Dino-Mite Fun!

This is a little late getting posted, but I wanted to show how my kiddos had fun making this. I had a tough time getting a large box, and what I ended up doing was cutting up a box and extending it. Well, you know when you plan on studying dinosaurs, you get big ideas that don't always pan out....so we never did get our GINORMOUS diorama.  The boys thought we had to have the biggest one ever. So, this came up a bit short.  But the kids still thought it was cool enough--especially when we turned off the room lights and plugged in our red string lights (the kind in the tube). Yes, they just had to put in their plastic figurines (not what I had intended), and made it a bit crowded in that little habitat; but at least they made lots of  background scenery, dinosaur nests, eggs, and volcanoes...no clay...just flour, salt dough. They made realistic-looking fossils, too. You don't see those here, because they just couldn't wait to take them home!

Studying the "Terrible Lizards" is always such a wonderful opportunity to play with vocabulary and work with synonyms for ordinary words like "big". We focused on words other than big to describe dinosaurs--words like humongous, ginormous, titanic, mammoth, enormous. They sure had fun with those words.  Meat-eaters, we called "carnivores".  Plant-eaters were "herbivores".  Then, they asked, what are we?!  Some second graders actually knew the word "omnivores".

 Every teacher's just gotta love studying dinosaurs!  I learn something new every year. And who knows, these extinct creatures may come back....According to the latest news, Jurassic Park's nightmare may not be too far-fetched!

Rockin', Readin' & Writin' Animal Reports

Yes, we're rockin', readin', and writin' about dinosaurs. My kiddos have been dino-crazy over the last couple weeks and the enthusiasm has not waned!  My classroom (which is already small) has been invaded by animals from the Triassic and Mesozoic Eras. Big plastic figures and stuffed dinos line one wall. Next week, they are building a 5 foot diorama for the classroom. Pictures will come soon. I have "dino-mite" words in the room, and a tree chart which was almost too easy for them to fill out. They have so much prior knowledge, which is so helpful when it comes to writing and adding details. They've had fun with dinosaur related spelling words as their bonus words, too. This week, we'll be finalizing some of their writing pieces--especially their reports. So our dino portfolios are going to be stuffed when we're all done.  But they'll remember every bit of this unit for at least a few years to come!

Teachers know this already, but I feel it's worth repeating--Animal report writing is the greatest springboard for kids to get comfortable with longer forms of writing. The stamina they need for writing is proportionate to their enthusiasm--usually! The new Common Core expectations require stamina in both reading and writing.

Please check out my Animal Reports Templates! There are 2 products out: One of them has several pages of graphic organizers, including a cover, rubric page, and writing paper. It works for any animal. The other product is a shorter version, but there are 3 different styles with different borders. This one is more geared toward wild animals that are mammals--with paw prints and tracks on it. Now, writing about dinosaurs is another story! You want kids to be thinking about fossils, and prehistoric days, so those templates will look different. For starters, see my "Write Like a Scientist" (see below), the dinosaur writing prompt and fossil procedure writing may be what you're looking for.  It's hard for kids to write "all about dinosaurs"--gosh! so many! But if you have your kids write about fossils and how they tell a story, you're helping them narrow down the topic.

Thanks for stopping by!

Rejoice in the art of teaching and growing great minds! ~Karen

Dinosaur Writing Prompt and Fossil Procedure Writing

Cover Page to Activity Packet which includes a photo, prompt, and  procedure writing template

Hoppy Easter and Happy Spring!

Just thought this was the cutest thing.

Still new to blogging, and would LOVE to hear from you!

Hello and Welcome to Growing Readers Day by Day!

I'm still new at blogging, so I hope you don't mind weeding through my posts for random topics. I just discovered blogging despite my 20 years as a teacher.  But if I confessed to you that it was a first grader years ago who taught me how to turn on a computer, than you'd believe that I really have come a long way!

Well, I haven't yet learned how to organize everything, so bear with me, please. I do have some random freebies which link back to my teachers store, but I'm trying to figure out how to make it so you can also get them from this blog!  My teachers store at Teachers Pay Teachers is also new, so I'm learning all kinds of new things--along the lines of social networking, and technical things that I guess I always took for granted.

Having been a reading specialist for several years, I have a ton of tools and ideas that I've either created or discovered along the way. So I hope you'll join me again soon--and hopefully, I'll have tackled all the technical hang ups and blogging bugs.

I appreciate all you teachers, parents, grandparents, and others out there who are involved with the teaching of literacy, children's books, and love to do artsy-crafty things for kids....and of course, any tips or resources that just helps us teachers do our jobs a little bit better.

Let me know if you stop by--I would love to hear from you. I hope to share good stuff with you and hopefully, you've got some great things you'd like to share as well. If you're a teacher, then you know what it's like to find yourself more of a learner than a teacher! That's where I'm at right now!

Enjoy each day to the fullest, and Happy Spring!
Karen

May the Luck O' the Irish Be With You!

Courtesy of mycutegraphics.com

Free Turtle Bookmarks and Writing Prompts

CLICK HERE TO GRAB THIS SET OF BOOKMARKS AND WRITING PROMPTS

If you are looking for more English/Language Arts resources, check out my store for other fun freebies and price products.

Growing Smart Readers

Second Graders--Busy With Nonfiction

My second grade reading group has been working on responding to nonfiction text in their writers' notebooks...and doing a very good job of it. Much of it is working on the features of a good paragraph. We've discovered a few easy tricks just to get the structure down. Overall, they've been doing some great work and I'm proud of them!

So far, we've covered The Aye-Aye, How Animals Move, Bats, Bees, and we'll be finishing up The Emperor Penguin next week. Our next study will be biographies, and writing about our 16th president (and my favorite) Abraham Lincoln. What class doesn't like to read and write about Abraham Lincoln?

Something tells me, we need to study a famous woman right after that. Hmm, there are so many to choose from...Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Sacajawea, Abigail Adams, Betsy Ross, Emily Dickenson, Amelia Earhart, Mary Casatt, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Helen Keller, Rosa Parks, Hilary Clinton, ...and Michelle Obama!  Where do I begin?!


Sacagewea