Hump Day Freebie!

I feel like I have been away from all you in blog land forever!  My hubby has been gone for the past 6 days and just got back in yesterday.  That means I have been on twin duty 24-7 with very little time for anything else.  This week has also been a super busy one.  I am the student council adviser and my students held a can food drive for the needy before Christmas break.  For those of you that don't know, my school is located in a low income part of town, and my kids often benefit from these can food drives, so when they got so excited about collecting food, it made my day.  We ended up collected over 220 cans for the agency.  My mom happens to run the local Crisis Ministry and she did a brief lesson with my kids about how they get their food and money to help the needy.  Then she let them put their cans on the shelves.  They went crazy and loved every moment!

One of the food collection boxes my student council  made

A student council member with her hands full!

And now for what you all really read this post for....The Freebie!  We are working on characterization in our Reading Workshop unit this month so I have made 2 posters to teach my students the different types of characters.

Head over to my TpT Store to pick up your free copy!  Make sure to leave me feedback if you download :)  Happy Hump Day!!!!

Election Day = AWESOME!

I am the student council adviser at my school and we decided it would be neat to have our student council election on the actual election day. For the past few weeks I have had students creating posters and speeches and "getting their name out". Today was the culmination of all their hard work. I videotaped each candidate and loaded them on our school webpage and then the voting began.

Over the weekend, my teammate found on Pinterest (isn't it everyone's new fav?) the sweet voting booth. As soon as I saw it, I had to have it! We called our local Lowe's Hardware and requested a freezer box. We covered it with bulletin board paper and cut a door in it. I had a cute ballot box from a previous unit that we used inside our booth. I knew my third graders would love it but I was very surprised at how many fifth graders kept getting inside my booth.

While the voting booth wasn't necessary, it definitely helped increase their excitement!! Overall, I feel that my students have a better understanding of what an election is and how much hard work it takes to be a candidate. They also really thought about which candidates would do the most for the student body.

Look for the Voting Booth to making another appearance during my government unit in a few months!

My students and I in front of our voting booth

Making sure she voted for the best candidate!