Happy New Year to All

I keep meaning to post...and then I get all caught up in enjoying my time at home with my baby...first holiday! I hope everyone else is having a great holiday season and has an even better new year tonight.

See you in 2012.

Happy Holidays to All!

The days have gotten away from me these past few weeks and I have not posted as much (or at all) as usual! I hope everyone has a great holiday season and a wonderful new year.

See you in 2012! Merry Christmas from the mini Lyons!

The Daily 5...fully loaded!!

It's been about 2 weeks now and my students and I have transitioned into full choice mode of the Daily 5...or as we call it the Daily 3. We have been working on Read to Self, Work on Writing and Convention Connection. I decided to change Word Work to Convention Connection because I wanted to integrate a lot more grammar and not just spelling and vocabulary. Things have been going so well and I have been super proud of my students. On the days when we just can't fit Daily 3 in due to other curriculum expectations from the administration they are asking for it and wishing we could do it!! I love it! Where has this been all my life?

To start off with we reviewed all the I charts we had made throughout the introduction of each part of the Daily 3.

Sorry, the green doesn't come out too well in a picture.

Then we created a Daily 3 Promise for how we would work when we have free choice during the Daily 3...and of course, everyone signed it!

I am hoping to get organized soon so that I can do a great big freebie of the Convention Connection (Word Work) stuff I have been developing for my class but until then...which most likely won't be until after the holidays...you know how it is!!... here are some pictures and descriptions of what we have been working on in class.

To start off with we have been working on nouns and verbs. The students have written stories attempting to use as many nouns and verbs as possible...so fun! Of course, they have done some work on using nouns, conjugating and verbs and identifying the nouns and verbs in sentences. So here came the hard stuff...I posted this list of vocabulary words and the students were required to sort them using a venn diagram into words that could be just nouns, just verbs or both. For some of my 4's this required some real thinking!

Of course, here is the Pinterest inspired Boggle board as bonus work.

This is where the students find all their Convention Connection handouts...and just like the rest of the Daily 5, there is lots of choice! (Please note my super fun Charlie Brown mug in the background!!!)

In other class news, our media-inferring unit is wrapping up and I wanted to share some of the anchor charts we have created and used throughout the unit. We have been learning about inferring in advertising and the features of advertising at the same time. It's been challenging to say the least but from the diagnostic task until now I can really see improvement in most of my Grade 4 friends.

Soon we will be starting Geometry and 2D figures...so as an introduction we reviewed these 4 quadrilaterals and then used them to create Kandinsky style abstract art! Pictures coming soon.

Whew...so much going on at school, at home and with the holidays....8 days to go until vacation. Happy Holidays everyone!

Merry Freebie!!

I am super excited to be part of TBA's 25 Days of Gifts...but things are super crazy! So I do have a freebie for you...but I don't have a long story to with it.

I made these quick reading conference forms to record my discussions with my students during our Daily 5 discussions. I have a fiction and a non-fiction version.

Fiction Conference Form

Non Fiction Conference Form

I really hope to be posting soon with all sorts of news and pictures and freebies and stuff!! Soon!!
Until then...enjoy.

And....here is the link to my ongoing Christmas idea Pinterest board.

Christmas Christmas Christmas

Learning with Ms Parker has organized the TBA's 25 days of Christmas gifts. I will be hosting on December 7th but I encourage everyone to check out Teaching Blog Addicts EVERYDAY to read all about the other days of giveaways as well.