Do You Need a Good Mystery To Read?

The other day I went to the library to look for a good book. I was looking for Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar.



But those were all checked out. 

So I continued to browse and I found this one.

I've never read this before, never heard of it, 

but it caught my attention.

I started reading it to my 2nd graders on Wednesday. It is written with the dog talking. It is a fun book to read aloud, especially if you like to use different voices and lots of expression. 

In this book he is looking for his humans and in the meantime he is in the P-O-U-N-D. (He can't say the word because he knows it's a bad word, so he has to spell it all the time!) (My kids now can spell pound!)

He is trying to solve the mystery of where his humans are so if you need to add mysteries to your list of genres, this will be a hit. 

One part that my kids really like is when he gets a back rub. I think my kids could actually imagine themselves giving their pets a rub and how their pets might feel. I am loving this book and my kids are begging to read more. There are more books in this series and some of my kids have already checked them out. 

I highly recommend this book if you're looking for a fun one to read!

Showers, A Wedding AND A Giveaway!

It's coming. .. . it's really coming! 
(that sounds like the song in Wicked!)

Are you ready? 
The End of the Year is quickly approching!

Do you have a long list like I do? Geesh! 

Can I ever possibly get it all done? 

At this time of the year, I live day by day. . . 

and try not to overwhelm myself with the impossible.

How do you cope with it all? 

And even more importantly I want to focus on my family. My daughter and son-in-law are coming home this weekend so we can give them two baby showers. I'm so excited to see them and to give my granddaughter a belly rub! 
I hope she can feel it from inside her special womb!

Just look at how cute my daughter is now!

Speaking of exciting news. . . 

Did you see that Sara Ventrella of Miss V's Busy Bees 

is no longer Miss V?

That's right she got married. . . now is Mrs. U! 

I wonder if she will change her name?

Click this picture to swing on over to her blog.

Not only is it a new name for her, 

but she is celebrating her birthday this week. 

Who doesn't like to celebrate! Obviously she does! 
So go on over to her blog and enter into 5 days of giveaways. . . 

Now, don't you worry that it's too late and 

you may have missed a day. . . 

because you haven't. 

You can enter yesterday's rafflecopter 

at anytime in the next 6 days. 

So git on over there and see if you can be one of the winners!

And if you're still hanging around, thank you! I want to highlight one of my biggest sellers today. If you don't have it, you might want to grab it.

It's called Ou & Ow Spellings. My kids just took a spelling test on words with the ou sound this week. 
Some were spelled ow and some were spelled ou. 
This activity is a great practice for the kids to be able to look at the word and decide which spelling looks best. You can pick it up at my TPT store right here. You might also like to know that this set comes in color AND black & white in case you can't use a color printer.

I use Corinna Gandara's Differentiated Spelling lists. 

You can pick up her spelling lists by clicking on the Red words above this picture.

I love her lists. They are perfect for my 2nd graders. She has two lists for each week. I give everyone the first test as a pretest on Monday. If they get 80% or higher, then I give them the 2nd list to study for the final test on Friday. Anyone who doesn't get 80% on the pretest must practice those  words for the final on Friday. 

If you're interested in this, go check it out in her store. But for now, you have my sincere recommendation!

Patty

Place Value Partner Style

I'll start with two questions. 

1. Do you know Laura Candler from 
Teaching Resources?
Or maybe you know her from her blog, 
called Corkboard Connections?

Or maybe you know her from her Facebook page?

2. Do you remember the game Battleship from your childhood?

(Ok, so I can't count. . . that was 4 questions!)

Laura has kindly allowed me the honor of previewing one of her activities. I picked her Place Value Partners. Some of my students still struggle with this concept, so I knew it would be a "HIT" 

(Just like in Battleship!)

There are only 29 pages to copy. It's available in color or black & white. It is very easy to assemble with clear directions for the students too. And of course, it WAS fun and educational for my students!

If you would like to pick this up for yourself, 

you can see it at her store.

Or you can click on this picture above to go to her store, too.

Let me show you some of the pictures of my students involved in this activity.

First I glued the place value board to a file folder. There are two different boards. A receiver and a sender. Each board conveniently has the directions on it. To the top of the file folders I glued the papers that explain what the standard form, expanded form and word form might look like. On the other file folder I glued the words that are used to write the names for the numbers.

The students put their number tiles in order beside them so that they are easy to find. The Sender creates a number, then recites that number to their partner who is the Receiver. The numbers are made in two different colors so they are easy to separate when needed. 

Can you see how he is watching his partner and trying to listen carefully?

This is where it reminds me of Battleship. 

The boards can not be seen by the partners and the partners really have

 to listen to hear what the Sender has said. 

One folder has places up to hundreds, one goes to thousands, one has places up to millions, one is a decimal variation from tens to hundredths, and the last is a more advanced board from thousands to thousandths!

For my 2nd graders we used the hundreds and thousands. 

But for one group I challenged them with the millions!

Once they are finished making and sharing their numbers, they compare them to see if they got it right. 

If it is right, BRAVO! If it is not right, they can take some time to see why they are not alike.

The next thing they do is write down the different forms of the number they just made. I love that Laura has made it so comfortable for students to search for their answers with the word list and the examples that are right in front of them.

There are two recording sheets that you can choose to use. One has longer lines for the bigger numbers.

Once they are done with the writing, they start over by switching the file folders around. So now a different person is the Sender and a different person is the Receiver.

My kids loved this. It was a great way to learn or review place value, writing numbers in words, and expanding numbers too.

Thank you Laura for such a wonderful opportunity. Your activities rock and now my kids do too.

Patty