DIY Halloween Shaker

BOO!

It's almost here.  You know you are excited that it's on a Friday this year, right?  No "day after Halloween candy hangovers" to fret over.   I'm looking forward to having an little extra Halloween fun myself.  I made these Halloween shakers last year, but I never got around to blogging about them.  Oh I know that it's so hard to believe that a teacher got too busy, but it's true.  This idea was inspired by lots of fellow bloggers out there.  If you look around you will see sight word shakers, addition facts shakers, verb shakers, etc.  I've made some for spring and for Valentine's Day, too inspired by teachers that are nice enough to share their ideas.  

My Halloween shakers start off by recycling those fancy Tropicana orange juice bottles. I use my all time favorite GOOF OFF remover to take off the labels.  Let it sit on there for about 10 minutes and peel away.

Next, go to the supermarket and pick up some Goya beans that are black and orange--for obvious reasons.  I selected black beans and lentils.  It's odd that the bag says red lentils, but believe me, they were orange.  Here's the picture to prove it.

For my next trip, I headed to the local craft store to buy some orange glitter and some Halloween trinkets.  These eyeballs are actually erasers.  In addition, I picked up rubber spiders, skeletons and some fancy glitter pompoms.  Oh, I got some candy corn too.  

For my next step, I typed up a label for the front of the shaker and a bunch of words to be used to create a spooky Halloween story.  To do this, I printed out the words and cut them so that the same word was on the front and back of the cutouts.  These words were placed inside the shakers.  I laminated them, but I don't think it's necessary.  To use this activity, the students get fun Halloween-themed paper, start to write a spooky story, and shake the shaker to find spooky words to incorporate into their story.  It's like having a 3D word bank.  Check these out!

Shaky, shaky.  Click HERE to download the label for the front of the shaker as well as my words.

Have fun and happy haunting to all!

Reading Workshop Anchor Chart Mania!

Hi there, bloggers!

Hope you are here because you follow me on instagram and saw that I would be posting tonight.  

It was a great Tuesday back from our Columbus Day weekend. If you are like me, you took advantage of the extra day off to catch up on sleep and that project (or two) you had wished to get done since summer vacation.  For me this project that refused to get crossed off my "To Do" list was making a set of quality anchor charts that go along with our reading workshop language.   

Here's Winston helping me out with my weekend project.  Such a good boy.

My goal was to create three charts.

1.  Turn and Talk expectations

2.  Reading with a Partner expectations

3.  Guided/ Independent Reading Block expectations

Like many of you, I find myself saying the same things over and over to my readers during reading workshop.  Does any of this sound familiar?

"Keep you eyes on your books."

"Face your partner."

"What do you mean you didn't complete your writing in response to reading?"

"Why is your hand up now?"  For this one I follow up with "Unless it's blood, throw up, or a bathroom explosion-to-be, I'm not available."  (I'm not kidding!)

"Look at the way you are shoving your books into that browsing box."  (My books are my babies!)

I was cognizant that I needed quality picture cues to go along with my expectations because many of my multi-age readers are beginning readers as well as English language learners.  SO, here they are. 

Turn and Talk expectations include...

TWIST your legs like a pretzel.
SIT knee-to-knee with your partner.
LOOK at your partner eye-to-eye.
Partner 1 talks; partner 2 listens
SWITCH and take turns.

Click HERE to download the picture symbols for my "Turn and Talk" anchor chart.

I'd like to note that I have a list of partner 1 and partner 2 names.  Partner 1 is stronger, academically and talks first and sets the expectation.  Partner 2 follows up.  Thanks Joia, for this tip!

Reading Partners expectations include...

SPEAK clearly.
LISTEN carefully.
Take TURNS reading.
Stay on TRACK with your books.
SIT shoulder-to-shoulder, elbow-to-elbow.
ASK questions to clarify what your partner means.
HELP each other figure out tricky parts.

Click HERE to download the picture symbols for my "Reading Partners" anchor chart, too.

After my mini lesson, I pull my guided reading groups (along with my awesome teaching partner Ms. Hill and literacy specialist Mrs. Lowd--insert "raise the roof gesture").  Our readers, not in a small group,  independent read, work on phonics activities, and read with a partner following these expectations.  I really think the position of the partners is so important for management purposes.  Also, it allows for the words to subliminally "sink in."  Fluent readers reading to less fluent readers works wonders.

Here are my Guided Reading expectations.  I made two columns.  The eye depicts what it "looks like" and the ear depicts what it "sounds like."  My readers came up with these suggestions during a reading workshop launch lesson.  Based upon my school's model of continuous progress, I have had many of the kids I share last year--you totally can tell.  They are rockin' the reading workshop lingo.  Here's all three anchor charts featured in my library.  My next chart is going to be Rug Expectations...we need them.  Have any suggestions for me?  YIKES!