Winter... what's that? Show and Tell time!

Happy Wednesday Friends!!
I'm linking up with Denise over at Sunny Days in Second Grade for her Show and Tell Tuesday linky party! This week's theme is WINTER!! I'm a day late, but I was feeling pretty gross last night so I went to bed at 7:30, right after Jeopardy. I think it was a record for me.

Ok... so I am going to knock on some wood right now because I am LOVING the fact that it hasn't been too cold here in Orlando so far this winter. We've had one or two days where there was a little frost on my car in the morning, but that's it. {knock on wood} It's been 80 degrees for a week now. Rough life, I know.  But it's hard to wear flip flops and sandals to work all of the time...your feet always have to look good! =)


With that being said, getting into the "winter spirit" has been a little difficult for me, and for my kids. I'm hoping to change that next week! Well, I hope the spirit changes... not the weather!  Anyway, my copies of my Magic Tree House Polar Bears unit are all ready to go and I've found a class set of both books {Polar Bears past Bedtime and Polar Bears and the Arctic Fact Tracker}. I can't wait 'till Tuesday!  We are going to work on this unit for about three weeks. I would also like to do some cute polar bear craftivities with it, so I'm on the hunt for some super cute  ones! If you've got any ideas, please let me know!  If you haven't seen my unit, check it out on TPT! It's going to be tons of fun!

Thanks so much, Denise for hosting such a great party!!

-Jackie-

P.S. If you haven't checked out our 300 follower giveaway, check it out, there's just 4 days left to enter!

A 300 Follower Giveaway, Polar Bears, and a Freebie!

Happy Wednesday! What an exciting day! We are so blessed and and extremely excited that we now have 300 blog followers! We love and appreciate every single one of you!! I am working on organizing our 300 follower giveaway and it's going to be great! If you're a TPT or TN seller and would like to help us out with the giveaway, please let me know. You can email me at sisterteachers@gmail.com or leave a comment below with your email address.

Speaking of 300 followers, our very wonderful bloggy friend, Holly from Fourth Grade Flipper is having a HUGE 300 follower giveaway with tons of amazing prizes! She's teamed up with us and 17 other fabulous bloggers for this giveaway! Check it out!! {Fourth Grade Flipper}

I am also sooo excited that I have completed my Magic Tree House Polar Bear Non-Fiction and Fiction book study unit! A very huge Thank You to Gina from Beach, Sand, and Lesson Plans for being such an amazing friend and proof reader! Your help is greatly appreciated!

My Polar Bears unit is up on TPT if you'd like to check it out! Please let us know what you think!!

I'd also love to share a freebie from my book study with you!

Click here: {freebie}!

Happy Blogging!! -Jackie-

Sneak Peek, Proof Readers, and a 300 follower giveaway!

I woke up totally refreshed! Maybe it's because my sweet hubby got up at 7:30 with the little one and let me sleep 'till 10:30! What ever it was, I got up today totally motivated do do things! I helped Makenzie clean and organize her play room. What a MESS!! That kid has more toys than she knows what to do with. She doesn't like to get rid of anything, so one day when she's not around, I'm going to have to do something about it. I don't think she'll notice (hopefully!).

After that, I decided to start working on my Magic Tree House Polar Bear Unit. It's quite a process that I go through. In order to really adhere to the Common Core State Standards, I like to look through all of the ELA standards and write out verbatim what each of the standards I want to touch upon say. That way it stays fresh in my mind and I can keep track of which standards I'm hitting as I write my unit. Next, I write out all of my questions on notebook paper. This way I'm able to revise and edit my questions as I write them. While I work on the content of the unit, I give my hubby a vision of what I'd like the front cover to look like. He's my photoshop whiz, so he does my background and frame for me. Once all of my questions and answers have been handwritten, I search for cute clip art. I really love and appreciate all of the graphics provided by Laura Strickland at My Cute Graphics . She is an amazing artist and she's so generous to offer her clips for free! If you haven't already, please check her out.

Once I find all of my graphics, I begin my unit. I've been using power point to make my units. I find it easy to use. The only thing I really don't like about it is the fact that I can't figure out how to make it portrait not landscape. If you have any idea if it's actually possible, please let me know. So far tonight I've done my cover page and about 7 pages of content. I have a ton to go, but I'm hoping I can get it done by mid-week. Here's a sneak peek of my cover page.

I really love the Magic Tree House books. I use them in whole group (if I have a class set) or in small groups. I also love the fact trackers. For this unit, I am going to do a combination fiction & non-fiction unit and I am going to split it up into just fiction or non-fiction. Lots of variety! =)

I am looking for some proofreaders! If you'd like a rough copy of this unit, please leave a comment with your email address below. I'd love to give it to the first two interested people. Extra eyes are always amazing!! Thanks in advance for your help!!

I can't believe we almost have 300 followers!! To celebrate, I'd like to have a HUGE giveaway!! I am hoping my bloggy friends would be willing to donate an item or two from their TPT or TN stores. If you wouldn't mind helping us out, email us at sisterteachers@gmail.com or please let me know with your email address in a comment below that you'd like to help. I will email you with the details as soon as I figure everything out.

Have a fabulous end to your weekend and enjoy your sweet kiddos on Monday! I can't wait to see mine!

-Jackie-

Night Of the New Magicians and a Freebie!!

Hello Blog Friends!

I am finished with my newest unit, Magic Tree House Night of The New Magicians! I am very excited about it. =) Our friend Tracy, and our friend Melissa from Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late were wonderful peer editors and have given this unit a big thumbs up! I greatly appreciate their fresh eyes! Thank you so much ladies!!!

We'd like to share a freebie from Night of the New Magicians with you.

Click For Freebie!

If you enjoy it, please drop by our TPT store and grab your copy of Night of The New Magicians! It will be on sale until midnight tonight, so grab it quick! =)

Here's a description of everything included in this unit: This 49 page book study unit is full of literacy activities aligned with a variety of different 2nd and 3rd grade Common Core State Standards. This unit could easily be adapted for 1st and 4th grade students as well. When you download this unit, you will find: -a table of contents which outlines the entire unit -1 organizer for asking questions (before, during, and after reading) -1 story map organizer to organize story elements -2 character profile bubble maps -13 pages focused on answering who, what, when, where, why, and how questions using textual evidence -1 flow map for sequencing -4 pages of reader's theater for fluency practice -1 Venn diagrams for compare and contrast -2 Circle Maps to categorize -15 vocabulary organizers -1 narrative writing prompt complete with graphic organizer and publishing paper -1 expressive language poster -1 descriptive language poster -expressive and descriptive language word sort **plus you'll also receive a 26 page teacher's answer guide! All together, this is an 75 page unit! Your students will love it and have tons of fun learning!

Happy Wednesday!! -Danielle-

Christmas in Camelot Book Study and a Freebie!

Hi Bloggy Friends!

I am so excited that I'm finally finished with my Christmas in Camelot unit! I am sure my daughter is too... and my hubby for that matter! I absolutely love creating these units, and I plan on making many more!

I'd like to thank my sister, Danielle for proofreading for me. Gina at Beach, Sand, & Lesson Plans, and Melissa at Don't Let The Teacher Stay Up Late were also super helpful peer editors too! Thanks so much ladies!! Your help is greatly appreciated!

Please check out my Christmas in Camelot Book Study Unit on Teachers Pay Teachers. Your students will love it!

To celebrate the completion of this unit, please download this free Adjective & Adverb word sort which is a part of this book study unit!! Enjoy!!

Magic Tree House Christmas In Camelot Adjective & Adverb Word Sort Freebie

I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!! -Jackie-

Proofreaders Wanted!

Hi Friends!! I just completed my latest book study unit for Magic Tree House book #29, Christmas in Camelot! It was a LOT of work, but I think it looks awesome. =) I've proofed it a whole bunch of times, but you can never catch every single mistake, so I'd like to do some "peer editing"! I'd love to give this unit to the first three followers to comment with their email address. Please read it, and email me all of your suggestions on how I can make it better. Thanks so much for your input... it is GREATLY appreciated!! =)

-Jackie-

So You Want to be an Inventor?

So, after working on my "Night of the New Magicians" unit, I realized that the book is about The Magic Tree House kids, Jack and Annie traveling to Paris for the 1889 World's Fair to save 4 magicians from an evil sorcerer. After actually reading the book while working on my unit, to my surprise, the four magicians happen to be Alexander Grahm Bell, Thomas Edison, Gustave Eiffel, and Louis Pasteur. "Woah, wait a minute", I said to myself. Jackie just told me about the book "So You Want to be an Inventor?" by the same author of "So You Want to be President?", the last unit I created. Oh boy, this realization got me really excited to do some theme and topic connecting. So long story short I will also be preparing an informational unit to go along with Inventors. Yay! Can you sense my excitement?? My plan is to go to Barnes and Noble tomorrow to purchase said book. I look forward to sharing all of my work soon. Until next time! -Danielle

Lots of things swirling in our heads...and a SALE!!

Hi Friends!! Now that we're on a very awesome 9 day Thanksgiving vacation, we've got some time to work on a few different units that have been swirling around in our heads. Our students have absolutely loved our Magic Tree House Thanksgiving units, so we've both decided to continue learning about Jack and Annie's adventures through some different stories. =)

It's almost Christmas time, so Jackie is working on a 2nd/3rd grade Common Core Unit for Magic Tree House book #29 Christmas in Camelot.

And, just in time for Winter, she is going to do a 2nd/3rd grade combination Fiction/Non-Fiction unit for Magic Tree House book #12 Polar Bears Past Bedtime and the Fact Tracker Companion: Polar Bears and the Arctic.

Danielle wants to write some units for a couple of her small groups. She thinks Magic Tree House #1: Dinosaurs Before Dark would be a Good Fit Unit for her three lower students to work on with scaffolding and lots of support.

She also thinks Magic Tree House book #35: The Night Of The New Magician would be a good fit for her medium group with scaffolding and support and for her high group to work on independently.

If you and your students enjoyed our Election and Thanksgiving units, then you're sure to enjoy these units!! We will blog all about them when they are done!!

We are so excited to be on "vacation"!! To celebrate, we are throwing a sale in our TPT store!! Everything is 20% off including already reduced items!! You can access our store by clicking this link: Sister Teacher's TPT Store

Have a fabulous Saturday!!! Happy Blogging!!

Election 2012 unit!

I am so excited to announce that I have finally completed my first Common Core Unit of study!! While perusing the exemplar text list, I noticed a book called "So You Want to Be President?" On the way home from school, I convinced my sister to drive past Barnes and Noble to purchase said book! (It wasn't hard to convince her, since she was the one with the idea to start selling products on Teacher Pay Teacher) A few weeks later, for your teaching pleasure, I present my 2012 Election Unit based on "So You Want to Be President?". This unit contains Common Core questioning based on the book, as well as hand picked vocabulary to go along with the book and the election. I also added a fact vs. fiction lesson, persuasive writing, and a research project on election issues. To top it off, I included directions on how to have a mock election in your class. This 3rd grade unit covers 17 Common Core standards in informational text and writing. It can be easily adapted to fit your 2nd, 4th, or 5th grade classes in all states. I hope you enjoy! Happy voting!

Tons of Credit!!

I am finally finished with my first Common Core ELA unit! My unit focuses on Magic Tree House Thanksgiving books (Thanksgiving on Thursday and Fact Tracker: Pilgrims)!! Last year I read my class both books and did some basic things with them. This year, I wanted to really dive into them, write about them, and get into the meat and potatoes of the first Thanksgiving. With this unit, I believe I will accomplish those goals. I hope I have allotted enough time to do so. :-) After working on my unit for the past few days, I am shocked by how much time really goes into writing, revising, editing, revising again, and finally publishing a quality unit. I give my fellow TPT sellers tons and tons of credit for creating such master pieces over and over again! They are true masters of this profession! Please check out my latest Thanksgiving unit and tell me what you think! I appreciate any and ALL feedback! Happy Blogging!!

Common Core ELA Magic Tree House Thanksgiving Unit