Pinterest Scavenger Hunt Contest

We know that you're thinking about all of the items on your TpT wishlist as you are switching into back-to-school mode. Wouldn't it be nice if you had a $50 TpT gift certificate to use? Well, it's your lucky day! These upper elementary bloggers are going to help foot the bill!

Here is what you need to do to enter for a chance to win the $50 TpT gift certificate:

• Click the picture above or {here} to take you to our collaborative board.
• Follow the board.
• Find the pin description that contains the special code.
• Enter the code in the Rafflecopter.
• Easy-peasy!!
• Contest ends Sunday, July 28th at midnight.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Have a great day!

Throwback Thursday: Traditions Books (and Student Treasures)

Good Morning everyone!  I can still say Good Morning being in CA.  :)

Today for Throwback Thursday I wanted to share my post from last November where I talked about my students making a Traditions book.  Now usually I do this around Thanksgiving & Christmas since it's that time of year that I usually really think about Traditions BUT this morning I was also thinking that perhaps I should make it a year long writing activity since throughout the school year we have so much time together as a class.. a little here... a little there... and all done without the stress overload.

Anyway, just wanted to share in case you've never heard of Student Treasures and wanted to look into it before the stress of the beginning of school hits.  

-----------------------------

This time of year I really start thinking of traditions.  I personally love them.  I love the special routines surrounding a certain holiday. So, the time between Thanksgiving vacation and Winter break I have my students create a book that includes all their special family traditions.  
Last year I had the idiotic idea of trying to have them do the entire book in a 2 day span to be able to submit it to Student Treasures on time for our publishing date.  

click to go to their website

Student Treasures is a company that publishes student work into their own hardback book.  It's a free service, they just include a note that asks parents if they want to order additional copies.  They were beautiful when they came back and we wrapped them up in Christmas wrap as a gift for their parents.  But it was absolutely nuts of the hours upon hours of creating rough drafts and final drafts for those days, plus then hauling it to UPS to be able to mail it off.... nervously waiting if it would be delivered in time.
So I'm going back to my normal routine this year, and saving the Student Treasures hardback books for a later date - perhaps an end of year memory book?   
Anyhow, below is the breakdown of the book.   The students are writing one page per day about their traditions. They create a rough draft, edit, and do a final draft on just plain lined paper (copy paper with lines printed on it) that they then illustrate with their family traditions.  I start with Thanksgiving since it's fresh in their minds.     Pages
New Year's Eve and Day
Valentines Day
St. Patrick's Day
Easter
Mother's Day and Father's Day
4th of July
Halloween
Thanksgiving
Christmas and Hanukkah
Birthdays
So, 10 pages in total.  When they are done with everything inside their book, they will create their own personal cover and a dedication page to their families (with their cute little cum picture on it).  Then I stick everything into 6 sheet protectors (back to back pages) and use red & white ribbon through the holes to call it a day.  Their own little personal books to give as a gift.
I'll take a picture when it's done for this year.  :)  
Hope you had a great day!  

Back to School Night Packet - Want to see mine?

Tonight I decided to take the plunge and staple my Back to School Night packet.  Yes, it's been approved - I take care of that business back in May before we even leave for summer.  It's even been copied before school even got out.  Anyway, while I was doing the tedious task (all this paperwork isn't really fun), I posted a picture of it over on Instagram and some teachers posted that they would like to see it.  

So here it is.  The formatting is off since I had to take it from a PDF and copy/paste it into a powerpoint to be able to turn it into an image... and I had to take out the specific contact information... but there was no way I was going to retype it all.  :)  I love you all, but seriously not going to retype all of this...  

In the packet it turns out to be 4 pages long - but to make it large enough for you to read, on here it's 6 pages. :)  Please know that in my parent/student copy I have things in bold, underlined, and italicized.  They can't miss the big things!

The whole 1 hour for a 4th grader is dictated by my district.  20 minutes of reading, plus the nightly stuff is supposed to equal an hour.

Basically everything is the same as it normally is... though I did decide this next year to give the kids the opportunity to "move up" with their behavior.  Coming from last year I also decided to make up an understanding page.  Usually I have a little note that parents and students sign that says they went over the packet at home... this year I want it all spelled out.  I want something on file that shows me that parents know about the online grading system - that they know they can see their child's grades at any moment of the day/night/weekend... etc.

This next year I'm all about working smarter NOT harder - not going to be doing a separate behavior log in their folders - not having a separate Friday folder at all - simplifying and recording right where the kids take home the work.  All this because this year I'm in charge of their supplies... I am giving them exactly what they need in the format that gives me the least amount of headaches.

Anyway - that's it for my BTSN packet.  :)  I just need to update my powerpoint and I'll get that out to share too!