Poetry in Your Pudding

My students recently read through and discussed Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street to learn the lesson's it teaches about great writing.  We have then been using those lessons to write our own stories called "Nothing Ever Happens in Miss Staudt's Class" and they are a riot!  Asking 'what if?' questions to guide our brainstorming lead to some incredibly hilarious story starters - including my favorite singer coming in the room and me fainting!  Another one that caught me off guard and had me laughing began with the idea that we came into the room and there was a large deer standing on my desk!  We did some peer editing today and will be typing our final copies tomorrow and then I'll be sure to share some of the funnies!

But for now, I'll share some of the anchor charts we made about figurative language.  The base text of each of my charts came from the information shared on printable posters here, but as we explored each idea we then made up our own examples to add to the charts.  We've got them hanging up on our back white board right now because we're referencing them - later they'll be moved to a different wall.  In Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street they gave the advice to "put some poetry in your pudding" - make things unexpected and play with the language - that's what you do with figurative language devices and we are having such fun with them!

Also, isn't "put some poetry in your pudding" just a fun phrase to say?? :)

*Don't mind our 'West' sign - we labeled our walls early in the year when we were reviewing the cardinal directions in social studies!

Snow Day #2

After an incredibly warm, mild winter with NO snow our area has suddenly been pounded this week.  It seems winter decided to show up after all!  We had a snow day Friday and were just cancelled again today.  Although I'm starting to miss my students and hate giving up our valuable instructional time I am NOT going to complain about a day off!  I am always grateful for extra time to work on things - and sleep! :)

On the agenda for today?  Getting my grad school personal statement in line so I can send it on to some mentors to be read through before I hopefully submit it in the next week or two.  I also plan to get ahead on some of my planning for school, finish some cleaning I pushed off this weekend, and nap - naturally.

I may run over to school this afternoon, but with 4 inches of snow on top of the freezing drizzle from yesterday currently covering the roads I think I'll sit tight and enjoy my coffee on the couch until things get cleaned off a bit.

One thing I did finish up this morning already (yes, I did still get up at 5 - that's when the district's first automatic call came through!) are my Area and Perimeter posters for our room.  We began looking at these areas last week and if we ever go back to school we'll be finishing them up and using them to do some problem solving this week.  My kiddos picked up the concepts quickly, so these posters are more of a reminder for them of when to add or multiply.

AND....I'm sharing them!  You can download them here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/79092971

Welcome!

I've had a personal blog for about a year now and my students have been blogging all year, but I feel it is time for me to start giving back to the education community.  I have learned so much from the education blogs I follow and I only hope to give a bit of that back.

The name of the blog comes from Lady Antebellum's song I Was Here.  The song has always lifted my spirits and reminded me of what I should be doing in life - reaching out to others.  Teaching is one way that I'm leaving my mark - one student at a time.

You won't notice me, I'll be leaving my mark like initials carved in an old oak tree.

You wait and see.

Maybe I'll write like Twain wrote, maybe I'll paint like Van Gogh, cure the common cold

I don't know, but I'm ready to start cause I know in my heart -

I wanna do something that matters, say something different,

something that sets the whole world on its ear

I wanna do something better with the time I've been given

and I wanna try to touch a few hearts in this life

and leave nothing less than something that says 'I was here'