3 Amigas = Tons of Fun! A Trifecta of Authors, Resources & Freebies!

This month's Teacher Talk Featured Authors are three amigas! Deann Marin of Socrates Lantern and Retta London of Rainbow City Learning, both organizers of TBOTEMC's monthly Teacher Talk blog link up and Tracy Willis of Wild Child Designs, Teacher Talk's Featured Author Editor. They secretly wish they could've taught together but are separated by geography. Here they are, united in spirit

Read about this creative threesome, their products (shhhh...there's a secret sale going on!), and their freebies below. 

Hi, I'm Deann from Socrates Lantern. I taught SPED for many years and for most of that time I taught emotionally handicapped middle schoolers. My heart went out to them, mostly because of their tough and unfair homelives. Eventually, this took it's toll on me and burnout was inevitable. Since I have double certification, I can teach both SPED and Regular Ed. My dream job opened up when I was offered a 6th grade ELA/Social Studies position and got to co-teach with my best friend. Creating exciting lessons that would turn kids on to ancient history and make it come alive was my new challenge. I so loved seeing the excitement on their faces when they wrote and acted in plays, held debates, trials, and brought in mud bricks to school to make a class ziggurat. 

Now I'm retired and a full time teacherpreneur. I just had my new website built and am so excited to share my knowledge and products with everyone. I'll be starting an email series soon and would love to have you sign up. You'll receive entrance to my FREE resource gem library!

I'm Tracy from Wild Child Designs. My 24 year teaching career has been varied and fun. I've taught k-8 music, directed choirs, taught grades 2-6 and newcomers, and I've been a literacy coach. Currently I teach in a self-contained fifth grade classroom. Jon Muir taught us that all things in nature are connected. If you tease out one thread of a web, all organisms feel that vibration. I believe the nature of learning is like that, too. Deep down, we're all wild children. My passion is connecting core subjects and the arts into rigorous and fun projects. At my blog, Wild Child's Mossy Oak Musings, I write about project-based learning and math, reading and writing workshops. Currently, implementing Visible Thinking Routines and reading about creativity research make my little teacher heart beat faster. 

My subscribers enjoy a monthly freebie for their upper elementary and middle school classrooms!

Hi friends! It's Retta. Forever a teacher, I am enjoying retirement here in Michigan. My blog and TpT shop are both named for Rainbow City, the classroom I shared with m third, fourth, and fifth graders for many magical years.

During my classroom years, I loved really getting to know my kids as people and learners. I found that the empowerment of my students was the key to reaching and teaching them. Project-based learning and authentic assessment are my passions in the classroom. Out of the classroom now, I love volunteering in the schools and staying in touch with what's important to teachers and to kids. I enjoy sharing the lessons and units that made a difference for m own upper elementary students, as well as developing new ones that make a difference for yours! Grounded in research and kid-approved, resources from Rainbow City Learning offer creativity and fun, served with rigor and attention to learning standards.

As a Teacher Talk blogger, I get to peek into classrooms across the country and explore new ideas in education. Collaborating with other teachers is inspiring. I look forward to talking with more of you on social media sites!

Best-Seller Resources

Some of our best-selling resources are pretty perfect for April's Poetry Month. Even better, we've put them on sale this week,  just for you!

This resource is a gorgeous art project, poetry writing, descriptive language and biography poppy-licious project. I've used it to counteract the Standard Testing Blues. It kicks off our Poetry Month festivities. Click picture to view!

My Poetry Portfolio contains 11 of my favorite poetry forms with templates and examples to get your kids excited about creating poetry of their own. It's perfect for use as a 4-6 week unit, or use it at intervals throughout the year! Click the picture to view. 

Don't you just love the smell of spring in the air? When I think of spring, I think of poetry. What better way is there to teach this genre than to take a group of kids outside, have them lie under a tree and write a poem. This resource will inspire your students, just as it did mine!

Our Favorites

We know, we know. Teachers aren't supposed to have favorites, but we couldn't help ourselves. These faves are also on sale for this week!

I love Storybook STEAM because it is rigorous and fun. The mini-poster prompts invite students to think outside the box and to plan a project as an individual or a group. It uses classic tales and adds problem solving and critical thinking to the mix. Teachers say,  "Incredible resource!" Click picture to view!

Have you ever gone to sleep and dreamed about lesson plans? This resource is dream-created. Students learn about Piet Mondrian & plasticism, view Mondrian-inspired examples and explore the fractional amounts in each painting. Decimals and percentages make an appearance, too. Using fractional parameters, students create their own Mondrian-inspired artwork. Students love this and teachers say, "We used this PBL unit in math, and it's the kids' favorite project all year (and mine!)." Click the picture to view!

This is what you've been looking for because it's the end of the year, and you've run out of steam. You're ready for summer, but you want to reward your students with something meaningful and special. This is a unique resource offers awards with thought-provoking growth mindset statements from various philosophers, artists, scientists, historians, psychologists, writers, and more. There's an award to fit every student!

Last, But Not Least...FREEBIES!

We love our students and our resources, but we love teachers, too. These are our favorite freebies...because we love you!

Looking to settle your ELA classes down as they come into the room? Do you want to reinforce concepts taught in class? These FREE 5 Minute English Warm-ups that come with complete lesson plans, as well as worksheets and a writing prompt will be your new best friend!

This product sample, Raise Your Hand Poster with friendly Dot Dudes will encourage your students to find their own special voices and the confidence to speak out.

Small-group instruction is a powerful teaching tool. It's also a challenging tool to implement. This freebie will help you plan and organize your small group teaching. Click picture to download!

Before we say, "Adios, amigos," we hope you'll visit with us again. You can find us lurking at Starbucks, face-timing in the pedicure chair, and hatching plans to take over the world... or, you could just check out our social media links below. 

Deann of Socrates Lantern

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Socrates-Lantern/
https://www.facebook.com/SocratesLantern/

https://instagram.com/socrateslantern

https://www.pinterest.com/dgrosmar/

https://twitter.com/Merlinho

http://socrateslantern.com

Tracy of Wild Child Designs

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Wild-Child-Designs/
https://www.facebook.com/WildChildDesigns1/

https://instagram.com/twwildchild/

https://www.pinterest.com/wildchildde0163/

https://twitter.com/Twwildcild0125/

http://mossyoakmusings.blogspot.com/

Retta of Rainbow City Learning

retta.london@gmail.com

Rainbow City Learning on TpT

Rainbow City Learning Blog

Rainbow City Learning on Facebook

Rainbow City Learning on Instagram

March Is Reading Month: It Doesn't Have to Be a Circus!

Every February, I begin to brace myself. The "March is Reading Month" committee begins meeting to plan the month for our school. I get a tension headache just thinking about it. It's not that I don't love the Cat in the Hat, the reading activities, and the intent behind the month-long focus.  I love reading. I love helping my kids learn to love reading. But, I've noticed a trend in the planned celebrations over the last few years.  The teachers are working hard, and the students are not. The whole month feels like a never-ending circus, and I feel like a demented clown.

Don't get me wrong. The celebrations and special events are great entertainment. Some common March happenings are that every teacher decorates his or her door according to a favorite book. Some of the doors are Pinterest-worthy works of art. Prizes are bought and given out for meeting reading goals. Volunteers dress up as book characters and visit classrooms. Other community volunteers visit classrooms to read books to students. Sometimes, local celebrities come to read.  It's fantastic fun! Over 24 years of teaching in different school districts, the most I've seen students do during the month of March is to read across a reading calendar. 

Again, let me say it: There's nothing wrong with celebrating reading in these ways. But I have to ask...

One of the ways I've coped with the upheaval of March Is Reading Month is to make my students and their learning the center of the celebrations. If we have to decorate our door, my students decorate it, using it as a reader response activity.  It doesn't look like a Pinterest-inspired door, but my kids learned something. 

That reading calendar? I turned it into a Reading Genre Book Challenge.  We discuss how we want our reading to be as balanced as our diets.  It's normal for readers (adults included) to focus on a couple of their favorite genres when selecting reading materials. This challenge helps students break away from their reading trends to try something new. They use the month to earn a total of ten brag tags, one for each genre. They chart their success in their data notebooks, and spend time reflecting on their preferences and how they change over the course of the challenge. 

Another thing that really stresses me out about reading month is that when all of the special stuff is added into our schedule, I have a hard time keeping my instructional oars in the water. So over the years, I've learned to find ways to incorporate our day-to-day learning goals like persuasive writing, literature critique, using direct quotations as evidence, and comparing and contrasting texts.

Every year, my students and I hold an election. We review the major mentor texts that we read over the entire school year. We discuss them. We share our opinions about our favorites and our least favorites.  Then, we vote to elect our Book-of-the-Year for room 9. 

The Brainstorm

 My students create a huge mind map about all of our mentor texts for the year, up to March. We draw arrows to and from text titles to show connections. They write and talk about their connections, and then write a persuasive essay to defend their choices for the Book-of-the-Year Award.  

Some of our titles this year and in past years have included: Perloo the Bold, Tuck Everlasting, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Pictures of Hollis Woods, Bridge to Terabithia, The Poetry of Langston Hughes, Coming Home, My Brother Sam Is Dead, Between the Lines, and A Long Walk to Water.

We sit on the floor, surrounding the butcher paper and revisit each text. Our discussions focus on the characters and the themes we think are important in each text.  

I end the discussion by asking students to choose one mentor text that they wanted to nominate for our Book-of-the-Year Award. Usually, every book is chosen by at least one student.  They returned to their seats to do a flash write about their choices.

After my kids have written their persuasive nominations, they'll practice reading them using whisper phones in order to be less dependent on their texts when they orally defend their choices.  By the last week of March, we present our nominations. Students design paper party props like top hats or tiaras, gluing them on straws or popsicle sticks. They come dressed to walk the red carpet and give their persuasive speeches. I acted out the paparazzi role and take picture after picture of them. Finally, we vote. 

Once we've chosen our Book of the Year, we make covers of all our nominees and display them with our persuasive essays on our bulletin boards. I share photos of them walking the red carpet on the same bulletin board display. 

The best part about all of these activities is that my students are doing most of the work. I'm still teaching to our learning standards, but students are engaged and having a blast...and there's not a circus clown in sight.

You can find some of these student-centered ideas for March Is Reading Month below. Just click on the pictures.  

Pssssst! Hey friend! If you haven't subscribed via email to my blog yet, make sure you do! Every month, my subscribers receive a freebie in their mailboxes, exclusively for them. It's not too late  to subscribe for February!

This week, I've teamed up with some fantastic teacher authors. Their posts are filled with teaching goodness. Check them out below!

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