Tonight I am linking up with my BBB Holly over at Fourth Grade Flipper to share something I tried outside of the classroom :)

Last week my friend Stender was looking for someone to run with her for the Color Me Rad 5k.  I have always wanted to do it but felt I wasn't ready.  I still do CrossFit four-five times a week, but don't really run for my workout.  By Wednesday Stender was still looking for someone (she had paid for her son to join her, but he was out of town) to run with her so I asked my hubby if he could take the boys to soccer that morning and handle our Saturday craziness.  :)

Stender told me that we would walk through the color stations which made me happy so I could at least catch my breath.  She runs all the time so I was afraid of slowing her down for this 5k, and this was her third or fourth 5k. Oh, and it was 40 degrees that morning which also had me nervous!

When we started the run I felt great, and tried to find a good pace.  We ran through the first two color stations and just as I thought "this girl lied to me, we haven't walked yet!", Stender said exactly what I was thinking.  By this time I knew I just had to keep moving, if I stopped to walk I would end up walking more than I wanted to.  I ended up with a cramp about 3K in, again I just kept telling myself "just keep moving".  Stender was great at giving me tips for running up and down hill and keeping me motivated.

We ended up finishing the 5K in 35 minutes without walking!  I was so proud of myself and Stender!  This was the first time she ran the whole time :)  I am thankful that she asked me to tag along and encouraged me to reach this goal!

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Anonymous

Friday I showed you a sneak peek of this week's post. Were you able to guess what our skill was? :)

A few weeks ago we worked on finding lines of symmetry in letters and shapes.  I used our school die cut machine to cut out the following shapes for each team (star, R, U, and H).  Each team memeber was given one of the cutouts and they were to fold their shape to find the line(s) of symmetry. I threw the letter R in there to show that not all shapes have a line of symmetry.

Students then folded their shapes to to determine lines of symmetry.  By using the hands on shapes it allowed my students to understand the definition of symmetry better.  This is an abstract concept and can be very difficult for some students, especially with irregular shapes.

One tip I wanted to share with you that I had my students write down in their notebooks and highlight is, "When working with regular polygons the number of vertices is equal to the number of lines of symmetry".  For example an equaliateral triangle has three vertices, therefore it has three lines of symmetry.

Here is a FREEBIE for when you teach symmetry!

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Anonymous

Can you believe it I am posting a Five for Friday!  Yay!

Last Friday our school held a Reading Rocks fundraiser.  Each grade level had a jar labeled with some crazy thing we agreed to do in front of the entire school.  Students brought in change to fill up the jars.  Once the jars were filled we were held to our crazy event on stage.  My fourth grade team chose to dress up like the 80's and sing to "Girls Just Want to Have Fun".  We sang into our hairbrushes and had a blast!

Here is a sneak peak to an upcoming post :)  We completed the static electricity experiment from my Forces and Motion Interactive Notebook product.  My students had so much fun, especially the girls with their new hairstyles! 

This week we worked on character traits while reading The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.  Excellent book by the way for several CCS!  Thanks to Pinterest, I had my students create these character trait craftivites for William (the main character).  On the front they wrote four character traits and then on the back they wrote evidence from the text to support their trait.  They determined William was intelligent, clever, helpful, and many other wonderful fourth grade traits!

I started a NEW MATH LINKY this week!  I hope you will link up next week!  Your post can be anything related to math :)

Here is a sneak peak to my post for this coming Monday.

Can you guess the skill we were working on? :)

I have been Celebrating my Year of Blogging with Freebies and two giveaways!  If you haven't had a chance to enter yet please stop by and do!

I did not post a Freebie for Thursday so to make up for it I have TWO Freebies for you!  My Patterns pack is my BEST SELLER!  Hope you enjoy them!

Patterns Pack

Area & Perimeter Pack

I also wanted to share how excited I am that my hubby and I are going to see Kirk Cameron tonight for a marriage conference.  I am excited for our date night and grateful for my friend who is willing to watch all three of my boys while my hubby and I enjoy a night just about us!  I am also going to run my first Color Me Rad tomorrow morning!  Please pray I survive and don't freeze to death!

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Anonymous

This week Jivey has us sharing our "Tricks and Treats" of Reading Workshop.  {Love the play on words!}

Trick 1: Use activities or centers your students enjoy to keep them motivated.  My students this year love to read silently, I know I am blessed!  I asked my students' opinions and input on centers/stations and they all said they didn't like them.  {I was very thankful for this because I personally don't care for centers either.}  I set my expectations for silent reading, for example behavior, book choices, and AR goals, and told them if they did not meet these expectations then we would move to centers.  My students do WONDERFUL during silent reading time!

Trick 2: Use texts students enjoy. For small group and whole group instruction I choose stories that I know my students would be interested in.  We have been using Wonder as our read aloud and for instructional purposes.  We do not have a basal reader so we have to create all our lesson plans from scratch.  So far this year we have used Wonder, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, and Body System Expository Text.

Trick 3: Use task cards in small group instruction.  Task cards are great for centers, scoot in whole group, AND small group instruction.  I love to use task cards to review CCS in small group so that I can quickly identify students who are struggling with the standard.  There are some AWESOME sets of reading task cards out there!

Trick 4: Use a timer.  We all know there isn't enough time in the day to get everything done!  I use a timer with my small groups to ensure I don't keep them too long.  It is very easy to get into a story, skill, or discussion and before you know it you only have five minutes left to pull another group.

Trick 5: Use a stop light.  I created this stop light this summer after a "pinsiration" pin.  When the light is on students are reminded that I am unavailable.  I haven't had to use it very much this year because I am not using centers and I have set the reading silently expectations. {I do use it through out the day, not just for Reading Workshop.}

Treat: Informational Text Student Anchor Charts.  Continuing the celebration of my one year of blogging today's FREEBIE is my Informational Text Student Anchor Charts.  These are great for whole group, independent practice, small groups, or centers.

Don't forget to stop by and enter a chance to win a "year's worth" of products!

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Anonymous

I was excited to try a Reader's Theater with this year's class.  In the past I have not always had groups that could handle the fun of a Reader's Theater or follow along :)  I love Deb Hanson's products from Crafting Connections and was happy to see she had created not one but THREE Reader's Theaters for this bundle!

One of the great feature of this bundle is there is a range of 8-10 parts, so you can chose a script that will fit the number of students in your class.  Deb also includes a weekly lesson plan on how to use the scripts focusing on summarizing, comprehension, voice & expression, and fluency.

My kids LOVED these!  Here are a few pictures of them working with their Reader's Theater scripts.

Students read the script silently first.

I then assigned them into groups and assigned roles.  The did a great job with adding their own character voices. :)

We are working on character traits right now so I had them create a bubble map identifying their role's character traits.  Supporting their thinking is HUGE in our curriculum so I had them provide evidence from the text to support their answers.

As we continue to work with the Reader's Theater I am going to focus on fluency, setting, and summarizing.

Continuing the celebration of a year of blogging and TpT today's FREEBIE is my Focus on Plays product!  Would great with Deb's Reader's Theater Bundle!  Don't forget to enter the giveaway if you haven't already!

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Anonymous

I am excited to start a new Math linky! We have been doing some amazing activities in Math this year that I wanted to share with all of you, and I know you all are doing some amazing things too!  For Mathematical Monday's you can link up any post related to math.  Share what is working for you and your students this year!

This year we are focused on an exploratory or discovery approach to math.  I have mentioned before the Meaningful Math Task my district has completed drives our instruction.  A few weeks ago we worked on a triangles.  Our math task required students to cut seven straws into different lengths, ranging from 2-6 inches.  This was also a chance to review measurement to the nearest inch.

Notice the "triangle" the student created.  We discussed if this would be considered a triangle and why not.

Students then played or explored with the straws to create different types of triangles, they had no prior knowledge of the different types of triangles.  Students recorded each triangle's dimensions in their notebooks, for example 2+6+6.

Great example of an isosceles triangle!

Students were only to use three straws to create their triangles, but I did allow this student to use this triangle because she was able to tell me the accurate dimensions.

My kids loved this activity!  They did a great job staying on task and creating as many triangles as they could.

At the end of the activity I asked the children questions to help guide them to make some conjectures about triangles.  The following day we reviewed attributes of triangles, introduced them to the different types of triangles, and a classifying activity.

To continue celebrating one year of blogging and one year as a TpT seller for today only my Triangles by Their Angles sheet will be FREE!

Don't forget to enter my two giveaways!

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Anonymous

{I am so EXCITED that I am posting this three hours early!}

I can't believe I {Heart} Recess is ONE!  Over the past year I have met some wonderful teachers and made many new friends!  Blogging about teaching has made me a stronger teacher and helped me through a very difficult year last year.  When I started this little blog I never imagined the success it would have.....700 followers!

I have been blessed to find a supportive group of bloggers, aka. Best Blogging Buddies, who are all new lifelong friends!  My BBB's have come together to help support this AWESOME milestone by donating some of their wonderful products to my "Year of Blogging" giveaway!

One lucky winner will win 15 products!  Each prize represents one month of blogging success and three bonus products representing the bonuses I have experienced over the last year. Check out these great prizes below!

Teaching With a Touch of Twang

Teaching Tales Along the Yellow Brick Road

I Love My Classroom

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Bonus Prize {Pin It to Win It}:
Pin the "Celebrating A Year of Blogging" button by entering the Rafflecopter below to win ANY THREE items from my TpT store!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Anonymous