Creating an Agricultural Map of Your State

It's time to learn about agricultural maps in Louisiana, so I thought, why not let kids make one of their own?

Our social studies text came with a handy student atlas that has a map of each state and its primary agricultural products. Being from Louisiana, our most important products are cotton, sugar, and rice. With a little bit of each product, students used their atlases as a resource, to create their own "3-D" Louisiana agriculture map, complete with a title and a key. This project was simple and fun, fun, fun! See below for some pics of the creation process:

(We're still working on learning to spell agriculture. ;-))

Facebook Linky Party!

The Lesson Plan Diva is hosting a great linky party for teaching blog Facebook pages! To follow me on Facebook, click here or on the same icon on my sidebar:

Facebook is such an easy way to keep up to date with everyone...go check out the links at The Lesson Plan Diva!

Teaching Genres Using a Flipbook

We've been very busy lately at school and one of the projects the kids have been working on is teaching genres by creating a fiction genre flipbook. Take a look:

Each flap includes the definition of the genre (I used the definitions on Beth Newingham's website) and examples of the books I've read aloud to illustrate the genre. We are also making a flipbook just on traditional literature. Here is my example:

Here are a couple of books I recommend for teaching trickster tales:

I love anything to do with Anansi and this is a fun read aloud everyone can enjoy. If your students have seen Fantasia, they will be able to make lots of connections to the part where Mickey Mouse enchants the broom (or is it a mop?) and gets into all kinds of trouble. I am considering having my students write their own Anansi tale next week, and creating this art project to go with it:


I found this project at one of my favorite new blogs: Art Dish.

I love including examples of the same type of traditional literature told in different cultures. This cute story tells the tale of Coyote, the most famous trickster from the Southwest. Another funny and enjoyable read aloud!

September 11th Memory Collection

As we all know, the 10th anniversary of September 11th is approaching. As real as the memories of that day are to us teachers, many of our students were either very young or not yet born. In fact, one of my students was born on that day.

As I thought about how to honor the anniversary of 9-11, and at the same time teach my students about it, I decided the best way to do this would be to find a way to give students my memories and those of their family members. In order to do this, I made a simple questionnaire for students to bring home that lists some questions that I hope will get a conversation started between the children and their adult family members about what happened on September 11th. After students "collect" their family's memories and bring them back to school the next day, we will discuss the things they learned and I will share my memories of the day with them. I think it would be nice for students to write down and illustrate what the memory their parent or family member gave them looks like to them. Then, we can collect the memories into a class book that we can read throughout the year.

Here is the form students will use to colelct the memories:Sept11 Memories

How do you plan on remembering September 11th with your class?

I made the Top Ten! Yay!!

Two great bloggers have nominated me as one of their favorite blogs! Yay! What an exciting way to start the day.

Go show their blogs some love!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Some Books for Introducing and Reviewing Reading Genres

This week, I've been reviewing different reading genres and here are a few of the fun books I've been reading with my class:

Science Fiction: Space Case

This is a cute read aloud all about an alien who comes to Earth on Halloween night and gets mistaken for the new kid in the neighborhood. The other kids think he has the best costume! After a while the kids realize their visitor is not the new kid from down the block after all and one of them invites the alien over for a sleepover! Very cute, very quick, and illustrates the science fiction genre nicely!

Myths: Young Zeus

Another super cute read aloud. This is the story of how young Zeus became the king of the gods. I love that one of the first questions my students asked me while we previewed the book was, "Why don't any of the boys have on shirts and why are they wearing skirts?" Too funny! This story offered a lot of points that students could make connections to. For example, Zeus is a lonely child, something which many of my only children could understand. The illustrations are great too!
3. Legend: Godiva

This was one of those books I picked just because the library had it. I wasn't expecting much from this book, but I was pleasantly surprised when it offered MANY opportunities for my students to make predictions, discuss character traits, and learn the characteristics of a legend. AND it was funny to boot! The kids loved Godiva's story. When they found out that she had to ride a horse naked through the city streets, they were very shocked! When I was modeling summarizing the book, they even insisted that I use the word nude instead of naked because it was more polite! (And don't worry, the book doesn't really say or show anything inappropriate!) At the end, is an author's note giving some details on what is known of the true story of Godiva. I highly recommend this book for teaching legend!
What book have you been reading aloud to teach the reading genres?

Awakened, Part 1

Tropical Storm Lee is raining away outside and has given me a chance to catch up on some long-awaited reading. I just finished Part 1 of Awakened: Change Your Mindset to Transform Your Teaching, called "Setting the Foundation for a Healthy Mind." I'm left feeling both inspired and discouraged: inspired because the author, Angela Watson, assures me it is possible to change some of my negative thinking (and gives some great strategies to do so) but discouraged knowing how far I have to go!




I love how approachable the author is. She never comes across as pointing the finger of blame at the frazzled/depressed/super-stressed teacher because she has been there! As I read the first few chapters I kept nodding my head. I read a comment another reader wrote on the author's facebook wall that said something along the lines of, "As I was reading the first few chapters, I felt like I was reading my own memoir!" I felt the same way! I've been teaching for 5 years and I'm only now starting to feel somewhat positive about my job. For the majority of my teaching career, I've felt stressed, overwhelmed, and helpless.


The author explains that studies show that two factors determine whether an employee perceives his/her job as stressful: the effort/ reward ratio and the demand/control ratio. Unfortunately for us teachers, our job tends to be both high effort/low reward AND high demand/ low control. No wonder I've been feeling so stressed!


Angela asserts that we, as teachers, create more anxiety and unhappiness in our own minds by letting our pessimistic thoughts take over and letting ourselves dwell on the negative aspects of our jobs. She describes four strategies to change this and transform your mindset as a teacher: Dismiss, Distract, Reject, and Replace. As I read I tried to think about ways I could apply these strategies to my life.


I would definitely agree that I sometimes let my mind dwell on the negative and make almost a downward spiral of stress throughout the day. For example, on Wednesday, I had a very rough day in the classroom. I had several students crying before lunch for various reasons that were out of my control. I let this put me into such a bad mood that by that night I was on the couch in the fetal position without energy to even watch a tv show!


I realized I needed to apply some of Angela's strategies!! For me the most interesting strategies are distract and replace. I can distract myself from negative thoughts by going on a walk or by reading. I love her idea of replacing harmful thoughts with positive ones. One good way I thought of to do this would be that on a hard day when I'm feeling overwhelmed by so many tasks is to pick one small chore and do it immediately. The feeling of accomplishment of scratching something off my to-do list really improves my mindset!


One thing Angela stresses is to know your own mental weaknesses so that you can more effectively block your negative thoughts. One of my biggest weaknesses is criticizing myself and comparing myself to others and worrying that I fall short. I'm looking forward to reading Part 2, which is all about breaking free of destructive mental habits, and the first one she discusses is "thinking negatively about yourself."


How do you replace negative thoughts with positive ones when you are feeling overwhelmed at work?