It is so hard to believe that the end of the year is near.

I know you guys must be so grateful.  I always felt like I crawled through May.  You can make it!

I think one of the most important things at the end of the year is to keep the kids engaged.  It can be a wild and woolly time of year, so I wanted the kids happy, busy, and learning! That can be a TALL order at this time of year!

This post may see like a bit of a hodge-podge because it is going to have all kinds of goodies!

I think cowboys are fascinating.  They lived such a rough life and so many traditions developed from their jobs. I love that it has universal appeal, as well- to both girls and boys.
I wrote an end of the year unit that is ALL about cowboys.
Aren’t these cowboys adorable?  Kids LOVED making them and writing the stories.  I loved that they were busy and productive AND learning.  BONUS: Their stories were often a wonderful reflection of all the skills and strategies we learned for the year!
I also wanted to incorporate math into the unit.  I create the campfire math word problems. Kids can practice math skills at their own level since the problems are differentiated AND make a cute craft. Win-Win!
Glyphs are always fun.  Students can make this cute cowboy boot and practice graphing skills.
You can pick up the unit here.
I wanted to add more to the unit, so I found some readers theaters.  I LOVE doing reader’s theater. You can read more about how I do reader’s theater during holidays and special times here.
I found these FREE scripts that are perfect for a cowboy theme!!

 

You can click on the pictures to get both FREE!
I was looking for some nonfiction texts about cowboys. I did find a few, but was looking for more.  I was looking for more for some of my struggling readers as well.  I had a harder time finding this.  So, naturally, I wrote my own with all that extra, spare time I have.  What was I thinking!?!??
I wanted to share it with you!!!!
I wrote a nonfiction article about cowboys.  There are four versions of the SAME article. The articles are on these approximate levels: end 2nd, beginning 3rd, mid 3rd, and end 3rd.  Hopefully , this will allow you to differentiate more easily!
I also included three different activities for practice finding main idea of the text.  The activities vary in difficulty from just finding the main idea of one section, to finding the main idea and supporting details of the entire article.
Just click on the pictures to get your freebies!
I am linking over at the Primary Peach  for our ONE year anniversary!  I can’t believe we have been live for a year!!!
Each author has created an end of year FREEBIE! Make sure to hop through all their posts!!!
We are ALSO giving away an Erin Condren gift card!  This is PERFECT for getting organized for next school year!
Click on the picture below to hop on over to enter!  Good luck!
PIN FOR LATER:
 If you would like more ideas from me, be sure to follow me on Teachers Pay Teachers, Pinterest, and Facebook to catch all the freebies and ideas and more!
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