Five for Friday: Kagan and Turtles!

Here's what's been going on this week!

I attended another fabulous Kagan Training with our amazing teacher Christi Brown! We learned new structures to use to reach the different intelligences! 

 The first graduating class in Caddo for a Level II Kagan training!

My friend Rachel, Christi, and me 

This is a song my group created when we did the Lyrical Lessons Structure! This structure mainly focused on the musical/rhythmic intelligence, but also reached others!

This is a fun structure that mainly focused on the visual/spatial and naturalist intelligence! 

If you ever get an opportunity to attend a Kagan workshop, I highly recommend it!

This week I adopted some very awesome aquatic turtles! I named them after scientists, because the previous owner's son rescued some turtles and bred and observed their behavior. 

This is baby Einstein. He's a Razorback Musk Turtle. 

Mary Amelia Curie is a Red Eared Slider turtle. She's 7 years or older. (She was rescued. You can see her shell has some damage.)

This little dude is Isaac Newton. He's a Stinkpot Musk turtle. He's also a baby.

Yesterday I got all my anchor charts laminated that I made this summer. These will not stay up in my classroom, but will be posted when we are working on that particular subject/topic.

Here are pictures of some of my creations. (Don't judge my lack of ability to do bubble letters. lol)

This summer I've made an awesome new friend. God's timing is perfect, and He knows exactly what we need. Emily is such a blessing to my life!

Last, but not least, I got to spend more time with my God Son! Liam is just adorable!

Have a great weekend!

Blogger T. Shirt Design!

Create your own T.shirt with your blog logo on it using TeacherShirts.com! All you have to do is go to the site and then go to the teacher blogger page. On that page there dis a link for a teacher blogger promotion. It ends 9/30/15 so hurry over!!! I hope to receive my shirt soon!

Check out my design:

Five for Friday: Loving summer!

Well, my Five for Friday is going to seem a bit scarce compared to the school year! lol Here is what's been going on this week.

I've really been enjoying my summer and getting to relax some with my babies!

Here's a pic of all three of them being lovey on my bed! So sweet!

Teemo

Pumpkin

As we speak, I am at Barnes and Noble working on a Wonders modeled lesson for a workshop I will be doing in August. I'm working with another fabulous teacher, Nicole Nelson. We will be modeling how to teach a day 1 and day 2 lesson at the workshop. This should help new teachers and teachers who are just overwhelmed with the textbook series. I feel very unqualified to be modeling this, considering my lessons are very different. I teach using novels, as you all know. I connect my novels to the big idea in Wonders, but I don't spend a lot of time on the Wonders stories. 

For those in my area interested in the workshop, it will be August 4th at Stoner Hill from 8:30-3:30. It should be online soon!

Right now, I'm working on tweaking my Inventors Project. I am so excited about it! It will be so much fun for the students! Be looking for a post soon with it on my TPT site!

I currently have two other projects on my TPT. My Holocaust Research Project and Top 5 Contributions to Medicine project. These can be done without reading the novels that we read. We read Number the Stars before they complete the Holocaust project, and we read The Apprenticeship of Lucas Whitaker before doing the Top 5 Contributions to Medicine project. Check them out!

Right now I am reading 4 awesome books! 

I am loving all the knowledge I am gaining from this book! I will be taking a workshop next month to, hopefully, reinforce what I've learned! I wrote a post on some things I've learned a few posts ago. I'll be adding more information as I continue to read that will help teachers!

This book is so fascinating. It's written by Temple Grandin, who was the first autistic person to graduate from college. The book includes all sorts of information about how autistic children/people's brains work and how to teach them. It's definitely helping me understand my non-neurotypical students!

I actually started this book during the school year, but didn't have the time to finish it. I had a wonderful student last year with Dyslexia. He ended up getting Most Improved Student for the year! His parents and all the research I did helped me better reach him. I really connected with him and understood Dyslexia so much more. This book takes a different approach with Dyslexia. Instead of looking at it as a disorder, it looks at how Dyslexia can actually be an advantage. Many inventors have Dyslexia! Find out why by reading this book!

Aside from all my research, I am also reading this one for myself! It's so great! I have such an analytical mind that I often question my faith. This book definitely is helping me!

Last, but not least, I am a new God Mother to our close friends' new baby boy, Liam! Check out how precious he is!

Have a great weekend!

RAPP Star Strategy for Prose Constructed Response Writing

Good evening all!

     Today I attended a fabulous workshop by the lovely Leia Lewis Henderson.

     The workshop taught us how to implement her RAPP Star Strategy to help students answer constructed response questions after reading a text. Leia created her very own rap song to engage her 4th grade students. This coming school year Leia will be teaching 6th grade. I definitely think that her RAPP Star Strategy can be implemented in every grade level. It would just need to be modified for the lower grades.

     Leia began her lesson by teaching us the song lyrics. You can download the lyrics for free on her TPT website {HERE}. She then gave us a graphic organizer and notes page to help us understand the strategy further. We then delved into a text together and utilized her notations as we read. Here are some examples of notations that good readers use while reading (These are not Leia's, but are similar):

 This one can be found {HERE} for FREE!

 Or you can make your own anchor chart with symbols you like.

     After reading the text, we then used the RAPP Star Strategy to answer a constructed response question. Here is an image of the strategy from her FREE power point (with lyrics guide):

     This strategy is fantastic, and I am so excited to implement it! I will be purchasing her CD with two versions of the song set to music! You can purchase that {HERE}.

     If you would like more information on the strategy or would like to attend one of her upcoming trainings please e-mail Leia at leia@leialewis.com!

Have a fantastic night and enjoy your summer break!