The Idea Backpack

I have already been following blogs through Bloglovin. Like many others, I heard that Google Friends Connect may be going away. (Of course, now that I am 4 followers away from 600 it might go away. Sounds like time for a new giveaway). I hope you will follow me on Bloglovin. I will be back later with a post with more actual content. Have a great Wednesday! Hmmm. It is Wednesday, right?

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So after work today, I went to my bootcamp fitness class with Texas Bootcamps. I came home, showered, and ate dinner. I had every intention of finally finishing my second post on teaching about dialogue. Then, I sat down and lost maybe an hour or two to researching bento box containers.
You know how you can lose time (or lots of time) to Pinterest?

When I started 2013, I decided my word for the year was balance. (That is why I started my personal blog, Balancing the Backpack, that I can't quite seem to get into a routine of blogging at.) I really do want to track my journey toward better health and balance. In January when researching healthy lunch ideas, I discovered bento box lunches. It was love at first pin!

Many bento lunches are done by moms with toddlers and they cut things out with cute cookie cutters. I don't make my food cuter, but I have found I am more likely to eat all my food if it is when one container versus several. I am a slow eater, so not eating enough is a problem for me. Eating healthier lunches and snacks helps me feel better and stay more patient during the school year. I have never functioned well hungry. Trust me...ask my mom.

I am also absolutely loving my bootcamp class three times a week. I have been doing yoga for several years. Yoga helps me destress. Working out at bootcamp (outside in the sun) helps me get much less stressed to begin with. Really, yoga and working out pair really nice together. I love bootcamp because like having a personal trainer you show up and someone tells you what to do. Each workout is challenging and completely different. You will never get bored. I sleep better, have more energy, and have been in a much better mood the last couple weeks most of the time. I think being outside in the sun has a positive effect on my moods too (despite the Texas heat).

Here is my "Lunch ideas" Pinterest board with links to bento ideas:

Here are some examples of lunches I have taken to work:

Smoked turkey with roasted green beans and cherry tomatoes, with carrot sticks and hummus

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Baked potato with BBQ chicken and butternut squash

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Salad with chicken salad to mix in and fruit on the side (This is one of my most common lunches)

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Turkey Bacon and Spinach Quesadilla with fruit and trail mix
Quesadillas for lunch are one of my favorite easy lunches

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I also try to pack snacks. This was a snack I took this week:

Cucumber, carrots, celery, brown rice crackers to eat with hummus and a white peach

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I am trying to follow the Fast Metabolism Diet right now. It has a great iPhone app that makes it really easy. You have to cut dairy, corn, wheat, and soy out of your diet and it outlines specific things to eat different days of the week. My goal is to pack all my lunches and snacks for the week Sunday night so they are ready to go. Thus, I needed more containers. I ordered some containers from some of these different websites tonight to try different ones to see which I like better. (I already had the Lunch Bots and Easy Lunch Boxes.)

http://www.laptoplunches.com/
http://www.lunchbots.com/
http://www.easylunchboxes.com/
http://www.potterybarnkids.com/products/spencer-bento-box-containers/

How do you pack healthy lunches and snacks? Do you have any favorite ways to help yourself eat healthy?

I really thought I was going to finish some products this weekend for my store and classroom. Instead, I was up late Friday night doing Statistics homework. Saturday morning I did bootcamp and holy yoga. The rest of the weekend was filled with cleaning, organizing, purging, donating to Goodwill, moving furniture around, laundry, grocery shopping, church, and getting ready for the week.

It's Sunday, so it is time for Collaboration Cuties' Must Read Mentor Text linky.

This week's topic is Social Studies. Can we say love? I am starting my PhD in Educational Psychology with emphasis in Gifted and Talented Education. (That is why I am taking Statistics this summer). My career goal is to create Social Studies/History curriculum for Elementary kids. I feel like History is so important, and we need more resources that make it come alive and feel relevant and tangible for Elementary kids. A great text is a fabulous way to help kids relate to a historical figure or time period. Historical Fiction always has and always will be my favorite genre. I discovered my love of reading when my grandmother introduced me to Ann Rinaldi. She is still one of my favorite authors. Her books are probably more Middle School reading level, so I always try to encourage my higher level fifth-grade readers to explore her books. I remember reading In My Father's House in 6th grade.

It is about the McLean family. The Civil War started right in front of their house. They moved to Appomattox to escape the war. Then Lee used their library to sign the surrender. I remember visiting Appomattox the summer after 6th grade with my grandparents. I was so excited when we saw the McLeans' house in Appomattox. I told my grandmother when we got to the library there was going to be a doll left on the sofa. My grandmother thought I was silly, but sure enough there it was. Will McLean's little girl leaves her doll in his study and it is taken over to sign the surrender and end the civil war. She is upset because she wants her doll, not understanding the importance of what is happening behind closed doors. I love historical fiction because often kids can relate to history so much more when they can relate to the age or gender of the characters. It is such an easy way to learn history and absorb interesting details.

I often have done a round of book clubs with Historical Fiction in my classroom or had my students choose from a list of books when we are studying a period of time. I am teaching US History again this year, so I am excited to use more picture book mentor texts. This year we studied the US Regions and Westward Expansion. I am excited to actually cover most of the major events in US History again.

This year was my first year to use Common Core. I live in Texas, so I had previously followed the TEKS. The private school I am at now follows Common Core. With the emphasis on nonfiction in Common Core I used a lot more nonfiction this year in Science and Social Studies for mentor texts. Engaging nonfiction is hard to find that reads well aloud, so I love finding great nonfiction mentor texts. My "go-to" Social Studies source for mentor texts is the "You Wouldn't Want to Be" series. Students always love them! I would like to read this one to use this year: You Woudn't Want to be a Civil War Soldier.

The series always presents the worst part of a time period - the hardships and disgusting details. It always helps to paint a picture though about the hardships of a place and time, and the kids eat it up. If you scroll through the other related books at the bottom of the Amazon page, you can see a bunch of the other books in the series. There are tons of books in the series for American History and World History. Usually after I read one aloud, it gets read and reread during independent reading. What is your favorite Social Studies nonfiction mentor text?

If you use clipart in your products (which most of us do), you are supposed to flatten and secure the images before turning it into a pdf to protect the art.

Here is an article I found from the 3am teacher on securing your pdf files.

Here is another tutorial. This one is from Jivey.

At work, we use Macs. We actually have Word and PowerPoint for Mac. If you use PowerPoint on a Mac, you can still save all of your slides as JPG's or PNG's just like Michelle's tutorial. You can't just right-click on the images and say "Convert to pdf." You have to use the "Automator" application. Here is a tutorial on how to use the Automator application. Now, I just need to figure out how you reduce the file size of a pdf without destroying the image quality. Any suggestions?

You have probably heard by now that Google Reader is going away on July 1st. Well, Google Reader may be going away, but we don't want YOU to go away, so we hope that you will consider following our blog through bloglovin! We know that change is hard...so we thought we might sweeten it up for you a little bit!

We are doing a giveaway for all of our fabulous followers that take the leap and switch over to bloglovin. You may have already switched over! In that case, this will be an easy entry!

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I have been trying to sit down and finish a post for days. My husband was in an accident almost two weeks ago (where luckily no-one was injured). We have been dealing with body shops, insurance, and car dealerships for almost two weeks. This whole process has been a nightmare and time-consuming.

Anyway...on to better things. The Bloglovin Giveaway ended today. I have two winners. Congratulations Cheryl and Desiree! I will be emailing both of you.

I have been doing a lot of research trying to figure out to incorporate interactive student notebooks this year. I would like to use them with more than one subject, but Math is going to be the hardest to figure out. The hard part is that my students work very independently and at different levels, so not everyone will be on the same Math lesson or even same grade level of Math.

We use a lot of technology, so I love the idea of a digital interactive notebook. I am playing with the idea of using paper notebooks to house the "inputs" for the notes, but maybe create the more creative "outputs" on the computer. For the "input" section of the notes, we may do some of the notes all-together or in small groups, but I also need them to work on individual note-taking skills. I decided to create a note-taking template for Math to try out with my students. What do you think? Should I add anything? Take anything away? (I should probably make a template that has a section for properties). You can get a copy here.

How do you help your students become independent note-takers?

So you would think come summer you would have more time for blogging, but the last couple weeks have been crazy with the drama over totaling my husband's old truck and getting a new truck.

Anyway...drama over. Yesterday, I remembered it was time for Collaboration Cuties' Mentor Text Linky.

When I saw it was a Language Arts Mentor Text, I was excited to blog about one of my favorite read alouds. I have mentioned this book before. A couple years ago I was introduced to Patricia Polacco's book The Junkyard Wonders at a Balanced Literacy training. I fell in love with the book. It is a beautiful story about friendship, creativity, and uniqueness.

This book had also been on my mind because I was researching the Next Generation Science Standards on Friday. I remember reading this post at Corkboard Connections. In this post, Wendy and Cheryl of Get Caught Engineering talk about how Engineering will be a large part of the new Science Standards. They have some great ideas for incorporating Engineering in Literature. I immediately thought of The Junkyard Wonders. In this book, the main character, Trisha, goes to live with her dad because she wants a new start. She felt dumb at her old school. She discovers she has been placed in a special class called The Junkyard. Everyone in the Junkyard has something that makes them different. Mrs. Peterson, their teacher, places them in groups called tribes and immerses them in a year full of truly hands-on learning. At one point, they actually go to a junkyard and collect things to make something new. The message in the book is about how we all have something special to offer and no one deserves to feel unloved. It is a sad book because one of the classmates dies. I rarely can read this book aloud without getting teary, but I love the story! You can use this story to discuss story elements, theme, mood, visualizing, character traits, etc.

I love this story enough I decided I finally needed to make a unit to go with it. (It took me most of the day to finish the unit. That is why I am a day late with this blog post.) The unit is 18 pages and has a variety of organizers to analyze literary elements. I also included several writing assignments and a project idea. I created it with the 4th and 5th Grade Common Core Literature Standards in mind.

Mrs. Peterson reads them a definition of genius on the first day of school that I love. I think I want to make a giant poster of this quote! Here is a free copy of the quote to display in your classroom. You can also get it at my TpT store.

You could use this quote to prompt great discussion and writing. I also love the idea of using this book to prompt discussions of inquiry based learning, working in groups, creativity, etc. I think often we feel so pressured to be worried about meeting certain curriculum goals or testing expectations, that we often forget that learning should be fun and creativity should be fostered without limitation. We often put kids in a box when we should be encouraging them to just follow their natural bent to think outside the box. I look forward to discussing this definition of genius with my gifted students. How do you foster creativity in your students? Have you ever tried incorporating engineering in literature?

I hope you are having a good Thursday. I went back to work today. I enjoyed having a couple weeks off. Next week I will be off for 3 days again because I am off to the Vegas Teacher Blogger meet-up. I am super excited to meet lots of teacher bloggers!

Kristin at ITeach1:1 is having a "Tune Into Technology" linky that focuses on iPads.

I work at a school that uses technology constantly. Our middle school and high school students all use Macbooks. This past year I taught a grades 4/5 class. We used Macbooks in our classroom as well. This upcoming school year we are adding a grades 2/3 class. The 2nd and 3rd grade class is going to use iPads, so I have spent some time researching apps. I am excited for this linky to get some more ideas.

We also have been toying with the idea of whether or not the 4th/5th grade class should remain using laptops or should also use iPads. I have my students submit a lot of their assignments electronically, so that was my biggest concern about using iPads. I wanted to know my students could still submit their assignments to me without having to email everything. I do not want to have sort through a million emails. I like their assignments to be submitted all in the same place in an organized and systematic way.

This year I used Edmodo some at the end of the year. Edmodo is a great app because of its versatility. The students can use it as a planner, they can store files, they can submit assignments, and you can also use it post comments to the class. We primarily used it for the planner.

In my research for an app that allows students to submit assignments electronically, I discovered a new app called Showbie.

With Showbie, you can add classes and students. Within the classes, you create assignments. The students submit their assignments to Showbie from their iPad and everyone's submissions are organized by class and assignment. You can get the app for free, so it really seems like a great way to create a paperless classroom when you have access to iPads. I like the idea that students could take screen shots of assignments and submit those or even take a picture of an assignment done on paper and just submit the picture. I look forward to trying out Showbie this year and moving a little closer toward a paperless classroom. I think you could also use Evernote somehow to organize student assignment submissions, but I haven't figured out how yet. How do you organize electronic student assignment submissions?

This past year was one my most challenging years as a teacher thus far; it was also one of the strongest growth opportunities I have had as an educator. I taught a self-contained class for the first time. I have previously always had several classes of students and focused on 1 or 2 subjects. This year my class was made up of students in grades 4 and 5, who spanned a variety of age levels and ability levels.

At the beginning of the year, Math was my biggest challenge. Our school uses a lot of technology, so that students have opportunities to work at different paces and levels. In Math, I had Gifted students who were extremely advanced and other students who were not ready for 4th grade Math because they still struggled with 2nd and 3rd grade concepts. We spent a lot (and I mean a lot) of time working on building fluency at basic, foundational Math concepts. From working with many students even in Middle School Math, I have found that for most students who struggle with Math it comes down to not being able to fluently add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Often when students struggle with fractions or Algebra, it comes down to these concepts.

During the last week of the school year, I was contacted by a publisher to review an ebook. Compass Publishing asked me to review Laura Candler's book Mastering Math Facts.

I was thrilled with the opportunity. On a side note, I love Laura Candler! I discovered her website when I first found out I had to teach using Reading and Writing Workshop at another school. Her website became my foundation for teaching in a workshop model. I discovered the world of education blogs through her email Newsletter. Without Laura Candler, I probably never would have started a teaching blog.

Anyway, this next year we are also adding a Grades 2/3 class. I was excited to review Laura's book for ideas to help build math fact fluency in my 4th and 5th graders, but primarily for ideas on how to implement it in our 2nd and 3rd grade class. I do believe it is important for students to memorize their facts because it needs to be part of their subconscious. However, it is vital they also grasp the conceptual ideas behind all four operations and how they work together. Laura does a great job with the lessons and activities in the book of helping students gain a conceptual understanding of math facts. She has a lot of hands-on activities, which is great for all students but especially for your kinesthetic learners. I look forward to sharing more ways I implement her ideas in my own classroom when school starts.

I first printed the book out and put it all in a binder.

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She has a great section at the front of the book that matches the activities to the specific Common Core Standard they correlate to.

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I look forward to trying some of her hands on activities that help students make connections between operations like this egg carton activity. I like that she gives you detailed instructions for the lessons. I have taught Language Arts more than Math, so I do not have a huge mental list yet of hands-on lesson ideas for Math. I think the hands-on activities will be great for the kids who are still struggling with their math facts. For my Gifted kids who mastered their facts long before they came to me will probably still want to do the activities just because they are fun and more interactive.

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She also has some great handouts that really help you visualize the operations.

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You can get Laura's book Mastering Math Facts as an ebook at her TpT store or in print at her website. You also can get a copy at her publisher's website. Laura also is having a webinar for her book on Tuesday, July 16 at 8:00pm EST. You can read about the webinar at Corkboard Connections. I would attend, but I will be at the Vegas blogger meet-up. I do intend to watch the archive though. If you have not attended one of Laura's webinars, you should. They are always worth the time.

How do you help your students master their math facts?

Hello, blog. I have missed you. I was in Vegas...staying in a Penthouse suite...meeting other bloggers. Oh, and visiting with my mom.

I will be back soon to share my pictures with you. I just wanted to stop by briefly and share a bit of my fun. I flew out late Sunday night from Dallas. My mom had driven into Vegas from Salt Lake City and had spent a couple days visiting with a friend. My mom and teenage brother picked me up at the airport. We got to the Mirage, and they were out of rooms with 2 queen beds. We got stuck with an 1100 square foot penthouse. Poor us.

It was awesome! I wanted to live in that bathroom. A mini-fridge and a cot - I would have been set.

Monday and Tuesday I mainly hung out by the pool doing some reading on gifted kids. (I'm taking my first gifted class toward my PhD). I really should get back to working on the many assignments due by tomorrow for that class. I just am taking a short break to talk to you.

Tuesday night I went to the teacher/blogger meetup. It was so much fun meeting people and putting faces to the blogs. I will share more later. (If you want, you can see some of my pictures on Instagram. My username is ideabackpack.)

One of my favorite things about Vegas though is the people. Vegas is like a drug for the people watcher. My mom overdosed.

It amazes me to see so many young kids on vacation in Vegas. As you walk around and see people dragging their kids through the oppressive heat, flashing lights, and undressed bodies, I find myself immensely curious. What goes through kids' heads? When kids people-watch in Vegas, what do they see? I can just imagine all the questions parents get asked. Why is he wearing a bikini? Why is she wearing tassles there? What do the feathers do? Why is her dress so short? Why would you want girls delivered directly to you? Why do people gamble?

Anyway, what do you think kids wonder when they go through Vegas? That seems like a fabulous topic to a short story to me.

I realize I still need to share my pictures from Vegas. After getting back from Vegas, I have stayed really busy with a graduate summer class. I am currently taking a class on differentiating instruction for gifted kids. I find it all really interesting, and it is making me really think about how I can better facilitate learning this year in my classroom. My favorite of the books we have been reading so far is Advancing Differentiation: Thinking and Learning for the 21st Century by Richard Cash.

In this book, he discusses how in our current world we are forced to think and make decisions all the time. Students need to be challenged to think at deeper levels if they are going to be prepared to function in life and in the work world as adults. One of my favorite topics he discusses is that objectives should be labeled as factual, procedural, and conceptual. This makes the teacher identify what the students need to know, need to be able to do, and need to understand. Most objectives used in lesson plans are probably factual objectives. They focus on what knowledge do we want the students to have learned. This would be something like knowing your multiplication facts.

Procedural objectives involve what students should be able to do. These would be skills like going through the writing process, being able to write in cursive, being able to fill out a planner, being able to keep an organized binder, being able to type, or being able to do research on the computer. Many of my 4th and 5th graders still struggle with motor skills, so even being able to cut and fold could fall into this category. I think of these as skills I want my students to have before going on to the next level, such as moving onto Middle School.

Conceptual objectives are what we want students to really understand. Do they really understand what multiplication is? Can they apply it in real situations or word problems? Many times students who are very good with numbers can memorize a process and repeat it effortlessly. They may test well on assessments, but if you retest them later they have not retained the skill. Really making sure students understand concepts will help push knowledge and skills into long-term memory. For gifted students, providing them opportunities to work at those deeper conceptual levels allows them to actually be challenged for once. This year I really want to plan out each unit with these three types of objectives and then use those objectives to plan what activities we will complete. Over the next week or two, I will be doing some blog posts on how I want to implement the differentiation strategies I am reading about in my own classroom. How do you differentiate instruction and make sure that your students are thinking at different levels?

Project based learning has appealed to me as an instructional tool for awhile. I never really knew where to begin. In my classroom this year, I think I would like to try at least one project based learning experience in each subject. The subjects where project based learning seems to make the most sense to me are science and social studies. These are subjects with a wide variety of content and areas where differentiation is often sorely needed. In my classroom, social studies will be the first subject where I try project based learning. Some interesting PBL units for social studies would be to take a topical approach. For example, students can study fashion changes throughout history, changes in transportation, changes in communication, etc. With elementary students, it makes sense to me to model the process. I would probably do one whole-group small project as a class where we go through the process together to model my thinking and see what issues come up. We could probably make a list of project ideas and vote on what idea to choose. Before my students can choose a project area to research on their own, they will have to be familiar enough with the basic content of a unit. Thus, we would first introduce the major events and themes of a unit. A couple of issues I want to keep in mind while trying project based learning with gifted students are metacognition and perfectionism. I realize how much more this year I need to emphasize thinking about thinking in my classroom.

Before beginning a PBL unit, I would do a project pre-assessment where students make a list of possible project ideas and then create questions on the topic after narrowing it down. I also would like them to analyze what resources they will need and what they hope to accomplish.

After that, they will make a plan for their project. In their plan, they will list research due dates, due dates for choosing a product, and due date for final product. We will use a calendar template to plan out the process. Hopefully having them help create their own essential question and ideas for a rubric will aid in their metacognition growth. I have often found gifted students to be perfectionists when it comes to project details. Sometimes they get so caught up in certain details they lose sight of the original goal or what is actually being graded on the rubric. Sometimes, they also feel so much pressure for it to be perfect they give up and do nothing. I want each student to identify some skills (procedural objectives) to focus their effort on while working on the project. Some students may choose that they need to work harder on typing and research, writing and grammar, creativity and detail, or organization and time management. For the students who feel everything has to be perfect, I am hoping this will allow them to focus their effort on certain skills and feel less overwhelmed. Ultimately, students would use all of these skills most likely in a project; I just do not want them to think all of these skills have to include their best effort.

How do you encourage your students to really think through a project based learning experience in your classroom? How do you encourage metacognition in your classroom (thinking about thinking)? You can get a copy of the project pre-assessment and project plan here.

My aunt just released her first book: Daughter of the King: Finally Free.

It is her memoir of how her faith in Christ helped her overcome patterns of abuse, neglect, low self-esteem, drugs, and the wrong men. You can read a little more detailed review of the book at Balancing the Backpack, my personal blog. If you are interested, you can go to my Aunt Fran's Facebook page. She is doing giveaways today for signed copies of the book.

As an educator, it reminded me that we often do not know what our students experience at home. We only have them a portion of every day. It is so easy to get caught up in testing, grades, and record-keeping, but ultimately the biggest difference we make as educators is making students feel safe, secure, and loved. Students should be able to feel seen, heard, and valued. As a gifted student, I rarely came across content I did not learn with ease. The teachers who changed my life listened to me and validated my thoughts as important. I hated when adults dismissed my ideas because I was just a child. In truth, I was probably more high-achiever than truly gifted, but I have always possessed many of the traits of a verbally gifted individual: intensely serious, abstract thinker, witty, and highly empathetic. As a highly-empathetic and mature child, I saw things from many points of view and always had a sophisticated understanding of everyone's feelings. While I could understand many, I related to few. I often felt alone and invisible. I absorbed so much of the the feelings of others I struggled with how to figure out what my own were. My aunt's book truly helped me realize how grateful I am that my mother made sure I always felt loved and valued. I may have moved constantly, had an unorthodox childhood, grown up too soon, struggled making friends, spent too much time by myself, hated the back and forth of divorce, struggled with why I couldn't be enough for her on my own, and grown up on Wendy's, but I did feel valued and heard. While I would not recommend getting married at 19 to most, I truly am thankful that I found the friend and anchor (my hubby) I needed before I knew I needed him. We cannot change the circumstances with which our students are raised, but we can show them they are cared for, their ideas are important, their feelings matter, and that we see them for the special people they are. How can you make someone feel loved, seen, and heard today?

I am sorry I have been absent. Last week was the last week of my second summer graduate course. I had a final exam and a major project where I had to make a differentiation handbook. Did I mention I also am working full time this summer and my summer school kids started last week? Also, we had some new teachers start this week so we are trying to get them setup and ready to go to start planning.

Anyway, I am excited to try and share some more posts with you on differentation and gifted kids. One of the books we read in my class with really great differentiation strategies for all students is Advancing Differentiation by Richard Cash. It is one of those books I have already decided I will have to reread a couple times. It is packed with a lot of great ideas.

I have been trying to get on here for three days and share my goodies I got from the Back to School Blogger Exchange.

I was matched up with Anisa from Creative Undertakings. The box came from the post office all wrapped up in super cute foil paper. I also got a very sweet note.

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All of the items were in an owl photo box. I love owls and incorporate them in my classroom.

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I got lots of pens, awards for students, pencils, green crafting tape, a mini stapler, a notepad, and post-its. All super fun!

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I love school supplies. You never can have enough.

This past weekend I also had a super busy Saturday. My little brother graduated from a spiritual leadership training program called The Honor Academy through Teen Mania ministries, and my sister-in-law graduated from college at the University of North Texas. I spent about 5 hours in the car on Saturday. I did put together this little gift box for my sister-in law, though.

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(My brother got gift cards.)

Now I have to go pick up this little puppy (who has my favorite face in the whole world) from doggy daycare where she played and got a bath today. Then, I am off to my bootcamp fitness class.

photo F308758F-9B20-4848-B865-A18E810BBD61-23201-0000063ADD2CF9B0_zpscb540c2c.jpg

After that I get to pack for Orlando (where I am flying tomorrow night to go visit my grandparents until Sunday). Hope you are having a fabulous week (and hopfully it is mor relaxing then mine has been).

I feel like I haven't blogged in forever. I went to Orlando last Wednesday through Sunday to spend some time with my brother, dad, and my grandparents. It was a great trip even though it was short. I got to do relaxing and reading (which are two things I never seem to have enough time for). On the way back, I got bumped to First Class so a family could sit together. Poor me... It was fun! I had never sat in First Class before. I will miss the meal, the hot towels, and the glass of wine next time I have to sit in Coach.

The other day I came across a new resource for Curriculum Maps that tie to Common Core. I had already purchased Common Core Curriculum Maps for Language Arts on Amazon this summer as a resource. I first read about this book last summer and had not gotten around to purchasing it.

The book has six different units for each grade level, which many of them are theme based and tie in to Social Studies. I plan on using some of the ideas for 4th and 5th Grade to plan out some of my read alouds, shared reads, and assigned nonfiction reading this year. There are actually also some great suggestions of poems.

One area that is always a struggle to find great texts is Social Studies. Actually, the problem is not finding texts but choosing the right ones. Since many of my students are gifted, it is important for my curriculum plans to include a lot of independent learning. If students work more independently and through more of an inquiry approach, the teacher becomes less of the central vehicle for the students to obtain new knowledge. This is where the right text becomes important. Students still need a vehicle to learn the content. A high interest text can make all the difference. Commoncore.org is a website with curriculum maps that tie to the Common Core Standards. (This website is different from the site where you can find copies of the standards.)

CommonCore.org is a nonprofit organization that has worked to create curriculum maps that tie to the Common Core Standards. You can purchase a yearly subscription to access the maps. They have maps for Language Arts. (I did not purchase this subscription since I had already purchased the other book above). The part I was excited about is that they have Curriculum Maps for Social Studies. It was $20 for a one year subscription. They have curriculum maps for both World History and US History. Each type of History has 18 topics that have maps. For each topic, there are suggested anchor texts with other text suggestions. They include text dependent questions, assessment ideas, and links to other resources like Primary Sources and websites. I am excited to add these resources to my other curriculum. I have been wanting to find more History nonfiction texts and historical fiction to incorporate into Language Arts. I tend to spend a lot of time researching texts and going to the library. I am hoping this will cut down on my time researching texts, so I can spend more time creating projects and activities to go with the texts and also finding engaging primary sources. Do you have any great resources for curriculum maps for Social Studies or lists of great History nonfiction texts?

I can't believe I haven't blogged in almost two weeks. Anyway, I am glad to link up with Farley's Currently.

I am sitting in bed and listening to the sound of the fan spinning. I figured if I got up and started doing some things on the computer while sitting in bed it is closer to sleeping in than getting out of bed.

I LOVE my Australian Shepherd, Nala. She always makes me smile. :)

I did bootcamp Saturday morning and then yoga yosterday. Every muscle in my legs hurt.

I need to figure out what I want for breakfast. I have been avoiding grocery shopping the last few days so we have no food. (When I get really stressed, I avoid things.)

I went up to school yesterday and finished organizing my classroom. School starts for me tomorrow. I need to go up today and do some finishing touches and some lesson planning. Below is the start of my bulletin board. I need to add colored paper for the place for where I will display all student work. I love how using ribbon border turned out though. I don't think I will ever go back to regular border. I like the rubbon a lot more.

My goal all year has been balance. I have been doing hot yoga for several years now. I find yoga helps me destress and stretch out the tension. This is my 200 class wristband I just received. It took me several years to get it, so I am proud of finally reaching that goal. I generally have only averaged going once or twice a week so it took me much longer to get there than some people do.

I have been doing a bootcamp fitness class for a couple months now. I absolutely love it! I am getting stronger, and it is never boring. I just show up and someone tells me what kind of workout to do. I do much better with accountability. Even with yoga I try to get friends to go with me because I do much better with that accountability of someone is meeting me there.

With lots of working out, I know I need more rest. I also am starting my PhD this semester, so between school, graduate school, and working out I know rest is going to make a difference in my sanity. The other thing I try to do for myself is pack bento lunches. I find if I pack a healthy lunch with variety all in the same container I eat better. Lately, I have been packing a lot of veggie wraps with spinach, veggies, and hummus on a tortilla. Somehow salad on a tortilla seems more appealing than actual salad does at lunch time.

If you want to see what I will be packing for lunches, you can follow me on instagram at www.instagram.com/ideabackpack.

The first week of school has been crazy! I have wanted to blog every day and my evenings have been filled to the brim. The first day of school we handed out supplies and labeled everything. We always do some orientation activities as an entire school where we talk about the vision of the school. We did some writing activities about summer. I didn't have them just write about their summer. They had to use the topic of summer as inspiration for their writing.

Early in the day, we talked about information we might share when introducing themselves. I asked them to think what they would share if they couldn't give their name. I gave them each a sheet of paper. They had to write or illustrate information about themselves that did not include their name. It made them think! You can see my poster below.

We also got in groups and did an activity to think about rules. We put them in groups and gave each group some marbles. They had to create a game to play with the marbles and then write out directions to play the game. Then the groups rotated in a circular fashion to play someone else's game following the rules. Later in the day, we did the same activity but gave them a dice with the marbles. They once again had to create a game and make rules to play the game. This activity was great because they had to think about how to work in groups, make clear directions, and the importance of good rules. Here are some of their rule posters they made.

We used this to transition into a discussion of classroom rules. We made a list of possible rules and had them think of more ideas that night for homework. We ended the day reading First Day Jitters and talking about it.

The second day of school we talked about the rules and narrowed them down based on what they had in common. We chose the rules as a class. Here are the rules we decided on:

Be respectful to everyone and everything
Use words to compliment, support, and help
Always do your best
Be open to new ideas

We also followed up the activity with the marbles by doing a procedural/"how-to" writing yesterday. Each of my students chose a topic to write a how-to-writing.

Today we talked about discovering what we love to do. We read the book When I Grow Up by Weird Al Yankovic. It is a very cute story with great vocabulary about a boy with lots of imagination trying to think about what he wants to be.

We talked about how to think about what we want to be and learn to recognize our talents and strengths. We did some journal writing about what we love to do. We ended the discussion by building resumes. They used their experience as a student as their "work experience." We used the ReadWriteThink Resume Generator. We also worked some on organization this week, but I will blog about that in a separate post. What kinds of activities do you to have students think about who they are and what they might want to be? What kinds of activities do you have kids do to think about the importance of choosing good rules?

I hope I'm not the only one who feels scattered at the beginning of the year. Today I got up all ready to go to yoga and drove to the wrong studio location. Then, a few hours later I drove almost all the way to a friend's house for her son's birthday party before I realized it is next Sunday. It was not my day!

I spent the afternoon and evening trying to organize and get ready for the week. I am starting my PhD this fall, working, and trying to work out/eat well. I am still working on the best way to organize it all and allocate my time to get homework done, reading, and still have time for blogging and products. Apparently today, I was scattered and had too much swirling in my brain.

A couple weeks ago, I went to the orientation for my PhD and heard all about the dissertation process and the different qualifying exams I will have to take along the way. I essentially need to take notes in every class with the assumption I will see the information on a test in a couple years. I need to take careful notes on all of my readings with the same assumption. I am planning on using Evernote to organize my graduate notes since I can access it from my iPad, my PC at home, and my Mac at work. At the same time, I have to take notes on paper. I just do. I was trying to toy with the idea of just using my iPad to organize me and let the paper planner go, but I'm not sure I'm there yet or ever will be. For today I put all due dates in my Erin Condren Life Planner and my iPad.

I do want to utilize my iPad a lot more this year, though. I like to use www.planbook.com for lesson planning, and they have an iPad app now. Mastery Connect makes it so easy to pull up the Common Core Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards with their apps.

We'll see how it goes. Hopefully as each week goes by I will feel a little less scattered. I am going to be using www.edmodo.com with my students this year, and Edmodo has an iPad app. My students will use Edmodo on their laptops as their planner. I will still probably offer a paper planner if any students prefer to use paper, but we are going to start with Edmodo.

We actually use a lot of websites all the time, and many of them have lots of different usernames and passwords. Last year I grabbed a little freebie form from a blog to help keep track of those usernames and passwords. It came in really handy to keep in the front of our binders, so I made one for this year.

The Website Tracker will help us stay a little more organized. You can get a copy here for free.

How do keep from feeling too overwhelmed and scattered at the beginning of the school year?

Hello blog! I have missed you. I have missed sleep for that matter as well. The last two weeks of trying to get in the school year routine and getting used to being a graduate student again has been hectic to say the least.

Even now I have so many things I want to blog about, but my eyes are drooping even as I type. I am running on empty and no sleep. I have spent the last two days working all day and then coming home to hours and hours of my own studying and homework to do.

Yesterday, we had a field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art. It was our first field trip of the year. We are a very small school, so the entire school grades 2-12 go on field trips together. I wish I could tell you I loved going to art museums with elementary kids, but I don't. They get bored. And you spend the whole time trying to keep them in some sort of suitable etiquette. Well, as we got about halfway to downtown the bus started smoking. Smoking as in kids were asking why the bus smelled like BBQ. The bus driver pulls over on the side of the highway and has us get off the bus quickly and go stand in a grassy area off the highway. The older kids are videoing and tweeting pictures of the smoking bus. Two fire trucks stopped to check out what was going on, as well as the toll road authority.

The firemen clear the bus as okay and tell us it is okay to get back on the bus. We teachers are all thinking you rushed us off a smoking bus on the side of the tollway and now you want us to get back on the bus? We really kind of wanted to wait for a new bus, but the bus driver and the firemen all wanted us off the grassy area on the side of the tollway. They assured us if things started smoking again we would get off on the next exit. We did not have any more smoking bus, so we made it to the museum like an hour late and missed most of our guided tour. Then, we had 2 hours of self-guided tour time. Two hours... Two hours of self-guided time in a museum asking kids to walk instead of twirl and reminding them like 5 seconds later. The last 45 minutes or so we went to the park across the street so the kids could play. They were done. We got a new bus for the ride back in the afternoon.

I ended my exciting field trip today with a 3 hour graduate Statistics class. Did I mention I had done 8 hours of homework Monday night and had only had 4 hours of sleep that night? After Statistics, I came home to a couple more hours of homework last night.

I'm not sure I really have a point in sharing all of this other than sometimes life can be a little crazy, and you have to find the humor in all situations...especially as a teacher. Today was actually a great day! I think I was really happy to have normal routine day and know that I did not have any assignments due tonight for grad school. I am excited to actually go to bed before midnight or even eleven.

I hope you are having a good week...one with maybe no smoking buses or Statistics.

This might be the longest I have gone without blogging. This school year is actually going really well. I am enjoying my students this year so much! The second year of doing something is hands down ten times better than the first year. Last year was my first year to teach a grades 4-5 class in a blended learning environment, where we combine technology and teacher interaction to meet the needs of our students. It was also our first year last year to have any elementary grades at our school. There was so much to figure out from schedule to curriculum to identifying what blended learning looks like for elementary students at different phases. This year I have been able to learn from my experiences last year and start off the year with more consistency in schedule and curriculum.

I decided this year to pursue my PhD in Gifted Education part-time while working. While I am really glad to be able to give my students more consistency this year and watch them thrive with it, I am struggling with it myself. Once again that whole issue of balance comes into play. I am trying to sort out my own schedule and routine for work, lesson planning and grading, going to class for grad school, studying for class and doing assignments, working out, eating better, being married, cleaning, etc. Almost all of my students have had a cold or a stomach bug in the last couple weeks. I woke up with the cold last Wednesday and have been fighting it. I slept most of the weekend. Anyway, I apologize if my blogging lacks the consistency I usually strive for, but I will do my best.

One of my favorite resources I discovered recently was a website called Commoncore.org. I mentioned it before. They have curriculum maps for Social Studies and ELA. I am loving the curriculum maps for US. History. It is making it so much easier for me to choose texts to incorporate Social Studies into Language Arts.

We started the year reading The Discovery of the Americas by Betsy and Giulio Maestro.

This kicked off our study on Native Americans. It was a good introduction because it discusses the land bridge between Asia and America and mentions tribes across both of the Americas. We learned about Aztec, Inca, and Mayans first by doing some research on the following website:

http://www.ducksters.com/history/aztec_maya_inca.php

Then, we learned about the tribes of the four major regions in North America. In Language Arts, we have been working on plot and theme. I decided to incorporate some Native American folk tales into our discussions.

We read several folk tales from The Girl Who Helped Thunder.

This book works really well as a read aloud when studying Native Americans. It divides North America into 6 regions and has 3 tales for each region. Each tale is 2-3 pages. Each story has an obvious theme, so they make a great short read aloud to review over character, setting, events, problem, solution, and theme. We also discussed what we knew about each tribe based on the story. We could infer information about their values, the types of homes they lived in, the climate, what they ate, etc.

Last week we discussed conflict and the difference between external and internal conflict. We made mini-anchor charts to show our thinking about conflict.

Then, my students read different Native American folk tales and made a chart to identify the characters, setting, problem, external conflict examples, internal conflict examples, solution, and theme to the story they read. Then we shared as a group.

What are your favorite texts to read when studying Native Americans? This week we are starting our Explorer unit. I will share more of those texts in another post.

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