December Books!

Learning with Mrs. Parker is having a link party for favorite December books! Definitely want to play along with this one...I have too many to name, but these are my top choices.

I've posted before about how Tome DePaola's Legend of the Bluebonnet and Legend of the Indian Paintbrush are two of my ultimate favorite books to teach with during the fall! So, I love using this book to review back to the themes of those books...



Of course, we love Miss Nancy!



And you just HAVE to read this every year!



I LOVE the illustrations in this book! So sweet and cheerful!



Happy Almost December!

Quick Catch Up!

The holidays have arrived!! I just wanted to catch up on a couple classroom happenings before the holiday blogging fun begins!

Is You Tube blocked in your district? I'm so thankful that we are not blocked from it, because it has some awesome little treasures! One little treasure is THIS VIDEO that uses pop music to teach similes and metaphors. A teacher named Mrs. Prego created this for her English class, and shared it with the world on You Tube! Mrs. Prego, whoever you are, THANK YOU!! We made T-charts and labeled the sides "simile" and "metaphor"..The video takes particular lyrics of songs and puts them on screen for kids to read, along with. She also includes the title and artist. I had my kids determine whether each lyric was a simile or metaphor and then write the lyric on their T-chart. They were SO engaged!!

After I played it one of my students blurted out "MRS. ORR, IS 'HIGHWAY TO HELL' A METAPHOR?!" Haha!

Needless to say, we have been finding all kinds of similes and metaphors in our music ever since! :)

We did this as a review of parts of speech...Easy but a great review!



I LOVE holidays, because you can take practically anything, even material that is dry, and if you make it festive then the kids are suddenly interested in the activity! Just looked at parts of speech that would describe our Thanksgiving Day with our family!

And, can I just say how grateful I am to be at a school where we can celebrate and discuss holidays!?! SO excited about the Christmas season!

Thankful!

What the Teacher Wants is having a linky party!!!

The linky party is for everyone to link up what we are thankful for! What a wonderful idea. Here are a few of the things I am thankful for...

What are you thankful for in your classroom?

**Cliche to say, but I am thankful for my KIDS! I had so many apprehensions about working with fifth graders, but these kids make everything worth it. I love it.

What person are you most thankful for?

My amazingly kind, Godly and supportive husband.



And our amazing families... We are so blessed.

What guilty pleasure are you most thankful for?

Oh dear!

Philosophy Pure Grace Products!


Ray Lamontagne, but his music not his face :) Love listening to him!


My Atlanta Ladies



What are you most thankful for?

So thankful for having a life full of people to love, but most importantly, I am thankful for the love of Jesus. I am also so thankful for the Bible which inspires me to be a better teacher. I will leave you with a verse I'm thankful for because it has inspired me lately...

"My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality. It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For GOD IS GREATER than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves." - I John 3:18-20 (The Message)

Happy Thanksgiving Blog Friends!!