Favorite Things Sunday

Glad that you have joined me!  Every Sunday I share some of the best ideas I have found throughout the week.

Thank you to my lovely readers who have stuck with me through the extended absence of A Few of My Favorite Things.  The beginning of the school year really kicked my butt this year.  I finally feel like I am getting my feet under me, so be on the look out for more regular postings.

Higher Level Thinking and Questioning
One of the focuses in my school's weekly meetings has been higher level questioning.  Wandering through Pinterest I found a great cheat sheet for analyzing, evaluating, and creating.  Head over to Hello Literacy and check out what Jen made for the teachers in her building.  I am sharing it with my teachers on Wednesday at our next meeting.

While you are there, check out her super cute fonts.  I am in love and use almost exclusively these fonts.  Even better, they are FREE!

Science Vocabulary

In my current position, I do not have a classroom of my own.  However, I teach 3rd grade science three to four times a week for thirty minutes (to the SWEETEST groups of kids I have ever taught in eleven years...seriously I LOVE them) focusing on vocabulary instruction.  As I was blog stalking recently, I found a new-to-me science blog called The Science Penguin (very cute name!).  She blogged about using vocabulary words for acrostic science poetry.  Love it!  I have been looking for new ways to interact with the words and have students share what they know about the words.  I am going to use this strategy in my next unit on body systems.  Click on her blog button below to check out her post where she shared a picture of an acrostic poem for the word FOSSIL.

Modified Work

Do you have students who get overwhelmed by assignments?  Do have students who can't focus for more than five minutes at time?  Yes to both for me!  Then I found a fantastic, easy to implement idea from Teach123 showing how she takes an assignment and breaks into smaller chunks using a file folder.  Easy!  All you need is a file folder and I have a ton of them.  Click on her blog button below and go check out her post to see how its done.

I hope you have enjoyed "A Few of My  Favorite Things" and come back each Sunday to see what other fabulous  finds I have gathered for your enjoyment and to add to your resources.