Polar Express

I had pinned this site last year.  It has a lot of activities with the Polar Express.  When the movie first came out I begged the theater owner in our small town to sell me the poster...  SO every year I display the poster and we watch the movie.  This year we have a WHOLE week before our 'winter' break and this will be our focus holiday book.

Thanksgiving

I realize that upper elementary don''t need all the 'stuff' that goes along with Thanksgiving, but I did find a great video called Plymouth Plantation on Learn 360.  Information about what it really looked like during that time of our history.

Solution to a short week...

And what do you do when you have a short week...have to follow a reading program...but a short week is looming in the future... and you're going to be gone one day during the short week?

I have found that readinga-z.com is the answer for me.  I have a four-day program:

• day 1-discuss genre and vocabulary
• day 2-make connections and read
• day 3-practice writing a summary 
• day 4-character analysis and author's purpose and ...day 5 if needed
• day 5-complete the quick check provided for each story

Not only do I use this site for my 4th graders, I print off books when we buddy read with the kindergarten class, and there are a lot of nonfiction stories I use when teaching 5th grade social studies...

Thank you 

you have made teaching much easier for me.

This is one subscription I have the school buy.  I don't order workbooks, so I think it's a good trade-off.