It's an "a-ha" moment!

Here's a post that I had to share. I'm always complaining, and feeling like I'm the worst teacher ever this year. However, the other day, we were working on revising writing. I have taught my kids BABS-Build a Better Sentence, from those uber cuties over at Collaboration Cuties, and for a change, something actually stuck with my "thirdies".  I was teaching them that revising is when you take your boring sentences, and make them fluffier. You add those great details to make the reader really able to visualize the idea you are trying to convey. So I wrote this really lame sentence on the Smartboard: "Once my cat and I had a tea party. We served fishcakes and milk tea. It was fun." Then I told them, this is pretty boring. How can we make it fluffier? What details can we add? "Remember BABS". And look at what they came up with!! The ideas were flowing! They couldn't stop. It was so much fun! I loved their ideas. I'm really excited to see how they revised their own stories they were writing last week.
Here's the picture of what we did:

If you notice that "served one-by-one", that actually came from a student who remembered that from doing Jivey's Mentor Text Sentences activity. :) 

Another awesome moment last week was while teaching about Theme and Main Idea, my principal walked in the room. (she comes in ALL.THE.TIME to our rooms. can I just say-somewhat annoying...) But, I digress...so she comes in for her little informal observation, and I was just starting to review the difference between theme and main idea. We had been working on this all week. My kids gave some great answers, and showed they really understood the difference, and they knew what themes were.  Then, I put them into partners and gave them this sorting activity from Teaching with a Mountain View. So awesome! My kids did a fantastic job, talking to each other about how they knew it was theme or a main idea. And the bonus was that my principal said in her note (she leaves notes every time she comes in-stating what she observed) that she loved my lesson! Ya know when a principal loves your lesson, that you've just inched up a notch in her mind. I was so thankful for Mary and her brilliance! You should check out her post.

Here are a few pics of the activity in action:

Have a great week everyone! Now, I need to figure out what to do this week that will be stellar. I know my principal will be in again, soon!