Favorite Pins Friday

Hey, y'all! One of my new year resolutions will be to spend a little more time on this here blog. So, I'm starting early. It's soooo crazy around my house during the week, but if I can get in at least a Favorite Pins post each week, I'll be happy with that!

 This is absolutely one of my favorites! It could be that's because it's is mine.  But seriously, this is by far one of the best decisions I have ever made. A simple focus board is just what my classroom needed. With my older one, there was a lot of information which was great, but I ran into the problem of never having time to fill it all out. Many times, some parts were left blank. Not with this one! It's simple, to the point, and I love it!

 How many of you are pledging to exercise more and eat a little less for the upcoming year {can I get an amen!}? This is one of my favorite clean eating pins out there. I have two picky eaters in my house. Those two have no idea just how healthy this dish is! I did change the brown rice to dirty rice which contained brown and long-grain rices.

 I love this handout because parents are always asking how they can help their child at home with reading. My response is always to encourage their children to read. After all, this is the ONLY way to improve reading skills. This, on the other hand, is a great way to make parents feel as though they are doing their part.

 This is by far one of the most organized teachers I have ever read! You have got to go and check out her post on how she plans her lessons. It really made me reevaluate my planning process.

I will begin implementing Google Classroom when I return in January. I can't wait to try it out and share all about it! To say that I {and my students} are excited is an understatement. Stay tuned as this post will be coming in the next few weeks!

Around the Classroom

Last year, I posted a million pictures of my new 5th grade classroom. As I got ready to start back this year, I was fortunately in the same classroom. Everything pretty much went right back to where it was before. My room is kind of small, so there's not really many options. This year, I got *REALLY* tired of never having enough room. My students would have to move up for someone to get by, things would have to be moved to fit at the small group table, and it was just CRAZY! I had been wanting to move my small group table in front of my desk for long time, I just wasn't sure I would like it. To be honest, I really don't like my desk facing the wall, but it is definitely growing on me, and not having a whiteboard behind me really bothers me. Fortunately, I have an easel that I can easily wheel over to use if needed.

I wanted to share photos of my new small group area, so I decided that I would share a few pictures of my other favorite places, too! There's really nothing to take away from this post, but I know that I always enjoy checking out other teachers' classrooms!

My super awesome small group caddy that keeps all my pencils, pens, markers, and highlighters!

My teacher desk :) Up against the wall :(

It's the little things...

Can you tell I love pens??? LOL

My homework board :)

My new focus/objective board. I am *SO* in love with this thing :)

My husband built me these wonderful wooden apple bookends. 8 years going strong!

Document Camera Station

My Library
{with lots of new books}

**MORE NEW BOOKS** I Love Them!!!!

I still love my Thirty-One wall organizer!

Teacher Organization!!!

What keeps me sane :)

My kids love book shares. Every week my students sign up to share their current favorite read! This is their most *FAVORITE* time!

My Word Work Supplies

My Evidence Board

I had to add in my Christmas tree :)

My vintage Charlotte's Web novel :)

More Bookshelves & Storage

My reading chair... I spend a lot of time here :)

Teaching Theme

Theme is a {HUGE} 5th grade standard! Not only in fiction texts, but students have to identify theme in poetry and dramas. Theme is always a tricky standard to teach... especially for struggling students.

First, I started off with this anchor chart. Message isn't really a 5th grade standard, but they will be talking about it in 6th grade. I wanted to give them (especially my advanced and gifted students) a preview that although they are similar, theme and message are NOT the same.

To get things moving along a bit, we read Rumpelstiltskin and talked about the theme of the book.

To help them understand, we used this graphic organizer that I made for them. You can download it by clicking on the image. This was SUCH a useful tool for the students and really got them thinking deeply about theme. This graphic organizer matches up nicely with standard RL.5.2!

Then, we watched this Rumpelstiltskin video that you can find on youtube HERE.

After we watched the video, we compared the two. There were actually quite a bit of differences and similarities between the two! I created this graphic organizer just for this activity. You can download it by clicking the image below :)

I knew I would spend quite a bit of time teaching theme this year, so earlier in the year, I decided to create a little something to help me along :)

When it came time for my students to practice theme and constructed responses, I used my Close Reading Literary Passages for Teaching Theme.

You can find them in my TpT store {HERE}.  The passages are specifically written with a theme in mind. I love this packet because you can choose whether or not to include message with your instruction {the passages ARE NOT exclusively for message}.

I had the students read the passage and then fill out the challenge+response=theme graphic organizer. Once students identified theme and supported their theme with evidence from the text, I had them construct a response about the theme of the passage. I use my I.C.E. format. You can learn a little more about it below as well as download a FREEBIE:) There will be more about this when I {NEVER} finish my TBE packet.

Here are some pictures of students working and constructing their responses. Let me tell you that this was after MANY classes of small group instruction :)

What are some of your favorite theme activities?