Made Its & Two Brand-NEW Linkies!

We would love for you to join us for two NEW linkies!!

New Linky #1: Fabulous Finds Friday

Come join us this Friday for our very first Fabulous Friday Finds linky!  Teachers are forever coming across fabulous finds--so what better way to share them than with a new linky.  Pretty much **anything goes--as long as it's a FIND.

Examples might include, but are not limited to:

teaching resources
recipes for the classroom
classroom gift ideas
books and magazines
gadgets
apps
websites
 bargains

items that make the job easier
the possibilities are MANY...

**The only thing we ask is that finds are related to education and ARE NOT products/items created by you for sale.

Grab our button and stop back this Friday to link up with us! Please include our button and a link back to the linky in your post (the button has a transparent background--the blue is a blog setting on our site).

We can't wait! 

Fonts courtesy of KG Fonts & Kevin & Amanda

Graphics courtesy of Graphics by Sarah Beth

New Linky #2: Traits Tuesday

Courtney and I just had the wonderful opportunity of attending a summer literacy institute where Ruth Culhum and Gay Su Pinnell spoke and led breakout sessions!  We were searching Ruth's website last year to see if she would be presenting anywhere near us this summer, and we were pleasantly surprised to find out that she was a keynote speaker and session leader at the institute.  Her speech and session were inspiring, as she shared her love for picture books and using them to teach kids about the different traits of writing.  She also shared how the traits coincide with the Common Core Standards for Writing. 

As we begin our school year, we thought we would try sponsoring our VERY FIRST linky, Traits Tuesday.  We are starting this linky as a means of learning through the sharing of ideas, resources, and experiences among fellow teachers. Whether your district has adopted the traits writing program, you implement traits writing with the help of various resources and mentor texts, you have infused traits writing into an existing writing program, you are just getting started with traits writing, etc--we would love to hear from you!

Traits Tuesday will start this coming Tuesday! We have included a topic guide for next week's and September's posts below...

Week of August 27 - How do you start your year with the traits? How do you begin talking about the traits with your students? What trait/s do you start with at your grade level? Do you have a favorite beginning of the year lesson/writing to introduce a trait?

We look forward to learning from all of you! Please come join us this Tuesday, August 27 for Traits Tuesday!

Feel free to grab either of our buttons below and stop back on Tuesday.  Please include our button and a link back to the linky in your post (both have a transparent background--the blue is a blog setting on our site).

Fonts courtesy of KG Fonts & Kevin & Amanda

Graphics courtesy of Graphics by Sarah Beth 

We hope to see you back here on Tuesday and/or Friday!

Made Its

Monday Made It with 4th Grade Frolics has gone back to a monthly schedule (second Monday of the month), but I still wanted to share a couple of made its this Monday...

Classroom Writing Center

I finished putting together our classroom writing center last week! Found some great children's dictionaries at Barnes & Nobles in their bargain books this summer, and some children's thesauruses are out for students to use, if need be.  The stack drawers contain writing ideas/monthly prompts and paper supplies.  The "regulars" are also included--Post Its, pens, and highlighters.  The clear containers I found at Menard's are great for storing pencil top erasers and paperclips.  Also found some wonderful small "clicker" staplers for small hands--they will come in handy when making little books.  I picked up the little metal buckets from Walmart. The bulletin board will collect writing resources throughout the year... The kids already love to sit in this area to read, even though we have not started using the center yet!

 Writing Portfolio Suitcases (Pizza Boxes)

I also folded and put handles on our suitcase writing portfolios. This was a snap--just some hole punching and knotting of ribbon.  The kids just need to color the suitcase straps and glue on the construction paper.  Decorating these is easy and quick--doesn't take a lot of class time. The kids are so excited about these! I will share some pics of some finished suitcases soon... 

Wishing you a wonderfully productive week!