Turkey for Thanksgiving

Hi Everyone!

Sorry for this post so close to Thanksgiving but as you know, school life can be crazy.  We are working this week on A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting for Thanksgiving week.  This is one of my favorite reads this time of year because many students have one perspective throughout the whole book and realize they were wrong at the end.

If you have not read the book, I’ll give a quick synopsis.  Mr. and Mrs. Moose are hosting Thanksgiving dinner. Mrs. Moose really wants a turkey for Thanksgiving, so Mr. Moose promises to get her one.  Mr. Moose goes looking for a turkey and runs into other Thanksgiving dinner attendees on the way that join the search (the Goats, the Rabbits, etc.). They finally find a turkey hiding by the riverbank.  They capture him and bring him back to Mr. Moose’s house.  They then all sit down to dinner only for Turkey to realize they got him a chair and he is NOT dinner but rather a guest.

One writing activity that I did with my students was to have them each disguise a turkey to hide from Thanksgiving.  Then write a story about how the turkey avoided being eaten.  My students came up with some great ideas such as a piano, peacock, rapper, ninja turtle, and more.  To give something a little extra, I had a bag of googly eyes that if students wanted, they could glue them on the turkey for eyes.

The students had a lot of fun and even asked if they could do this next week J. I always find that good news!

Click here if interested in the literature unit - Turkey for Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Erin

10 Ways Parents Can Help Their Child With Math

Hi Everyone!

     Next week I have parent teacher conferences coming up and wanted to be able to hand out something for parents to help their child at home with math.  There are so many ways parents can integrate math with their children and have fun while doing it. I built a chart/poster for parents to use at home to help with math ideas. There is a color poster and a black and white version available.

    I plan on handing this out to parents as I go through conferences. I have posted them for free in my TPT store. If interested please follow the link and download them for yourself. 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/10-Ways-Parents-Can-Help-with-Math-2195914

    Also, please consider following my blog and store for future updates, freebies, and products.

Thanks,

Erin Hansen

Mrs. Hansen’s Helpfuls

Clip art credit belongs to 

Creative Clips and Educlips

Sarah, Plain and Tall: Reading strategy for those reading strugglers.

Hi Everyone!

I just finished reading the small chapter book, Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan last week. I read this every year with my third graders but have also read it with my fourth grade class. I have taught this lesson with just me reading the book to the class and also in groups where everyone has their own book. 

This year, each student had their own book and I was able to integrate the reading strategy of breaking down each chapter of the book.  This is great for grades 2- 4 because when they are just starting chapter books, it helps them understand how to chunk information. We all have natural readers in our classes but this strategy really helps the struggling readers.

After each chapter students needed to think about the main idea/event in that chapter and then draw a picture + write two sentences about it. I was really happy with the results. Everyone passed the final assessments for the book and characters.

Here are some examples of what my students accomplished. 

This reading strategy really helped make my struggling readers more confident in participating and with overall understanding about the book’s development.

If interested in this particular unit just follow the link.

Sarah, Plain and Tall

I hope this strategy works well in your classroom too!

Thanks,

Erin

Multi-Step Word Problems

Hi Everyone,

Last week I wanted to have my students practice addition and subtraction multi-step word problems.  I really wanted them to dissect a problem and analyze it.  So I created some word problems to help them do just that!

The results turned out great. The students learned a lot and kept asking to do more.

Word Problem Example

Word Problem Example Answer

This is how I used the word problems in my classroom:

1.     I placed students into different math groups about 4-5 students.

2.    Each student had to have a different color marker from a person in their group (and no yellow allowed).

3.    I placed a butcher paper down for each group and gave them one word problem per group to solve.

4.    Each member had to work on the problem and had to be able to explain how to do it.

5.    For the final part: I did it two separate ways. One way, I had each group present one of the word problems to the class. The second way we went over each problem using the SMART board. (I used the answer cards given in this unit.

(I used these word problems for three separate math lessons but easily could have made an entire week out of it.)

Students working on one of the word problems.

It was great to be able to walk around the room and be able to observe the students working together and know what each had contributed.  It was really easy to see whose colored marker was not being used to help solve the problem.

Let me know how your word problem lessons turn out!

If you are interested in this one just follow link below.

Multi-Step Word Problems

Thanks,

Erin

Johnny Appleseed Graphic Organizer Extensions FREE

Hi!

Next week we will be working on our Johnny Appleseed unit. I have some freebies that I would like to share that can go along with most Johnny Appleseed units you already have or can get free on the Internet.

I have collected so many different stories and articles on John Chapman aka Johnny Appleseed. I wanted to have something that could really implement some common core strategies of comparing similar texts.  I created a graphic organizer you can use to compare different articles (for example on Johnny Appleseed).

The other freebies I have included is to use with a nonfiction piece or legend article on Johnny Appleseed.  Students can fill out a profile sheet on John Chapman, his motivations, and track his movement across America.

The final sheet can be used as a mini writing assessment of what they have learned about John Chapman. To get this freebie, follow the hyperlink below. It will take to you to the download.  You may consider following for more freebies to come!

Link to Johnny Appleseed Freebie 

Enjoy!

Erin

Dear Mrs. LaRue Craftivity

Hi,

Sorry it has been awhile since my last post! I have been busy doing many new literature units.  My class is currently studying the author Mark Teague. He has written stories such as The Lost and Found, the “Dear Mrs. LaRue” series, The Secret Shortcut, and much more.

Last week’s focus was on the book Dear Mrs. LaRue. This is about a dog that gets put into obedience school because his owner thinks he behaves badly. Throughout the story, the dog Ike writes his owner Mrs. Larue about his side of the story.  This book is a great way to teach a character’s point of view.

I also did a little activity that to help teach the point of view of both Mrs. LaRue and Ike.  The students create a Brotweiler Academy (this is the obedience school that Ike gets sent to).  The outside of the craft is a drawing of the Academy and on the inside; students write the two different points of view and draw an accompanying picture.  The following are pictures of the final craft that my students completed and my teacher example.

If you are interested for the templates and a literature study that goes with this book, follow the link below.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dear-Mrs-LaRue-Book-Study-with-Activities-Vocab-Spelling-and-Craft-1396895

Enjoy!

Erin Hansen

Fun craft for summer vacation stories.

Hi Everyone!

So this week we have been working on summer vacation stories.  To go with this theme, I read the story How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Chris Van Allsburg.  This is a great story about a kid with a wild imagination.  I then had students write about their favorite summer vacation story. Once they wrote this we practiced editing skills which no one thought they needed! WRONG, lol.

Afterwards, I was inspired by a fellow teacher, who I like to call Amazing Amy (yes, she wears a cape) to do a similar activity craft she was doing with her student’s summer vacation stories. So I created a half sheet final draft sheet for their stories. I posted this below in a PDF link - Free.

Final Draft Link

I used a sunglasses pic from the website http://www.clker.com/clipart-black-and-white-sunglass-frames.html which is a free clipart site. Students colored the glasses and put mini-scene pics in the glass part of the glasses.

After students finished writing their final drafts and cut-out their completed sunglasses, I took them to attach to a long piece of construction paper. I pasted the story at the bottom and sun glasses above for students to draw their face and neck.

I think their final story and craft turned out great!

Thanks,

Erin

Butterfly Activity

Hi Everyone!

I am back in full swing at school and just completed my first week!  It was a full week and I have a crazy new schedule that I have to get used to.  However, I have a lot of great new students and have been doing many activities to help create a nice positive learning environment.  One of the activities that I did last week was this butterfly activity. I have done this several times in the past and other teachers have been asking me about it this year.  

This butterfly activity is a getting to know you, where students are paired up and have to complete this butterfly with is actually a Venn Diagram about similarities and differences of each student.

Here is how I put it together.

1.Pair students into partners of 2. Each partner gets a wing (one gets the right, and one gets the left).

2.Together they fill out things they have in common on the body of the butterfly.

3.Then they discuss their differences. This talk may sound like, what’s your favorite movie? or How many pets do you own? They put their differences on their wing.

4.Then students each color their own wing and decide how to color the body.

5.Students cut out each wing (do NOT cut off the black tabs) and cut out the butterfly body.

6.Then (up to you) but as the teacher I taped the butterfly wings on the back of the body.

7.Then as the teacher I took one pipe cleaner and bent it in the middle to have to equal halves. I taped the middle to the back of the body and curled the ends to make it look like antennae. 

This is the end result:

So now I have a great new bulletin board for parents to see when they come next week for parent night!

 See the Butterfly Activity on TPT.

Have Fun,

Erin

Place Value Mats

I can't wait to use these this year. I have done these in the past and wanted to update them to bring them back into my math curriculum. These are Place Value Mats that can be used all year for different math activities.

There are many different types of math lessons that you can do with the place value mats. The top reasons are to help students understand what place value is, writing numbers, help students say numbers, and to help students write numbers.


Other ideas I have come up with include.

Lesson Ideas for

the Place Value Mat

1.For beginning lessons go over vocabulary with students. Give tips on how to read and say a number.

2.As a whole class, everyone has their boards out. The teacher tells the students a number out loud to the whole class (repeat several times). This is great for informal assessing because it is easy to see which students get it and which don’t. After everyone has their boards complete, the teacher writes the number on the board.

3.In partners or small groups, one student builds the number (use privacy folder) and then has to say the number aloud. The other students have to build their number.

4.To emphasize the place in place value, have students build the number by only giving bedroom name and number. Example: There is a 2 in the tens place and a 4 in the ten thousands place.

5.To show adding and subtracting by 1,000, 100, 10’s.  Example: Build a number such as 23,789. Then ask students to add a 1,000 but take away 100. The new number is 24,689.

6.Use the mat to demonstrate rounding for different number values.

7.Students can practice differing money amounts.

8.Students write the standard form and the written form for each number. 

**Click here for a word form/standard form blog only freebie.**

If you are interested in the whole set to create the place value mats, you can find them here. 

Place Value Mats

I typically laminate these mats so students can use these all throughout the year.

Erin

All About Me

Okay, well not all about me really but rather my All About Me stuff that I will be using at the beginning of the year. I created some different posters for students to do that first week back  in school. I wanted to share this blog only freebie with you. Let me know what you think.

Thanks,
Erin

Click here to download this freebie.



If you are interested in the full product, you can find it here:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/All-About-Me-Posters-for-Back-to-School-Activities-1976905