The Harvest Birds

One of our upcoming reading stories is called The Harvest Birds.

The story is about Juan Zanate, the youngest of three Mexican boys in a family. When Juan's father dies, he leaves his land to his two eldest sons. Juan gets his turn to work a small piece of land given to him by an old man in town, and becomes much more successful than his brothers with the help of zanate birds. Juan learns a lesson of patience, hard work, and the importance of working with nature as he makes his dream of becoming a farmer and land owner come true. 

video of a zanate bird

In celebration of the harvest, we created these scarecrow glyphs. Students had to color according to the directions and we soon found that no two scarecrows were identical, just as no two students are exactly the same! I used a scarecrow and fake fall leaves for the bulletin board border.

Download a glyph with a scarecrow pattern and directions here. Download glyphs here or here.

For more Harvest Birds Activities, check out my class website!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving! I really love this holiday because it's the one of the few holidays that people don't give gifts and most people a huge effort to spend it with family.

This morning we made these simple turkeys using Scholastic Book orders (why do they send like 4 of the same catalog?!?) folded accordion style. 

Students just color and cut the turkey out, then staple the legs to the bottom and the hat to the "feathers" and you're done. Use two pages if you want the feathers to be fuller than ours.

We also made these cornucopias. Students wrote what they were thankful for inside, then glued their writing to a piece of paper along with fruits and vegetables they colored and cut out.

A student I tutor also did this in his class...and the first thing he wrote he was thankful for was "Ms. Battista helping me with math" - oh how that warmed my heart!

 I am thankful for my amazing friends, family, and students. Life is great! :)

Handy Handwriting Tools

    After reading The Teacher's Wife's handwriting post on creating homemade Handwriting Without Tears letters, I was inspired to post some handwriting materials that I found a few years ago. I purchased them for my twin sister to use when she was teaching resource room and myself a few years ago when a large majority of my class was struggling with reading and writing. I would spend a lot of extra time conferencing with certain children in writing workshop and noticed that the students who struggled the most also had the worst handwriting. EVERY single child that had difficulty seemed to form most of their letters from the bottom up instead of top down. Since we used plain writing paper, it was hard to tell students where to start forming their letters. Here are some materials that helped:

I just loooove these tactile letters. Children trace the plastic letters with their fingers and get feedback on whether they traced in the right direction or not. If you trace in the right direction, the letter feels smooth. If you trace in the wrong direction, the letter feels rough. What's even better is the vowels are red and the consonants are blue. In fact, my 7 year old niece just saw this post as I was typing it and asked, are those vowels?!

These sandpaper letters are great for my 5 year old niece, who needs the visual cues on which direction to trace because she hasn't had enough writing practice yet to know on her own. You can make these on your own very easily with index cards, glue, and a marker or pen. The white dot on the bottom is used to help them position the card so it isn't upside down or sideways.

Once I corrected how their letters were being formed without actually writing, I started using Stationery Studio to make the actual writing paper more appropriate for where my third graders were. It's a great way to increase enthusiasm and motivation for writing and a fabulous way to differentiate decorative writing paper. You can print out several types of the same paper, deciding how far apart the lines are, if you want a midline, and even what color the lines are! Students can barely even notice a difference. It also allows students type their story using the software and print it out!

Now that I'm teaching third grade again, I also make my own handwriting practice sheets for our spelling words using Spelling City.

Try the following sites for more materials:

http://www.searchfreefonts.com/categories/dotted.htm


http://desktoppub.about.com/od/freefonts/tp/Free_Handwriting_School_Fonts.htm


http://www.handwritingforkids.com/handwrite/manuscript.htm


http://www.internet4classrooms.com/kplus_writing.htm

Link to this post if you have any other ideas you'd like to share!

The Last Lecture - Be a Penguin

I continually find myself thinking about Randy Pausch (former Carnegie Mellon professor) and The Last Lecture - "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." I first saw him on Oprah when he was still alive, watched the video, and then bought his book. Despite the fact that death and dying is a mature subject, I told my students the story about Randy and how he made his dreams of becoming a Disney Imagineer come true before he died of pancreatic cancer at age 47. I can never read the book, watch the videos, or even talk about his story without tearing up.

What I wanted them to get out of it was not only to never give up on their dreams, but also to "be a penguin." You see, Randy told his students that "even in the toughest of waters, one penguin had to be brave enough to take the first dive" and test the water, despite the risk of being eaten by seals, sharks, and killer whales. I can be caught frequently saying, "Who's going to be a penguin?" after asking a question that my students might not be confident in answering. They have really taken to the idea, and hands immediately shoot up when they remember what Randy said. What also inspired them was seeing the bridge that was built in his honor. It lights up in different colors and has cut outs of diving penguins, so seeing it makes them (and I'm sure his family and friends) feel like he won't be forgotten.

Watch the video of Randy's Last Lecture on Window's Media Player and other videos here.

Randy's Memorable Quotes:

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”

“It's not about how to achieve your dreams, it's about how to lead your life, ... If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you.”

“The key question to keep asking is, Are you spending your time on the right things? Because time is all you have. ”

"When you're screwing up and nobody's saying anything to you, that means they've given up on you."

"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer."

Purchase the Disney Edition (grades 6-12) to read with or to your students. Proceeds go to Randy's family.

Check out part of my "bucket" list of things to do before I "kick the bucket" (which I had already written, but started to put into action thanks to Randy). Do you have a bucket list? What's on it?

Max's Words

We just read the book Max's Words from our Journeys reading series. It's a story about a boy named Max who gets jealous of his brothers' stamp and coin collections. Max decides to collect words and comes up with a pretty neat way to write stories, while earning the admiration of his brothers.

My students were given an assignment to write a story using words cut out from newspapers, magazines, or mail advertisements just like Max. They had a ton of fun and came up with some great stories! This is a neat activity to do as a center or for homework over a long break. Enjoy!

Story 1

Story 2

Story 3

Story 4

Story 5

Story 6

Story 7

Story 8

For more activities to go to with Max's Words, check out my class website.