Neat Sweet & Hard to Beat: TpT

Showing posts with label TpT. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Winner Wednesday: American Indian Task Card Scoot

October flew by and I can't believe it is the first Wednesday of November already! I am linking up with Jennifer from A Day of Glue Will Do again to bring you the chance to win a product from my store for FREE! All you will have to do is enter your name into the Rafflecopter below!

Use these task cards to review the American Indian unit in your classroom. Along with these task cards are directions for three different activities your students can do with these question cards. This product includes two different sets of cards with 24 questions in each set. The first set is a fill in the blank set where students must complete the sentence with which region would make the sentence true. The second set of cards is a multiple choice set where students must choose between three options. Both sets have similar questions but it is up to you to decide if your class would prefer a fill in the blank or multiple choice answering method.

This product includes:

Two sets of 24 questions each
Cards include questions about each regions land, climate, homes, transportation, occupations, tribes, and contributions
Student recording sheet for both sets of cards
Answer key for both sets of cards
Directions with details on three different ways to use these cards in your own classroom

This product focuses on American Indians in the Eastern Woodlands, Great Plains, and Southwest regions. The Powhatan, Lakota, and Pueblo tribe names are used in this product but I am happy to change these tribes if your school studies different tribes within these regions.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The drawing ends at midnight tonight so make sure to enter right away! I will email the lucky winner a copy of this product on Thursday.

If you can't wait to get your hands on this product, then check it out in my store!

Also, feel free to follow me on Facebook or Bloglovin' for other future Winner Wednesday FREEBIES and giveaway updates! Winner Wednesday happens the first Wednesday of every month thanks to Jennifer's wonderful link up! Make sure to mark your calendars for December 2nd and check back here for my next Winner Wednesday!

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Winner Wednesday: STEM Columbus Day Challenge

It's finally October andI am linking up with Jennifer from A Day of Glue Will Do again to bring you the chance to win a product from my store for FREE! All you will have to do is enter your name into the Rafflecopter below!

This STEM challenge incorporates learning about history while challenge students to use their engineering skills! After reading a book about Christopher Columbus or the history of Columbus Day, students will be challenged to build a new, modern sailboat that can be powered by wind!

This product contains: the engineering design process model as an anchor chart, the lesson plan, teacher preparation and tips page, the challenge, and a six page student lab book to use throughout the STEM challenge.

You will need a few supplies in addition to this package. This includes: aluminum foil, plastic wrap, styrofoam cups, plastic straws, popsicle sticks, cork, index cards, and duct tape.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The drawing ends at midnight tonight so make sure to enter right away! I will email the lucky winner a copy of this product on Thursday.

If you can't wait to get your hands on this STEM Challenge, then check it out in my store!

Also, feel free to follow me on Facebook or Bloglovin' for other future Winner Wednesday FREEBIES and giveaway updates! Winner Wednesday happens the first Wednesday of every month thanks to Jennifer's wonderful link up! Make sure to mark your calendars for November 4th and check back here for my next Winner Wednesday!

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Whooo C.A.R.E.S.?!?!

I LOVE the beginning of the year because it gives me a chance to teach my students about character education and social skills. I teach my students about C.A.R.E.S. and I can integrate these themes into our social studies unit about citizenship! C.A.R.E.S. stands for Cooperation, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy, and Self-Control. If you miss my posted introducing CARES and covering the bulletin board that accompanies these five topics check it out HERE!

Using C.A.R.E.S. topics during the first few weeks helps build a positive classroom atmosphere, while teaching my students about our class expectations. I have created five lessons, each one covering one of the C.A.R.E.S. topics. Each lesson introduces the topic and hooks students with a read aloud by Mo Willems. I like using Mo's Elephant & Piggie series because these two characters are in each book and show my students that a character can display each one of our CARES traits. There are other great books out there for teaching CARES traits but my students really enjoy the Elephant & Piggie series because they are kid friendly books with not a lot of language. The drawings in these books grab their attention and the simplicity of the stories allows me to get right to the teaching topic.

In "Today I Will Fly!" Piggie wants to fly but Gerald isn't too willing to help. With the help of another friend Piggie shows Gerald that flying can be possible when working together. This makes for a fantastic read aloud when teaching cooperation!

"There Is a Bird on Your Head" is perfect for teaching assertion because Gerald becomes frustrated when two birds make a nest and lay eggs on his head. He doesn't know what to until Piggie suggests that he kindly ask the birds to go somewhere else. To Gerald's surprise speaking up solves the problem and the birds go find a new place for their nest.

In "My Friend Is Sad" Piggie discovers her friend Gerald is sad. She works really hard to cheer Gerald up because she understands that being sad is no fun! The simplicity of the story helps students to focus on the meaning of empathy while getting a good laugh at all the silly things Piggie does to make Gerald happy again.

Gerald realizes he is getting cranky and the only thing to help him get out of his cranky mood is a nap! In "I Will Take a Nap!" Gerald teaches us that taking care of our self and being responsible is very important.

Self-control is a theme displayed through out "Waiting Is Not Easy!". Gerald learns that surprises can be worth the wait even when it is hard to use self-control and be patient. I like reminding my students that waiting to be called on or waiting your turn in line can be challenging, but just like Gerald experiences in the story, the wait can be worth it.

If these read alouds interest you and you are looking for some new lesson ideas to teach your student's all about C.A.R.E.S, click on the pictures below check out these lessons:

Don't forget, if you want all five lessons and the bulletin board, make sure to grab the bundle in my store and save $4!

Sunday, August 2, 2015

All Things Bulletin Boards

I am linking up with Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd and Angie from Lucky Little Learners to bring you my newest bulletin board and a few bulletin board tips because #2getherwearebetter!

First up is my new bulletin board, just in time for Back to School! My new bulletin board focuses on social skills and character education. It is very important to me that I teach my students social skills early on in the school year. Since I follow a Responsive Classroom approach in my room, I always start the year off teaching my students that "Our Class CARES"! CARES stands for Cooperation, Assertion, Responsibility, Empathy, and Self-control. These five traits fit right into my curriculum the first month of school because we work so much on setting up routines, exceptions, and rules.

When students enter the classroom the bulletin board looks quite bare because I want them to be part of the process of putting it up. I first start with just the banner across the top. As I introduce each skill we add the large word and definition to the bulletin board. Once we discuss a trait and fully understand the skill, we then add the “looks like” examples to our board.

For example, when I introduce the meaning of responsibility we read the Mo Willems book "I Will Take a Nap!" After reading the story we discuss what it means to be responsible and how Gerald was responsible in the book. We come up with a class definition so everyone understands what responsibility means. Then we play a fun game called "Showdown" to sort through task cards with examples and non-examples of responsibly. After this activity students have a better understanding of this social skill and we add the "looks like" cards under the definition. We add to the bulletin board that responsibility looks like; following directions, telling the truth, working hard, completing school work, and keeping our school safe.

If you are interested in the bulletin board and the 5 lessons that go along with teaching students about CARES click HERE to check out the bundled pack and save $4!

Next up is a little information about my bulletin boards! I love to have bulletin boards in the classroom that we add to throughout a unit or subject. I usually have a reading bulletin board and then a science or social studies bulletin board.

Just like with the CARES bulletin board, I will put up a header and then as we learn more about a subject we add to the board. My bulletin board is one large one, so I divide it in half to use it for two different subjects. The board on the left is for our focus on reading and understanding fluency, accuracy, comprehension and expanding vocabulary. The board on the right was from our American Indian unit in social studies. We were learning about Pueblo, Lakota, and Powhatan tribes so we compared their region, homes, land, and transportation. I used string to help divide the sections on this bulletin board.

A finally, one tip for you! If you don't have too many bulletin boards in your room then get crafty, make some fun anchor charts, and hang them up with Command Hooks! I only have one large bulletin board in my room so in my reading corner I added 6 Command Hooks on the wall and hang three different anchor charts in this area. Using the hooks makes it quick and easy to replace the anchor charts.

Thanks for checking up my new bulletin board and learning more about bulletin boards in my class. Ashley and Angie will be linking up the 2nd of every month for more #2getherwearebetter!

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Back to School Activities

Have you heard about Periscope?!?!

It is taking the educational world by storm and these two wonderful ladies, Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd and Angie from Lucky Little Learners, introduced me to it! While they were in Vegas at the Teachers Pay Teachers Conference, and I was still here in Virginia, they broadcasted from the conference and it was WONDERFUL! It make me feel like I was there and they brought all of their TPT take away ideas right to me LIVE via Periscope. Thank you Angie and Ashley!

After the conference, everyone was jumping on Periscope and I thought I would give it a try! I joined 5 other great TPT sellers in a Periscope Hop hosted by Linsey from Primary Polka Dots and we spent a Tuesday evening hoping from one teacher to the next talking about our favorite Back to School activities! With Periscope your broadcast is only available for 24 hours, but I saved it and you can take a look here:

If you would like to try out any of these activities make sure to click on over to my TPT store to get ready for Back to School!

I hope you enjoyed getting a few ideas to prepare you for that energizing first week of school! Check back next week to see which of these three products I will be giving you a chance to win for FREE! :)

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Make Your MASTERPIECE {TPT Challenge}

It's week 3 of the TPT Seller Challenge hosted by Third in Hollywood, Teach Create Motivate, Sparkling in Second, and Peppy Zesty Teacherista! This week's challenge was to design a new product for TPT!

With the start of a new school year just around the corner I wanted to design a new ice breaker for the first week of school! I love games that help my students get to know one another and build a sense of community in the classroom, so this challenge came at the perfect time!

I decided to make "This or That" cards. Using these cards students can interact with other students to find out which item they prefer. Each card has two choices for students to pick from and topics include sports, school subjects, school specials, colors, foods, animals, pets, and many more! I have also included directions for using these cards with a whole group or you can change it up and use these cards in small group. This activity can lead to great discussion between your students if you ask them to also tell their partner why they chose one picture over the other.

Find these cards HERE in my TPT store! Or you could win them by entering the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Share & Prepare: B.O.Y. Hopes & Dreams

I am linking up with Marie from Once Upon a Classroom to "Share and Prepare" for the beginning of the school year this fall!

Each school year, before starting with classroom rules, I have my students start by identifying their "Hopes and Dreams" for the coming school year and for their future. From these hopes and dreams we then create our class rules by posing the question, "If we want to achieve all of our hopes and dreams, what rules will we need to make our classroom a safe and friendly place where hopes and dreams can be reached?" I have found by creating these hopes and dreams first and then having students think of rules that the class will need, it gives them a sense of ownership to the rules that are created.

So how do I get my students to generate hopes and dreams you ask?

While, before introducing hopes and dreams I use a treasure box full of items that show the class what they can expect to learn during their school year. For example, in my box this past year I had the following items:

Butterfly wings from our Monarch Butterflies unit
Clock from our math unit on measurement
Writer's notebook from our Writing Workshop to discuss that we will be becoming authors
Piece of animal skin to show the type material used to make clothing worn by American Indians from our social studies unit
Baseball to represent Jackie Robinson from our famous Americans unit
Weather vane used during our weather unit
And much more!

The students love finding out what items come out of the 'treasure box' and it gets them excited for the year to come!

After the box is revealed, I read the book Someday by Eileen Spinelli. I love this book because the main character has all sorts of hopes and dreams for her future but she does things each day to help her reach her future goals. During this book I begin discussing that we all have hopes and dreams for our future just as the girl in the story does.

Then we examine some hopes and dreams by using partnering cards and then student generate a list of possible hopes and dreams for our school year and their future. To conclude this activity students then write and draw about their own hopes and dreams from the pages in this product:

We display our hopes and dreams in the classroom the whole year on our back wall. This past year I cut out pictures of my students and had them glue it between the speech bubbles so that parents could see their own child's hopes and dreams on back to school night! The class loved looking at each others pictures and it also helped them identify students in the classroom since they are still learning each other's names early in the year.

My HOPE is that I gave you some new ideas to start your school year off this fall! I usually complete this activity sometime during the first week of school. My DREAM is that your students will love this activity as much as my past classes have!

You can visit my store to get a copy of this product HERE!

Happy share and prepare!

Friday, June 12, 2015

Tell All Tuesday: Fib Reveal

On Tuesday I linked up with Teach Talk Inspire and My Day in K for a fun game of "Two Truths and a Lie". I am back today to reveal my fib and also share a freebie with you!

(TRUE) I spent a week in Walt Disney World one summer to attend a conference all about Kagan structures. We looked at different intelligences and practicing structures. The structures help students become engaged in curriculum while learning to collaborate with their peers.
(FALSE) I looped from 2nd Grade to 3rd Grade with my students. I love looping and think that it is very beneficial. Looping with a class can increase learning time because the class can spend less time learning routines at the beginning of the second school year and students gain a sense of stability and constancy.
(TRUE) I still keep in touch with my favorite elementary school teacher from 4th Grade. Her passion for teaching was so radiating that she inspired me to become a teacher myself.

Number 2 is almost TRUE except for the fact that I didn't loop with my second graders to third...I looped with my first graders to second! Looping with my class was an AWESOME experience and I recommend it to any teacher who has thought about trying out a new grade level.

Looping with a class has many benefits for both the teacher and the students. Just to name a few:

The teacher has fewer students and parents with whom to relate over a longer period of time, allowing for more in depth knowledge about the students and their needs
Learning time increases as the students are already familiar with the teacher and routines during the second year
The sense of community in the classroom is stronger; greater support for children who look to school as a stabilizing influence in their lives

Personally, the best part of looping was continuing to build a strong relationship with my students. The year that I looped I didn't have the same butterflies in my stomach because I knew my students strengths and areas for growth right away. From the start of the second year I was able to start differentiating to help my students transition smoothly into second grade.

Another big difference was my students excitement as they started the second year with me. They came in the first day ready to share all about their summer. Instead of a quiet first day of school when students are still shy, my students were talking up a storm. We still spent some time playing a few fun ice breaker/get to know you games because who doesn't love a fun ice breaker?!?! But then it was right to work! We were able to get started on the curriculum much sooner then all of the other classes. They say to spend the first six weeks working on routines but I would say that we cut that time in half the second year because so many routines my students were able to recall. We didn't have to spend a whole week learning how and where we put away supplies or how I like papers collected.

I have added the letter, to my TPT store, that I sent to my student's families last year to communicate with them that I would be looping. My principal and I worked together to allow parents input, so with the letter I have also included a parent looping preference form.

If you ever get the chance to loop...DO IT! I promise you won't regret it! :)

Thank you for stopping by to find out my fib!

Monday, May 4, 2015

Secrets From The Classroom

First, Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! Thank you for all that you do each and every day to make the world a brighter place for each child in your classroom.

Teachers are hard workers, there is no doubt about that! That's why I am so excited to have linked up with Lisa from Pawsitively Teaching and Marissa from Inspired Owl's Corner in order to bring you a giveaway to honor all of your hard work!

Now it's time to get this party started!

Secret 1: Magnetic Word Wall

In my first classroom I had a huge chalkboard in the back of my class. That year I decided to make it into an interactive word wall where my students could take down any words from the wall and take the words back to their seats. Making the word wall magnetic really helped my students because they were eager to go up to the wall and take down the words they needed.

A few years later, when I moved into a different classroom the magnetic chalk board was out of their reach, but I put it up anyway in hopes that students would continue to use it when working on writing at their seats. However, that year I saw a drastic change in my students writing and noticed that they weren't using the the wall like my students did in years past.

So it was time for a change. I came up with this magnetic board below using galvanized steel sheets that I found at HomeDepot.

I bought 3 sheets and it wasn't very expensive! I then used duct tape to wrap the edges of the sheets because I wanted to make sure they weren't too sharp if my decorative boarder came off. Then I used hot glue to secure each sheet to the wall under my SmartBoard. It worked like a charm! It was easy for my students to access and it was magnetic so my words would stick to it with magnetic tape.

I added bulletin boarder around the outside edge to clean up the look a bit, and what teacher doesn't love bulletin boarders?!?! I also used black electric tape on top to make a grid in order to keep the wall organized. But, you definitely don't have to do that in order to keep the wall up. I purchased these Polka Dot Letters and Words from Love to Learn on TPT. If you like them make sure to visit her store!

Secret 2: Greeting Mat
Each morning I greet my students at the door. I have found it really benefits the students to start each day with this routine. By greeting them at the door I can gauge their mood, ask questions, listen to a quick story, help them transition from home to school, and show them that I care that they have arrived at school. It is one of my favorite parts of our morning routine because for 10 minutes I focus just on the students entering my classroom. I put aside attendance, homework, lunch money and all of those other parts of our morning in order to start each day with a smile and greeting for each child.

Since I started teaching I have been using this greeting mat. I put it outside my door each morning. I stand to the side of the mat and students get to choose how they would like to be greeted by standing on one of the symbols:

Smile= A verbal "Good Morning" from the teacher
One Hand= A high five from the teacher
Two Hands= A hand shake from the teacher
Heart= A hug from the teacher

Having the students stand on the mat really helps me understand their morning and their personalities at the beginning of the year. Some students pick the same greeting each morning and others try to do a different greeting each day. However, it can be very telling how a student is feeling that morning if they usually go for smile each day but then come in one morning and stand on the heart. I love giving students choice throughout the day and this is just one way of allowing my students to make their own decisions.

I made the mat by purchasing a cotton mat with rubber backing at Walmart. Then, I used permanent markers to draw my symbols. This baby has held up for 5 years and is still going strong! :)

Secret 3: Table Partner Team Tags for Cooperative Learning
I love using numbers, shapes, and colors to help keep my student teams organized. I usually put my students in teams of 4 when forming desks. When I taught 1st grade though, we had trapezoid tables so I had my students in teams of 6. I always try to put my students in even number teams if possible so that they always have a partner to work with for different activities we do throughout the day.

When I use desks I put each students team numbers on my table bins that hold supplies. However, when I used trapezoid tables I taped their team numbers down to the desk.

So each student at a table gets a number, shape, and color. I do this so that I can quickly and easily partner students at their seats. When I assign partners I might say the following:

"Find the same color partner at your table" (blue 1&2 partner, green 3&4 partner)
"Find the same shape partner at your table" (triangle 1&4 partner, square 2&3 partner)
"Even numbers partner" (2&4), "Odd numbers partner" (1&3)
"Find the same number partner from another table" (#1 finds #1 from another table)
'Find the same shape partner from another table" (a square finds a square from another table)
"Find the same color partner from another table" (a blue finds a blue from another table)

Just like that, I can quickly assign them 6 different partners!

If I need just one or two students to do a job at their table I also say, "Number 3's from each table please collect that papers from your table". It makes assigning certain jobs to one or two students at a table quick and easy...and who doesn't love a quick set up or clean up?!?!

I like using these table team tags more than table captains, just because it gives multiple students the opportunity to do different jobs throughout the day in order to feel more a part of our classroom.

This week I am offering these table numbers as a FREEBIE at my TPT store! I have made these table numbers in multiple colors to fit your classroom theme. I have also given you the choice to use numbers 1-6 or 1-4 depending on how you have your classroom set up with desks or tables.