New File Folder Games and Activities

I've spent waaaaay too much time of my summer "vacation" making new games for my kids. Since I'm looping with last year's second graders to Third Grade this year, I want my room to have new activities to inspire the kids. Here is a shot of some of the new games I've made. Most of these were made from "freebie" links I found on blogs. It helps to find them if you do a Google search and click on the arrow next to "more" above the Google Search Box. Choose "Blogs" from the drop down menu to limit your search results to what can be found on blogs.

Linky Party Alert!!!! Share Your Favorite Vocabulary Idea!

Don't forget my Linky Party for Vocabulary ideas! Please link in with your best vocabulary ideas.

And after that, go to the Ultimate Linky Party and check out all the other great Linky Parties! Click on the button below!

Super Books for the Writing Station

I have just about finished setting up my Writing Station in my classroom and hope to post pictures soon. I wanted to share some of the books I place in the Station to help jumpstart the kids' writing.

The kids LOVE any of the I Spy books. They can write a story or description of any of the items in the awesome pictures. (I also use the books to teach main idea and details). These pics unlock even the toughest writer's block! So many bloggers are using pirates in their classrooms this year, that I wanted to include Can You See What I See? Treasure Ship. You'll get lots of pirate stories if you use this as a prompt.

Share Graeme Base's Animalia at the writing center to show your students how to use colorful words in their writing. Younger students can use the sentences as models for writing alliterative sentences for the beginning sound they are studying. The sentences are also great to use for picking out parts of speech.

Any of Barbara Lehman's picture books inspire even the most reluctant students to write. Students can write about the stories told in pictures in The Red Book, Rainstorm, and Museum Trip or can pick just one of the illustrations to describe. (Great for making predictions and inferences!)

istvan banyai's wordless picture books could inspire a year's worth of writing! Show the students Zoom, Re-Zoom, and The Other Side and step back and watch inspiration hit!

 A Circle of Friends, by Giora Carmi,  just begs the children to add words to the beautiful artwork. Friends are an important topic of choice, so be sure to include this one.

You own't be able to put Ooops, by Arthur Geisert, down long enough to leave it in the Writing Station! This book is great to guide students in an ongoing story or chapter book. Does the house fall? (Another predictions/inferences favorite.)

The simple text of The OK Book, by Amy Krovise Rosenthal, is a wonderful model for students to follow to write OK books about themselves. Once they have done that, use the format to write OK sentences about the topics you are studying in Science and Social Studies.

The pictures in Black and White, by David Macaulay, tell two different stories. Let students pick one story line to follow.

And last, but not least, go right now and get Meanwhile, by Jason Shiga, if you do not already own a copy. You might want to go ahead and get two while you are ordering, because your kids are going to looooove this book. You choose your own ending to each page of the book. The story lines are practically infinite!

Happy Writing!

More Post-It Fun!

I posted about the fun Post-It Linky Party that Create-Teach-Share is hosting. I had to make another entry to her party after I bought these cool sticky notes at The Dollar Tree yesterday! I plan on using the Don't Forget notes as Reader Response notes. Students can fill in the What, When, and Details sections as they read. The Reminder notepad can be used to jot down the main idea or other info from the story.

Click on the yellow sticky note below to add your own ideas!

Post-it Linky Party

This is one of my most favorite Linky Parties ever!

Create-Teach-Share is hosting a Post-it Linky Party. Join in and add your favorite idea for using Post-its in your classroom.

I ask my students to write one important event from a story we are reading on a Post-it. We put all the events in the middle of the table. Each student takes a turn pulling one event from the pile and putting it in the correct order. What a fun way to review the sequence of events!

50 Followers Giveaway -- Target Booty!

I am going to try to do a Giveaway when I reach 50 followers. I think I have figured out how to get my comments numbered, so I will use the Random Number Generator. Please leave a comment to this post that you have been following my blog or have just started. When I reach 50 followers, I will send the winner a $10.00 Target gift card!

You can also grab my button and leave another comment for a second chance to win!

Grade Level Linky Party

The Teacher's Lane is hosting a Grade Level Linky Party. You can link to your grade level so that you can find other teachers with great ideas specifically for you! Go try it out.