New Year's Resolutions

I linked up with The Third Wheel for a resolution linky party. You can click on the link below to get the template!  Everyone is invited to join.

Work

My work resolution is probably the toughest one to keep and it affects all other resolutions.  This year we are under OTES and I really dislike what it has done to education.  It has taken the joy out of teaching life and I just need to quit thinking about it.  My students are learning and I can teach, but that ridiculous rubric is always in the back of my mind.

Leaving by 5 is a stretch, but if I can do it twice a week then it's progress.  My son loves to stay in the after school program, so I've been in the habit of staying later since he enjoys it so much.  Since I stay late, I seldom bring work home which is a bonus.  I can work on TPT products and blogging in the evening.

Home

I've grown to hate cooking. It takes up too much time and creates more to clean up.  If I leave work earlier, I should have more time to do this. We need to eat healthier, so I'm trying for most nights of the week. 

Exercise

I just need to do it. A year ago, I was concerned about my blood pressure and one of the doctors at the office (not mine- mine knows better) said that since I had taught for 21 years that I should be able to pick up and leave at 4 and relax and go for a walk.  I'm sure my blood pressure shot up because she had no idea how much more work we have to do now.  With that said, it was one of the toughest groups I had in all 21 years and I just had to get through it. Margarita Fridays were helpful!

I love to swim and now my son is tall enough to enjoy the indoor pool here, so we've enjoyed going. He's old enough to stay in if I swim laps. If I stay at work too late then we don't make it before closing time.

TPT/BLOG

I'm guilty of updating my school blog for my parents before this one. I need to spend a little more time here.  Creating products might interfere with everything above. It's a great excuse to procrastinate! It's so much more fun than cooking and exercise!  :) 

Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday!

Gifts for Parents

Each year, my students make a calendar for their parents. They choose a theme for their calendar and draw a picture for each month and a cover. They are so much fun to look at.  Here are two of my favorite pictures from one calendar.  The boy picked farming and I just love these pictures and the details!

Ornaments

Each year I enjoy making ornaments for my students.  I've found that it is best to make one type so that I don't have disappointed family members each year.  One year I made a very unique one for my son and decided I could make it for each of my students using their pictures from the first day of school.  It's not an ideal project to make in the winter since it requires a spray that should be used outside.

I can't seem to find a picture of it on the tree, however, here's the copy from my computer.  I printed out the pictures and cut them out to fit the size of a cd.  Then I glued them to each side of the cd.  The last step was to spray and seal them since I used an inkjet printer.   Then I punched a hole in the cd and tied a gold ribbon to it.

My plan was to make one each year for my son, but life gets busy.  I use a laser printer now so I could go back in time and make them.  I miss this sweet age and the days of Mickey Mouse.


For the last several  years, I've made this type of ornaments and I love it! They are easy to make.

We finally put our trip up and decorated, so here's the ornament.

Holiday Freebie

Here's a little holiday freebie! Students can practice addition and subtraction with regrouping with these fun little Santa.

Multiplication

My students enjoyed working on x4 this week with the multiplication sentence find.  It's part of a Picture Puzzle Pack.

You can find the pack here. Click on the picture to go to the product in my store.

 

This year I've needed to change up my stations because my students just work better when everyone is doing the same thing. There's less distraction. Still a lot of distraction. Just less. 

I'm hoping to pull these activities out next week. 

 We are starting place value this week and this is fun to use.  I have so many station activities that I want to use, but so little time! My class needs it in small doses! 

Wishlists

Thanksgiving break is winding down and I've been working on my wishlist for TPT.  You've heard about the sale, right?  My wishlist keeps growing!  I should be grading papers and working on lesson plans, but I've found some great materials while procrastinating!

I love looking for new ideas, so I decided to link up and share 2 popular wish listed items in my store an done item that is on my wishlist.  In addition to the CYBER sale, all items in my store will be an additional 20% off.  Be sure to use the TPTCYBER promo code at check out for a savings of 28%.

 The number 1 items that people have wish listed in my store is Pictographs.  This is a hands-on activity for building pictographs and it's a great way to reinforce those data skills!  It is part of this bundle.

The second most wish listed items is Graph It. It is another hands-on graphing activity that can be used as a station. It is part of this bundle.

The scavenger hunts that are included in the bundles are a huge hit with students. 

It's so hard to pick just one because I just added over 15 items to my list.  I'm excited about this items.  I used her Fall and Thanksgiving selections and my students really enjoyed them and my principal was impressed with the questions being used as well as the focus on vocabulary.

Grab the banners and link up your blog! Store link ups will be deleted.

Sitewide Sale Coming Soon!

Thanksgiving Singular and Plural Nouns

This year I've had to use my station activities a little differently, but this new way has required a bit more paper use because I've been giving students their own black and white copy sets.

Tonight I experimented with shrinking down the cards 50% after printing them so that the students would have a cut, sort and paste activity.  I will have them cut out the pieces and put them in a baggy just to mix them up since they are grouped singular/plural.

This is a great low prep activity!  You can click on the picture below.

Tomorrow I will also be using the Thanksgiving Pronoun activity as a whole group.  I've labeled chart paper with the pronouns and each student will receive a card.  They'll decide which column the card belongs under and glue it in the correct place.  The students will record their results as we work. 

This was another low prep way to use this activity! Click on the picture below.

Happy Thanksgiving!

More Measuring

My students needed some extra practice on measuring to the nearest 1/4 inch, so I created a little seasonal activity for them to work on tomorrow.  There are 15 lines to measure.  I also included some recording sheets for the nearest inch, 1/2 inch and centimeter.

Happy Halloween!

We had a great day!  Instead of having a party, we had lunch in the room with some delicious snacks that parents sent in.  We enjoyed watching the Magic School Bus during lunch.  We may have extended our lunch time a tiny bit and watched 2 shows.

 

We worked on some measuring with spooky candy corns. 

We played a fun game that I found from somewhere.  Oops!  The class played against me and they won! 

They shared their descriptive paragraphs for their hats.  They enjoyed trying to stump the class. 

Students also worked on Halloween Mad Libs and that was a lot of fun!  We had a super day and I don't think they even missed not having a party! 

We are allowed 2 parties and we've chosen them for December and February.  How many parties are you allowed to have?

Halloween Measuring

I can't wait to use this activity with my class.  My little artists always enjoy this type of activity. What type of activities do you like to use for measuring practice?  This activity is great for when students finish with their work and need something a little extra to work on. It's the perfect excuse to draw and color!

Witch Hats

Next week my class will wrap up a crazy week with this descriptive writing activity.  They loved the pumpkins and they will love this!

Descriptive Paragraphs

Are you looking for a simple Halloween activity?  After reading a pumpkin story, my class decorated their own paper pumpkins and wrote descriptive paragraphs.  Tomorrow they'll share their paragraphs and the class will try to guess the pumpkins.

Is Halloween not allowed?  This activity will still work for your classroom since it's just a cute little fall pumpkin!  It also makes a nice hallway display!

 

Black and White Copies

This year I had to change the way I use all of my math station products.  My class is most productive when they work independently, and according to a survey I took at the beginning of the year, that's exactly what they want to do.  There are a handful of students that prefer working with partners, and only one student picked working in a group as a favorite. 

Colored copies are fun, but the black and white copies work just fine!  Hopefully I won't create a paper shortage. This method is working best in my room this year and they are still having fun and learning a lot.  Sometimes I copy for each student and sometimes I make enough for partners. I'll save my colored laminated copies for small groups at my table.

Today we reviewed rounding 3-digit numbers to the nearest ten and hundred. We split the set into two groups of 12.  They rounded to the nearest 10 for the first 12 numbers and then they switched to the nearest hundred for the next 12.  The answer key was made for nearest hundred, so we made a few adjustments.

If your students need a little extra practice on rounding then you might find these activities helpful.

 

Here's a fun little measuring activity.  The students will love the cute little candy corns. 

 

Halloween Stack and Solve

My students needed some practice with stacking numbers to solve and using ballpark estimates to check their work, so I made this fun little product for them.

Fiction and Nonfiction

Today we talked about Fiction and Nonfiction books. I saw a really neat anchor chart on Pinterest , so I borrowed the chart and turned it into a Powerpoint and interactive learning chart along with a page for our notebooks. 

My class is pretty fidgety this year, so my goal was to get them up and moving in a very structured way.   Turning my back to the students and making them wait while I write just won't work this year.  They work well when I'm moving around and calling on them to participate.

Students were given strips of the chart. As I called on students to read the Powerpoint, which showed one characteristic at a time, students with the paper brought it to me to add to the chart.  I think we'll work up to the students gluing it to the chart, but we aren't there yet. 

Students also had sheets with these characteristics that they could refer to. This works well for them.

When we were finished, students added this information into their binders (interactive notebooks). They enjoy cutting and pasting activities.

I'm experimenting with ways to keep them engaged because other methods I've used for 21 years just aren't working so well. And, well there is OTES...

Almost Ready

Today was our first official day back and tomorrow the students will attend Open House in the evening.  Here's a little peek.