Currently November

Finally…October is OVER! Not necessarily my favorite month. I enjoy Halloween but it gets kind of crazy at school. Also, the 1st quarter ends, grades are due, and we have Parent Teacher Conferences. It's kind of a lot to be prepared for. We also seem to have the possibility of snow looming over us almost the entire month. It becomes pretty tiresome.

Luckily, it is now November! I'm ok if we have snow this month, and we should have a fairly routine month at school. Routine = Sanity  :)

Silence: We put our baby girl down to bed and she asked Daddy to lay with her. He said for a minute. I'm pretty sure that they are both asleep by now. :) 

Loving: We spent the better part of our Halloween night at the fire station. My daughter just loved being around all of the awesome people there. They had out their fire safety training door and she made sure that all the kids (and even some adults) that visited went through it. 

Thinking: I love the holiday season! Thanksgiving and Christmas are usually a pretty happy time. Living so far from family can make it a little bit difficult. This year will be even more different as our "adopted" Alaskan family moved back to America, I mean the Lower 48. I'm going to look and see what things we can do as just our little family and maybe start some new traditions.

Wanting: Lately, the hubby and I haven't had much time for just us. He mentioned working on us having a "date night" and I think that I may remind him that we know of a great babysitter :)

Needing: Between everything that we do, work, school and homework, my house is in desperate need of a clean up! I'm thinking I may stay home one day and just clean away.  I feel as if I'm always behind on laundry. It is my nemesis, as are the dishes. Bah to them! If it wasn't so bad for the environment, I would totally use paper & plastic dishes all the time.

Reading: I'm part of a book club with some friends and I'm a little apprehensive about our book this month. Stiff by Mary Roach is a book about cadavers. I don't do well with death or dead bodies. I have my personal religious beliefs about death so it's not the "what happens to our spirits" that I'm not ok with. It's with the actual body that left behind. A couple of the people who have read the book so far have said that overall it's pretty interesting. I'm on the waiting list to get it so we'll see. 

Sorry if that was too much for you…

Hope that you are off to a fabulous start of the new month!!

Check out more Currently links here:

*Steph*

*GIVEAWAY* The Adventures of Ai + Bonus

I hope that you all had a fantastic Labor Day weekend (or Wattle Day in the Land Down Under from what I've seen around)! I stayed pretty busy helping our adoptive Alaska family get their home ready for sale to move back to America, AKA the Lower 48. sad face.

However, I was also able read a fun ebook geared for 9-12 yr olds. I had to opportunity to read

The Adventures of Ai by Craig Bouchard.

Ai is a young Japanese girl from the early 16th century, who sets out on an adventure to reunite with her father after he's been gone for 3 years to study with Leonardo da Vinci. Her companions include her faithful horse, a bluebird, deer and some unexpected help.

This is a great book for quite a few different types of kids, in my opinion. It is part nonfiction and part fantasy. It intermingles art, history and mathematics into the story. It is fast-paced and an easy read. It also had a FREE GAME to go with it! You know those kids who love their video games.

 The game has the same title and follows the fantasy part of the story. It is fairly simple to play, but it's slightly different every life you start so it stays interesting. I started over quite a bit at first. :) You can also join the first-ever World Charity Cup, earning a cash contribution to help sick or disadvantaged children in your country. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Check out their video trailer for the ebook and the game.

Interested yet? 

The book is available through iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon. 

I read it a little on my iPad and on my Android phone. It was great. :) 

Check out the {website} for more information.

It's normally 2.99 but you can win it for free! 

I have been given the opportunity to give away copies to 2 of my readers! Yay for you and me! 

This is my first personal giveaway, so as a bonus I will throw in a 

$10 Target card!

How to enter you ask? 

Leave a comment about your favorite children's literature and your email (especially if you are a no-reply blogger) or comment on my FB post {here}

I will randomly select 2 winners on Sunday, Sept. 7 at 5pm Alaska Standard Time.

Thanks for stopping by!

*Steph*

Tried It Tuesday: Heritage Makers

Well, this isn't exactly a new try, but I did get one of my orders today and I was super excited! 

I am part of Heritage Makers. It is a form of digital scrapbooking, basically. I am able to access my photos anywhere and work on multiple projects. There are many different products you can create from story books to postcards to bags to mugs to lots of other things! 

It is a business that you can do at from home. I am not a consultant, just wanted to share something that makes me happy! *Update* I decided to join and become a consultant. If you are interested at all, let me know! Visit my website http://www.heritagemakers.com/stephudy

I decided to join when my daughter was about 3 months old. I realized that I was already getting behind on her pictures but I couldn't haul out all my scrapbooking things just to have to put them away again. (I am normally a binge scrapbooker.) There were too many small pieces to have around. This became a way that I could scrapbook, keep my house relatively clean, and be immediately available if needed. I was also able to do this one-handed! When Kasila would fall asleep in my arms, and was too cute to put down, I could hold her and scrapbook. It was awesome! It meant that by the time we visited family that summer, I had a book of her from birth - 6 months to show off! I'm not caught up any more, but I did finally finish her 6months - 12months and that's what I got in the mail today! School kind of took up a lot of my scrapbooking time I had when on maternity leave and summer break. :)

Here's a look at the Heritage Makers website:

These are my completed projects that I can order: 

12 x 12 story book, a small flip book, calendars (for Christmas presents), playing cards, ornaments, and a brag book for Grandma.

This is a look at the studio editor while creating your projects. You have access to a lot of different digital papers, clipart, and even templates to get you started. This is a little flip book I'm making of my daughter with her teddy bear. 

I would compare Heritage Makers to Shutterfly. I've done both. If you are going to be continuously producing books or items, I would totally recommend Heritage Makers! The books are high quality and there is way more choice in every aspect!

Here's a little flip book I made for Kasila so she would know her family that doesn't live nearby, which is all of them. (Forgive the pictures, I'm still learning and all I have is my phone.)

A Book A Day {Day 21}

This is a book that a couple of colleagues and I are considering for a novel study. None of us have actually read it, but I have read some great reviews about it out here in blog land. 

I don't have any products or insights to share yet, but I will once I've actually read it!

Wonder

by R.J. Palacio

A Book A Day: {Day 19}

I haven't been very good at keep up with this but I still think it's fun to try! This last week was pretty busy and I'm still playing catch up. 

Picking up today…Day 19

This book and activity was shared during one of my reading methods classes. It was used to show how using synonyms and descriptive words help make stories more interesting.

The first time you read the book, you say "napping" for every character. It makes it a pretty nap worthy story and not very fun. The next part you can do as a class, small groups, or individuals. Come up with some other words that could be used instead of "napping." I had forgotten about this activity until recently (thanks to this link up) so I can't say what I've done. I do think that this could be a great activity for me to use with my intervention reading class next year. We could even create a class book using the sentences from it as frames. As a conclusion, read the book as it is really written. It would be fun to see how many of the same words your students came up with!

*Steph*

A Book A Day --Playing Catch Up

Wow! It has been a whirlwind the last week or so. My husband has been in an engineer training class to drive the fire trucks for the past 4 weeks in the evening/weekend. (Yes, I am married to a fireman and yes, I know I am lucky :) ha ha! ) Mother's Day was a relaxed, but spent most of the day not at home. Then, the fourth grade from my school went on an overnight field trip Tuesday-Wednesday. Grades were due today and we have 3 more school days. Phew! I'm going to be playing catch up on quite a few things for the next few weeks. I also have a big statewide Girl's Camp to help take care of the food for the girls in my church ward and 2 other wards. Here comes the end of the year and summer! YAY! Bring it on!

Anyways…. just some books to play catch up…. I don't know what days they are….

The kids find this book hilarious! I pull it out when we discuss homonyms and homographs. The pictures really help them decipher the meanings of the words.  

Our librarian has used this book at the beginning of the year to help build community. I think it would be fun and eye opening to give each kids their own color and have them create a bigger picture. You could even divide them up into smaller groups if you don't have enough for each kid to have a different color.

This last book was recommended to me by one of our 1st grade teachers. She said that her students love it and that my daughter would probably like it too. She was right!

Pete the Cate and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin

As you can tell, my 17 month old daughter has loved this book well. This is a great story for anybody! You could use this book when introducing subtraction. It even has subtraction problems written in the book. My husband said that it had a good lesson for me. I tend to stress and worry. Pete the Cat does not. Check out the official Pete the Cat website. It has videos and activities to go with the stories.

A Book A Day {Day 9}

Since I shared one book that I read in 5th grade, I figured I should share another!

Ella Enchanted was another book that my small reading group read. It quickly became one of my favorite kid novel! Ella is just so quick witted and fun to read about! I was very disappointed in the movie, even though I like Anne Hathaway. I haven't had a chance to share this with a whole class, I have recommended it to quick a few individual students. 

Huge shout out to Mandy Lopez at The {4th} Grade Journey for helping me out and answering some blogging questions! Thank you so much! 

A Book A Day {Day 8}

***Day 8***

This was a book I read when I was in 5th grade.  I was part of a small group of TAG students and we were pulled out for a small reading group. I don't remember how I felt about that, but I do remember that one of the first books we were assigned was The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. This is not my book for today. Honestly, I have not been able to reread the book yet, due to feelings of angst. I'm sure that it is actually a good book, but my small reading group hated it! I don't think any of us actually read the entire book. This drove our TAG teacher crazy. She knew that we were all really good readers so that was not our problem. We were so happy when we were finally finished with that book. We were definitely hesitant on our next book. Luckily, that book ended up being Frindle!

My current school reading program (5th grade) uses part of Frindle for the first week of unit 1. When I was the advanced 4th grade reading class teacher for my first 2 years, I would use this as a read a loud. The kids loved it! The main character is so fun and relatable.   It also as a great twist ending! 

Next year, I am moving to 5th grade. I will be teaching intervention reading, on grade level math, and social studies. We are going to use Frindle as a novel study. There were so many choices on TPT to choose from when looking for resources! I finally settled on this novel study packet from  Jessica Lawler at Joy in the Journey. It looks great and I'm hopeful for next year!

A Book A Day {Day 7}

Hosted by Confessions of a Teaching Junkie

On to Day 7! 

Earlier I posted about how one can become feeling secluded while living in Alaska. One great thing, literature-wise, is that authors who live here, write about here! There are actually quite a few Alaska based picture books that you can pick up almost anywhere. There are also a lot of "Alaskan style" fairy tales. It is awesome to have so many choices to read about your home state!

One book we use as a grade level is Alaska's Three Bears by Shelley Gill. Alaska is the only place, besides maybe some parts of Canada, that all three kinds of bear live. This is a fun story about how the bears got to where they live. There are also facts about each kind of bear as a secondary way to read the book.

We create a small desktop calendar as a Christmas present. Each month is dedicated to something about Alaska. February is bears. We read the book and talk about how each bear is different in its looks and habitats. We teachers make color copies of some of our favorites to have as examples for the future years.

It ends up being a great way to incorporate state history, art and a project that the kids get to give to their parent/guardian!

Do you have access to great books about your state?

A Book A Day {Day 6}

with Confessions of a Teaching Junkie

It's Day 6! 

One of the comprehension strategies that is taught in my 4th grade reading program is Cause & Effect. Not just that one thing causes another, but that that effect can become a cause of another effect. Essentially, forming a cause and effect chain. When we get to that concept, I like to pull out books by Laura Numeroff. Her books are great for cause and effect. Visit her website for some other ideas on how to use her books.

The school version is fun to use at school, but I prefer to use one of the pig versions. Pigs are my favorite animal! My students enjoy the moose version because here in Alaska, we run into a lot of moose!

This is a great *FREEBIE* from Fun in Room 4B to use in conjunction with the "If You Give A…" series!

A Book A Day {Day 5}

I missed a day but I try to keep Sundays as a day for my family. I am not a teacher on Sundays. This sometimes doesn't help out my planning prepping for the week, but it is definitely refreshing!

with Confessions of a Teaching Junkie

Our current Read A Loud:

I have always been a big fan of Roald Dahl. I love the way he describes things and plays with words. Now my kids are absolutely loving this story! I think part of the appeal is the use of the English terms. We haven't done anything but just read this story. I know that next year, in my move to 5th grade, we will doing a novel study with Roald Dahl's The BFG. 

P.s. I am posting this from my phone, so please forgive any weird tweaks. I will adjust it when I am able to sit down at my home computer.

S.Udy

A Book A Day {Day 3}

Day 3

Another day with Confessions of a Teaching Junkie!

Sticking with the math literature theme, I decided to show 2 books by the same author. These are fun reads that help introduce arrays and the idea of remainders. 

One Hundred Hungry Ant and A Remainder of One 

by Elinor J. Pinczes 

With both books, I have manipulatives under the document camera for students to move around according to the story. (I don't have little ants, but that would be cute if you did!) I do it this way for a couple of reasons. I really don't have the extra time to count out a hundred little pieces for each students to do their own. If I had a parent volunteer, that may be something I could had asked them to do. Also with my intervention math class, behavior management was a big deal this year. I did not give things to the kids that they could possibly play with unless there was no downtime between instructions.

With the book, A Remainder of One, I keep the divisibility rules. I haven't actually used them for an activity yet as we didn't get much past a basic introduction of long division. The rules are a great resource for division and now that I am moving up to 5th grade, I may  actually spend more time on long division! 

Do you integrate math with other subjects? 

S.Udy

A Book A Day {Day 2} & Math Literature Organization

Day 2 here I come!

Hosted by Confessions of a Teaching Junkie

Today as I was thinking about what book to post, I went to my stash of math literature. While earning my Masters degree, I took a class based on connecting math and literature. I received a bunch, I mean a BUNCH of different books that have math connections through that class.  

When you have that many books, organization is always needed. I decided to use the system that my instructor uses for her books. FIrst you need to get a box of different colored folders. I used the cheap paper folders and they work just dandy. Each color is then assigned a topic.

Blue = Numeration & Operations

Yellow = Geometry

Green = Measurement

Black = Graphing

If you want, you could break it down even more by standard and strands.

Label the folder with the title of your book, put your book inside one pocket, and put any extra resources in the other. Viola! Everything you need in one place and could even be an excellent activity for a substitute.

Now on to the book for today…

The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns

This is a great book to introduce polygons. However, you can also use it to look for relationships between the number of sides, angles, and vertices in a polygon. As my kids and I read it, we filled out this worksheet & activity that I found for *FREE* on TeachersPayTeachers. I was late on finding this so we weren't able to actually use the marshmallows and toothpicks. Next time! I really like the column that has the kids think of example of that polygon. It's always a good thing to make connections with students' prior knowledge.

Do you connect literature and math? 

I plan on sharing more math books throughout the month of May!

S.Udy

A Book A Day Link Up {Day 1}

I thought I'd try out my first link up. We'll see how it goes.. :)

Confessions of a Teaching Junkie is hosting

This is not necessarily one book, but I love using fairy tales in my classroom. I used two different versions of The Three Little Pigs and we did a compare and contrast activity with them. I have a classic version that is part of the "Great Fairy Tale Classics" series by Peter Holeinone from when I was  a kid in the 90's. I also borrowed another basic version from my team teacher.

It was quite funny to see the reaction of students when they heard the different versions. In one version, the wolf actually ate the first two pigs. Neither one was a fractured fairy tale, but the kids starting thinking about other versions that they had read or heard of the Three Little Pigs. 

As the activity, our end product was a 3 paragraph essay. This was one of the first essays we did in the year, so we did a lot of it together. We created a 3 column chart, instead of a Venn Diagram, to write down our similarities and differences. Then we created a paragraph about how the two versions where similar based on our middle column. After that, each version got its own paragraph to talk about the differences between the two. 

What fairy tales have you used?

Thanks for stopping by! Hopefully I can get better at this and become a more reflective teacher!

S.Udy

Bully Prevention Month

October is National Bully Prevention month. As an activity, we read the book Spookley, the Square Pumpkin and then did a circle discussion on the carpet. It was good to get things out in the open at the end of the 1st quarter of school. This way we all knew of things that were happening and what we each could do to help make school a great place for students to be. 

Visit www.spookley.com for more activities and videos.

The students then were able to create their own pumpkins. The only limitation was that there had to be ridges, so that you could tell it was some sort of pumpkin. You can see that the kids went pretty crazy! Then each student made a letter for the heading of our hallway display. They didn't know what the title was going to be until everyone had finished their letter.

Mrs. Udy's Bully-Free Pumpkin Patch.