Favorite Versions of The Three Little Pigs

I don't know about you but when I get to our fairy tales and fables unit I get so excited. They are such fun lessons to teach to your scholars. I am going to show you some great books and videos I found to compare and contrast The Three Little Pigs. These were fan favorites from teachers all over as well!

The Three Little Javelinas

The first one is The Three Little Javelinas by Susan Lowell and illustrated by Jim Harris. I love this book because of many reasons. I teach at a bilingual school so the majority of my students are Spanish dominant. I unfortunately am not bilingual and know very little Spanish so I love being able to bring literature into our classroom that the students can relate to. This book is a southwestern adaptation of the The Three Little Pigs and it takes place in Mexico. Javelinas is a southern style hairy hog quite similar to a pig. The illustrations in this book are spot on and really gives the line "not by the hair on my chinny chin chin" realism. Instead of a wolf, they have a the antagonist as a coyote. There are still houses made out of straw, sticks, and bricks, but they give it a southern twist.

The Three Little Tamales

The second book is The Three Little Tamales by Eric A. Kimmel and illustrated by Valeria Decampo. This book is great because it includes a little back story that uses The Pancake (another version of The Gingerbread Man) but with tortillas that are running away. (Talk about hitting two birds with one stone!) This story is set in Texas. It is another favorite of mine because not only do my students enjoy Spanish food, but is a slew of of Spanish vocabulary included in this one that we discuss. The tamales run away because they don't want to be eaten and they make houses out of sage, cornstalks, and cactus.

The Three Ninja Pigs

The last one which is my personal favorite is The Three Little Ninja Pigs by Corey Rosen Schwartz and illustrated by Dan Santat. This book has a ton of humor in it and will definitely appeal to the kids with the karate action. It is set up in a comic book style with voice bubbles. I love this book and this author has multiple ninja fractured fairy tales if you want to compare more than one story.


After reading a multiple fractured fairy tales to your students, you can show them these short animated shows to have another version to compare.
Here is the Three Little Pigs (The Rocky and Bullwinkle)
Here is The Three Little Bops (Looney Tunes)




Here is a freebie to help compare and contrast ANY book with The Three Little Pigs. There are many books out there; the ones above are just my personal favorites.

Also if you want to take it a step further you can have your student create their own variant of The Three Little Pigs after finishing up reading multiple versions. I have created a graphic organizer, final draft, and reader's theater including a teacher model of each! This is fun to have the kids make their own reader's theater and then get up and read it to the class in their different voices! Grab that in my store HERE!

Comment below and let me know what your favorite version of The Three Little Pigs is!

Morning Work Tweets

It's been a while but I am back! I am currently at home on maternity leave with my fresh 5 week old baby bean and my two year old wild child. I am so excited to get back into blogging because I had so many great things that happened in the beginning of the school year. However, I was in my third trimester and had no time (or energy, let's be honest) to share them with you!

If you are like me, you loathe preparing, copying, grading, and handing back morning work papers. I was on a mission this year to have paper-less morning work but I needed some ideas. I toyed with the idea of morning work tubs from The Brown Bag Teacher (you can find her amazing idea here) but I taught second grade ELA this year and was going to use all my manipulatives during daily five's word work stations. (blog post in the near future) I was browsing some Facebook teacher groups with people who were constantly asking the same question, "What do you do for morning work?"

One person responded with this amazing idea. I searched and searched for this teacher so I could give them credit for this wonderful morning work activity. If someday you stumble on this post, please let me know so I can A. Thank you over and over again and B. give credit where credit is due.


Her idea was this: Students have their own personal laminated twitter board. They write their own tweet using a dry erase marker.  I ate it up and let me tell you... so did my scholars!! The first step in this process was to model, model, model! I wrote out a list of things they could write about on their twitter in the morning to get their noodles in motion.

It's important with even second graders to highlight the things you do and don't do with the twitter board especially using dry erase markers. I even told them it is a privilege and their twitter account can be shut down or taken away if they don't use it properly.

Then I typically create my own tweet in front of them a few days in a row for an example of what they can write about. Students then come in and get to work on their tweet of the day. After 15-20 minutes, I have them read out their tweet to their peers. They love sharing out and listening to others!

Click here for my free twitter template you can use.

Now you are free to use the twitter page however you want. Here are some ways you can put them together. You can have the kids draw a picture inside the box and write their name or come up with their own username. Then laminate the sheets so they can be re-usable. You could also put the sheets in page protectors! I took pictures of my students and glued them on the box before I laminated them. I also just used their first name and last initial for their username. Use your imagination when designing them. Feel free to use my twitter template for free!

After the students have a great concept of creating tweets you can introduce two more options they choose to include when they are making their tweets:

A. Hashtag (main idea): Have them come up with the main idea of their tweet and then hashtag it at the end. (For example: My mom made me a peanut butter jelly for lunch yesterday and it was so delicious. #deliciouslunch)

B. Tweeting a compliment to someone: You can teach them if they want to send a compliment tweet to someone they can include their username before the tweet starts. (For example: @MrsBooth you are such a great friend because you shared your candy with me)

I always choose the best tweets and put them up on our twitter board for everyone to see!

Show me YOUR STUDENTS best tweets on my IG @embellisheducation!

Crafting Galore During Spring Break

Today is the last day of my Spring Break and so of course, I am rushing around trying to finish all my projects I had in mind for the week, while prepping for the week ahead of me. During my week off, I made some wrap bracelets which I am in love with! I also learned how to sew with my mom for a few days. Ummm holy smokes....don't I have a new appreciation for people who sew! (I decided they must drink a lot of wine) I also made a slew of new products for my TpT store. Best of all I got to spend ten whole days with my baby boy!!

 My husband and I also made these cute I Spy CVC word bottles for my classroom. We first took alphabet beads and glued them together using epoxy glue to make CVC words. I found an old seltzer bottle and filled it with pearl beads and the word beads we made. Then I filled it halfway with water and the rest with clear dish soap. This is to help the beads travel in a slower manner. I just love how they turned out! I am going to have them find as many as they can, read them, write them out, and then draw a picture of it. I am really looking forward to seeing how the kids react to them! Let me know what you think!

SPRING FEVER

It is getting warmer out and I am so ready for it!!! I've been working on activities for both Kinder and First that are going to make these last few months EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY for you!! Hurry and grab them while they stay at a low price! Click on the link underneath!

Grab Kindergarten here!
Grab First Grade here!

Faux iPads

A few weeks back, I was able to receive an iPad for my classroom through donorschoose.org. It's amazing website where teachers can post project for their classrooms and the money for these projects can get funded by your friends and family or even generous strangers. I highly recommend trying it out for your class! I've been trying out different apps for the kids and they love it. One thing I noticed is they have a tough time typing things out. I work with kinders and firsties so I am sure they have not spent much time on technology. I was thinking how I wish I could have an individual iPad for each one of them to practice on....and then an idea struck me! Why don't I just make fake iPads for them!

 I created a pdf and laminated it. I found these very thin canvas from Michael's and then used used a coupon so they ended up being around 4$ for 5 of them. My husband also brought home some foam board from work and I plan on using them to make more! WALLAAAAH I present to you... an iPad for each one of my students. I was able to laminate each of their sight words as well so they could do this independently. I used this in a small group and called out words. They had to write it with a dry erase marker and then practice typing it out. Then they recorded their words on their sheet with their pencil. They LOVED it! They didn't want to stop. I also did some worksheets I created for them as well afterwards using an iPad code to figure out their sight words.    

                                  

                                       Grab my faux iPad packet from TPT here. (Kinder)

Grab my faux iPad packet from TPT here. (First)

Groundhog Day

We had a little extra time last week, so I had a chance to talk to my first grade groups about the upcoming Groundhog Day. The kids decided if they thought if Mr. Groundhog would see his shadow or not and then they colored a picture of a groundhog based on their decision. We made a class size graph afterwards!

Only one student thought that the groundhog wouldn't see his shadow (aka more spring) so I decided to add my groundhog to that column. (I mean, who really wants more winter?!) The next day, the students made bar graphs based on our two groups colored groundhog chart on the door. It was a lot of fun!

You can grab my groundhog day graphing packet on TPT for free here.

Can't wait to show you more activities we do the next couple weeks!

February is coming!