Writer's Workshop Summer Training 2017

I had an amazing experience today giving a training on Writer's Workshop! This has been a long time goal of mine to give trainings on what I love to teach....writing! It gives me a sense of fulfillment, just knowing I can touch the lives of more children through teachers. I also enjoy seeing teachers light up and excited about teaching writing. 
This of course took weeks for me to plan out. When you are teaching other teachers how to implement a new program into their classroom, you really have to have many different components during the training to make it fun! I want them to walk away with fresh new ideas about writing and hope they can implement some of it in their own classrooms next year. Then I know I did my job! 

I made a powerpoint of photos, activities and ideas to share with the teachers... which also helped me stay on track too! 

You have to have visuals to show so the teachers can see the real products you use! I had posters, anchor charts, vocabulary cards, published books, supplies and materials. I even had door prizes! 

I also put all of my mentor texts on display that the teachers could use for their mini-lessons! Some of these books were new to the teachers and they were excited to learn about them! 

During the workshop we had a lot of opportunities to experience the writing process first hand. The teachers each wrote their own story and then read it to a partner. They switched stories and practiced editing each other's paper. They used markers to edit the capitals and periods, and underlined the sentences with different colors. This is exactly what they would train their students to do in the classroom. They had a lot of fun! 

It's also important to give teachers a chance to talk, discuss and reflect on their teaching... it helps get new ideas! I even learned a lot of new ideas today too. It's so fun to hear what works for others as well! 

The best part of the training (in my opinion) was the make and take! Each teacher got to pick an anchor chart from my mini-lessons and make their own! What a wonderful way to start planning for the new school year! 

Everyone got a lot of new ideas today and all walked away with a lot of new information, activities and were extremely happy! If you haven't signed up for summer PD yet and are interested in signing up for August 9th at 12:30... please come and join me! I'd love to see you! Have a wonderful summer! 
Love,
Kara 

End of the Year Writing Celebration...Fairy Tale Ball!

End of the Year Writing Celebration....Fairy Tale Ball! 

Fairy Tale Ball Tablescape
At the end of the year, our first graders get to pick a fairy tale to retell from beginning to end. They use all the writing skills that they have learned from the whole year. They use nice handwriting, beautiful illustrations,  great sentences, lots of adjectives and dialogue. We work very hard in May to take this story through the writing process to publish this book. This is the story they will be reading at our Fairy Tale Ball.  I've made fairy tale writing templates for our students to use for this. 

The students use these templates for Brainstorming, First Draft, Student Conference, Proofreading, Teacher Conference, Editing and Revision, Final Draft, and Publishing. They have a blast retelling their favorite fairy tale and getting to illustrate their pictures. 

We discuss all the story elements for a fairy tale and what it usually has that makes so special. We use this anchor chart: 

We discuss the three main authors of Fairy Tales and what country they were from: Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen and The Grimm Brothers. We use this poster to help us decide which fairy tale we want to write about: 

We also use these story element cards to mix the magic! 

We cut up the cards, and put them in a mixing bowl while we are discussing the story elements, and use a magic wand...the students LOVE this! 

On the day of the Fairy Tale Ball, each student brings a food that goes along with their story. So, if they wrote about Rapunzel, they bring radishes. If they wrote about Snow White, they bring apples slices.... catch on? They bring a basket to put their food in for our tablescape. I also have one parent make a castle cake for us to enjoy. Here are some examples of cakes I've had in the past: 

On the day of the Fairy Tale Ball, they get to dress up like their character from their story. They get to read their story to the parents and then the parents write them a compliment in the back of their book. The students love this! Here are some of our characters from our Ball with their published story. Can you see the gold sticker on the cover? 

The Snow Queen 

Beauty and the Beast

The Gingerbread Man 
The students had a blast at our Fairy Tale Ball. Maybe next year you'd like to have a fairy tale ball too? If you are interested in checking our my fairy tale writing resource click here:Once Upon a Time...A Fairy Tale Writing Unit

I hope you live Happily Ever After! 
Love, Kara 

Let's Spring Into Science! Investigations and Experiments from January to May

If you LOVE teaching your science curriculum through experiments and investigations, keep on reading! I've created a packet full of fun and engaging experiments and investigations from January to May. All of these experiments I've tried out in my classroom, and my students LOVE them! I've categorized them into months using themes to drive the skill and focus. In this packet are lesson plans with mentor texts, anchor charts, interactive notebook activities, craftivities, expository writing templates and vocabulary cards.  

Monthly Themes:
January: Winter, Arctic, Antarctic, Penguins, MLK
February: Objects in the Sky, Valentine's Day, Presidents, America
March: Spring, Weather, Texas, St. Patrick's Day
April: Plants, Life Cycles, Insects, Rainforests, Easter
May: Rocks and Volcanoes, Ocean and Beach, End of Year

By using these suggested themes, planning science investigations and experiments are super easy and fun! I hope you enjoy them!

For January the science experiments and investigations are:
I See Icy Icicles
Winter Investigation using 5 senses
Precipation Investigation
Blubber Experiment
Glacier and Iceberg Investigation
How to Make a Marshmallow Igloo
Diversity Experiment

For February, they are:
Will This Melt My Heart?
Shadow Investigation
How To Make a Lincoln Log Cabin
Phases of the Moon
Constellation Investigation

For March, they are:
Investigating Spring using 5 senses
Pinwheel Investigation
Oil Experiment
What Makes a Rainbow?
Cloud in a Cup
Cloud Investigation
How to Make Chili

For April, they are:
Tree Investigation
Sunflower Investigation
Bean Investigation
Butterfly Investigation
Ladybug Investigation
Frog Investigation
Terrarium Investigation

For May, they are:
Edible Dirt Cup Investigation
Rock Investigation
Layers of the Earth
My Pet Rock Investigation
Volcano Experiment
Shark Investigation
Whale Investigation
How to Make an Ocean in a Jar
Shell Investigation

So...there you have it! Science in the Spring! I hope you got some great ideas about about how to incorporate science investigations and experiments in your classroom! If you are interested in checking out my Spring Into Science packet, click below.
Love, Kara 

Let's Spring into Science: Investigations and Experiments from January to May

Baby, It's Cold Outside...so stay warm inside with Jan Brett! 

Jan Brett is one of my FAVORITE authors to teach literature with! There's so much that you can do with her books...it's endless. She has perfect stories that go along with the Christmas and Winter season. Above you can see the craftivities that I've created to go along with some of her winter books.  The students can retell the story, and then make the character to go around their template. My students LOVE making these craftivities and they are so fun!

For December I read:
The Gingerbread Baby
The Wild Christmas Reindeer
Christmas Trolls
Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve?
The Night Before Christmas

For January I read:
The Mitten
The Hat
Annie and The Wild Animals
Trouble with Trolls
The Three Snow Bears

I've created a Jan Brett author study packet that has lesson plans with mentor texts, writing craftivities, interactive notebook pages, vocabulary cards, anchor charts and math games. 
If you love Jan Brett as much as I do, then you'll enjoy this packet!

These lesson plans are jam packed with materials, question stems, directions and examples. There are also vocabulary cards for the characters for The Mitten, Parts of a Reindeer and Parts of a Polar Bear. 

There are also anchor charts with a lesson plan for each one! They include questions stems, activities, and suggestions on how to teach each skill. I've included: 
Beginning, Middle and End
Cause and Effect
Text Connections
Main Idea
Story Elements
Characterization
Theme
Sequence of Events
Inferencing 

With each anchor chart, I've created an interactive notebook activity, that the students can complete, color, cut out and glue into their reader's notebook. I've also included some winter math games: Winter Counting Ten Frames, Winter Roll and Add, and Winter Roll and Subtract. Also, there are Reader's Theater puppets for The Mitten that the students can color, cut out and glue onto pop-cycle sticks! 

If you're interested in checking out my Jan Brett Author Study Packet, click below. You'll have such a "cool" time with this one that you'll have to pull out your hats and mittens! LOL

Have a wonderful week....Happy Teaching!

Love,

Kara 

                 Winter Author Study with Jan Brett: Grades 1-3