Monday Made It and a little Fall decorating

Can't believe I actually had time to make something this weekend and link up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics.  This is my 6th year of teaching (5th year in 4th grade), and I finally think I have it.....I was even able to enjoy the majority of my weekend and not spend it at school!!!

This week we are working on a genre study.  I use the activities in Laura Candler's Power Reading Workshop book, and add a few I've gotten other places.  One of the activities we will complete is a Genre Mystery Bag.  I got this idea from Mailbox Magazine.  I will put 3 or 4 books from the same genre in a bag and give each group a different bag.  They will look at the books and try to determine the genre of the books.  They will then fill out this graphic organizer with their group members.

You can get a copy here.  We will then discuss the various genres they had and then the student will get a random pile of books and attempt to sort them by genre.  I love this lesson and this year it is especially helpful since I had so little time to get my classroom ready due to construction.  The students will be learning about genre and putting together out classroom library at the same time!

I also have time for a little home made it!  I am so ready for fall it's crazy!  Yesterday after I finished all of my lesson plans I put some orange peels, a 1/2 tsp. of cinnamon and some water in a pot and put it on the stove....man oh' man did my house smell yummy.  I then set to work on our Fall Bucket List.  I simply changed out our Summer Bucket List and added some free scrapbooking paper I got from Activity Village and some fabulously fun fall ideas I got from Come Together Kids.

Next weekend I'm gonna bring a little of the fall action to the front porch!!
Don't forget to check out all the other awesomely amazing Monday Made It projects at 4th Grade Frolics!!