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Linky Parties, Freebies, July’s Workshop Wednesday, and Last Day of Giveaway!

Happy Sunday!! I am so excited to link up with Collaboration Cuties for BACK TO SCHOOL Mentor Texts, as well as Kristin at iTeach 1:1 for Tune into Technology (which I’m late for…)!

Like Stacia, I can’t narrow my favorites to just one. It’s almost impossible really. 😛

The first book I want to share with you is Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco. If you’ve never read this book, take it from me, read it to yourself FIRST before reading it aloud to the class. A few years ago, someone told me it was a must-read book, so I borrowed it from a teammate and read it to my class. I almost could not finish the book I was crying so hard. My kiddos of course were very sweet and loving and some of them even shed a tear or two. But perhaps if I had read it first, I wouldn’t have been such a blubbering mess! 😛 It definitely made an impression on my kids… the next year, they had our reading specialist read the book to them as part of her mini-lesson, and she had some of my previous year’s kiddos. They piped up when she started and said, “oh! This is the book that makes Ms. Ivey cry!!” Ha!!

Anyway, if you haven’t read the book, it is a story from the author’s childhood. Patricia Polacco has dyslexia and had a very hard time learning to read. In this story, Trisha is excited to learn to read thanks to her grandmother, but when she struggles and the kids call her a dummy, she starts to believe it herself. Her fifth grade teacher, Mr. Falker, changes all of that. He sees her gifts and helps her believe in herself.

And if you don’t think you can make it through the story without blubbering like I did, you can have your students watch the story read to them on Storyline Online! Have you heard of this site before? It is awesome! Actors read some of our favorite picture books aloud!

There are several of my favorites on this site, including one that Stacia featured- Enemy Pie, and also my next favorite book to read during the first week of school: Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox.

This story is the sweetest! A little boy, Wilfrid, lives near a retirement home and likes to go visit. He keeps hearing people say Ms. Nancy has lost her memory. He doesn’t understand what that means so he starts asking. People describe memory as a metaphor, so he brings things he thinks are memories based on their descriptions, like a puppet for something that makes you laugh… which reminds her of the one she owned that she used to entertain her sister… all of the things he brings actually does bring back her memory. 🙂

This is the first book I read to start Writer’s Workshop! We use it get seed ideas, and to introduce ourselves to each other. Here are some freebies for you to use with your own kiddos. 🙂 Click here or either of the images below to download them. Once again, Google has discolored the clip art, but I promise it doesn’t look like that when you download!

     
Speaking of Writer’s Workshop…
July will have a new Workshop Wednesday topic! 

(Thank you to Amanda for helping me in my brainstorm.) 😉

July’s Workshop Wednesday topic is:

TOOLS for preparation of our workshops!

This might be resource books you are reading this summer. It might be the way you set up your rotations. It might be the way you set up notebooks. Possibilities are endless really, but we want to focus on that “before the start” step of Workshop models rather than “the start” with students.

Just like June’s Workshop Wednesday, you can link up any time in July! You can link up every week if you want… I will be posting every Wednesday, but you don’t have to! Workshop Wednesday will return to its weekly routine in August!

Don’t forget to enter my bloglovin’ giveaway! Today is the last day!!! I will be picking 3 WINNERS– there will be one GRAND PRIZE winner who receives JIVEY’S BIG BOX OF FREE STUFF plus their choice of ANY UNIT FROM MY TPT STORE! What’s in the box?? You’ll have to wait and see! But I can promise you, it’s some of my favorite things! The other two winners will also get to choose ANY UNIT FROM MY TPT STORE

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