Announcing...my new position and a new product!

Well for those who have not already heard about it on my facebook page I have accepted a new position as the "Dual Instructional Coach" at my current building! I know you are all probably wondering what this entails (as am I, as it is a new position ;)), but so far I know that I will be working with our dual language and bilingual staff to mentor, model, co-teach, provide feedback and professional development, help new staff members get accustomed to the dual life, etc. I will be working with K-5 classroom teachers along with any involved support staff as well. I am quite excited, as I know this next year there is going be such a huge learning curve for me as well as will provide me with so many opportunities to grow as a teacher and professional! I still intend to share ideas with all of you as my journey continues and will be looking to you all more than ever for new ideas as well! Thank you for your endless support!

That being said, I have a new product!

My students use these posters during whole class lessons, independent retells, oral retells in centers, you name it. They are quite the useful resource for them!

To celebrate my new position with you all (particularly because networking with my blog family has made me the stronger teacher I am today!), I am giving away this product away for free to the first 5 who comment sharing how you would use these posters or even better, who share one of your favorite "story summary" activities you do with your class! (I need to build my K-5 idea bank ;)!) Don't forget to include your email in the comment so that I can send them to you!

Winter Characters!

This week we have been focusing on character traits like it is nobody's business! To make it a little more relevant and exciting we have been tying it in with some good ole' winter reads! Here are the three titles we focused on this week:

We started the week with !Me gusta el invierno! After reading, we worked together as a class to brainstorm words to describe our furry, red friend. Here are some that the kiddos came up with:

We took the trait writing a step further the next day after reading the text "El Mitón" by Jan Brett. 

I put the students into groups of two and three and gave them a large notecard with a character name on the back. They had to work in their small group to draw a picture of the character and describe it in a sentence with at least two descriptive words similar to how we would introduce characters in an effective story summary. 

Here are some of their examples:

"The Mitten" is about a large, brown bear.

"The Mitten" is about a boy named Nicki that lost his mitten.

And our finished "mitten" with all of our characters and their descriptions...

Then this morning, we bridged our learning into English and read the classic "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" by Dr. Seuss.

After reading, the kids worked in small groups to select character traits that described the three main characters in the story. To add a little Christmas pizzaz to the activity, we created "character wreathes", by jotting down the traits on scraps of green paper and gluing them to a plate all around the character which was being described.

Here is one from a "Grinch" group:

And a few others who described his faithful dog and Miss Cindy Lou-Who:

I shall be hanging these tomorrow...gotta love free classroom decorations!