Photog-catch up and Stoplight Paragraphs

Before I get into my teacher mode....can I get into Mommy mode first???

Well, since I can't hear your answer, I'm going to go ahead and do it...if you don't want to see it - just scroll down - hehe...

The other day, hubs was doing a fundraiser for American Cancer Society at work...so we stopped by to say hi!

Good thing about being a firefighter's wife/kids...you can always get pictures with a truck and firefighter! ha!

Me and my girls!

Daddy's #1 fan!

And we dyed eggs!! (wait 'til you see what I make with these eggs after Easter - hehe)

She's so serious....until....

There it is - MELTDOWN! haha!!

Ok, we're okay again..lol...Look Mommy - pretty eggs!! 

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Ok, back to teacher mode now.

Sorry for the detour :)

So as you know, we started our Chicks study this week.

We "read" Chicks & Chickens by Gail Gibbons...I say read, but really it was just me pulling out the important parts...lol...it's a pretty heavy book.

We then did a tree map (love me some tree maps!)

But THEN...

we did something I found over at Spend a Day in 2nd

It's called Stoplight Paragraphs...It's BRILLIANT!!

We did the first one together....

And I showed them how to set it up - green is topic, yellows are details (they had to pick 3 details from the tree map), and red is closing.

Then they have to puzzle piece it together....

The next day, we did another one on Chicks.

See the stars?? That was how they chose their 3 details they wanted to use.

Then, they got to work on their strips.

This one (below) is actually from one of my ESOL kids...he told me, "Oh - I get Mrs. Ross...the yellows are about the green, so they're like details about it, right?!"

hehe - it was so cute...with his little accent and everything!

So go check it out - she explains it in her post.

I am a writing teacher - I love to have my kids write ALL. THE. TIME!

And we are a Thinking Maps school, so we do organize our information that way, but sometimes some kids just need something different for it to click...case in point.

 I LOVE this!

P.S...don't forget to enter the giveaway of my Know-It-All Gnat unit! 

Click HERE to enter.

I'll pick the winner before I go to bed tonight (remember, I AM on Eastern time, so my bed time is earlier than y'alls bedtime in CA or TX time zones! lol)