Teaching Idioms and Centers for Big Kids

How was your first day back from break? Ours went pretty smoothly. A little of this and that in our interactive journals, as well as starting our new opinion writing piece on Dav Pilkey's Kat Kong and Dogzilla. I can't WAIT to share with you those writing samples when we're done! 

Today I'm sharing our little mini lesson (from Nicole Shelby's interactive notebooks) on Idioms and the difference between literal and nonliteral language (RL 3.4). We took notes in our interactive notebook on what idioms were and how they are used in our everyday language and texts. They had loads of fun reading all about nonliteral language and searching for them in our language arts anthology! We also used Marvin Terban's In a Pickle: And Other Funny Idioms book. It's a great resource when teaching the difference between literal and nonliteral. You can find it on Amazon here! Finally, we created our own book of idioms using my freebie template you can download here. I loved looking through their pictures...so imaginative and creative! :)

Some of you had asked how centers run in my classroom (since we're the big kids here in this bloggy world). So, here is a sample of how we do centers in my classroom. The sheet below is an overview and lays out each center that my students in their mixed ability groups do. There are a total of 8 stations, 4 are done each day for 20 minutes each (depending on our specials for the day).  I have these for each story in all our 6 themes for Houghton-Mifflin. It hits all aspects of the CCSS for Reading Literature, Comprehension, Writing, Listening & Speaking, and Reading Language. So each week we are hitting up a new standard or reviewing a previously taught standard. I know...sounds like it couldn't possibly address all that stuff, but it really does! Pinky promise! It took many tough weeks over the summer to craft this bad boy for each story, but so glad it's made!

And finally, a giveaway just for you! I recently had a giveaway on my FB page for my NEW and IMPROVED Maps, Continents, and Communities Unit. It was only for 1 day, but lucky for you I've decided to do a second round! Do you want a set of my Maps, Continents, and Communities Unit?! Easy peasy! Just use the Rafflecopter below to enter and I'll announce the winner on Friday. 

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How was your first day back? Or are you one of the super lucky teachers off due to a snow day and are still in your PJ's?  :)