Overall, I was impressed by the complexity of the texts and responses. I also liked the variety of responses and graphic organizers. They used excellent text features, which is a must-have for informational text resources. I loved that higher level thinking skills like inferring were emphasized heavily. I appreciate the focus on citing evidence and having students articulate why they chose the evidence they did. I like that it's relevant to the standards. I, again, chose fifth grade to review as an enrichment piece. The last resource I had an opportunity to review was their Spectrum Focus Reading for Main Ideas and Details in Informational Text resource. It's a great resource to get your students thinking. I'm sometimes hyper-critical of the 'interactive notebook' stuff that ends up being basically a fill-in the blank fluffy resource, but this is NOT THE CASE with this resource book. The way interactive notebooks are intended to do. The thirty lessons contain teacher notes to guide the lessons, but perhaps more importantly, they provide space for students to create their own meaning on the opposite side of the page. Interactive Notebooks provide this in a fun, dare I say it- 'interactive'- way without doing all of the thinking for your students. I think note-taking is so important, and it needs to be taught explicitly in upper-elementary. I appreciate that they always list the term at the top with a definition of some sort, have a meaningful component for students to actually interact and annotate and provide opportunities for note-taking. The directions are clear, and I think the content is spot on. I chose the 5th grade set because I wanted to stretch my kiddos, and I LOVE it. That's a nice little bonus.Īwesome, right? I also had the opportunity to check out Carson Dellosa's Language Arts Interactive Notebook resources. That's a time-saver, and as a new mom, I am all about saving time. We sometimes have to take a step back or kick it up a notch, and I love that I can quickly flip a page in the book without having to look it up online. I love that, because we know that are kids don't come to us as carbon copies.

It is ready for you to fill it up to the brim with documentation by standard, by date, and it also has the standards at a glance and the crosswalk to compare standards across grade levels. As someone who is just making the switch to standards-based report cards this year, I think this resource is a time-saver. It's also a great way to track progress and mastery. It's a great way to track the standards you have hit throughout the year to ensure that you don't skip anything. When I was able to, I went for fifth grade materials since I teach third and fourth grade gifted clusters, and I am so glad I did.įirst of all, let me tell you about the Common Core Assessment Book. Today, I am going to be sharing a few wonderful resources that I've been able to get my hands on for this school-year. That means that I get to check out really awesome products to review and share with all of you! Hello, friends! As I mentioned before, I am currently serving as a Brand Ambassador for Carson Dellosa.

Data stash on jotspot