently this morning.

There are lots of fun and exciting things going on at the Hunter house lately...which is part of the reason I haven't been posting here as often as I would like to. In a few weeks I'll be able to fill you all in...and I can't wait to share!

My favorite memory of this Christmas is being woken up by my five-year-old niece. We were staying over my brother's house and his daughter loves when "Auntie Beth" is there. She and I play together for hours. One morning I was sound asleep and woke up to a face-right-in-my-face and a whisper of "Auntie Beth." I jumped which made poor Uncle Glen jump...when I realized it was Anna we both started laughing, she thought it was the funniest thing that she surprised me. She ended up crawling in bed with us and snuggling for another 30 min before the rest of the house woke up. It was a sweet moment, once my heart stopped pounding!

What are you Currently up to today?