Fiesta Centers - Limited Time Dollar Deal

I have absolutely loved the sale this weekend.  I finally got around to leaving feedback for my past purchases and I ended up finding new stores that I ended up cleaning out.  :)  Yeah, I went a little crazy!  Can't wait to use the stuff in my classroom and share with you!  

My store will still be on sale tomorrow as well to finish up this month.  I'm actually glad March is over.  I love March - so many wonderful things happen in March - but I'm exhausted!  March has been weird weather too - so I'm hoping it will go out like a lamb.  I can hope!  

Like I said, my store is still on sale tomorrow.  I wanted to share an even bigger discount though.  My Fiesta Centers are only $1 through tomorrow night.  I got such a positive response with my Baseball Centers a couple of months ago that I decided to mark these down to help some people out.  6 centers that will get your kids reviewing and having fun!

Last year I used them to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, but it makes a fun review day anytime of year.  I brought in a bag of chips and salsa to share with my students, and the day became extra festive.

Hope you had a great day!  

Deep Breath - Planning Ahead: Copies

I'm starting to feel anxious about the big to do list before school ends for the summer.  On Monday my back was aching so much so that it hurt to walk... move... sit... so I headed in to Massage Envy to get the knots out.  I had knots I didn't know even existed until the lady pushed on them.  I might have squeaked.  I also found out that Massage Envy had a teacher's discount (aka Corporate Discount) if you are looking into a membership.  The best part was handing over all my gift cards (I had 4 of them from Christmas - Love my parents, inlaws, and hubby for looking at my list), and realizing that they covered the 6 month membership fee.  Sweet deal!

What else?  Like I mentioned - my to do list for school is starting to really get long.  Field trip planning, sending off my copy masters, and figuring out what to preorder for next year... usually I tackle this after Spring Break, but since it's so late this year I have to do it pronto.  I like to plan ahead, and I like to know my papers are all organized going into the summer & next year.  It's not everything, but it's the majority of it.

How I figure out my copies is pretty simple, I try to think of everything I do throughout the year.  I get all my masters together and make a list.  There is a lot to say about the use of our time.  Our copy machine costs 6 cents per copy, Rizo costs 4 cents, but that involves our own paper.  To send it off to the school account means I have to plan ahead, but it's their paper and time that is being used and it's only 3 cents per copy.  The best part is that they get delivered to me in a nice, neat package.

I have 2 file cabinets in my room (8 drawers).  My drawers are:

*Odds and Ends/BTSN Paperwork

*Social Studies/Science

*District Reading Unit Assessments

*Math Standard Assessments & Weekly Story Assessments

*Rowley Math - Multiplication/Division Tests

*District Math Assessments & Per Standard Files

*Math, ELA Spiral, and Reading Skills 

*Weekly Reading Comprehension, Reading Log, Mentor Sentence Foldables, Read Aloud Graphic Organizers

What a relief to get that done now!  In the process of putting next year's copies in the cabinets I ended up pulling out the remaining copies for this year and realized there isn't that much left.  Happy Dance!  8 weeks - 3 weeks before Spring Break, 5 weeks after.  

Here's my list of stuff that I have copied and ready to go:

Quick Checks by Blair Turner

Monster Math by I Heart Recess

(Did this 1/2 page)

Reading Menus by 3rd Grade Thoughts

(Did this 1/2 page)

Weekly Reading Homework by Forkin4th

Language Spiral by Ashleigh

(did this 1/2 page)

Mentor Sentence Interactive Notebook Activities by Jivey

(did this 1/2 page too)

My CA History Stuff 

I also have our normal curriculum too.  :)  Have to have that!  

Hope you had a good day!  I'm just now starting to go through my TPT purchase folder and leave feedback on the things I picked up during the site sale.  I love getting those credits and putting them toward my purchases.  Then it's time for me to go shopping!  I added my store to the mix for this weekend sale.  My bundles are an additional 20% as well!  

Poetry, Oh Poetry!

My class has been focusing on descriptions A LOT lately!  We are living, breathing examples, descriptions, and tons of adjectives.  I wanted to do something FUN and create something that can go toward the big pile of Open House stuff (at this point it really is a HUGE pile of stuff - different post).  

This was one of those items I picked up in the Educents Poetry Bundle.  

Pinkadots Elementary had a complete Poetry Journal Pack included in the bundle.  Pages and pages of different poetry templates, I chose 4 of them, they did it one per day this past week.

Today was the put-it-together day.  I passed out a file folder and then we had a passing out paper party with all the different templates.  They glued in the Bio Poem, I am Poem, Acrostic Poem, and Color Poem.  Those were the four I chose to stick inside the folder.  I have more options for later on this year, but those I will be completing full page (instead of 1/2).

Yep, when I prepped the material I copied them 2 per page.  Shrinking them worked beautifully!  Still plenty of room for the kiddos to write.

Now in the middle of the kids gluing up and finishing their folders, we had our District Instructional Tours stop by to visit.  The Head of Curriculum, Assistant Superintendent, and another principal walked through the door and were admiring all my kiddos hard work!  Great activity.  :)   

Seriously, if you teach Poetry and Figurative Language I HIGHLY recommend this pack!  LOVE the activities.  

Hope you had a great day!  

Figurative Language Partner Review {Using Task Cards}

Today my kids did another activity with Figurative Language.  I used the task cards from Pinkadots Elementary and got my kids into groups.  Each pair of kids got a sheet of task cards (just printed on copy paper) and they had to solve those 4 questions.  We went over the meanings of the different types of figurative language one more time and then they were off.  

The directions I gave them were to not only figure out if the answer was A, B, or C - they also needed to underline the part of the sentence that proved that specific figurative language.  Some of them were tricky (and higher level thinking) because it could have been one or another!    

  Afterward they put their names on their papers, I collected, and then we used the document camera to review full class.  I love being able to just print and go - sometimes kids really do need to write on the materials.      

   

This product is a part of the Educents Poetry Bundle.  11 downloads for only $10.99 - It was a great deal (even though I already owned some of the products).  Saved me money picking up the remaining ones!  

Now you might be wondering why I picked up this bundle since I also have figurative language task cards in my store - also multiple choice.  I tend to use mine at the end of our unit as an assessment tool.  It's always nice having different resources that I can use pre, during, and post.  :)    

Hope you had a great day!  Linking this up with Jivey!  I know her linky is talking about poetry, but figurative language goes hand in hand with it.  We have to teach how to make the words come alive.  It totally makes sense to me with the connection!  

Non Fiction Resources (Tying it into CCSS)

Today I went to a training.  It was good - part 3 with the instructor.  She has been teaching us about Common Core ELA and Writing, a great resource since we have no actual CC curriculum going into full time CCSS next year.  Today she shared something that really sparked my attention and made me excited to turn on my computer and explore.  

Newsela.com

This website is brand new to me, but it's going to be a great resource.  It has articles that directly relate to how students will be expected to pick apart the text.  Each of the articles also has different Lexile levels and a quiz based on those specific levels.  Basically kids can access with their specific reading level and then have a comprehension quiz based on what they read.  There is also a way to put in a class roster, and get a report of grades for each kid.  I love that there is a search button to find numerous articles based on a topic.   It's FREE!

Like I said, right now there isn't CCSS ELA curriculum that the district is looking at - we learned that piece of information at our last staff meeting.  Right now the plan is to keep our text and switch it to being CCSS correlated.  At the last staff meeting it was shared about the Basal Alignment Project through Edmodo.  Basically there is a group to join (code: F4Q6NM) that has a folder of all aligned lessons that are free resources.  Not all my OCR stories are on there, but the group is adding more lessons every day.  They take the different texts and basically have created a CCSS lesson plan that will work those standards, giving tier 2 and 3 vocabulary, deeper comprehension questions, etc.  We're supposed to throw out the teacher's edition and use these plans instead for ELA.  

 

  I also bought this resource by Forkin4th this past fall and have used it in my ELA workshop this year.  It's great and has the nonfiction articles & comprehension.  I recently sent it off to be copied full class for next year to add more nonfiction into our days.  I was reminded about it today in the training when we were discussing the need for numerous articles about the same subjects.  Many of the homework sheets have more than one article to help with comparing/contrasting between articles.  LOVE it!

I hope these resources help you!  Linking up with Holly and Tried it Tuesday!  

5 for Friday!! Exciting News!!

Time to link up with Doodlebugs!  I am SO GLAD IT'S FRIDAY!  TGIF x100!!!

Did you see the newest Educents bundle?  It started last night and is all about Poetry.  Looking at it I was so happy to see many things I already have for my own classroom.  It's such a great deal at $10.99 (70% off) though, that I'll be buying it to get the other items too. 

    

The other day I used Ideas by Jivey's Idioms set in my classroom.  The kids have added idioms to our binders all year long (the posters are wonderful), and since it's close to progress reports I wanted to do a check in on the concept.  I used her matching sheets as a mini quiz to monitor progress.  The kids did great!  As they finished they grabbed an index card and made their own card that we added to our bulletin board.  Click any of the images above to head over to check out the bundle!

On Tuesday I shared about my Shopping Spree Pack.  Well winners have been chosen via Random Number App - turns out Crystal was a lucky winner's name!  For everyone else that was interested, I put the pack up on sale (saving $1.25) through the weekend.  

Fun moment this past Monday... The kids decorated hats for the leprechauns on Friday.  They colored a Styrofoam cup and then magic happened over the weekend.  (Shh, don't tell but the magic was me taking them home, sticking them in a 250/275 degree oven for a couple of minutes to make them shrink.)  My big kids' eyes were huge when they came in and saw them on Monday morning.
  

This week was also a BIG HUGE cookie kind of week.  I grabbed a tube of cookie dough and decided to make them at home.  It was a jumbo roll that I cut into 12 pieces.  6 made it onto the cookie sheet and I squished them with my palm before baking.  They were delicious warm with a scoop of ice cream on top.

Random photo op!  We had to get a new tire this past week - somehow the school parking lot caused a flat tire, so these buds came with me to wait.  Love my boys!!

Hope you had a great day!  

Angle Pictures

I have some wonderful artists in my classroom.  I also have some wonderful mathematicians.  Today we combined the two skills and made angle pictures.  I had to emphasize the difference between angLE vs. angEL pictures. :)

  We identified quite a bit between right, obtuse, and acute, and then passed out the scratch paper and they drew pictures.  

Whenever I take pictures I'm going to show online, I usually tell the kids that I'm taking pictures to share with other teachers - so here are some of the kids that really wanted to share their artwork with you.  

After they were done drawing, they had to count the Right Angles (R), Obtuse Angles (O), and Acute Angles (A).  That's what those codes are on their drawings.  Some kids used tallies, some used numbers.  Either way they were defining, identifying, and creating angles so we met our objective.  

Plus by letting them draw I won that Best Teacher Ever award again.  FYI - BrainPop has many videos on geometry (and electricity).  We are using the school account ALOT!  

Hope you had a great day!