Happy Veteran's Day

I cannot think of Veteran's Day without thinking of one of the most memorable men I ever knew. I sure do miss my grandfather, Mac. I do not have a picture of him in uniform because he was long retired before I came around, but I fondly remember how excited he was when I joined the Air Force. You would have thought I had hung the moon because I followed in his footsteps!

Following in his footsteps is the path that led me to meet the love of my life, Josh Dunn. Where would I be now if I had not followed him? 

If I ever write a book, he would be one of the main characters front and center! The stories I could tell about my grandpa! Miss you Grandpa and Happy Veteran's Day to all that served ~ Thank You!

 

I stopped by school today to get ready for the week. I am sure I have said before that there is not enough time in the day to fit it all in. You would think this is still my first year to teach, LOL. Maybe before I retire I will be able to fit everything I need to do within school hours! We can only hope, right?

 

I spent a few minutes rotating the book baskets on tables and adding Thanksgiving books. This is about as festive as I get for any holiday. I am almost afraid to admit I am a bit of a Grinch. I hope you all can forgive me. I promise it's not that my heart is two sizes too small. I promise that I have always wanted to be one of those people that decorates for every holiday, but that is just not who I am. So I guess we will have to live with new holiday/ seasonal books in our book baskets!

So on that note, I thought I would share some of my favorite Thanksgiving picture books.

I stumbled upon this awesome book, Thank you, Sarah The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving by Laurie Halse Anderson, at a reading conference last year. This is a great, and somewhat different, look at the history of my favorite holiday. Sarah, her pen, and her persistence, save Thanksgiving! Anderson's wit and Faulkner's perfectly humorous illustrations are a great combination. And, oh do I love how things can all fall right into place when you need them to because we are about to roll right into opinion writing. I will just have to throw in a little "Common Themes in Literature" as well ~ perseverance!

Squanto's Journey The Story of the First Thanksgiving by Joseph Bruchac is beautifully illustrated narrative story. My kiddos are already in love with Joseph Bruchac's amazing writing, so I cannot wait to share this with them!

I'm A Turkey by Jim Arnosky is just for fun! Love this story, and I love it even more because you can download a free MP3 version of Jim Arnosky singing it here. How fun!

One of my all time favorites is The Thanksgiving Door by Debby Atwell. For me, this is what Thanksgiving is all about. I love that open door, we are all family, kind of feeling! Acceptance and kindness are always wonderful things, and I know I blog about them often. This book is a sweet look at these common themes and the meaning of Thanksgiving.

A cute little back-and-forth text that I love is The Perfect Thanksgiving by Eileen Spinelli. We are all different, and our families are all different. Hmmm... acceptance and kindness. What a wonderful time to look at what makes us the same. Spinelli did an awesome job with this story, and I know exactly which family mine would be. :)

Can you believe that this is our last full week before Fall Break? Whew...I cannot! So I must say that I am excited that I will get to read all of my favorite Thanksgiving picture books this week because I expect to finish our read aloud tomorrow, and I do not want to start a new one just before a break. My kiddos are loving, I mean hanging-on-every-word-loving, Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn. This is usually the case when I read this one. Hahn has a way of creating characters that you love to hate and characters that you love to root for. I cannot wait for all of the discussion when we finish! 

We will finish up our biographies and our study of Sacajawea this week! We are headed straight to our opinion writing pieces. We have a lot to fit in here in this next little bit. Lots of hard work ahead.

 

Here are a couple of our morning messages. Each morning my kiddos look forward to their message. They usually let me know if it doesn't meet their expectations, haha. There are days in which they have to respond, but others that they just simply read. They seem to love them all the same so far, and I cannot believe I haven't used these forever!

  

With that I will say good night! Happy reading!

Busy day

What a mess I worked on yesterday! I decided it was finally time to get down to business and clean out my library book baskets. With over 95 baskets accessible to kids, I knew this would take me a while. No matter how hard I try at the end of each year to keep my baskets organized, there is always that last minute rush to get everything put away - even if it doesn't belong there - just put it somewhere! So now I am left cleaning up that mess. ;) Yesterday, I managed to organize each of the picture book baskets. This meant pulling them from the shelf and making sure that each book that is in the basket belongs there. There were hundreds and hundreds of books to check, but it was nice to spend the time revisiting all of the great texts I have. When you have so many, it is easy to forget some wonderful books. 

What a mess! 14 large picture book baskets to go through!

Just making sure all books are in the correct basket.
It takes a  bit of work sometimes, but the system
I use has been the best so far. 

Now that I have all of the picture books reorganized, I have to get a hold of all those chapter books! This will take me a while because I have so many new books and no room for more baskets. I have still not wrapped my mind around how I might correct this. It is just not in me to get rid of a book...Hello my name is Tina, and I am a book hoarder! In the seven years that I have taught, my library has grown by an average of 1000 books a year. I am just SO running out of space! Secretly, I am hoping that my school will see my desperate need for help and graciously offer to add on to my room, ha-ha!

No room for a single new basket - oh what to do, what to do??

Okay, so I have not finished the larger library and it might be a few days before I get it all done. It will take lots of soul searching as I go through each basket to determine what my students are actually reading and enjoying, and what I might actually be able to shuffle around to other libraries in my room. 

I did reorganize and clean up on of my smaller student libraries though. This small library is one of our nonfiction areas. Of all of the texts in my room, this is my greatest weakness! I spent a lot of last year focusing on nonfiction purchases, and I will continue to do the same this year. With Common Core rolling around, I really need to work on this! I have to admit that today's nonfiction doesn't even compare to what was being published when I was in fourth grade. I have really been enjoying some of the wonderful nonfiction  pieces that I have picked up lately, and even more, I am loving that the boys in my room are loving it just as much!

One of our smaller libraries...all organized (if  a little crowded)

After all of the cleaning in my room, my daughter and I completed a first for both of us last night. We ran our very first 5K! Those of you that know me, know that last year our school had our very own Biggest Loser! It was a life changing year for me, and I am having so much fun with it! This weight loss journey has led me to running...I am so new at it and not very good at it, but I sure do enjoy it!

Katie Bird and me after the race!

Woohoo...we survived :)