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May 4, 2013

Calming the Chaos

Welcome to the Calming the Chaos Blog Hop hosted by 2peasandadog.
All of us bloggers have come together to share our top tips for making the last month of school run smoothly. Visit each of our blogs to learn something new and catch a freebie or two!
Happy Hopping!


The end of the year is full of mixed emotions--excitement for the upcoming vacation and apprehension about next year and the years to come (this is especially true if you teach the upper grades!)

One of my favorite end-of-the-year read alouds is Someday by Eileen Spinelli--

Spinelli poetically writes about a little girl's dreams for the future and how it relates to what she's doing today. Not only is it a great book for discussions about hope and dreams, it is an excellent mentor text for students to use when they write their own Someday poems!

To collect their ideas, the students use a planning page--which focuses on the 5 senses and feelings. I model how to take the information from the planning page and turn it into a poem. The students write their own poems on drafting paper and make revisions and edits before they publish. 

I usually have them publish their poems on legal sized paper and illustrate--there is something about having all that space (it reminds me of a two-page spread in a book), which stay hanging in the room until the last day of school!

And since the end-of-year is full of so many other things to do, here are some freebies to get you started...



 click HERE to get them :)



Blog Hop Participants
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5 comments:

  1. I love doing poetry at the end of the year! Students tend to be more reflective, which is needed inspiration for poetry writing.

    I love your color scheme; I'm you newest follower.


    Follow me at Mrs. Harris Teaches Science

    Cheers,
    Mrs. Harris

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  2. I found your blog because I just found out I'm jumping from 2nd grade to 5th! Crazy! But I am really excited about it :) My latest post is about my move, so if you get a chance and don't mind, would you please share some tips?? I would love to know where to being!



    http://thesweetestthing623.blogspot.com/

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  3. Jen,
    Love it! You could even link up this post to the Linky Party at my blog starting tomorrow. It's about Favourite Read Alouds. I didn't want to post it the same day as 2PeasandaDog's blog hop. You would get double the exposure! Anyhow, great post and freebie! Thanks for sharing.
    Sidney
    Teachingisagift

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  4. Wonderful resource! Thank you for sharing. It is great to have riveting reads for the end of the school year.

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  5. This book sounds so sweet and your follow up activity will make a great memory!

    Glad I found your blog! I'm your newest follower.

    Jennifer
    Mrs. Laffin's Laughings

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