Free Admission to National Parks (for 4th Graders)

Hi!!!  I'm going to be totally honest.  I'm in over my head right now with all kinds of good stuff and this sweet little blog hasn't been on the list.  But it will happen.  Once I get my school life settled.  I miss you, bloggers and blog readers (but hey, keep up with me on {Instagram} in the meantime to stay connected!).

I've been flying half way across the country to visit family and friends, prepping my classroom for a whole new GRADE, plus going through new math stuff to pilot THREE new programs.  AND I'm trying to figure out my NATIONAL BOARDS stuff.  I see lots of coffee filled weekends in my future.

BUT I'm jumping on here because I just learned of this super cool opportunity for fourth graders and their families (sorry, every other grader).  The National Park Foundation is inviting all fourth graders and their families (in one car) free admission to national parks for the 2015-2016 school year!  How cool is that?

I don't know the details (because they haven't been emailed to me yet), but you can sign up to support the initiative and get all the deets emailed directly to you by visiting the National Park Foundation website.

And just to entice you, here's a few snapshots from my visits to a couple national parks (and one monument- not sure if that one counts for the free visits...) in the past year...

Olympic National Park (Washington)

Olympic National Park (Washington)

Mount Rushmore National Park (South Dakota)

Devil's Tower National Monument (Wyoming)  ...not sure this one counts for free admission, though.

Once again, here's the link:  National Park Foundation 

There is no better learning opportunity than being right there in the middle of nature and historical landmarks!  Go explore!  

Be back soon once my life is together!  In the meantime, happy new school year to all and to all a good class!!

            

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My Earth Day Birthday

...Not to be confused with the Earth's birthday, because it isn't the Earth's birthday.  It's my birthday.  On Earth Day.

I have one gift to add to my list of favorite gifts from students.  She's a mop top or whatever my students are calling them... and now they are popping up all over my classroom right now!

I love having an Earth Day birthday celebration since it's my birthday (any excuse for a party, really), but we got all excited about our reading lesson today and almost ran out of time!

So I threw in my Earth Day go-to... The Lorax.  You just can't have an Earth Day celebration without this guy!  The story fit PERFECTLY with our economics and ecosystem units that we are working on right now, so it was a great high interest lesson.

After our story, we did some reflecting with this prompt page and my kiddos were working really hard on providing evidence for their opinions and responses.

This lesson ended up hitting every topic we are working on right now, so it was a huge teacher WIN.

If you're looking to add some fun activities for your Earth Day celebration next year, I rounded up a few of my favorites (per usual RTL fashion).  I'm not a huge printable person when it comes to Earth Day activities because I feel like it kind of defeats the purpose...right?  Head on over to Pinterest to find Earth related resources, websites, and activities that are fun for the classroom (Project WET and Project WILD are really neat if you ever get a chance to complete a workshop with them!).

Follow Miss B.'s board Earth Day on Pinterest.

I hope you have a wonderful Earth Day... I'm hoping to gift myself a small lemon tree this year, but who knows.  

            

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Let's Talk About the Money, Money, Money

Financial literacy is a pretty big deal, yet we don't really tackle it as a topic in schools.  Some high schools (maybe some middle schools?) do offer a basic finance class.  Not many people have experience learning about real world finances until they are in the real world.

The thing is... we are in the real world all the time.  Why not have kids learn some important financial tools young and then grow with them?

We do money word problems in school.  We add and subtract decimals.  There are some financial concepts that are being taught there, but I'm not usually teaching about money.  We teach economics and how money works on a large scale.  Students make and sell products and learn about supply and demand.  But what do we teach them about their money?

I like to offer parents some resources through our class website to put a friendly little bug in their ear to talk about money with their kids.  Some parents don't need that kind of reminder.  Some do.  I like to have my classroom website set up as a resource for both parents and students, because sometimes a teacher's job is to share resources with parents as well!

I found a great new resources that fills an otherwise empty niche as far as education goes for elementary-middle school kids, and I got a tiny bit excited (free resources do that to me...)!  Time for Kids just came out with a new monthly magazine all about financial literacy for kids.  It gets kids thinking about money.  Spending, saving, and lots of other things where money is important.  It's a really cool little resource.  They've provided a fourth grade level magazine, but also the same magazine for 5-6th graders, which is another awesome component!  I think it comes with a Time for Kids subscription, so if your class has that, then you may have seen it already!  The cool thing is, though, that the digital issues are up on their website totally free!

The monthly magazine is called Your $ and it just started in January 2015, so there are only two editions out so far.  Complete with teacher guides for each level if you use it in class!

In my quest to find some great resources, I gathered a few and put them here.  I've also added the teacher resources to my Social Studies page under the Websites/Resources tab up above.  Dive in!

$$$ Resources for Parents:

Money As You Grow

Teaching Financial Literacy to Kids: Introduction

S'mores or Sums?  Next Year Send Your Kids to Financial Literacy Camp

$$$ Teacher Resources for Kids/Students:

Your $ Magazine

Moneypalooza (A printable board game)

Economics/Money Vocabulary Cards

You have hit the economics vocabulary motherload here, download and print right now!

$$$ Just for Kids:

Rich Kid Smart Kid (games)

H.I.P Pocket Change {U.S. Mint for Kids}

            

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Happy Birthday, Washington!

Happy President's Day!  

There I am hanging out with some presidential friends.

Hopefully you aren't working today.  Yes?  Maybe you're having a birthday party for Mr. Washington today?  Just another reason to have cake, and maybe some Taft-y.  Perhaps give yourself students a little President's Day Quiz when you return.

I'm not going to beat around the Bush.  There are a lot of Cool(idge) resources available for teachers out on the internet.  Don't Polk fun at it, this is pretty serious business.

If you need to Fillmore time in class, and are feeling extra patriotic, the History Channel has some great presidential resources, plus videos and articles.  We shouldn't take these resources for Grant-ed.  They are very cool! 

The Presidential Libraries are also pretty great and provide lots of educational information.  The National Archives even provides historical digital documents and other great teacher resources, so it's worth a glance!  If you think you can't afFord it, don't worry-  these online resources are totally free!

Do your students know the presidents?  Here's a word search to help sneak some president names into their knowledge base.  

I came up with all of these puns Obama self, but I can't think of any more (and let's be real, they aren't great) so I guess it's time to move on with my day.   

            

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Non-Fiction Reading Website- with leveled text!

It's conference time!  I have been meeting with parents and giving them all the good news (and a few friendly reminders), but I've had a six hour break in between my morning conferences and my evening conferences so I've been busying myself with catching up with the internet.  I've also been home twice to switch my laundry.  Everyone here thinks I'm some kind of crazy laundry lady now.  Then I had 212 unread teacher blog posts on Bloglovin'.  No joke.  After I read 212 blog posts (no I didn't), I hopped over to my email and I came across the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Is sliced bread that amazing?  Sometimes I slice my own bread and I find it to be no big deal.

Regardless, I found the greatest website.

Sometimes I like to use {ReadWorks} passages for my guided reading groups because I can locate passages by Lexile level and use them for when I ability group my students.  It's pretty nice and it's totally free.  But that's not the website I'm talking about.

Today I was reading an article from {Sophia.org} that I found {here} and it led me to this little internet gem.  If you haven't come across {Sophia} yet, you should definitely check it out.  It's another one of my favorite internet discoveries.

dah-dah-DAHHHH.  Newsela. 

 I had never heard of it before.  It is awesome- especially if you teach upper elementary or middle school students.  It takes current event (non-fiction!!!) news articles and offers them at different Lexile levels.

It reads just like a news website.  You can click on the area of interest at the top and it will take you to current event articles.  Some articles have anchor standards already on them.  If you hover over the number by the anchor it will tell you what standard that article will help to teach.  

THEN you can click on the chosen Lexile level on the right.  They range from 4th-8th grade level.  The anchor articles also have quiz questions to go with them.  The Lexile level you choose will adjust the quiz questions that are presented.  I put an example below so that you can see the difference between a 4th grade question and an 8th grade question for the same article.  

It's pretty cool because once you create an account, you have access to a classroom code.  You can assign students readings to do and have them take the quiz at home.  Or you can do it together in class, or click on the handy-dandy print button and make copies for guided reading small groups.  

I became the happiest teacher.  I love when I find high interest non-fiction for my students that can be leveled and is FREE.  Free things are my favorite.

I have another non-fiction website that I like, so stay tuned.  It might be a few days because my sister gets married this weekend and if I'm blogging when I should be dancing, then we have a serious problem.  

            

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Learning Adventure: American Gothic

What do I tell my students all day every day?   

"Learning is FUN!"

"Learn something new every day!"

"Never stop learning!"

Right?  As teachers, our job is to bring the world into our classrooms and create motivating lessons to promote student learning.  The only way to make learning fun is to enjoy learning ourselves!  ...And so I bring you my latest Learning Adventure.  

I went to Indianola, Iowa a few weeks ago to go see the "big people" that have found a temporary home on the campus of Simpson College.  These "big people" are actually a giant statue created by J. Seward Johnson depicting Grant Wood's "American Gothic" painting. The American Gothic sculpture pieces have been recently reconstructed in Iowa and are ready for visitors, so I took a little road trip with my mom.

Do you see me?  Right there sitting on the farmer's shoe?

And right down here?  Peeking over the gigantic suitcase?

The American Gothic couple (a farmer and his daughter) were 25 feet tall!  The painting on the statue was amazing- they looked flat!  

 

Wouldn't this be a cool art lesson?  Students could create statues of paintings and interpret the parts that were missing (I thought the suitcase was an interesting addition, especially with the modern stickers).  OR- what about the back of a painting?  Paintings are flat, but the sculpture artist had to imagine what the back of these people looked like.  Maybe a little inferencing?  Some measuring?

Then, a week later I found myself at the Art Institute of Chicago, where Grant Wood's original American Gothic painting has found it's home (that's the institute behind the flower in my picture).  The statue has spent time with it's painting counterpart in Chicago in the past.  You can go to google images {here} to see some pictures of the American Gothic statue in it's various locations.

How could you use this in your classroom?  

Check out these links for more information about the American Gothic painting and the traveling sculpture:

American Gothic on Wikipedia

The Art Institute of Chicago: American Gothic

Roadside America Traveling Exhibits: American Gothic