The Many Uses of Melissa and Doug Sticker Books

     Ever since my son turned two, we have been buying him Melissa and Doug sticker books. They are perfect for travel, taking to restaurants and other outings that require sitting for a period of time, and the list goes on. He has loved certain books so much, that we are now on sets 2 and 3 of the same books!

    I wanted to share a list of ways I have thought to use these sticker books. At $4.99 a book, you really can't beat the limitless ways these can be used by children of MANY ages! Today I will choose and cover just one of our family favorites! Come back to visit to see additions to this list soon!


Melissa & Doug Make-a-Meal Sticker Book 

                        Get This Sticker Book Here

• CREATING A BALANCED MEAL - Go over the food groups with your child and have them make a balanced meal focusing on proteins, vegetables, grains, sweets, etc.

• WRITING WORD BANK - After your child creates a meal, label the parts of the meal (as shown in the picture below. Using this as a word bank, help or challenge your child to create a piece of writing using many of the words that are labeled. Maybe they create a fictional story, a how-to piece, or even a recipe to go along with the picture they created. Again, parents of younger kids can help them brainstorm and write a few sentences for them to read and reread. Teachers can easily have many of these placed in a writing center for students to use! You can write a sentence a day for a week until you have a paragraph about the picture. So many options! In the picture below, the yellow sentence strip might be something a younger child would do and the blue would be a child capable of writing their own sentence. Older kids can write full stories or pieces.

  

  Writing Word Bank
  

• DESCRIPTION WEBBING - Taking even just one component of the picture, kids can create a web to further describe what is on the placemat. This can be added to a writer's folder or used as an activity to help them brainstorm or work on bettering their skills as writers.

• PERSONAL PLACEMATS - Let each child decorate their own placemat picture. Once they are finished, laminate the picture and actually use it as their own placemat at the table!

• TEST REVIEW OR GAME - Come up with what kids will need to earn during the game like...1 entree, 3 sides, 1 drink, and 1 dessert for example. As they answer questions correctly, have them pick one of the items needed and add it to their placemats. Continue play until the first person collects all the items they need. There are so many fun ways to adapt this! Be creative! :)

• SPECIAL CHORES CHART - Pre-select food stickers and write down chores on them. Your children can choose a food (chore) to finish and then add it to their placemat. Once they have filled up their plates/trays with stickers, they can earn a prize, allowance, etc. You can choose ahead of time how many food items need to be added to their placemats in order to earn the reward.

• PLAYING RESTAURANT - Better if done with multiple people or multiple placemats, fill up a few sticker mats with different foods. Have or help your child create and design a restaurant menu listing these items and the price of each. You can play restaurant and choose placemats to use and allow your child(ren) to "add up" what your bill will be. There are many directions you can take this once you feel your children are ready! Added bonus - hang onto the placemats and reuse the next time you want to play restaurant! :)

• HOW MANY CALORIES - Create a meal and then using the internet and other resources, try to determine the total weight of the meal in calories. This can start a conversation about recommended calories in a day for certain groups, what calories are, why they are important, how to get the biggest bang for your buck in caloric consumption, etc.

I would love to hear how else you might use this really fun sticker book! If you have any other ideas, please share in the comment section. I have linked the items mentioned in this blog post if you are searching to purchase them on your own. They are affiliated links. 

Get Sticker Book Here

Get Sentence Strips Here

Get Chart Paper Here

Get Primary Writing Notebook Here

Get My Go-to Laminator Here

Get Thermal Laminating Pockets Here

Celebrating with a Giveaway!

It has been almost one full year since I began my blog and my very first store at Teachers Pay Teachers! The year has flown and I feel like I have grown so much as a blogger, teacher, and entrepreneur! Just this week, I have created a shop over at the Teacher's Notebook. My enthusiasm and excitement has been kicked up a notch (along with the heat in good old Philadelphia) and I would like to throw my very first GIVEAWAY!!!

I am in dire need of followers and would love if any and all of you could share this exciting news with your fellow friends and family!!! I am giving away my Multiple Meaning Match-Up Bundle from my TPT and TN stores to 5 lucky followers!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Requirements:

1. Please FOLLOW ME at my Teachers Pay Teachers store by clicking the link and the "Follow Me" star
2. Please FOLLOW ME at my Teacher's Notebook shop by clicking the link and the "Follow Me" button
3. Please SHARE this post via Pinterest or Facebook
<p>
Good Luck!
<3 Mary

How 3rd Grade Celebrates Saint Patrick's Day the Academic Way!

It has been a busy couple of weeks in Glenolden School! The kids of Room 5 have really been buckling down lately in preparation for the state assessments (PSSA tests). St. Patrick's Day fell on a Monday this year and I wanted to surprise my students with something out of the ordinary...so I created holiday centers in honor of all things green and Irish! :)

Getting to school extra early on a Monday morning can be quite difficult, but I managed to get into my classroom with enough time to spare to setup all of the activities. I sprinkled gold glitter all over the tops of the desks. As students entered the room, they inquired about the glittery mess. I directed them to the white board which explained it all!

 

I wish I had a video of their reactions! They were equally surprised, anxiety-ridden, and grossed out! UNLUCKY DUST?!?!?!? What were they going to have to do to get their luck back??? Within five minutes of entering the room, my 3rd graders were ready for the challenge. 

In partnered groups, the students had four tasks to complete in order to "earn lucky charms and get their luck back". The four tasks included skills that we had been working on in class. I used this opportunity to partner up students based on their mastery of the skills. I grouped students that mostly mastered the skills with students that were still struggling to grasp certain concepts. The activities also allowed for my students to get some cooperative learning experiences. 

The four common core-aligned tasks included:

1.) Students read two passages about St. Patrick's Day celebrations in different parts of the USA. They were asked to compare/contrast using text-based evidence (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.9)

2.) After reading a passage about the Irish Potato Famine, the students identified the main idea and supported it with three key details from the text. (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.2)

3.) Without using a passage, students were given sentence strips with directions on how to make Irish potato candy to sequence using only the clues in context. (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.3)  

4.) Given four short video clips to watch, students were asked to fill in a graphic organizer using their schema and clues from the video in order to make logical inferences. (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.3.2)

 

Be sure to check out my TPT Store in the future for freebies from this lesson! They are not quite store ready just yet!!! 

Sorting Our Syllables

My class has been learning so much in our phonics program the last few weeks. We've been learning about reading and writing words with vowel digraphs, r-controlled vowels, y as a vowel, schwa, and consonant-le patterns. When attacking an unknown word, students are encouraged to break it down into syllable chunks. It's important that they understand syllables in order to identify new words. Each day, I reviewed a different syllable type (VCCV, VCV, VCCCV, and VCCCCV) with students and we practiced spelling words that fit the syllable types on dry erase boards, the Promethean board, and in the air :). On the last day of the week, my students partnered up and completed a syllable sort together. The kids worked really well together and I was able to see how much they learned throughout the review lessons during the week! I love watching their 3rd grade brains in action!!!

(Oh yeah...and it was Breast Cancer Awareness Day! :D My kiddos look smashing in pink <3)

(permission was given for use of photos by parents/guardians)

*Be sure to check back for more centers and printables regarding syllable types and centers!*

Writing Tip from Room 5

How often do you hear, "I don't know what to write about" in your classroom? I hear it more than I'd like. My district uses an amazing writing program called Being a Writer that really sets kids up for success. They create a "Writing Ideas" section in their journals that we add to frequently. Even with this support in place, I will still get a select few that draw blanks during writer's workshop.

I decided to make themed word lists which I wrote on clip art, colored, and laminated. When students get that writer's block, I let them choose an object from the bucket. They are challenged to locate at least 5 words on the picture that they think they can use to tell a story. Just scanning the word lists tends to help them get beyond that difficult moment they are experiencing in getting started.

Some of the themes I have currently include parties, Thanksgiving, autumn, time, money, desserts, general food, injuries, pets, summer, and the list goes on. I have made 25 clip art lists so far and plan to make more as the year progresses.