Blessed to Teach and Read

While casually checking my Pinterest page for new recipes, I, of course, can't resist the urge to click on a pin that says " Science and Math Toys " that are made from everyday items. In turn, that linked me to a LiveBinders page created by Karen Bolotin for science fair projects. THAT, then led me to " Notebooking Pages.com " = total excitement for the interactive note booking part of me. :) Membership access to all of their pages is $80 for the year, but I've spent well more than that at TeachersPayTeachers and in my time spent looking for quality resources and ideas online. Now, I've got even more incentive to encourage my kids to get pledges for Fun Run Time this year (our school's fundraiser for the year), since I had originally thought I would spend my 10% of monies raised on a membership for Flocabulary . I may have to reconsider and get this membership instead, though my kids did LOVE " 5 Things " by Flocabulary.

Another find from a Tweet about a LiveBinder has led me to a great website called PicLits . Sign-up for a free account and it gives you access to a gallery of photos and a bank of drag-and-drop words to add a caption to create a poem. There is a "freestyle" option if you would prefer to type in your own words. The best part is the "Learn It" tab. Under this tab is: - "Write It", which tells about basic sentences, compound sentences, and paragraphs - "Rhyme It", which talks about why you would choose to rhyme your poetry (or not) - and "Master It", which has advanced lesson plans on all manner of figurative language techniques, and different genre of poetry. Granted, because this site has photos, it will likely be blocked at school, but it is also a great site that students could explore at home and then share on FB or Twitter, save, print or e-mail to share at school.

Saw this posted on Twitter via Audrey Lash, a LiveBinders user. It is a wonderful resource for numerous books leveled with Fountas and Pinnell's A-Z lettering. Each tab has subtabs with found discussion questions or activities for the books listed. This is a resource I will definitely be using this year to save me from having to do the searching for myself!