Colorful days and early nights

Whoo...I am so sleepy that I cannot believe I am typing. So ahead of time...would you please forgive all any and ALL typos? LOL ~ While I am at it, how about any grammatical errors as well. hehe 

Do you want to know the truly sad part? It is only 7:26 on a Saturday night, and this OLD body is screaming for the comfy warmth of my bed. Oh my goodness! When did I become so old? I don't know whether to laugh or cry, LOL. (Guess that's makes it a laugh ;)

While I am begging forgiveness and patience for any and all errors, I will also ask you to indulge me as I share just how much stinkin' fun Katie Byrd and I had today! Holy Cow! We 5K'ed it up this morning in the happiest 5K on the planet, according to the official Color Run crew, and how right they were! Now I know this may be old hat to many of you out there in the blogging world, but this was the first Color Run for the two of us, and we CANNOT wait until next year!

Still crisp and white in our Color Run gear :)

 

 

 

Woohoo...we had such a blast! I have never had so much fun getting dirty! I loved running into friends and students, current and past! 

Thank you for indulging me, LOL. Now onto all things school! Our week seemed to fly by! Thanksgiving break is barreling toward us faster each day, and I feel like a broken record when I say this school year is getting away from me. I have so much left to share with these kiddos, even just before our fall break. Whew, don't know how I will get it all in!

  

Doesn't Sacajawea look completely different on each cover!
She certainly doesn't look like the teenager she was when
she helped Lewis and Clark LOL

Our Informational Reading and Writing unit has been a great success! As we read like a historian, we have learned so many new things about Sacajawea. She was quite an amazing woman! We are taking what we learn about informational writing to help us write a biography.

I have really enjoyed watching these groups work together.
Although students are helping each other gather information
and ideas, each student will be responsible for creating their
own biography of a historical figure! 

I want to share some great picture books with you. As usual, I feel as if I have fallen behind in my quest to share one really great mentor text/ picture book per day. You know that I am lucky to post once a week, so I usually bombard you with books. I will have to scroll through past posts soon to see how I am doing in regards to numbers soon. 

These next few books that I am going to share are not necessarily books that I have read this week. Many are new additions to my library, and I just cannot wait to share them with you. 

A Perfect Snowman by Preston McDaniels was a beauty I picked up at, of all places, Cracker Barrel. I was immediately drawn to it, and when I picked it up, I knew I would be walking out of the store with it. Thankfully Katie works there part time and gets a discount because it was more than I would normally spend on a picture book. With so many in my library, I just cannot afford to spend that much on every book that catches my eye ~ no matter how hard that might be! No worries, discount was applied, and I walked out a happy girl with a beautiful new book! The illustrations in this story are amazing, and I am looking forward to our first cold snap to share!

 

 

Misery is a Spider in the Bathtub by Jennifer Rapp, Zero Is The Leaves On The Tree by Betsy Franco and When I Woke Up I Was a Hippopatamus by Tom MacRae are all books that I have recently picked up to use as metaphor mentor texts. Each are great little stories, but I have to share a few pages from When I Woke Up...I LOVE this one! (I would also use this for complex sentence structures and the AAAWWUBBIS. Just look at those metaphors and subordinating conjunctions all rolled into one! Cannot wait to share this one! I think we can do a really fun writing project with this one. Tom MacRae did an amazing job with this little story!

These Hands by Margaret Mason was a new title I just received from our latest book order. I was moved by the cover and decided to take a chance. I am so glad that I did because not only are Floyd Cooper's illustrations beautiful, but the story is just as moving. So touching and so different from the others I have shared tonight. Again, I know I say this often, but I just love it!

Edward and the Pirates by David McPhail is one that I just recently shared with my kiddos. I love the story of this little boy that loves reading! Heck, I love the story of anyone that loves reading. Anything to show my kiddos just how amazing reading can be. Edward's mom and dad turn out to be quite the characters in the end - so fun. 

The Girl's Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can't Manage Without Apostrophes! by Lynne Truss was a great find I snagged on sale! Whoo hoo ~ you have to love a great hard-back book for cheap! And it helps with the whole "apostrophe thing" which is so much harder for fourth graders than you would think. Drives me crazy!

All right, one more picture book. Let me throw in a David Catrow for you! Mr. Catrow seems to be everywhere these days! If I see his illustrations, I will typically pick it up and buy it without so much as reading a word of the text. Yes, silly I know, but I just love his whimsical illustrations! My kiddos can instantly pick out a Catrow book. The fact that this one was written by Karen Beaumont made it a no-brainer for me! They are such a great team. Where's My T-R-U-C-K? was a perfect addition to my picture book library and I am definitely thinking common themes in literature ~ be happy with what you have. ;)

Well ladies and gents, I do believe that will be all for me tonight. Sorry for being so picture heavy, LOL. I just love sharing in pictures one way or another.

Happy reading!

Bits and pieces

Today is not only election day, but it just also happens to be my Katie Byrd's 19th birthday. Holy cow....where have the years gone! I cannot believe that I have two, yes I said TWO, kids in college. If that doesn't make you feel old, I don't know what will. 

But I digress, this isn't a post about exactly how old I may or may not be, but rather a post about how as Katie celebrated her birthday, doing any number of things a silly girl of 19 might do, she surprised us with a visit to our classroom today! My kiddos have been sharing letters in their readers' notebooks with Katie for a number of weeks now, and many were excited to see her in person.  It was fun to watch her join a few in conversations about favorites. You just have to love anything that gets them sharing and talking about reading! She didn't mind that they all sang Happy Birthday either. :)

I thought I might share a few pics of random happenings around our hallway these days, bits and pieces. ;)

Our "Common Themes in Literature" wall is growing by the day!
The beginning of the year is so full of great picture book reading.
I try to find a reason to read at least one a day...if not many more ;)

I am just as proud of all of the book recommendations!
The yellow sheets are the student recommendations to their friends, not only
our room but from the other fourth grade rooms as well.
The pink sheets are Book Worm winners.

 

As students complete a book, they fill out a "Book Completion Form" and enter it in our Book Worm Drawing. Each month I pull three forms from each class, and if students have been thorough and thoughtful in sharing about their book, they receive a free book of their choice from the book order! I love seeing their faces when their books come in! 

We have lots of great writing out in our hallway!

We work so hard on some of our anchors; I just don't have the heart to keep them covered as we continue adding more anchors of our work throughout the year. Some of my favorites I pull out into the hallway. Just like time in the day, there is never enough wall space for anchors or shelf space for books. My kiddos are completely on my side and often I catch them scouting bigger rooms for us to take over LOL.

As we have grown in our reading,
our Reading Cafe menu has grown!

My kiddos are super psyched to enter the Paws for Reading! Hello....100 free books of your choice! Why yes, thank you! This is our first entry, and I cannot wait to see what else gets turned in! Mrs. Whitt has even gotten in on the action...check out her sweet Maggie! 

I might have to get some pics of my babies doing the same. Here is a picture of one of my babies trying to get better. My Freddy boy has hurt his back, and it makes me very sad to see him hurting so much. Cross your fingers that my boy gets better soon, and he is running in the back yard with his ears dragging the ground!

Speaking of Mrs. Whitt, here are a couple of bits and pieces from around her room! I couldn't ask for a better teammate! I love sharing kiddos with her, and everyone knows that we both claim all of them as our own. Instead of having one class to love, we get two! 

 

Looks like we have some excited kiddos!
They complete their Contig board in Mrs. Whitt's room!

Random pic of kiddos swarming to read our new Mummies
book! OK...yes, I know; they are really looking at all the
gruesome pics, but again, they are diving into a book at
the moment! Whatever it takes to get them past the cover!

I am guessing that I have shared enough randomness for one night. ;) I have just one picture book to share tonight. In honor of the cool breezes and the lovely colors of fall that are finally gracing us with their presence, I have shared with my kiddos Chris Van Allsburg's The Stranger. I just love Van Allsburg for oh-so-many-things! I love his illustrations, and I love that he leaves you to think in his stories. 

Happy reading!