Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume

 

Ahhh! What else can be said?  This book is the perfect introduction into what thoughts a fourth grader may have on life...especially a fourth grader with an annoying younger brother!  Pee-tah (Peter) and his younger brother, Fudge, have a love hate relationship.  Fudge loves to annoy his older brother and get into his things.  Peter hates everything about his annoying brother.  Not even a chain lock on his bedroom door can help Peter deter his younger brother from annoyance.   Fudge makes a big mistake, one that costs him any future friendship with Peter...he eats Peters pet turtle.  (Yuck!)  

Children will relate to the stories Peter tells.  Any children who love Junie B. Jones or Judy Moody will enjoy the writing done my Judy Blume in this chapter book.

Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea

 

This book takes a classroom of students and describes the events of the school year...the good AND the bad! This book would be an amazing read aloud to discuss point of view and character analysis through the strategy of compare/contrast.

After reading the story the students could also work on a writing piece describing the characters and relating which character may describe them the most.

There are a lot of emotional feelings that are brought up in this story, but they can easily be applied to real life situations that many students could relate to. Students will be hooked in with the storyline and flow of the story. {there are also great cliffhangers that could be stopping points if you are using this story as a read aloud}

100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson

I'm going to be starting a new series of posts on the latest Children's Literature books that I have been reading.  I know that this series will not be as big at first due to the amount of torture reading that I have to do for graduate school.  For now, I'll be sure to post a brief summary of the book as well as a picture of the book cover.  So, up first is a great book called 100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson.

 

This book was about a young boy, Henry, whose parents have been abducted.  He is forced to live with his Aunt and Uncle in Kansas.  Once he arrives, some strange things begin to happen in the attic room he is living in.  He begins to explore and finds many doors are hidden behind the wall.  He, and his cousin, begin to open and explore the doors.  Some are harmless doors that have pleasant feelings associated with them.  One is an ominous door that makes Henry feel uneasy.  

This book is a good read, especially for boys.  It is full of adventure and mystery.  Not sure if there is a sequel, but this book would be a great beginning to a series.  Students who enjoy reading Harry Potter would also enjoy reading this book!

2012-2013 School Year Goal

During my last week off from school, I have been thinking about some goals I would like to set for myself this school year.  I have so enjoyed spending hours minutes on Pinterest and gaining insight from fellow teachers.  {Did I mention that I am being stalked by Karen Sue...I feel that I have made it!}  I have been inspired to spend time getting at least one blog post onto this blog a week!  Having my iPhone Blogger app should make this easy.  I believe that this process will help me focus on why I am doing certain things in my classroom.  Initially, I'll be posting some organizational information as I prepare my classroom, but I'm hoping that I'll move on to some amazing application or creation of lessons as we explore the new land of Common Core! 
Stay tuned! 
{I'll be spending the next few weeks figuring out how to purty up my page, starting with a blog signature, topical index, and creating a new banner at the top.  If you have any knowledge and can help me out, please leave a message below!}

Thoughts on the year...

It's assessment time in fourth grade!  I usually despise this week and all it holds for everyone in the school building, but this year I'm excited to see how the addition of The CAFE has helped my students build the stamina that it takes to perform their best on the test! 

Be ready for some upcoming changes to the blog with a lot of updates to pictures.  This time of year, I can't do anything during testing but walk around the room and think about changes I would like to make for the following school year!  I already have some changes in the mix, and really want to work on de-cluttering the mess in my room!  (I know, most people who visit don't think it's messy, but I see all the ugly stacks that don't add to the instruction going on in my room!) 

I've already planned on changing CAFE to CRAFT, thanks to Kristen at Ladybug Teacher Files!  All bulletin board backgrounds have been replaced with solid black fabric.  I can't wait to show everyone (I know I'm really just showing the one follower that I have...)the amazing results! 

Right now, I'm working on changing the book box labels to match the polk-a-dot theme I have going on.  I also want to change up the labels for the Literacy Boxes my students use as they are beginning to peel off. 

Stay tuned....

My BIG Surprise!

During our staff meeting this past week, a very surprising announcement was made!!!! My classroom will become the proud home of one of the schools new Smart Boards!  

This couldn't have come at a better time.  With the transition to the Core Curriculum, I am doing all kinds of new research and alignment of materials.  I can now add that tool to my box of tricks and find exciting new things to do with my students!  I am so excited!

Listening Center

I've been struggling for some time now to figure out how to get a listening center in my classroom.  We don't have any extra funding for supplies, so I had to ask around for supplies.  Our librarian used some of her Scholastic funds to purchase a head phone jack that turns one plug into ten {or so it seems}.  I excitedly got it out of the box, only to find that the radio I was provided when I came to the school three years ago didn't even have a headphone jack!  {I assumed they all had jacks!!}

Thankfully, I have some amazing parents who save their Boxtop's from products they use!  I received my money from their kind donation and went to Target for a shopping spree! 

I found a radio for $29.00 and a cute little table for $14.00. 

I added some hooks and coordinating stickers to make a cute listening center.

We currently have our reading series on CD which gets used weekly, especially for my lower students.  Now, I am on a hunt to find a great deal on some chapter books, or great upper elementary leveled picture books that I can store close by for students to enjoy!

Valentine's Day Ideas

I have to wholly admit that I am completely addicted to Pinterest!  One of my co-workers even joked around that I have left Facebook because I don't care about the frustrations and nasty stuff that my "friends" want to advertise.  Instead I have moved on to focus on the plans and projects perfect strangers post.  I had to agree...Pinterest appears to be so much more productive.
One of my Pinterest finds revolved around Valentine's Day.  I wanted to do something special for my students and found the perfect valentine.  With a simple paperclip, glue gun, and felt cut-outs I made a simple bookmark for each of my students.

I printed out a simple valentine with a theme of reading, which was perfect for the reading teacher to give to her students.

{Picture of finished product}

All in all, my students LOVED their special valentines!  I'll definitely put this in the file for next year!

Idea!

I may be a complete dork {hold back your comments}, but I do so much reading with all my graduate work and school information. I have such a hard time keeping everything straight! Often, I'll be writing a discussion post that requires a reference citation, but I am at a loss for where that snippet of information has come from.
So, today, after my wildly crazy morning watching four-year-olds tackle their way across the basketball court {yes, you read that right!} I started in on my Reading Teacher Journals. I tabbed each article with a code word to help me see the topics in each journal. {I'm too anal to tear my journals apart...you never know when you may need them all nice and tidy!}.

These are my journals with the tab work from today!

An up close shot of the tabs and the subjects available within each journal.  There are a wide range of topics.

As you can see, this might prove to be beneficial! I can take these and file them into my brand new navy blue file drawers {see previous post}!

A New Pencil Sharpener-Maybe!

I was revisiting my Martin Luther King Jr. lesson plans for the week and came across a writing bulletin board that I have done with my students in the past.  We read about MLK Jr. and make a list of  his accomplishments.  We talk about what he is most known for...his "I Have A Dream!" speech.

The students think about a dream that they might have.  It can be one for their own personal life, our school or their future.  The theme of the lesson is "Every Good Thing Begins with a Dream!"

The students then make a mini head clone out of construction paper.  (They really get into this!)  Their dream then goes in a thought bubble and can be illustrated.  I hang them in the hall on the board to display our various dreams. 

My dream during the year I first taught this lesson revolved around pencil sharpeners.  I believe that by the time January rolled around that year, I had gone through three or four pencil sharpeners.  They were lousy!

I just wanted to find a pencil sharpener that would work!!! {I'm still on the maddening search!}

In my blog stalking, Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade, is offering a giveaway!  {YES! It's supposedly the worlds BEST pencil sharpener!}

So here goes:

Currently:

Listening:  "Waiting for Tomorrow" by Mandisa
Loving:  The laughter that my children bring to my life.
Thinking:  I could really use a snow day to organize my classroom!
Wanting:  One of those really cool pencil sharpeners!
Needing:  The merger mess at school to be done!
OLW:  SUCCESS!

My Lovely Classroom

I thought I would open the doors to my classroom to show you what I live in 40+ hours out of the week!  Keep in mind, we are half way through the school year, and...there may be some messes around. :-)

This picture is from the front of my room.  I love the theme posters that I downloaded from Beth Newingham's post on Scholastic.  She is such an amazing teacher, full of ideas!  The two mailboxes in the back of the room are used for communication with students.  The taller gray one is used for material that needs to go home (i.e. newsletters, notes, monthly lunch menu, etc...)
The shorter mailbox is used for what we call Weeks Worth of Work.  Every Tuesday we send home the graded papers from the previous week.  There is a 1/2 sheet cover letter that gets stapled to the front of the packet.  Parents sign and write notes for the classroom teacher and return it the following day.  This mailbox system replaced a file box.  The mailboxes are much better because I don't lose papers between file folders like I did before.

This picture is taken from the other side of the front of the room.  From this angle you can see my group meeting space.  I also have some tall bookshelves that were made by a friend of mine during my first year of teaching.  They are made up of 4 sections that stack on top of one another.  This makes it nice to rearrange the classroom in many different configurations.  These shelves are currently housing my students literacy boxes. 

This side of the room looks a little cluttered.  I have a string hung across the room and have my Daily 5 "Status of the Class" board hung there.  I also hang strategy posters as we learn them in class along this line.  My 'desk' is in the top left of this picture.  Our rooms are so small, and I realized that MY desk area was taking up about 1/4 of the space of my room.  I decided to do away with it last year, and lived with an empty desk for a month before I actually had it hauled away.  I have NOT regretted it since!  The BLACK HOLE is gone, and I can easily find things in my classroom.

This is the front of my classroom.  My new find from earlier today will probably mean that I'll be able to get rid of the smaller blue bookshelf, and possibly the green one that houses my leveled readers.  

I have the most amazing best friend who teaches down the hall.  We are both implementing the Literacy CAFE this year, and she found the cutest little chef and kitchen theme for us to use in our classrooms.  She is the best! 

This is where I have to share some frustrations...You can see how much room the desk in the front of the room takes up.  I have begged and pleaded and simply asked to have the projectors mounted from the ceiling.  They won't do it...

Frustrating, I know, but being in an old building has it's benefits...

I get to paint my room what ever color (or colors) I want to, which isn't true in the new buildings in our district!  (Plus, my indecisive brain gets to move the room layout as much as I want to!)

I hope you enjoyed the tour!  Come back again real soon!

One little Word

So, in my Blog stalking this week I found a great idea from Farley over at the "Oh' Boy 4th Grade" blog!  (She's wonderful...check her out, if you haven't already!) 

I'm in total agreement that resolutions are stupid.  If I want to set myself up for failure, I'll bake a cake and set it on the counter!  Not sure about you, but failure sets me into a tailspin of comfort eating and depression.  Farley suggests picking One little Word to focus on for the year. 

This is how it works:

You pick ONE LITTLE WORD
and hold onto that word for the year...or longer...
focus on this word until you have mastered it.

During our church service today my word came to me! 
Pastor Brad suggested that not a single resolution would be made for the New Year that would be detrimental to us.  I mean, no one ever makes the resolution to be a horrible parent, or get further into debt.  ALL resolutions are made because we want to improve in some area of our lives. 

So instead of a resolution,I choose to focus on a word this year.  One that I can hold on to and focus on throughout all triumphs and trials 2012 may hold for me... My word...

SUCCESS

(I know...it sounds like an overachiever word!)  But, hear me out!  If success is defined as having victory over areas of weakness, than my word covers a vast amount of areas of my life!  Success in maintaining my weight loss; success in being a good mother, teacher, wife; success for my students on EOG testing and future endeavors of their lives.

I believe the real definition of SUCCESS is doing life the way GOD has called me!  WOW!  We learned today that:
1) God WANTS us to be successful! (1 Kings 2:2-4)
2) Success comes from following God's instructions (Deuteronomy 17:14-20)
3) Not following God's instruction leads to destruction (1 Kings 10:14-15; 1 Kings 10:26-28; 1 Kings 11:1-4)

Not to get too Sunday morning church on ya, but ... WOW!  (Check out those verses and how they're tied together!)

So, my ONE LITTLE WORD for this year is...SUCCESS!  What word would you consider as your focus for this school year?