I would like to point out the way I organize all the blogs that I have found. If you teach a particular grade you can go to my sidebar and click on your preferred grade level and tadaa!! I have blogs arranged by grade level.

We kicked off reading month with a visit from Susie Q the certified therapy dog. Our teacher of the hearing impaired students has an adorable puppy who is a certified therapy dog. Not only is Susie Q ADORABLE but she can also read sign language!! Yep, she is one smart puppy! She did tricks for us then sat and listened to each of the students read. Soooo cute!! She laid her little head on their laps while they read snippets of their stories to her. We were in Daily 5 mode so we were all over the room. I think the kids wished we had a dog. Now wouldn't that be interesting! Here are a few shots I took of the gang reading with Susie Q.

I had the opportunity to step outside of my box last week. Our local ISD asked if they could come in and video tape me during Daily 5. I was super chicken but decided I needed to step outside of my comfort zone. So permission slips were sent home, my kids got busy planning their wardrobes, and my room got a good scrub down. You should have heard my girls all fired up planning what they would wear. I was tickled the morning of the taping when my boys came in with their hair all gelled up. Too cute!

I have used the Daily 5/CAFE in my classroom for the past four years and I really do love it! My third grade co-workers started it this year and they are excited about the results they are seeing in their classrooms. The ISD plans to run some Daily 5/CAFE workshops this summer and they wanted a video showing teachers in our county using the model in their classrooms. I was SUPER nervous but I think it went well. They taped me teaching a mini lesson on text to self connections and then conferencing with students one on one. For the last bit I had to stand three feet from the camera and answer interview questions while my students worked quietly in the background on their Daily 5 choices. I got a little tongue tied but my kids in the background rocked it out!! I was sooo proud of them that day! The woman who taped us had announced that they could expect her to walk around and tap their shoulder if they needed to focus or settle down during the session. As she packed up she looked up all of the sudden and remarked on how she hadn't had to tap a single shoulder. They were so impressed with the kids behavior.


She sent me some of the pictures that she took with her camera and I have them here for you to see. I love the one of the little guy in the green chair. Sooo cute! He is so on task and it's funny how his shoe laces match the bean bag. Remember this summer when I was debating the bean bag chairs? Well they have worked out great!! I totally recommend them!

In the end, I'm super flattered that they asked to come to my room for the taping and proud of myself for conquering my fears and letting them come.

Welcome back! I'm glad you're reading along and I hope you find a thing or two that you can use in your room!

This post goes right along with my two previous ones. I've been hitting nonfiction text pretty hard since after the holidays. I started off by making sure the kids know what nonfiction text features are and how they benifit the reader. I talk all about that in the previous two posts. Here is a picture of the nonfiction text features I cover.



When I'm sure the kids are all settled in and feel comfortable with the text features I move into nonfiction summaries. We covered fiction summarization in the beginning of the year and I knew that nonfiction was going to look a lot different and be much more challenging for them. I made this sassy graphic organizer to help with that. I only have a picture here because I can't seem to located it in my files. UGH! I will find it though and put it up for all of you to use if you wish! (Promise)
I explain to the students that we focus on the title, pictures, and the first section to get our opening sentence. We then divide the article by sections using the headings. We give one sentence summarizing each section and add it to our organizer.
After we finish up the chart organizer we wrap it up and put in into a neat nice paragraph. I take this time to talk about grammar. I also talk about not wording our summary sentences the same as the author did in the original article. I tossed it all together and threw it on our bulliten board.


The kids are really getting good at summarizing. I think this skill will be a great resource to them as they get into the upper grade where they have to read and pick information out of text books on a regular basis.

On my last post I mentioned a student magazine that I use to teach nonfiction. Well, I failed to mention what magazine that was. Oops! I've been getting this amazing magazine for the past two years and I use it for all kinds of things. It has awesome eye catching articles that go right with many science/social studies GLCEs. The magazine comes in different reading levels. The articles essentially stay the same. Both levels have an article about rock climbing with the same pictures. The lower level has larger print and easier to read text. I can then differentiate and have higher readers being challenged while my lower readers are not threatened. Click on the picture below to see what they offer online for students and teachers.

I've been so very busy with lots of fun projects and I thought I would get myself in gear and start sharing!! I've hit nonfiction text features pretty hard since Jan. I used these adorable posters which I found on TpT!! Go Lesson Plan SOS! I've been MIA but I love you two and all your sassy lessons!! These posters are colorful and the kids stayed engaged with the lesson.

 I introduced 3-4 features a day using these posters. We were holding our snazzy magazines (Which I love!!) and we went on a little scavenger hunt. I would introduce captions and the kids would hunt for one and then we would discuss captions and so on. As the kids became more independent and familiar with nonfiction features I introduced this sassy graphic organizer!





I took this organizer and put my own words in. I put things like find 3 captions and tell what page, find 2 pictures and tell their purpose, find 1 bold word and tell its definition etc. I then set the kids loose with their magazines to hunt for nonfiction text features. We would gather back and share.

I hope you enjoyed this little segment of nonfiction text features!! I have more to come so stay tuned!
Leave a comment if you have any ideas to add, suggestions, thoughts, etc..

I hope you are all enjoying this beautiful Martin Luther King Day!!  I can't believe I haven't said hi in over a month. Life has just taken over and wow time is flying. At school we are hitting procedures and delving into mid year assessments. YUCK!  :) I'm trying to evaluate what I have covered and what I haven't. It feels like summer will be here before you know it and I'm feeling the pressure.

I have my personal evaluation next week. YIKES!! I get so stinkin nervous! Next Friday in will walk my princiPAL along with the lower elem. princiPAL. :) They will sit for an hour and observe my little ol self preforming. I plan to introduce my littles to non fiction summarization. I think I'm set but I just get soooo nervous!!!

So, I'm sitting here at training this morning. Yep, that's right. I'm not all comfy at home in my pjs. I'm at training learning about technology in the 21st century. Not as good as pjs but it will do.

I thought I would take the next several days to show you the cool sites we talked about today.

Are any of you up for re certification any time soon? I have to renew this June so I'm giving this shout out to all of you to check out your personal time frame for renewal. I got a little confused about the dates of my masters and the date of my last renewal and was in a bit of a panic about sb-ceus. Turns out I have credits from my masters that have me sitting pretty. Big sigh!!!
Go here to check your time frame for renewal.

 Michigan Department of Education

This site is very helpful if you are a teacher in Michigan and you need sb-ceu's. If you don't live in Michigan I'm sure there is a site in your state that could help.
You can take these courses from your kitchen in your pjs.  :)

I'm sorry I've been gone so long and I promise to be much more on the ball with my posts! :)

Has anyone else noticed that Pinterest seems to be frozen?? I've been pinning a little less but my followers # hasn't gone up in a couple weeks. I find that odd. I've been stuck at 1691 forever! Weird! Has anyone else noticed this?

Hey blogger buddies!!

I hope all is well out in chaotic holiday blogger land!! In school we have been BUSY!!! We just had our first round of conferences and the holiday craze is soooo here!! 

I read a cute book about bugs that focused on adjectives. I decided that I would grab out the fun stuff (paper, glitter, buttons, etc.) and we would make unique bugs of our own. They then made lists of words that described their bugs. I typed the lists out in a sassy font and they cut them with fun scissors. The bugs turned out a little more disorganized than I had envisioned but I must remind myself that they are only 3rd graders and they really did have soooo much fun making them.


Things are rockin busy at the Lutton house! I enjoyed some way super fun shopping after Thanksgiving. My "team" and I were in and out by 1:30ish. We have sooo much fun each and every year. My long time friend Jill and her supper sassy cousin Lexi and I usually stand in the cold a couple hours but man do we grab up bargains and laugh a ton! We kept calling ourselves shopping ninjas. :) Good time!
That is me in the WHITE coat. :)  At this time we had been waiting outside of Toys R Us for over an hour and it dawned on me that in all the years we do this I had never snapped a photo.