Mr. Cookie Baker - an unexpected mentor text

Today I am linking up with Mrs. Jump's Class for the Let's Talk About Books Linky.

***UPDATED with more pictures because I finally found my book! Sheesh 6/6/14***

I first owned Monica Wellington's Mr. Cookie Baker as a board book that I read to my youngest.  The book is bright, colorful, and I love cookies and baking.  So it was a win-win for reading to the baby. But the more I read it and noticed the illustrations, the more I got to feel that this would work excellently with my second graders as well. (The link to Monica's site also offers some activities to go with this book)

1. Illustrations

At my school we teach an Illustrations Unit to our kids.  It's one of my favorites to teach.  We spend time looking in books that we admire and noticing how Illustrations are an important part of the story.  They either clarify text, or add more information.  They can help the reader experience the emotion of your character or situation simply through facial expression or color choice.

What I like about Mr. Cookie Baker are how the illustrations frame the text- much like Jan Brett's technique in her books.  I like showing this to the kids as an example for if they don't feel comfortable with their drawing skills to draw one bog picture, they can assist the story by drawing small items around the edges.

2. Writer's Workshop

This book is also great for the beginning of the year to help reserved students realize they can still write a good story in a few sentences.  They just have to make sure their sentences are constructed with word choice in mind.

This book can come out again during our Informational Writing Unit as an example of How-To.  The entire story is a description of the steps the Baker takes everyday to make cookies and sell them to children.  Usually, How-Tos are straight directions.  This is a nice transitional example for kids still bent on the narrative form.

3. Math

An example of math in real life.  The page above, in particular.  "He counts and measures..." shows the importance of precise work.  It leads to the discussion- What would his cookies be like if he had only estimated?  When would it be appropriate for him to estimate? A trip tot he grocery store for what he needs for the week, becomes a relevant answer.

The illustrations are a great intro to fractions.  The subject matter lends itself to hands on exploration of either making real cookies according to recipe, or craft dough for pretend cookies.  Either way- the kids are counting and measuring. And, so important- PROBLEM SOLVING.

Computation and Estimation lends itself to how many cookies did we cut out, how many have we baked, how many will we have all together? 

Skip Counting enters the court when we start looking at cookie sheets with set numbers of cookies on them.

Time is easily put into play with how long will they be in the oven?  What time will it be by the time they have cooled?  How long does it take to decorate one cookie, or twenty?

Money can't be forgotten ass the Baker sells the cookies near the end of the story.  how much should you charge for one cookie?  How much will you have if you sell ten?

I sincerely doubt that there is a math strand that can't be applied to this book.

4. Social Studies

No way! Yes way- Economics, my kittens.  Mr. Cookie Baker is a producer, the kids are consumers.  Mr. Cookie Baker uses several natural and capital resources during his day, and he himself is a human resource.  Does he provide a service, or does he sell goods?  Is it both?  What other producers does Mr. Cookie Baker have to rely on to make his cookies?  Is he therefore also a consumer?

And all this easily translates into enough background knowledge for the kiddos to design their own shop and list the natural and capital resources they would need to offer a service or sell a good.

5. Science

I've got to be kidding, right?  This is a book I read to a toddler for Pete's Sake!  But it's in there.  Solids, Liquids, and Gases when you analyze the ingredients Mr. Cookie Baker needs. Scientific Method if you just give the kids some ingredients to make craft dough but no instructions on how to actually do it. The role of evaporation as a cookie gets harder as each day goes by.

Convinced yet? If you click either picture, it'll take you to Amazon to buy it now! You know you want to!

I was inspired today to try to make some complimentary clipart.  My attempt is a freebie in my store for the next 48 hours.  I'd love to know what you think- as I did all of the art this time by myself. Click the picture below to go get a set.

Speaking of my wonderful sister- she's getting ready to go work on Pinkalicious: The Musical in the next few weeks.  She'll be making costumes!  How cool is that?  My daughter has always loved the Pinkalicious books!  I'm looking forward to getting to see the show and share about it here on the blog! Wow, I went a bit nutty with the exclamation points there, but it IS exciting!!! Ok. Now stop, Heather.  Stop.  But- if you're near the DC/Maryland area- you might want to check it out.

And even MORE news- 

I'm on a roll with the clip art, kittens.  I finished up the next Armadillo pack in the wee hours of the evening yesterday:

And of course, I had to make him a video:

I've been checking in regularly at the linky to see other teachers' book selections- and I've found tons more to load up my Amazon wishlist with (oh, but to win the lottery and spend it all at Amazon and Target!) - professional books too!  Go to Deanna's post to link up your own book - I want to know! and see all the other great ideas out there.  Thanks for the great linky, Deanna!

I'm going to go find some cookies...

GAR! I almost forgot!  Did you hear about Reading Rainbow on Kickstarter?  I do not have $10,000 for the chance to wear the one and only Geordi Laforge original STNG visor- but I did donate $25 for a great cause.  My first investment!  Next, up, the i-STAAPS!

Revisiting the Last Kid Picked

Economics.  I thought it would be awesome at the beginning of the year.  But, sheesh.  I don't know gang.  Maybe it deserves to be the last kid picked.  Maybe it really is the worst player in gym class...

Not to say that the kids did not have  a great time creating the town this year.  And, to be fair, I do have the whole rest of the year to get my act together- but the concepts seem a bit too hard for my kids at the beginning of the year.  So it wasn't as fun as it was last year, and we haven't accomplished as much.

It's a little tough on me too this year since I am hosting an addition five kids during that hour so I'm sporting 28 at the end of the day.  But my teammies who are not sporting the extra five kids are saying similar things.  They did not have as much fun with it this year as we did last year.  So poop.

One thing I did come across this year that was great was this book by Paul Fleischman.  Click on the picture to go to Amazon.com.  This was a great read-aloud for actually creating a civilization.  My kids were able to get the whole concept of a main crop after hearing this story.  And it got them excited about the idea of creating a different language and what not.  The book is pretty cerebral though- so it's not a "quick" read-aloud for a second grade crowd.  Much better done over a few days so they can chew over the information.

It did help that we had two weeks of Citizenship lessons before we started.  This economics curriculum is part of my PYP planner How We Organize Ourselves.  They were completely into the idea of community and citizen responsibility as we began this unit.  It also helped that we had been creating class mission and vision statements at this same time- because they were able to apply this to their pretend town.  They did decide on calling the town Super Mooseville, and they chose to have a lake town, which specializes in fish, corn, and mango, and our power is generated through wind mills.  I am hoping to be able to consistently use our town in other curriculum areas as a touching point.  We'll see how that goes.  The kids voted on what they wanted people to say about their town, and they came up with the following.  I had to help them out with the words multi-cultural and globally minded because they didn't have the vocabulary, but it was completely their idea that they wanted a place where no one felt different or unaccepted because of their race or skin color.

This has also helped me separate my kids into three project groups, since they each have expressed interest in one of the three concepts as being of interest to them.  My Clean Committee is currently working on designing a recycling center and plans to actually show it to our county recycling center. 

It's definitely going to be a year long project with this town- and I hope that over time I start to have more fun with it- but at the moment, the momentum is a bit slow.

Must Have Picture Books - My First Linky

And it freaks me out! Gads I hope I don't mess up!
*update* clearly I don't know my etiquette, and should have put in here that this here linky is hosted by Lindsey at The Teacher Wife.  And also I did find a typing mistake and feeeexed it. Someone beat me with a wet noodle.

I love picture books.  I love the technique in illustration.  The precise language.  The labor of love that they must have been to write, and how excited the children get to read them and share them and love love love on them.  My classroom library has 40 baskets at this point, and I've bought more books this summer, so I know I'll have to add more come end of August.  But I care not! I love them so!  It's hard to pick the 5 BEST ones, but these are old favorites that I read again and again.

1. When Pigasso met Mootisse by Nina Laden serves many purposes.  For one, the illustrations are excellent, showcasing both styles of Picasso and Matisse, two of my favorite artists.  My second graders always think both styles are super cool, and want to try both out in their own drawings. Secondly, it's a great story for discussions on friendships, competition, respecting differences, and being unique.  It's a great text to refer back to often when dealing with friendship issues in the classroom. And as a great third reason, the end of the text has real information of both artists, to provide that non-fiction link that kids actually adore.  They LOVE finding out that these were actually real people.

2. Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran is a beautiful story! I used to bawl like a baby at the end every time...but they make a pill for that now, so now I just choke up a little. Anyway, I tend to like books that do a lot of different jobs for me in the classroom.  This book is a great example of memoir, and I can use it in Writer's Workshop as an example for writing about small moments.  I also use this book as an introduction to my economics unit, as the children in the story create their own town, and it's a fantastic springboard for getting my kids to think about what they would need in their town that they are going to create.  It also works for showing changes over time, which is a social studies standard. 


3. Tough Boris by Mem Fox is AWESOME.  I'm starting to worry that I'm running out of adjectives for this post.  All of these books are incredible.  What makes Tough Boris special?  I use it for my illustration unit to show how the picture can show a story that the words don't tell. Which also makes it great for that Daily 5 lesson on Three Ways to Read a Book.  This book has a repetitive text structure, which makes it great for the kids to quickly catch on and echo back the lines with you.  And it teaches about stereotypes.  You can spend the whole book thinking about how awful pirates are and then find out that they are capable of loving and being loved just like everybody else.  But not in a hit over your head sort of way.  This was also a tear jerker for me.  The kids would be all, "Why are you crying AGAIN?" Ah, pills are good.

4.   Ms. Rubinstein's Beauty by Pep Montserrat.  I hesitated on this one when I found out that it's no longer being sold, which I guess means it's not being printed anymore? But I MUST post it, because it is, insert adjective that means so super fabulous beyond belief here. Look for it at yard sales, or borrow it from the library.  This, like Tough Boris, works for teaching about stereotypes and how everyone is beautiful and has worth and how we all need to look for the good in people and be open minded.  BECAUSE Ms. Rubinstein is the bearded lady at a traveling circus.  I will not give away the rest.  But it is a beautiful love story. *sigh*

5.  Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney. Who, coincidentally, illustrated Roxaboxen.  A sweet story about a woman who decided to make the world beautiful.  I have always used this book as a beginning of the year read aloud and had the kids write a little paragraph about how they would make the world beautiful.  Providing kids with opportunities to think about how to give back to the world is so necessary as we nudge their character building.  It's a great example of memoir, small moments, beautiful language, and changes over time.  I also want to point you in the direction of Wendy at Teacher's Toolkit, who also uses this book in her classroom.  But she went an amazing step farther and has a free powerpoint of lupin pictures that she shares with the kids and then they make these gorgeous fingerprint paintings.  It is an inspiring project, and I want to combine it with my writing activity and have the kids create lupin paintings for a bulletin board display and then put up our paragraphs of how we'd make the world beautiful.  A great opportunity for text to self and text to world connections.  Please go give Wendy a visit and give her props for her beautiful art project!

Oh this is sad!  Only FIVE books!  And now I wish I had been able to add in Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein because of how it shows the writer's process, or I Love Guinea Pigs by Dick King-Smith with how it pairs non-fiction informational text features with memoir, or Chin Yu Men and the Ginger Cat by Jennifer Armstrong because it works in wonderfully with my Ancient China unit and character education, or When I was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant for small moments! There are so many.  Sniff.

Oy! Me brain is sizzling...

Gads- you know what I didn't do?  I didn't photocopy the town money.  kick kick kick.  Yar.  Ok- two solid days of handing out money then.  That should be ok, right?  I am, after all, just experimenting here.


I did complete the Guided Reading Inventory mission though.  So I just have to put those two inventories into the computer and I am GOLDEN.  I also have my PGP all tidied up, and will send out the e-mail in the morning that I am ready to rock that taco stand.  Giddy up!  I cleaned up the mess a bit by moving all of my "Stay Here" boxes to the back of the room on top of our former work tables.  I moved all of their desks this afternoon too, in a fit.  And now, I know I hate it.  Note to future Super Teacher me (not that I'd need the note, 'cause I'll be all super, yo) DO NOT MOVE DESKS WHEN YOU'RE MAD.  So, tomorrow morning I'll go in and move them again before the kids get there. Erg.  I also have to fill out class placement cards for next year in a frenzy- I FORGOT to bring them home.  Dork dork dork.

And, I fear that I will have to do some "legitimate" teaching tomorrow, as I had them spend pretty much all day creating a time capsule book so I could pack.  I'm feeling ashamed of myself, to be quite honest.  So, the plan for tomorrow is to do some cursive.  As in, all of it.  And I have a water experiment to do that I think might end up replacing Water Blitz Day.  I know, dorkiness cop out, but I really am out of steam.  For my water project though- I found these body part dealies at the Dollar store, and when you place them in water, they blow up four times their regular size or something.    So my plan is- first weigh the dry toy in the balance scale.  Then measure out a specific amount of water into a container.  Then add toy- wait till near end of day- take out expanded toy and weigh- chart difference.  Measure left over water to see how much it sucked up.  Sound mathy?  I think so!

Aaaaaannnnnnd- because I do still need to pack- here is what Heaven sent me via my father.  Someone was throwing out a craft book of hat patterns.  Like, over a hundred animal/creature/things make-out-of-paper hat patterns.  Seriously?  How! Why! Wha??? This is end of the year GOLD I tell you!  So, to try to keep it on the "legitimate" side...yes, I will have them measure the circumference of their noggins in order to cut the right band length of paper for their hats. Maybe we can even graph the different size heads - How Big is Your Brain? (oooooo- save this for next year, Halloween I think, Zombie sort of theme action, interactive bulletin board in the hallway, guest brains, slurp slurp. Yep, suuuuuper teacher!)  And then I will let them choose whatever animal/thing they want and spend oooodles of time making the silly thing.  I will be the best teacher EVER in their eyes.  They WILL have done some math in the process, and I will be able to PACK.  Ultimate mediocre genius stuff here.  Still though- who in their right mind wanted to toss that book out?  My gain, my gain, be happy. And there was a spring craft book too- which I will make sure I make every single stinking thing in it next year for funsies.  They even had an awesome "blowing wind" puppet, where you use a dish soap bottle and a tissue to doe this wind blowing simulation.  EXCITING for weather unit.

As promised, some econ photos of market day products:

Animals from Daniela's Animal Shelter

Nail Polish "bottles" from Abby's Nail Salon

Trampoline Folks from Lily's Bungee Jumping

Skates from Azarrio's Super Skate Land

Crafting Reflections

Kind of hard to believe I'm in the last week.  Time goes so fast- it's unbelievable.  When I grew up in Alaska, the seasons didn't change much- nine months of snow made time "freeze", if you don't mind the pun.  I thought I'd be twelve for the rest of my life.  But then I moved down south and we have four seasons now and life has zipped by me.  And the day pretty much zipped by as well.  Which was ok by me, considering the air conditioning wasn't exactly working.  I came to have a deep appreciation of my deodorant.

Kids had their celebration today, two hours of autograph signing, while I got to "work" in my room.  Of course, I did next to zero.  I did get to meet with Best Ever Kristine and find out what sorts of goodies she was leaving for me in my new room.  I am nearly frothing at the mouth for the great big closet and wooden writing center.  Hip hip hooray!

Of course, it was time for recess at the point the celebration was over- and then lunch, so there goes another hour.  Half point of the day, give kids their last number sense assessment.  This is the last piece I need for my PGP plan.  Got the whole thing written up, folks- just need to have the data. So there, I did DO something.

And then it was time for Market Day crafting.  The kids had two hours to make their "wares".  I put out EVERYTHING I had. Except glitter and paint.  I admit to just not wanting to DEAL with glitter and paint. But you know, it was sort of hard.  I had almost gotten to the point where I felt like giving them the ribbons was WRONG.  Why do we do that?  Or is it just me?  We buy it, for the use of crafts, but then the idea that they might actually use it all up frightens us.  Or me.  Maybe it is just me.  The woman with the inner hoarder.  Anyhow- I was able to take my claws off the items and go work on packing.  Which was it's own nightmare for me.  I will take pictures of their stuff and post them tomorrow- but I will tell you, I had at least three boys make basically nothing.  (And they are just going to have to live with not making any money on market day.  I said two hours only and I am sticking to it.  My determination is fueled by Fabulous Karen today, who was the epitome of standing her ground.  It was inspiring.)  And, kittens, I had kids who - dare I say it- made nothing worth buying.  And lots of it.  But, and here's the good part, I had at least two who wowed me.  I am so stinking proud of Azarrio, he made the most adorable roller skates.  His store was a skating rink, and he cut shoe shapes out of construction paper, and found some ribbon with little bobbles hanging off and cut it so exactly FOUR trimmed the bottom of each shoe.  They are AWESOME.  I will make myself be sure to buy one of his skates so I can keep it as an excellent example for next year.  And Abby- the dear thing- she had a nail salon, made fancy nail polish "bottles" out of air dry clay and decorated the outside with shaped felt.  I am also going to be sure to get one of those.  There were other cuties, but those were the two stand outs today.  Perhaps on closer inspection tomorrow I will be impressed some more.

I talked over this crafting experience with my mother today.  Mom always had my sister and I making crafts when we were younger.  We cut, pasted, created, sewed, baked, the whole shebang.  But I find now, as every year goes by, that I find less and less people my age who had similar experiences, and my students definitely DON'T.  I really want to try to address this next year.  Do I have them time?  Is it worth the investment?  Should I set better priorities?  But it seems a shame to leave them out there unable to CREATE.  Isn't it a tragedy to be eight and not have a steady glue hand?  To not know to cut at the EDGE of the paper (for Pete's sake) instead of right in the middle?  In this conversation with Mom though, we got around to the discussion of do these kids have the NECESSARY MATERIALS there at home to craft with?  And I'm pretty sure that's a no.  So we brainstormed a bit.  Aside from just teaching some crafting techniques next year (yep, sUUUUUper teacher year) each month slowly buy up different crafting materials from the Dollar Store, so at the end of the year, for their summer gift, I can give each of them an art tub to take home for the summer.

What would go in that gift?  I'd need a basket or container of some sort.  One with a lid would be best.  Crayons.  Fat markers and skinny markers. scissors and big sticks of glue.  pack of construction paper.  a ruler. tape.  brass brads.  pom poms. dazzles.  ribbon.  clay.  colored chalk. fancy paper. fancy shape scissors(probably going to have to stalk Michael's for that) pipe cleaners. Pony beads.  And I suppose, slowly print out random craft directions and put them together into a book to go in the box.  Summery sorts of crafts, for both boys and girls.  If I only use the list I have right here, that's 20 bucks a kid... of course, spread that over nine months...at least 2 bucks per kid per month, and let's round up to $3 to be safe.  If I have a class of twenty kids, that's sixty bucks a month.  Maybe that's just crazy.  Maybe I need to have a car wash or something to raise the money. Yarp.

But looking directly at this econ unit- since it will be stretched over the entire year next year, I'm going to handle market day differently.  I will do it once each quarter.  Seems like a good celebration idea to me.  But the first three quarters, I will spend teaching them SPECIFIC crafts and techniques, and they can chose from these techniques and crafts to make to sell for market day.  I can make the items go along with the units we've studied that quarter.  So, say it was the quarter we studied weather, well then they could make weather instruments, or cloud pictures, or tornado tubes, or snow globes and the like.  It won't be until the final market day that they really create their own store product.  Hopefully by then they'll have a good skill set to make some really interesting items.

So, tomorrow I must photocopy our Geovanni Town currency and begin to pass it out as I catch excellent behavior.  I hope I can do a good job at this.  I have a tendency to forget such things.

During the crafting, I was able to inventory all of my math manipulatives, and box them up.  And box up all of the teacher supplies that stay with the room.  I have three magnificent towers of boxes now at the front of the room. And yeah, I didn't get the book inventory finished, and I had cursed myself with the fingernail thing.  If it satisfies anybody, I did break a couple of them today.  And I attempted to start the inventory,a nd got two levels done, but then other things took over.  So, I will have to make sure it gets done tomorrow.  The procrastinator's creed.

I did manage to create an even bigger mess than when I started.  It reminded me of when I was twelve.  When I would "clean" my room, I would take out absolutely everything from everywhere and make a great big huge gigantic pile in the middle of my bed.  And then pick at it piece by piece slowly putting it away.  The overall idea was that I would force myself to organize everything so I could go to sleep.  But, of course, I gave up mid way through the pile and would shove it in my closet or under the bed.  There's got to be a class, or intervention, or just a pill to help me with this.  Perhaps a general brain transplant.  If I'm lucky tomorrow, I'll make another big dent in it.  I'll start packing up what is MINE.  Which of course, now that I think of it- I meant to ask my Dad for boxes, and he has gone to bed.  I do manage to handicap myself regularly.

.

Store "Grand Opening" and Math Magic

Great times today.  We had two of our second grade classrooms come and visit us to see our stores we'd created for our town.  These other two rooms hadn't started their shops yet, so we got to show ours to help them generate ideas.  When the kids came in, I introduced our town's District Reps and Mayor- all who gave queen waves, kingly salutes, or double Nixon peace signs.  I loved at the end when the classes were leaving, my District Three Rep, Amaya, called out- "Thank you so much for visiting our town, we hoped you enjoyed the tour!"  I had not told her to say any such thing, so it was a real thrill to see how much they took on the role.  Our Mayor shook a few hands as well.   With the shops completed, and our tour a success, we hung them on the back bulletin board grouped by business type.  They are already looking forward to taking them home.  I'm going to go ahead and have them create products and have a market day- but I'll do an abbreviated version.  I have to- I'm pretty much out of time.


Another day of successful small group math pulls.  I met with four kids at a time today to go over the correct use of a balance scale.  We talked about units of measure- grams and ounces, and how a gram is about a paper clip, and that 28 paperclips make up an ounce.  I have two sizes of paperclips, so we took 28 small ones and then investigated how many big paperclips that equaled.  Turned out to be about ten.  one group did come up with nine, and another group 11, but six other groups got ten exactly, so we just went for the average.  We linked the large paperclips together into a chain to make an "ounce weight".  Then we selected an item from our summer goodies basket and investigated how many grams it equaled, and then used that knowledge to estimate how many ounces that would be.  The kids were really good at it, and since I really only had time to let them measure one item- they are looking forward to having the balances available as a center tomorrow to weight the other items.

I picked up my items at the Dollar Store, in the beachy luau section.  We're weighing plastic lei beads, fake flower leis, a hula dancer dashboard girl, different tropical plastic clappers, sunglasses, flamingos, and the like.  I also have other small items that they can use if they want to continue to practice weighing things.

We also spent time measuring flip flops.  I ended up not hiding them around the room, but instead putting them into basket, telling them to select a flip flop, trace it on paper, and then measure the flop at four different points (toe to heel, widest part of foot, narrowest part of foot, and then the height of the flop from the floor- some of those foam ones are pretttttty thick).  They recorded their measurements on the paper and then they could color the flip flop drawing before selecting another flop.  I hadn't thought about it ahead of time, but the first young lady that finished stapled hers into a book- and then the rest of them did that too. So next year, I'm going to have that PLANNED.  I did not have a single student try to get out of the activity.  Even the boys sat there calmly selecting flops and tracing them and doing the measurements.  Surprising- but appreciated.

I picked up a bunch of weird sunglasses at the Dollar Store tonight, so I'll have them do sunglasses measurements as well as the balance scale project.  That's two things to keep them busy while I pull groups to go over liquid volume and do the first half of our popsicle experiment.  and then I just have to teach them the thermometer, and have a Water Blitz day.  I don't think the Measuring Me book is going to happen, but don't count me out yet!

Econ Foldable and The Great To-Do List Challenge Week 4

First up to bat- the much anticipated Store foldable samples.  I made one- a school, and my daughter made one- a grocery store.  I had assigned a grocery store to a student that was absent on Friday- but then I felt bad about it and think I should let him make a choice just like everyone else got to, so having an eight year old free around the house to pick up my slack was pretty convenient.  Having her make one was also swell in that it gave me an idea for expectations out of my class.  You know when you make your own sample you get all proud of yourself for how pretty it is, and then you turn the project over to your lovely sweet little cabbages and they make exactly what they are capable of doing and you have to realize that you forgot you had thirty some years head start on them.  Like when I'm writing down a note and one of them says "wow, you write soooooo fast." Then I feel a little bad how I'm always wanting them to hurry up. It's easy to lose perspective sometimes.

The Meek Moose Fine Arts and Crafts School

Food Power

Things I like about this foldable: 1) the hangar.  In the long run, it's optional- but if I keep the hangar, it gives me some flexibility in displaying them, we can hang them from strings and move them around in a line for sorting and presenting, and all sorts.  Or I can leave the hanger off, maybe add a fancy duct table strip to one of the side and bind them together into a big book.  That sort of appeals to me too.

2)The versatility of drawing right on the paper or pasting on the details.

3) Putting the info on index cards taped inside ground the kids into a location for their writing, and also can help alleviate any stress about the AMOUNT to write.  When they see the small space they can realize, Hey, I don't have to write War and Peace here. (I was an English major, can you tell?)
My daughter has started to put everything on one card, and then to cover up that she drew a line, she just wrote the definition of the types of resources.

4) The floor plan.  So much fun.  I made mine traditional, and my daughter made hers more of a labeled picture.  I think both work, and allow the kids some leeway with what they want to do.
After I made my floor plan I realized I got so excited adding in the art studios I forgot about classrooms.  I wonder if the kids will notice?





















5) I like having the catalog/menu/items available charted on the side. I felt like I was most creative on that part of the sample, my daughter found that part tedious.  She preferred the drawing. Insight, insight, insight.


Since mine was a school, mine says "Course Offerings"


6) Last minute change to add a peek-a-boo roof, I originally had all of that folded to the back, and put the description card on the same side as the catalog, but when I tried it on the actual paper, I preferred the largest size card for the catalog, and it was too busy with the two cards on that one side.  So now the store description is under the eaves of the roof.


It says: Food Power is a store where people buy food. The food is low priced, great quality, and the workers are very nice! Food Power is Food-er-ific!








Before my daughter and I got down to make our samples, I asked her a series of questions which actually helped me think through a planning worksheet I'm going to create for my students on Tuesday.  I had her come up with a name for her store, and think through the natural, human, and capital resources needed.  For the description plan I had her make a statement telling what her store was and it's purpose, three reasons why someone should shop there, and come up with a tag-line or motto.  When I asked her to do that she said "What?!" So I said, you know, like Frosted Flakes, They'rrrrrrrrre Grrrrrrrreat! To which she replied "Oh." and then came up with one.  Then I had her think of ten things her store would sell and come up with a price for each.  Sorta amusing what an eight year old considers a low price for food.  And if she thinks things are that expensive, you'd think she'd try to help me out a little more at the grocery store and not pick everything she sees and put it in the cart, but oh well.


Also in the process, I realized that next year when I do this, I'll have the kids sort the business cards one more time before they choose, and make a selection of businesses that are the MOST NECESSARY to fulfill the needs of the citizens.  That way, I can have everyone's first creation be a real basic town, and then if they finish early they can make a second store that fulfills wants.  Additionally, if I do this all year next year, we can have other opportunities to add in funsie things for legitimate reasons.  Like a TV station because we are learning to write news scripts or whatnot.  I'm excited to see how these foldables turn out though, that's for sure!







And secondly, the to-do list.  In retrospect, I don't feel as productive as I felt last Sunday.  But then I also know I did a lot of hard work this week with assessments, and I have done a lot of good planning.  So I won't beat myself up over the list.  I probably should have gone a little lighter on myself since I know I had all of those running records- live and learn. Live and learn...

Time to tally up my score:

1) Darn it, I need to do the thing with the microphone recorder. No.  I should be ashamed of myself I suppose.  I'm going to leave it off this week to gain some insight as to WHY I keep putting it off.

2)Take care of the teacher's desk, if I did indeed leave it a god awful mess on Friday.  I think I probably did. Halvsies again.  I did clean it up once, but then it went nuclear on Friday and I left it a mess again. I have a real problem with this.

3)The Daily 5 books- even if I did manage to make the books later today, I will not have the kid illustrations in them, so it's still a this week thing. HA! I finished something! The writing anyway.  I was shut down at the laminator though TWICE!  So I've got to wait probably until SOL testing is done to be able to tear it up. In the mean time, I have been reading them with the class at every transition, and it is really helping with getting up under control these last weeks.

4) The catch-all drawers beckon Nope. In fact I am guilty of tossing stuff in there without even caring because I was trying to clear off a counter.  Which ended up totally messed up again later in the week anyway.

5) Have to do 20 DRA's.  Due on Friday- so this is priority one. Hoo-Hah! Yes I DID! And I am happy to report that all of my kids that I started with in October (except 3) have made a year and a half's growth since I got ahold of them. My new English Speaker who I just got two months ago was able to read and comprehend a level two. He is so bright! Next year he'll be above grade level I'm sure. The kid is toooo smart.  The whole process of acquiring a second language just amazes me.

6) I've got to get that town map made. And preview over the lessons for this week so I'm ready. Yes in the sense that I made it a kid project.  And I'm glad that I did, even with the hiccup there in the initial creation.  And I've got loads done with my econ unit, and we're headed into the final drive.  I expect that we will spend the majority of the week making these shop foldables, and finsih the week with the look into barter vs money and create a town currency.  That leaves me two whole weeks to work on town market.  Admittedly, that part of the project truly frightens me.  I am afraid that I am not clever enough to make it work...and I'm not entirely sure why.  More self reflection necessary.

7) Implement the hunt for the positive mission YES I DID! And I am happy with it.  It has given me insight into how they view themselves, and also what they are lacking in skill of how to compliment another person. I am excited about our brick wall we'll be making, and I had an excellent conversation with my mother about how to make this spying and complimenting task a year long endeavor and between the two of us, I think we thought up a very nifty art activity that changes month by month.  When I make the samples this summer I will write a post to share.  I'm going to look inot seeing if my sister the costume designer can do some drawings for me first, or if I'm going to have to attempt the endeavor myself.

8) I'm truly considering revamping how I write my lesson plans And I am a bit proud of myself for the phrasing here, because it didn't require me to actually do anything but THINK- but I also must confess that I did not think about it much, so I cannot give myself full points to be fair.

9) Also truly considering trying my hand at guided math groups this week Proud of myself AGAIN- and there was much much much consideration, and I have written down some plans and hope to try to actually put it into practice this week. 

10) finish reading the CAFE book YES! Full points! What a great book.  What a great set of books reading it right after the Daily 5.  What a great set of sisters, yeah?  Completely thought provoking.  It has my mind buzzing.  I;ve spent over an hour looking at my schedule and writing out possible time frames to try to do something like what they are suggesting.  One hiccup though, my school is very into the Jan Richardson model of guided reading, so I don't know if I can fly with this, or if it's even adaptable to what I'm already doing, or what.  But I am going to investigate further because both books really struck a chord in me.

So, looking it over, 6 out of ten. 7 if I give myself half points for kinda thinking about lesson plans and cleaning my desk at the beginning of the week, even though I left it a mess again on Friday. Let's split the difference.  65%.  Which, I guess is a failing grade, but you know, I don't feel like a failure.  Because HEY, I did some extra credit this week. 1)I cleaned up a side table, put a pretty vinyl table cloth over it that matches the Boston Fern I've got on top, and the kids have been using it all week as an extra work space. 2) Math has gone seamlessly this week because of our new end of the table group hill-billy bookshelf organization and the fact that I cleaned up and organized the math manipulatives. 3) After reading the Daily 5 book, and letting go of some control issues of having to pick who goes where at what time and does what station during language arts time, plus making the expectations charts and We Can books, I had the best working environment all year these past two weeks, and I must contribute that the success of getting through with all of my required assessments even with doing NOTHING for the first week of them. I promise not to procrastinate on it next year. So I think I deserve at least an 80% this week.  All said and done.

This week though- let's be purposeful.  I have tomorrow off, so I can't do anything in the classroom. And I'm glad that I can't.  Where I used to work, I lived only ten minutes away and had a key to get in whenever I wanted so I worked every holiday, every weekend, every moment.  Now, aside from having over an hour's commute- they just don't DO THAT at the new place.  You DO NOT come in on days that are not scheduled workdays.  So there is something I appreciate.  Which reminds me, I almost forgot to get appreciative, didn't I? For shame!

This week I've got to appreciate my daughter- she has no idea how much I learned watching her make this sample shop- and how much she helped me get my brain ready for what my second graders are most likely going to produce for me this week. And she has a tough time of it, with attention being snagged away by an older brother with pretty severe autism, and a relatively new baby.  She is a real star. Love my girl!

I also have appreciated my Mom this week- she's really listened intently to me yammer on about my school plans, and even helped me create an idea or two.  And when I'm at home, I don't have anybody else really interested in such things- so it's good to have a sounding board.

And I've got to give a quick shout-out of appreciation to Marilu, one of the fabulous ESOL teachers I work with, for coming in even though she was bogged down with testing this week, to talk over our little newbie's progress and even do some of his running records for me.  She is a gem! I love collaborating with her, and Anna who co-teaches with me three times a week.  She's been out with the testing too- miss her! And I need to appreciate Anna as well, because she has really been there to give me the 411 on a lot of things that people forgot to tell me about, like the distinction between and N, NS, and S- on report cards..  Thanks to both of these ladies, I'll be ever closer to being SUPER TEACHER next year!

This week's to-do list challenge without further adieu:
1) On my day off- I will bring into creation a plan for our measurement unit that is PYP-ee, and also in the style of small group guided math.
2) Revamp lesson plans, and take a stab at this new possible Daily 5/ CAFE-ish schedule I doodled about this afternoon
3) Update my emergency sub binder to reflect some of our new procedures.
4)Clean off desk in such a way that will LAST
5)Catch-All Drawers in the back must be organized
6) Investigate a plan for repurposing some Basal readers
7) Inventory my guided reading sets
8) Write up my PGP plan due next Monday
9) Sift through and organize my school e-mail
10) Inventory math manipulatives

And honestly- between 5 and 7 and 10 I will commit to getting one done, and be surprised if I manage all three.  But it's a must eventually as it's part of the close-out process and the fact that I'm moving rooms next year.

I'm feeling good about it though- very positive.  I'm going to have a good week.
   

Entre Entrepreneurship

I seem to be using my Promethean Board for anything but...

I'm relatively positive I only know how to spell that word because of the DECA classes I took in high school.  Anyhoo- in economics today we resorted our store/business/services cards into the handy categories that Karen at Flamingo Fabulous posted about.  We turned all specific store names, like Wal-mart and Game Stop into general categories so the kids could think outside of the box, as it were.  Then I had them write on an index card three choices.  They had to pick from three different categories, they could not write down the name of a store that already existed, and they had to keep in mind that we weren't going to have "doubles", so they would want to avoid writing down exactly what their best friend might have chosen.  They were actually pretty good about the process.

We circled the choice we decided on.

They turned their cards in, and later I met with the three district reps and the mayor to make some town planning decisions.  First off, I let the Mayor pick her top choice.  She went with Toy Store.  That nipped out two other citizens top choices.  Then as a team we looked at the cards and tapped into the ones that had unique first choices.  We went ahead and decided to incorporate them into the town, as they all seemed like decent ideas.  Then we had to start making decisions about multiple entries.  About four or five citizens chose fast food restaurant.  We decided to start off the town with only one, and therefore analyzed their other choices to see what fit better.  One gentleman ended up with his third choice, only because he was the only person to mention fire department as an interest and we figured that would be something our town should have. With another citizen who had two unique choices to choose from - a sea life park and an animal shelter- they came to a very mature decision that even though the park would be fun, the animal shelter would provide a more valuable service.  I was impressed with the last decision that came about, as it was one of the district reps versus a standard citizen.  They had both chosen nail salon.  However, Citizen A's other two choices were already represented in the town, and the district rep had also selected church as a choice.  She said very plainly, "well, I really wanted a nail salon, but I suppose church is more important." So she gave up the nail salon to citizen A. Pretty cool, methinks.

Choices separated by District

I did tell them that if they finished one shop, they could always make another one.  And if they made a double on the second go around, that was okay.  We don't need to promote product monopolies, you know?  I did notice though they were pretty thoughtful about what the town needed- and even with twenty kids making choices, our town has plenty of gaps. It will be interesting to see if they chose to fill in those needs first, or go for a great row of fast food stores down the middle of town.

Sampling of choices separated by category

All in all, I am really enjoying this unit.  I already started making the store foldables, and will show off a sample of that tomorrow.  I figure I can fill in a couple of the gaps on my own with samples.  I may even enlist my daughter, who is experiencing an entirely different method of education at her school.  She learned about economics through worksheets- so I am a little curious as to how she would apply that knowledge to this project. Ooooo, I feel like a mad scientist.  I am already thinking about how to start the year with this unit and meld in all my other curriculum.  But I'll post on that more this weekend.

Amazing that she picked Bungee Jumping!

Put our Goods and Services foldables on the back bulletin board

Three days off! It's going to be FABULOUS.

 

Sleep Becomes Me

I have not managed my time well this evening, and here I am, droopy eyed and exhausted and trying to finish up my promises to myself.  The one promise about finishing the cake pops is going to have to be broken however, as I am out of time.  I will have to convert it into a make and take for our grade level meeting tomorrow I do suppose...

So, before I collapse unconscious on the keyboard, a quick update.
I did make the girls redo the map.  I used some of the other maps that were made yesterday that had more "mappy" features to them as examples and asked them to incorporate that idea into their original design.  They ended up with this:

Still could use some work, but we've at least added the element of roads for us to put our businesses and residences on, and I kind of like the idea of the coconut tree grove being in the middle of everything like the hub of a wheel.

In Economics today we worked on our discussion of how all products have natural, human and capital resources.  My teacher cadet did the part of the lesson where they look through the start to finish books, and then I did the part where we made the foldables.  We made three together as a class- brainstorming products we could make with our watermelon crop, our fish source, and our coal power. And then I had them pick a product they'd like to see in our Town and make a foldable of it's resources.  This needs more work.  By and large the bulk of them grasped the idea of natural resources, but there were big gaps in understanding when it came to labeling human and capital resources.  Even though they were able to do it in the class models, they did not translate it over into their own.  So now I have some brainstorming to do to figure out what I need to do to make this better.

I do love my great big gigantic construction paper- comes in handy for so many things.

Additionally, I am excited to report that I have given every single child in my classroom a DRA- and now I am just making my way back through giving them the next level up since quite a few look like they are ready to go up a level.  Excellent news.  I only had three that look like maybe they need to be bumped back down a level.  I never understand why they regress...

Tried to laminate my We Can books- both times I went the lamination machine it had not been turned on- STONE COLD -and I couldn't laminate. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll love ya tomorrow......

And I received the official word that I will be able to move to a downstairs classroom to be with the rest of my team next year.  Huzzah for the shopkeep!