For the past three years, I have been part of the Teaching American History Grant in my district. This summer the three years ends and the g...

For the past three years, I have been part of the Teaching American History Grant in my district. This summer the three years ends and the g...

Happy Sunday. I'm linking up with Collaboration Cuties to share a favorite text to use with social studies. One of my favorite social studies books is Mapping Penny's World by Loreen Leedy. This book is very similar to Me On the Map by Joan Sweeney (another favorite). In this book Lisa learns about different types of maps. She uses her dog Penny to complete a mapping project. I love this book because of the illustrations, the in depth explanation of maps, and because it is part of a series of three books that feature Penny (Measuring Penny and It's Probably Penny). My first graders love all of these books. Below you will find a freebie to use with Mapping Penny's World. Students can draw a maps of their bedrooms and create a key to go with their maps. Click on the picture below if you would like a copy. The clip art is from Scrappin Doodles. I highly recommend Mapping Penny's World and all of the other Penny books for your classroom library. The stories are cute, the information is abundant, and your kids will really enjoy them. For more tried and true recommendation head on over to Collaboration Cuties and check out the other Must Read Mentor Texts for social studies. Thanks for reading and have a great week.

We are here again to share another mentor text! This week's subject is social studies. As I've said before, my goal for next year is to do a lot of integration of science and social studies into language arts. I am sharing a book today that is probably more of a language arts book, but I am going to share how I'm integrating it. The book I am sharing is called Totem Tale by Deb Vanasse. We teach about different Native American tribes in our curriculum. One of the tribe's characteristics is that they had totem poles. Since we also teach different genres in language arts, this is the perfect opportunity to integrate! Here is the book description from Amazon: "On a full-moon night in Alaska, a traditional native totem pole magically comes to life. The Grizzly, Beaver, Frog, and Raven all stretch and scratch and voice their relief at being free at last. But then the first dawn light appears on the horizon, and the totems have to reassemble themselves in the proper order before morning. Who should be on top of whom? Can wise Raven reason with these contentious creatures? Deb Vanasse’s enchanting text and Erik Brooks’s lively illustrations make this a memorable modern folktale." Here are a few of the pages from the book: I love when you get to turn the book sideways!! :O) Anyway...this book is adorable! I love the language in it and the illustrations are so fun! There are great verbs and onomatopoeia in this book! And, because I think it's so great, I'm sharing this vivid verb and onomatopoeia scavenger hunt with you in case you want to hunt for verbs and onomatopoeia with your class too! Ok, so how am I integrating this into social studies. Well, I wish I had pictures. Last year, I had students make their own totem poles. Here's how it went: I gave them a list of animals and what they symbolized (it came from this website HERE). I sent home a letter explaining the activity. It looked like this: The students went home and chose a symbol for each family member. Most of them just highlighted on the sheet with the examples and wrote the name of the family member next to it. Then, we went to the computer lab and they used clipart to make the animals and they typed the names of their family members and the description. They colored them and then attached those to the paper towel rolls. They kept them on their desks for a while. They did a writing piece about their family and why they chose those symbols for each member. Then, they took them home. :O) (I wish I had pictures but that was before we started blogging.) Totem poles tell a story. For each tribe, it may be for a different purpose, but this was how we applied it in our classroom. So, it's not a huge integration, but I just wanted to make the Native American unit fun! :O) Amanda Now, it's your turn! (If you have never linked up before you can check HERE for more information.) For the Linky- Please make yourself a SANDWICH! Please comment on the person who linked up before you and the person that linked up after you. I know everyone puts in a lot of time and effort to these posts and I want everyone to feel the love!!! (Haha, see, you're a sandwich...you know...because you are in the middle of the comments...do you get it?) ;O) There are 5 Sundays in this month so....Next week's topic- Back to School Mentor Texts

This is one of those perfect novels to share with your upper elementary and middle school students. It is rare to find a story that connects with so many

Linking up with my cute friends Amanda & Stacia for their fabulous Must Read Mentor Text linky party! The following text is more o...

I am linking up with Deanna over at Mrs. Jump's Class for her "We Love Books" linky! I love grabbing up new books so I can't wait to see all of the great books everyone blogs about! The book I chose is Nighttime Ninja written by Barabara DeCosta and illustrated by Ed Young. When I took my students through the Spring Scholastic book fair all of the boys were dying to get their hands on this book. I decided that was a pretty good indication that I should snag it for my own classroom so I did! The illustrations are so unique and different... made out of fabric, paper, string, and colored pencil. This story is about a "ninja" who is actually a little boy sneaking through his house at night while everyone else is asleep and the house is dark. Who didn't do that when they were a little kid? This is a great book for teaching predictions. Students could predict throughout the whole book... from the front cover until the very end when the little boy's mother flips on the light and catches him digging into a pint of ice cream! Here's a little freebie prediction printable to go along with the book and a writing page. Click on the image below to go grab it up! Here is a cute little "Sushi" snack to go with the book! You know... because all ninjas must eat sushi. Of course, it isn't "real" sushi because most primary kiddos would think you were torturing them if you made them eat real sushi! (I've never eaten it either!) All you need is some peanut butter, jelly, and bread to make your own "sushi." First, cut off the edges because edges are gross. I know, I know the crust is where the nutrition is but you need to cut them off so the "sushi" is easier to roll up. Plus if you make it at home, your dogs will watch you like this until you give them some crust. Once you cut it off, "smash" your bread down. I used the meat tenderizer that I have owned for years but have only used maybe 3 times. It would make an excellent self-defense tool though so I keep it around :). Now I realize it makes an excellent bread smasher! You know that your kiddos at school would love to smash their bread with their own hands! Just spread on the PB&J, then roll it up nice and tight. Cut it into three small pieces and you have some PB&J sushi! This would be a super easy and fun snack-tivity for your kiddos! Nothing better than reading your primary kiddos a book about raiding the fridge at night, filling them with PB&J and then sending them on home! Parents will love you... well the kids will at least! Go check out Greg's Tasty Treat Tuesday to get some other great treat ideas! We are also linking up with The Teaching Tribune for Two for Tuesday. Two of our products will be half off all day Tuesday June 10, 2014! Click on the images below to head on over and grab them up! First Grade Common Core Math Journal Prompts Daily Math Journals for Kindergarten from Ms. VanMeter... Make sure you follow us on Bloglovin' for more tips, tricks, snacks, and whatever else we come up with this summer! Stephany

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you are spending some quality time with your loved ones today to celebrate. I am writing this on Saturday to have it all ready to link up with some of my best blogging buddies, Collaboration Cuties (they really are amazing!). Today, they are starting this awesome new linky full of mentor texts! You have to check out their plan for linking up every Sunday. I know that I need some help when it comes to good literature (I taught 6th grade math for my first 8 years and did not really use too many mentor texts!). This linky will be so helpful for organizing all the great texts out there! I love the blogging world and all the knowledge that everyone has to share:) From Publisher's Weekly: "A boy and his family witness an awe-inspiring storm in this exhilarating picture book account...Based on London's (The Candystore Man, reviewed above) recollection of a childhood experience, this suspenseful tale has a ""you are there"" immediacy. Poetic descriptions of hammering winds, crashing waves and lightning which ""scribbled on the dark clouds"" eloquently capture the beauty and violence of severe weather. Sorensen's (I Love You as Much) slightly hazy oil paintings move suddenly from sunny island blues and greens to chillingly dark grays." Go to this link to read the entire Publisher's Weekly Review. During my natural disasters unit, there are many examples of informational literature, but this is a wonderful historical fiction story. As the publisher's weekly review states, the book has so many poetic descriptions which makes it ideal for teaching visualization and word choice. The book also lends itself to prediction and plot/sequence activities. I used these short and extended response questions to accompany the book as a listening activity. Updated for TPT and added as a freebie, you can download it here. Here is a preview: If you are interested in a culminating activity I use for the Natural Disaster unit, you can find it here on TPT. Sale ends tonight at midnight EST:) Be sure to check back for the other link ups at Collaboration Cuties!

Hello Chalkie friends! All of the 20 fabulous ladies from Primary Chalkboard will be working on a blog post this month for November! You will get to read 20 new blog posts this month from us, then a FUN surprise at the end of the month for a Black Friday celebration. Keep your eyes open! I'm kicking off this month of blog posts with a fun blog post on Election Day! My name is Jessica and I am the first grade teacher blogger from First Grade Nest! This year's Election Day won't be as big of a deal as last year since it isn't a presidential election year, but I still want to teach Election Day and the process of voting to my first graders. Check out the voting process we did last year. We started by reading a nonfiction text on voting and Election Day so that students were familiar with the process. Then, we read three fun Election Day books! Grace for President My Teacher for President Duck for President I then put students on campaign teams. They must make campaign posters for each book they choose. Here are My Teacher for President posters. Duck's posters... And Grace's posters.... Grab the freebie campaign posters to label your 3 candidates here! Grab them for free here!! Then, we registered to vote and went through with the entire voting process. Both of these documents are FREE here! I didn't have time to craft up the ballot box into something adorable and patriotic. Please forgive me. You guys know how absolutely crazy October is!! After our Election Day process, we completed a fun craftivity book! These books are available at my TPT store: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Head on over to Facebook for a First Grade FREEBIE Hop! You can grab tons of new FREE products just from liking our Facebook pages. Just find this image at the top of our Facebook pages, click like, and voila... there are tons of new freebies for you to discover! I had SO much fun blogging with P.C. this evening! Can't wait to see you guys again in December! ~Jessica~

Thank you for your interest in Economics in the Primary Grades! This packet is divided into 3 main topics (needs / wants, division of labor / quality vs. quantity, and goods / services. Needs and Wants: Needs and Wants vocab cards (in color and black/white) 6 worksheets to work on Needs / Wants Division of Labor and Quality vs. Quantity: Division of Labor and Quality vs. Quantity vocab cards (in color and black/white) Division of Labor and Quality vs. Quantity cookie factory experiment Goods and Services: Goods and Services vocab cards (in color and b/w) 4 Goods and Services worksheets Goods and Services classroom store experiment In addition, there are 2 homework pages to go along with the unit. Check out the Preview for some FREE pages! Check out our blog to see this product in action!! Blog Post #1 on Economics Unit Blog Post #2 on Economics Unit Here are some freebies to go with this Economics Unit! 'I Want' Piggy Bank Freebie Needs and Wants Freebie Follow Our Blog and FB Page to Find More About Our Products in Action and Grab Freebies! First Grade Buddies Blog First Grade Buddies on FB

Hi everyone! I hope you had a great week! This was my last official week of summer. Our district goes back to school this Wednesday for pre-planning. I can't believe the summer has flown by! I'm not ready for another school year yet! I have waaaaaaaaaay toooooooo much to do!!! But TODAY is a GREAT day because I get to share an awesome book with you AND it's my BFF's Birthday! Please give Amanda some birthday love! :) Happy Birthday, Amanda!!! (I had to sneak this in without her seeing...hehe.....) But anyways, I am excited to share a new Social Studies Must Read Mentor Text with you today! It is called Arctic Memories by Normee Ekoomiak. I just found this book at a book sale that I went to, and I am so glad I did! It will be perfect for our unit on Native Americans when we focus in on the Inuit tribe. It's also going to be great for a close read. Amazon.com Blurb: Ekoomiak, an Inuk from the James Bay region of arctic Quebec, describes--in both English and the striking Inuit language--various aspects of Inuit life and lore. One really cool aspect of this book is that it is written in both Inuit language and English! I love that they are written together so that students can compare the languages. The book is broken down into different topics relating to the Inuit way of life on each page. When I read this with my students, I am going to choose sections at a time to read together rather than reading the entire book at once. I want to narrow in our focus of the Inuit each time we read. So, the first time I read this with my students I am going to project the page up on my board. We are going to read the first page "In the Iglu" together. During this first reading, we are just getting the main gist of the passage. Then, we are going to read it a second time, and this time we are going to focus on new or interesting words (vocabulary). I will circle the words on the board and I will have my students fill them in on their graphic organizer (see below for the FREEBIE). We will use context clues to determine the meaning and importance of the words, and we will discuss them together. On the third read, we will sketch out what we are learning. I will have students draw pictures to show what information they have learned about the Inuit. I love the idea of having students sketch out their learning because students are visualizing what they are reading and are truly thinking. Finally, we will read the passage a fourth time, and I will pose this text dependent question to the students- "How does the Inuit's shelter change throughout the year?" Students will have to use evidence from the passage to support their answers. Here is the graphic organizer we will use to keep track of our learning. I will probably have my students paste this into their notebooks so that they can refer back to it during our study of Native Americans. This graphic organizer will work with any nonfiction text. After I have modeled reading closely and finding text evidence, I will have students work in pairs to read another portion of the text and then fill in their graphic organizers together. Click here to download this FREEBIE I definitely wouldn't read every text this way. But, I think this repeated purposeful reading is extremely important for my students. The students are making sense of what they are learning rather than just listing facts they hear or writing definitions of new words. And by reading it more than once, they are developing a better and deeper understanding of the text. Do you have any close reading strategies that you use? I would love to hear about them! :) Please leave feedback if you download the graphic organizer. :) THANK YOU! I can't wait to see what books you are using for Social Studies! Have a wonderful week! -Stacia :) (If you have never linked up before you can check HERE for more information.) Next week's topic- Language Arts