Five for Friday!

I am still alive! With all of the end of the year craziness going on, I thought I should at least stop in to let you know I'm alive and kickin'! I am working like a crazy person on all things 4th Grade ELA Assessments and 6th Grade Math Assessments! I couldn't resist linking up with Doodle Bugs though! I love her linky!

Number One: This picture is AH-MAZING. I shared it out to my Instagram and Facebook followers. Can I get an AMEN?

Number Two: End of the year craziness at its best! We planned a whole water day with team building games all outside for one last final hurrah for our 5th graders. My game was marble toes and it's my absolute favorite water game! It's so fun to see your kids working together, rooting for each other, and bonding one last time.  

I so wish I could show more of their faces! Those are some happy kids! :)

Number Three: I received so much love this year from both my students and their families. Between the sweet notes, bouquets of flowers, and gigantic group hugs, I was SUPER emotional to say goodbye to this group! 

Number Four: Since I am officially on summer break, it is time to start all of the fun home projects in our cute new little house! 

Yes, that is black paint in my bathroom! I AM OBSESSED!!! 

Number Five: Speaking of black paint, it has kind of taken over my house! I think it is SO cool! I also painted my new home office black! Here are some before pictures of the home office renovation!! 

This is right after painting and moving in. SUCH a mess, but when it's the last weeks of school, I'm surprised it wasn't messier!

 (Target lampshades and Target chevron frame! Target owns my life right now.) 

We're making progress...

Finally got around to putting together a filing cabinet! Color coordinated and all! ;) 

The picture below is my dream home office, but of course I would have to live in a palatial mansion with gorgeous vaulted ceilings to make this happen! A girl can dream right!? I've been scouring Craigslist for a vintage table like this, so stay tuned for the after!!! 

Happy weekend!! 

I'm on Instagram!!

Hello blog world! I wanted to share with you all that I am finally on Instagram!

Find me by searching: youngteacherlove on your Instagram app!

Also, for you Instagram users, take pictures and use the hashtag #teachertalktuesday to join in on this fun weekly linky party! If you search the hashtag there are tons of great photos to look at!

Have a great extra long weekend!! :)

Homework Hotspot Video: Optimum Organization Linky Party!

Is anybody left out there?! I know it's the end of May and all, but perhaps you fabulous teachers are thinking about next year?

I am linking up with two of my favorite bloggers for their Optimum Organization Linky Party!

I thought I would take this opportunity to expand upon something I have already blogged about HERE and HERE...my Homework Hotspot.

It really is THAT amazing, and since I have had so many questions about it, I thought it would be best to make a video to really show it in action! 

So, click the video below to check it out! But please ignore my reading off of a script (if I didn't I'd be a babbling mess!) my messy room (I started tearing it down for summer when I had this brilliant idea) and my valley girl-like voice in the video. Super embarrassing! ;)

HomeworkHotspot from Kristine Nannini on Vimeo.

Head on over to Fun in Room 4B or Ladybug's Teacher Files to link up! 

Point of View Eyeballs!

Happy Saturday everyone! I just wanted to quickly share another cross-curricular project I did in my classroom this past week! We have been studying the Revolutionary War in social studies and point of view in ELA. So why not mix the two, right?!

I got this idea from the fabulous blogger Sandy, over at Fearless in 5th! She has some AWESOME ideas for upper grades, and this has been one of my favorites!

One of my big focus lessons for our Revolutionary War unit is how the British viewed the events leading up to the war vs. how the colonists viewed the events leading up to the war.

To teach point of view this year, I added this fun point of view eyeball project to really drive the point home! After seeing Sandy's awesome eyeballs, I just had to try it! My students had so much fun completing them and they look amazing lining our walls! Some students sided with the colonists and some sided with the British.

The prompts I gave to the students were:

1.) Imagine that you are an American colonist. Draw an event leading up to the Revolutionary War from the perspective of an American colonist.  The drawing should demonstrate how you feel about Great Britain, how you feel about British soldiers being in the colonies, how you feel about your fellow colonists, or how you feel about a specific event leading up to the Revolutionary War.

OR......

2.) Imagine that you are a British soldier. Draw an event leading up to the Revolutionary War from the perspective of a British soldier. The drawing should demonstrate how you feel about the colonists or how you feel about a specific event leading up to the Revolutionary War. 

The Quartering Act- a British Red Coat knocking on a colonist's door to stay the night. So awesome!

Tax collectors knocking on colonist's doors to collect.

The Boston Tea Party!

Didn't these turn out so fun?! Head on over to Sandy's blog to check out her student's work! I hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday and to the moms out there, an even better Mother's Day! :)

Teacher Appreciation Sale!

First and foremost, to all of my teacher friends out there...

I'm sorry, but I can't help it!!! Those EYES, the furrow of that brow! HAPPY TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK!!!! 

More importantly, Happy Teacher Appreciation SALE!!! It's that time of year again, when you can load your cart up with some goodies and go all types of purchasing crazy for your classroom! I will be participating in the site wide TpT sale BOTH Tuesday and Wednesday! 

Below are some of the items I have for sale in my store: 

Start your year off on a positive note next year with my Student Data Tracking Binders and Standards Based Assessments with Teaching Notes! 

I have them for grades 2-5, and ELA Assessments are coming soon! Click the pictures below to check them out! 

Here are my best selling, back to school products to start out your school year! Click HERE and HERE to check them out! 

AND since I can't share with you my WHOLE entire store, my last two products are my favorites right now!

They are my Analyzing Characters Pack: 

and my massive 5th Grade Common Core ELA/Literacy Assessments and Teaching Notes *ALL STANDARDS*:

HAPPY SHOPPING!!! :)

Teaching and Assessing ELA in the Classroom using Social Studies Content!

Happy Saturday blog world! I imagine many of you are gearing up for the last few weeks of school.  We will be going strong until June 11th, therefore there is lots of learning left to be done here!

Does anyone else feel that crunch at the end of the year? As in OMG I have SO much left to teach and NO time to do it? Yeah...me too. That's when you have to get SUPER creative and start tying in subjects together. (Have I mentioned it's 80 degrees and sunny here? AND we have no air conditioning in our school, so you can imagine how fun it has been for us!)

So...creative we must be, right?

This week, we covered 5.RL.7, which reads: Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, or poem).  ***[Note:  The first time I read this, I was like, "ummm, what?!"]

Like...seriously?! Thank the heavens I put in the extra work to make these teaching notes because these standards STILL confuse me at times!

I had planned to read my students this fabulous poetry book about Paul Revere already for social studies...

...and I could use it to introduce this standard for ELA. Jackpot!

So, for a quick and easy lesson, I posted the standard on our anchor chart during social studies.

We did a quick lesson on the tone, mood, and beauty of a text. (side note: a great thing to say when teaching tone is to say, "Hey! Thanks a lot!" in a happy tone, and "Hey! Thanks a lot!" in a sarcastic tone. So simple and those two quick phrases spurred the lightbulbs and the oohhhh, I get it!!!) 

As we read The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, students kept track of words, phrases and/or picture clues that contributed to the text's tone and mood. 

We then shared together all of the elements we found and I posted them to our anchor chart: 

We practiced throughout the week using our own reading books and started talking about how multimedia elements (videos) use visual and sound elements to create a mood and tone as well. It was so fun hearing all of the wonderful conversations about such a high level concept in my student's book clubs! 

Finally, at the completion of the unit, I decided to assess my students by comparing a specific text to a multimedia presentation (video), and pictures. I wanted the video and pictures to go with the text in order for my students to understand how authors use visual elements to add tone, mood, and meaning. Many of the examples that were out there were of these videos that were hours long and I had such a hard time locating a matching text, that I decided to just create my own! 

I assessed my students as a whole group by playing the video on our projector.

I then pulled a few of my lower readers to view the video independently or in a small group using our laptops and my teacher computer.

Here a few excerpts of my student's assessments comparing a text to pictures and a video representation of the text:

All of the above assessments, video links, photos, teaching notes AND MORE can be found HERE in my 5th Grade ELA/Literacy Assessments and Teaching Notes!

I would love to hear your ideas for teaching 5.RL.7! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!