I am participating in a Spring Cleaning Sale at my Teachers Pay Teachers Store! (Almost) Everything is 20% off! Come take a look around! 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Jillian-Ramoly

Many thanks to 4th Grade Frolics for the darling poster!

Jillian
Benchmark is right around the corner! But what comes after that for 4th grade? 
Common Core Unit 6: Literary Heroes
I don't know about you, but I haven't read all of the books that are listed for student reading yet. So yesterday, I grabbed The Young Merlin Trilogy by Jane Yolen and started reading.

After the first page, I grabbed a pad of sticky notes and started marking.

And after the second "book," I ran out of sticky notes and had to stop!!



If you haven't read this book yet and plan on reading it with your students, you need to know two  very important things.
         1. This book is AMAZING, and your boys will love it!
         2. The vocabulary in this book is killer!

Just to give you an idea:
I have noted these words, along with many others, that 4th graders will probably have trouble with:

  • tincture
  • wodewose (which are explained as the wild people)
  • Matins
  • stolid
  • yearning
  • perilous
  • imperceptibly
  • sotto voce
  • oblation
  • haunches
  • capricious
  • wanton
  • cosseted
  • penance
And the list goes on, and the list goes on (la da da da de, la da da da di (insert music from Sonny & Cher here))

Seriously, though. You need to know that this is coming before your students ask you these words. The book has a healthy amount of figurative language as well. Boys (and girls) will love the few magic things that happen, but you may have a few that feel dissapointed. With a book titled Young Merlin, they (and I) assume that this will be a story of magic, and swordfighting, and dragons, and knights in shining armor. The only knights are in the army that marches through, the only magic in the last few chapters of the book. And all the dragons are in his dreams.

I can't WAIT to read this with my students, but I have no idea how this roller coaster is going to be. It may be pretty bumpy!

Has anyone ever taught with this book before? I would love to hear how your students did with the deeper, underlying currents of the book!

Jillian
As I became more and more involved as a seller in Teachers Pay Teachers, I realized that I needed a better way to track my expenditures. Brooke from Hilderbrandb asked about a spreadsheet on the TpT forums, so I decided to post the bare bones of my spreadsheet for reference.

I broke my spreadsheet into several main categories: Yearly Costs, Monthly Charges, Computer Charges, Clipart, and Business Charges. Here is a view of the spreadsheet that I use:



You may download this spreadsheet for your own use here.

I hope this gives those of you without a system some inspiration to get organized. Does anyone else have a specific system that they use to track TPT expenses? I would love to hear about it!

Jillian
Be sure to visit Happy Teacher Heaven to check out her 100 follower giveaway! 

(You can find her blog here)

TONS of great things up for grabs, including this little gem from my personal store:

(You can buy this yourself here)
Good Luck!

Jillian

I had the honor today of being featured by Victoria Leon on her "Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs" blog for one of my free Teachers Pay Teachers products!
Check it out and see what you think here:

The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs: FREE SCIENCE LESSON - “How Clouds Are Made, or Cloud in a Jar”

I am excitedly exploring my new blog layout, playing with settings and deciding what I want it to look like. Spring Break is almost over, and Benchmark is looming over our shoulder. I have accepted a position teaching 4th grade until the end of the year for a teacher going on maternity leave, so expect to see lots of 4th grade-geared posts and products on Teachers Pay Teachers for now.

My husband and I took a few moments for a photo-op at our town square. 




I am thrilled that you stopped by to visit!

Jillian