Cause & Effect {Anchor Chart Thursdays}

Hi ya'll!  

I'm back again this week with a new

Our reading skill for this week was cause & effect.

I introduced cause & effect with this anchor chart.  The students also had all the information (with a little extra) from the anchor chart in a note format for their literacy binder.

To give examples of cause & effect, we watched an animated version of Strega Nona which has a ton of cause/effect relationships.

You can access the animated version here.  It is from PBS so you will need to login or register.

We watched it the first time while just listening.  During the second viewing, I had the students jot down a few cause/effect relationships they noticed.
Here are a few of my sweet students working hard!

 We recorded these on our Strega Nona anchor chart.  We then discussed a few graphic organizers they could use to represent cause and effect.

Word Study

Have mercy!  

I have went back and forth between spelling words, Wordly Wise, and now I have *finally* settled on Kristen's wonderful Morphology Dictionary resource.

First, let me get this out of the way... These are my opinions.  I am not receiving anything from Kristen to promote her product.  I just want to share a great resource :)

To be honest, I was a little hesitant about purchasing it because it is $14.50!  That's a lot to fork out for one resource.  I bought it during the TpT back to school sale and it sat in my purchases until last week.  What??  That's right...  I didn't even look at until last week.  I knew Wordly Wise wasn't engaging my students like I wanted it to.  Studying greek and latin roots are also standards for 5th graders so it was a win-win.

I explained to my poor students {this is their third attempt at something to work with words} what we would be doing.  Overall, they all seemed excited to get started.  I wanted to share how I am using this product in my classroom.

Monday was our first day, and I modeled with them how to highlight the prefixes, suffixes, and root words.  All prefixes are highlighted green, suffixes pink, and all root words yellow.  These colors also correlate to the colors on our focus board for prefix/suffix/roots.  The students then identify all prefixes, suffixes, and roots and record them on their vocabulary sheet.  Then, they define each.  Last week, Kristen just so happened to post a wonderful resource that she uses to introduce the vocabulary words to her students.  It was as if God was saying, "yes, you should use this!"  I do mine a little different which I will explain in a bit.  First, here is her resource that she has posted on her blog for *FREE*!

You should so go check it out!  She also has an additional resource available for extra practice.  I am also planning on using this.

Here are some pictures of my kiddos working on highlighting those words!

They worked so hard flipping back and forth through the dictionary!

With my higher-order thinking students, we did the first 10 together.  Then, I had them work with a partner to find the other 10.  This process will usually be something they will complete individually during word work through the week.

I was SO proud of how well they worked together! 

Here are some things I am doing with it.

1. On Monday, students get their vocabulary list that will serve as their vocabulary list for 2 weeks. This list remains in their literacy binder for the first week.
2. Students highlight prefixes, suffixes, and root words according to the color code.
3. During Word Work for the first week, students will record prefixes, suffixes, and root words.
4. Students will also define each during the first week.
5. On Monday of the 2nd week, students will transfer the list to their agenda binder so they can study the words at home.
6. During the second week, students will complete Kristen's second resource that I linked to above. They will complete this for each word on their list.
7. Students will study each night for their vocabulary / spelling quiz that will be on Friday of the 2nd week.

I haven't decided what my quiz will assess, but I will be sure to share it when I do.

I hope this is something you can use in your classroom.  It is probably the best resource I have ever bought from TpT!

Focus Board.. YAY!

Hi guys!  I'm so impressed that I'm going to have more than one post this week... say what??  I wanted to share my new focus board with you.  It's still a work in progress, but I'm pretty happy with it.  I have moved all of my things into one central location at the front of the room.  Here's what it looks like.

It may be difficult to see, but the top left are our "We Can" statements.  In the past, my district required us to post "I Can" statements with the standard.  I have decided that I like "We" because it instills a sense of community in the classroom.  I *just* realized that I forgot my subject area labels for this block. Oh well, guess I'll fix that tomorrow.

In the bottom left, I have our EQs for each subject I teach.  These are directly related to the standard or "We Can" statement that we are focusing on for each day.  To the right of that you will see our weekly skills area.  Again, this is correlated to both the EQs and the "We Can" statements.  I love that the students have one place on Monday where they can come and check what we are studying that week.

Above it are our 'no excuse' words.  These are words that our district has identified for 5th grade students to know how to spell.  They should have "no excuse" for not knowing them.  I have 20 each week and then we add them to our word wall.  I highly encourage the use of our word wall during writing.

In the {ugly} green pocket chart are our prefix, suffix, and root words.  I'll go into that tomorrow :)  They are color-coded to match what we are doing in class.

 Here's what that area of my board looked like at the beginning of the year... blah!  I rarely used it even though I knew I should.  To be honest, I don't even think the students looked at it much.

You may remember how *unhappy* I was about this focus wall.  This is where it use to be.  Now, I have both places (and purposes) combined into one!

I just love my new focus wall.  I was so excited to talk to the students about it today!

Peek at my Week Linky... for the first time!

Okay, so I've been DYING to link up with Dee Dee for her Peek at my Week Linky.  It was kind of difficult since I use an EC teacher planner (which just isn't me.)  I refused to give up the planner since I spent so much money on it.  Well, I did it!  I put it in my crate this week and decided to do things my way!

First of all, I teach 5th grade which is a lot different from most of the teachers who link up.  But, I just love looking at all the lesson plans and cute things they are doing in their classrooms.  Most of my plans are in words... sorry!  I did try to throw in a couple of pictures to make it interesting.

When looking at my plans you will see that we are doing a lot of things with close reading.  This is something I have just started to focus on, so it's kind of in the developmental stages.  Also, on Monday, my students will be presenting their story board research projects they have been working on the past two weeks.  This is something I have been totally impressed with and will include a post devoted to it as soon as the students finish them completely and present them to the class.  So far,  I am very impressed with how they have turned out.

So... here we go!  You can download the pdf file by clicking any of the files below.  The links to the products are below the files.

This week I used:

Morphology Dictionary by Kristen

These plans were very time consuming, but I feel that I am ready for Monday!  I know exactly what I'm doing, what standards I'm covering, and what materials I will need.

Go ahead and link up with Dee Dee!

Flashbacks {Anchor Chart Thursdays}

I thought I had scheduled this post, but that was obviously not the case!  Anyways, here is today's

I found this anchor chart on Pinterest, but I can't seem to find the source.  If you find it, please leave it in the comments section.  

When we were reading Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, we talked a lot about flashbacks.  Brian, Hatchet's main character, is always having flashbacks and thinking about when he was back in New York.  This anchor chart was up in the classroom during the entire duration of our reading.  I really believe the vocabulary hint helped the students grasp the meaning of flashback.

Again, if you would like to link up, you can below.  I'll try to get better with my scheduled postings :)

Types of Sentences {Anchor Chart Thursdays}

So sorry about missing the last two weeks and being late this week.  Is it just me or is everyone having a S.U.P.E.R. busy school year?  It seems that I have 2-3 meetings every week.  We also just finished our parent conferences which was kind of stressful... especially when you have 44 kids you need to conference about.  I've literally been conferencing during activity and after school for the past two weeks.

Anywho... here's my anchor chart this week.  When students come to 5th grade, they usually already have an understanding of the four types of sentences (well, they are suppose to anyways!).  This is a simple anchor chart where students write a sentence on a sticky and read it to the class.  The class then decides what type of sentence it is and where it should go on the anchor chart.

Don't go yet!