Ratliff's Room

November is in full swing and my students are loving our theme this month. We are celebrating Native American Heritage all month! I selected The Birchbark House a CCSS exemplar text, Island of the Blue Dolphins , and Walk Two Moons for our literature circles this month. The Birchbark House took awhile to come in so I had that group start reading Who Was Sacagaewa first. They love those biographies. If you have not added some to your class library I highly recommend them. My students have been reading them up! In addition to the literature circles we have been reading creation stories from various tribes including the Dine (my students are Dine/Navajo). We have been comparing and contrasting the stories to the Dine creation story. For Social Studies we have been reading about the various regions and our read aloud is focused on the Navajo Long Walk. I will post about our research project next.

What a busy month it has been!I have been busy with school, working on my Master's Degree, and the best job being a mom and wife! I have been reading a book I have heard of for a while, but have fallen in love with. If you have not already read Strategies that Work by Stephanie Harvey & Anne Goudvis I strongly suggest that you do! The book has given me plenty of great ideas for my reading mini-lessons. I have also scheduled my day around the Daily 5 and loving my student conferences. What a great way to build relationships with your students. Well happy reading and hopefully I'll be back sooner!

Well it is official I am behind on curriculum mapping and aligning my curriculum to the Common Core State Standards. I am also at a crossroads when it comes to my lesson plans. I found the more detailed ones that I started out putting on our curriculum mapper to be more beneficial to teaching to the standard. However the ones that I turn in weekly to administration is more beneficial to me on a daily basis. I am wondering if I should continue to use two different lesson plans. I am also getting ready to implement Literature Circles. I have almost finished giving my old forms a much needed face lift. I always start out with my students all getting practice with one role before I start assigning all the roles. Discussion Director is a great place to start. We have been working on Question Answer Relationships and it is time for students to start applying that knowledge and writing their own questions.

I am excited to get Literature Circles going in my classroom in a few weeks. I am making the final touches on my preparations and gearing the kids up for roles as discussion director. One of the things I do to prepare them is to teach the QAR's. QAR is a great way to get students thinking about questions, how to answer them, and how to write them. In the beginning while we are learning the different roles each student gets practice at the same role. I have already made posters for the roles and will be gathering my role sheets for the students this week and uploading them. For some Literature resources head over to my store at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Ratliffs-5th-Grade-Rattles .

I have started making assessments for the Common Core Math Standards. I needed something that was at least 10 questions and included performance and multiple choice questions. Since I am gathering materials to meet the CCSS I have been struggling to find resources.  http://youngteacherlove.blogspot.com/  and http://www.teachingtoinspirein5th.blogspot.com//  have some great Math CCSS resources as well.

Sorry for the delay in uploading my pics but it has been a busy first week of school. I have taken some pics of my jobs chart designed like an iPhone. I saw the idea on Pinterest and wanted to try. I also made a picture frame collage for my this week board. My favorite is the DIY  bulletin boards with cork tiles and glued some fabric onto them for my Focus Wall. Hope you enjoy!

This is always one of the most exciting times of year to be a teacher. Our students first day is fast approaching (MONDAY!) and I have been preparing my class. This summer was busy with rearranging! My class was in desperate need of paint so I repainted my class with a little help from our school maintenance man and my janitor. It was more difficult than I thought and I told my husband to remind me of this if I decide to paint my class again! I was also very lucky to get a SMART board installed in my classroom so boards were moving around. I made some new bulletin boards and am now ready for the kids. The bulletin boards look great and are still sticking to the wall. I bought some cork tiles and hot glued then later stapled some fabric to them. I found the double stick tape in some of the packs were not any good so I found some double stick velcrow at Wal-Mart and used that to attach them to the wall.  I will post some pictures of my classroom tomorrow.

I am starting my ninth year teaching and my third in fifth grade. I am excited to embrace the changes that the Common Core State Standards are bringing. I hope to share my journey and share what is working (and not!) in my classroom.