I just discovered over at Oodles of Teaching Fun that Groupon has a deal where you pay $17.00 for $70.00 worth of stuff at Vistaprint. Thanks Oodles of Teaching for Sharing this great information! Click on the picture below to get this great deal before it runs out.

So of course I scooped up the great deal and began adding $70.00 worth of stuff to my cart. Take a look at what I have sent to my cart so far. Coupon is not good until tomorrow morning, so I will purchase then.

Here are some birthday stickers for my family to use on gifts.

  

Here are labels I made to place in the inside of books I collect for my classroom library.

Three mouse pads purchased for my three desktop computers.

A notebook to jot down all those important notes at Professional Development and Grade Level Meetings.

Of course a pen to use to write down those notes. I also purchased an extra one just in case.

Stickers to place in my student's agendas with important contact information.

Two sticky pads purchased.

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Mrs. Shepherd

I am excited to announce that I have reached 200+ followers on my blog! So, for that I am hosting my first giveaway.

My giveaway is a book written by my cousin Katie Rauch. It is titled Animal Rhymes, and this is her first book written and soon to be published. It will be coming to stores near you in August. I have one signed copy for the winner of this giveaway. The publishing company is also working on an audio download to be included with the published copy.

This book is a great read for children to learn fun animal facts, rhyme and it even includes lots of fun figurative language.




a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Mrs. Shepherd

I am diving into hosting my first link party! Are you ready? I sure am!

I know all us educators out there do something special or have the students create something special to make lasting class memories of their time in your classroom whether it's signing their class shirt, making a class book, a cd containing pictures from the year, or giving them a gift to remember their time spent with you.

So why not blog about your Making Class Memories project and include the linky party pic below and make sure you link up to this blog post. If you are looking for more ideas on how to celebrate the end of the year you can check out the article in Scholastic Instructor. They have a plethora of ideas!

Our ELL teacher, Mr. Martinez, coordinated our end of the year Making Memories Class book. He had the students write bio poems, then publish and save. He then took their picture and compiled their poems with their pictures to make a class book. The poems turned out great and the students loved reading each and every one. The teachers even created a bio poem. It really turned out to be a great end of the year gift for students to have lasting memories of their classmates.

Now, its your turn to share your End of the Year Class Memory Project!

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Mrs. Shepherd

I am excited to blog today to tell you that I currently have two colleagues who have begun blogging!
They just began their blogs on Friday, and they are excited to enter the blogging world. Please check out their blogs and leave them a comment, or tip on how to be a successful blogger.

Mrs. Hatty's Magnificient Monsters

Rodriguez's Rad Rockstars

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Mrs. Shepherd

Listen to Reading is one of my six centers that I have incorporated into my Reading Workshop. Obviously, the name comes from the Daily Five. This past school year my goal was to empower students to read, read , read and eventually read independently. I have to say that I think I did a great job accomplishing this goal by the end of the year. They really developed a love for reading.

However, it didn't begin with such a great start. I began the year with teaching them how to pick a "Just Right Book" and then letting them go by tables to the library which I organized by genre to choose a book to read. However, the majority of my students did not have the motivation, stamina, and they were not choosing books on their level even though we just practiced, which led me to change things to fit their needs. I did give them time though, to try and delve into their books of choice, but I found it hard to conference with 30+ students and still manage to cover what I needed throughout the day. I even gave them time to write, but at the beginning of the year I found my students needed more structure and my mistake was I probably should have modeled how I wanted this done. Anyways, that is not what I did. I may however, try again this coming school year with giving them choice and modeling how I would like them to respond. I would like to make this part of their homework, but we'll see! Any thoughts????

So, by October my partner teacher, Mr. Martinez suggested the chapter book Bunnicula. This book was definitely at higher reading level for my 4th graders, but was a great book to model thinking aloud and how to respond to reading. It was also a great book to read around Halloween! About 3 chapters in or so, they were hooked! Then around November we began reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. This chapter book was great to introduce dialogue to students. Students loved taking on  parts of the characters. They loved role playing so much we decided to put on a Christmas play!

By January, with the state tests coming up they were becoming more independent readers. This is when I introduced the students to James and the Giant Peach and my second class to Because of Winn Dixie.
I also found another 4th grade class on Twitter that was interested in collaborating with us on James and the Giant Peach. I used Edmodo to pose questions, movie trailers, polls, and even put chapter quizzes online.

I purchased through Amazon the audiobook of both chapters books, which really helped my lower level readers, and uploaded these books to our class iPods, for the listen to reading center. The only bad thing is that students could not go directly to the chapter they were on, so instead it took them a minute to find the chapter via the iPod.

So, as I look into the future of my next 4th grade class I have begun with compiling a list of sites that contain free audiobooks for my students on Symbaloo. Please view my sites and reply below with any sites that you may use with your students so that I may add them to my web mix.





I would love your comments and suggestions regarding my post.

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Mrs. Shepherd

Here's my currently for June, head over to Farley's Blog and link up too.

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Mrs. Shepherd

Just a warning- This is not school related, but a little glimpse of my day with my three boys and some information on a "pup-blic" art project here in New Orleans.

Today I took my boys to Cool at the Zoo located at the Audobon Zoo here in New Orleans. They love this place, and this year we purchased a Zoo membership so I am sure we will be visiting often. Then after our time spent in the water, we began heading home. That's where we began running into the Bead Dogs. I have seen these art projects around the city before and have even seen a friend or two posting pictures of them on Facebook. So, thats when the idea came to my mind that we were going to try and find as many as we could and take pictures with them today. My boys really got into it and were having a great time on our Bead Dog hunt. We will definitely go on another hunt soon this summer and try to find them all.

So what is a Bead Dog? According to the LASPCA, it is a tradition among generations of New Orleanians children to create Bead Dogs from discarded Mardi Gras throws. A few twists and turns transform a necklace of beads into a fun trinket to enjoy. Haydel's Bakery adopted the Mardi Gras Bead Dog as their mascot and has graciously donated the sculpture's mold to promote the LA/SPCA's mission.

Check out the link here for all the locations of the Mardi Gras Bead Dog. You will see we're going to have a busy summer locating all these Dogs.

Here are a few shots from today!

This is the Ornamental Mutt located at Whole Foods Markets. Artist: Jacques Soulas

This is the Street Dog located at Napolean and Tchoupitoulas Street Artist: Rex Dingler

This is the Twisted Dog located at St. Charles and Napolean Avenue Artist: Simon

This is the Tie–Dye Dog located at 2031 St. Charles Ave Artist: Barbara Shaw

This is the Elephant Dog located at  Audubon Zoo 6500 Magazine St Artist: Alex Beard

 

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Mrs. Shepherd

Thoughts of a Third Grade Teacher is hosting a Giveway! Learning Resources contacted her to review one of their fabulous products. It is the Hear-All Assessment Recorder.

I would love to have a few of these in my classroom!

I would use the recorders in my Daily 5 centers. I could use them in the Read to Someone center and have students record their readings to check for fluency. I could also use them in this center to check for pursposeful talk about a particular book with their partner. This would help me scaffold their thinking.

If you want a chance to win one of this recorders for your classroom, head on over to Thoughts of a Third Grade Teacher and enter her giveaway.

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Mrs. Shepherd

I am loving this Linky Party hosted by 3-6 Free Resources on sharing your favorite websites used in your classroom. I don't know what I would do without technology in my classroom. Technology is definitely an essential part of our day. This past year I have grown to love technology even more with all the new tools that I have learned and integrated into my technology model classroom. My students have learned to Collaborate, Communicate, think Critically and become Creative Geniuses!

Here are a few of my favorite websites that my students and I use in the classroom on a weekly basis.

Edmodo- Edmodo is definitely the # 1 website used in my classroom. My students used Edmodo this year in many ways such as: communicating with our Trucker Buddy, collaborating with two other 4th grade classes on a chapter book, answering polls, completing exit tickets, taking reading assessments, and back channeling during a Mystery Skype.

Kidblog- My students used Kidblog this year to create a digital portfolio of their writing. They made weekly posts on various topics and also used their blog to publish their essays. Two to Three student's blog posts were chosen monthly to then be published in our class newsletter.

ClassDojo- Class Dojo is a behavior management tool that I have implemented into my classroom late this year. I came upon this website while blog surfing. The impact this website has had on my students has been phenomenal. Class Dojo keeps my students motivated, engaged and behaving during centers. Students are rewarded points for good behavior and some lose points if they don't follow the rules. Students with the highest amount of points on the last day of our centers earns a reward such as a sticker, candy or a high five. What I love this most is your can control the site from your iPhone!

Skype- We love Skype! Why? We love participating in Mystery Skypes.

Wordle- My students used Wordle during their Word Work Center. They used their Spelling or Vocabulary lists to create a Word Cloud. We also used this site to create "All About Me", and Mother's Day Wordles.

FreeRice- Free Rice is a free online game learning tool that my students used as an early finisher. What a great way to practice their vocabulary and help raise rice to fight world hunger.

Friv- My students favorite online game site.

Fun Brain- The #1 site for online educational games and another favorite of my students.

Hope you enjoyed a few of our favorite websites, and will

Come along and Link Up at 3-6 Free Resources.

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Mrs. Shepherd