Favorite Thanksgiving Books & A Very Perky Turkey!

It's hard to believe Thanksgiving is just around the corner! Some of my favorite Thanksgiving books to read with my class are: 

  

A Plump and Perky Turkey by Teresa Bateman

Arthur's Thanksgiving by Marc Brown

'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey

This is the Feast by Diane Z. Shore

Magic Tree House Non-Fiction Research Guide: Pilgrims 

by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce

Thanksgiving on Thursday by Mary Pope Osborne 

What are some of your favorite Thanksgiving books? 

We made this turkey last week. Each student cut out his/her own feather and could use any colors or patterns to design it. The students were a bit unsure of why we only had them decorate ONE feather. After putting up the bulletin board, they understood why each person only decorated one. Our turkey looked much better and had a lot more personality when we combined our creative efforts and worked together! 

Happy (almost) Thanksgiving! 

Heather 

Time Savers with Blog Hoppin

I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin this week! Monday's topic?

TIME SAVERS! 

Number One Time Saver Tip:

I always prepare my resources for the next week before I leave school on Friday afternoon. Because everything is organized and in its place, I can walk out of school and not worry about getting everything together on Monday morning. I have a file folder for each day of the week. It saves me valuable time, because everything is where it needs to be when I walk into the classroom on Monday morning and every morning there after. You can read more about how I keep my classroom organized here. 

You can pick up my file folder labels in my TPT shop. 

Number Two:

Are your students always asking, "Miss so & so, what time do we go to Recess? PE? Lunch? Art? Music? Fill in the blank..." 

The display I created below saves me time by not having to answer these questions during instruction time. The students know better than to ask me what time we go somewhere. 

Number Three:

My students never question me about the daily schedule. I post our schedule every single morning so the students know what we'll be doing all day. They are definitely creatures of habit so I made a "Be Flexible" tag for our chart. I put this up when we do anything that deviates from the normal schedule - a school wide assembly, guest speaker, etc. Again, the students know better than to waste class time by asking me what subject comes next in our school day. A few seconds saved here and there really do add up!

Of course there are those days when I (GASP!) forget to change the daily schedule. They are always so quick to point out their teacher's mistakes! :) 

Number Four:

One way I save time before I even get to school in the morning is by having my lunch packed and ready to go the night before. I try to pack a few days worth of lunches and snacks on Sunday nights so I don't have to worry about it during the week: 

Of course some weekends are busier than others and this isn't always a reality. When I do have the time to prep everything in advance, it saves me so much time and energy on busy school nights!

How do you save time during the school day? Let me know! 

Heather

Five for Friday - November 1, 2013

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs to share some highlights from my week. 

1. I started out the school week with our school's annual Trunk or Treat event last Sunday evening. I dressed up as Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus! We had quite the crew with my amazing student teacher as The Magic School Bus, another friend as Liz, and two teachers at my school were D.A. and Keesha. We handed out candy and books to anxious and excited trick-or-treaters! 

2. We read some fun books this week: 

Click, Clack, Boo by Doreen Cronin

Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin 

Notice a theme here? Doreen Cronin is one of my favorite children's book authors. Her books have my students laughing hysterically every.single.time!

Another fun one was Mostly Monsterly by Tammi Sauer. 

3. The students worked together with partners to draft, revise, proofread and publish Halloween acrostic poems. I love it - they all have their mini dictionaries and thesauruses out on their desks and are putting them to good use! 

4. Halloween party fun!

We made popcorn and candy corn hands: 

And played Halloween BINGO: 

They all LOVED when I passed out the free homework pass: 

5. My students are currently obsessed with making homework for me, their friends and our student teacher: 

How was your week?