Five for Friday - I Made the TpT Newsletter!

Hello All!

Happy Weekend!

I'm back for this week's edition of Five for Friday hosted by Doodle Bugs Teaching.

The week started with an appearance by one of my products in the Teachers Pay Teachers newsletter!

I was, and continue to be, thrilled by this recognition.

I've been on TpT for about 3 years, and had sporadically submitted free items for the newsletter.

I have never been in the newsletter before.

The timing was right for the freebie I submitted:  my Candy Cane Science product.  

Check out that product HERE.

That's my item on the left, and it even got a good promo in the opening tag line of the email!

This past week has been amazing -

I've gained over a hundred followers on TpT

The product has been downloaded over 15,000 times!

I have already met my sales goal for December.

Over 75 people have left positive reviews of this product!

I am so thankful!

My students do small group review stations during our intervention time.

This week one of the stations was word building with letter tiles.

I put different types of letter tiles (magnets, foam, dice,and cardboard puzzle tiles) in holiday bags, and the students had to record words they made in the boxes on the tree sheet.

 We wrote thank you letters to our many parent volunteers.

We used Microsoft Word, and if you go the the "Design" tab in the home page of Word, there is a Page Borders option on the far right that allows you to easily insert a variety fun page borders.

 Do you use Plickers?

It's a fun way to do formative assessments with only one device, like an iPad or iPhone.

I used this app during an observation about two weeks ago, and my principal liked it so much he asked me to do a demonstration at a staff meeting this week.

So we did a fun 3-question quiz about The Grinch.

I made some fun wrapping paper with a coupon I got from Shutterfly!

That's my dog's picture in the midst of all that holiday color.

I think my gift recipients will love it!

We still have 2 days of school left this week.  Pray for me.....

Thanks for checking out this post!

Five For Friday - A Pilgrim Came to School!

Hallelujah!  It's Friday!

Here's a peek at my week.

 We had an actual Pilgrim visit our third graders this week!

You should have seen the looks on my students' faces - they were priceless.

They were so confused that "Elizabeth Hopkins" could still be alive.

As one boy explained it, a Pilgrim could have a baby, and that Pilgrim has a baby, and so on....

That's how we could actually have a Pilgrim visitor.  :)

She was so gooooood!  

She was actually from a nearby historical society.

She was worth every cent of the $175 we paid for her.

To review all that we've learned about Pilgrims we have done these Pilgrim I Have~Who Has cards.

They connect so well with our reading of the book If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620.

These cards are available in my TpT store with my Pilgrim Bingo cards.

Check them out here.

 This study of Pilgrims coincides with our non-fiction literature unit.

We started the unit by searching for text features in Big Books.

 Later the students had to search for, and take photos of, text features in Pilgrim non-fiction books.

Pictured below is the checklist of text features they searched for.

We used the Seesaw Learning Journal app to store the photos that students had taken of the text features.

This app provides a digital storage file for each student. 

It's fantastic!

We use it to store math work, recorded readings, and more!

Hope you had a great week!

Head over to Kacey's site to join in on Five for Friday.

Swap Meet - A Product Swap Blog Hop and Giveaway

Hi!

I am happy to be a part of really fun product swap and giveaway!

As a part of this product swap I was lucky to try out the Digital Book Report created by Nicole at Primary Teaching Resources.

Click on the product cover below to go right to Nicole's TpT store to see this product!

 I love to incorporate the use of technology in my teaching, and this was the perfect project to do that, as well as support writing and reading instruction.

And added bonus was that my third graders got a wide variety of book suggestions from their classmates.

First, my students colored the included templates to look like themselves.

Two girl and two boy templates are available.

My students chose the one they most resembled.

Next, we wrote the title and author of a book they had read onto the display sheet.

Also, we gave a brief explanation of a favorite event from the story that might attract a 

new reader to the story.

I don't have a picture of the next step, but after coloring the display sheets, students used Google Drive to write a more detailed book review.  

Then we copied the book review, and pasted it into a box on the site called qrstuff.com to generate a 

qr code of that text.  Since the writing had been in Drive, the students were able to share it with me so I could create the code if they had a problem doing it.

Nicole provided very clear instructions on how to do everything!

This past week I posted the completed projects all around my classroom.

During small group station time, the students used iPads to scan and read each of the book reviews.

I have 7 iPads in my room, and 5-6 students were in the small group that did this activity each day.

A really cool result of this project was that one of the assistant superintendents in my district and my principal happened to visit my room while the students were doing this activity.

They both remarked about how unique the projects were, and how engaged the students were while scanning and reading!

You can win this fantastic project, as well as the others listed in the graphic below by entering our giveaway!

Just follow the entry guidelines in the rafflecopter below.....

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Currently November

Well, an extra hour today means that I have time to join Farley in the month's Currently!

I am a football fan.  And, to be more specific, I am a huge Green Bay Packer football fan!

Here's proof.  This was the scene in the hallway outside my room when the school year started.

Those are three of our amazing Packer players - Jordy Nelson, Clay Matthews, and Eddie Lecy.

We have a big game tonight against the Broncos.  Both teams are undefeated.

Go Pack Go!

We have a few new teachers in our building this year, and they have been such a great addition to our staff.

One of them is someone I work closely with, and I am so happy to have her with us - she has invigorated me as a teacher.  We are working together to bring Project Lead The Way to our school.

Any tips on that?

It's the time to put away the patio furniture - sniff, sniff,

They may be covered with snow if they are left out any longer.

I love this extra hour - enough said.

Our school district is changing insurance carriers.  I have to get those forms filled out yet today!

Mmmm........I love mashed potatoes.  With butter or gray.

Or chunky red garlic mashed potatoes.

Real or box-made. 

Mmmmmmm.

Oh and the winner of my recent giveaway was Suzy Q!  I will be e-mailing you soon!

Thanks to all who entered!

Trick or Treat Blog Hop - iPad Tricks and Math Treats

Hi!

Welcome to my blog and our Trick or Treat Blog Hop!

Hope you'll find some goodies you like!

The trick I'm sharing is one related to technology.

I have 7 iPads in my room, all of which I've obtained through grants.

I was looking for a way to store the iPads during the day, and found what I believe to be the perfect item.

It's a dish drainer from Bed, Bath, and Beyond!

It was sturdy, and pretty inexpensive (with a coupon of course!).

I have a chatty group this year, and I've noticed my third graders were spending quite a bit of their iPad time yucking it up with those that were sitting near them.

So, I made these signs and hung them up in various isolated spots around the room.

There are times when I want them to work in pairs or small groups on the iPads, but many times they are working on the devices alone.

I've found they're more productive and on task when they are separated.

My treat for you is a product that was just added to my Teachers Pay Teachers store, and will be free during this blog hop.  

I have just added Multiplication Count-By Cards!

My third graders are learning the multiplication facts, and I created these cards as a way for them to review the multiples.

Students can sort and order these count-by cards to become more familiar with the multiplication facts.

You can find the Multiplication Count-By Cards here.

I am also giving away one of most popular products.

Do you teach series books?

My third graders just devour a variety of book series, and I've developed a unit of "I Can...." Statements and related reflection sheets to use when reading series books.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now hop on over to find some more awesome tricks and treats by clicking on the picture!

Happy Halloween week!

Five for Friday - Apples and More!

It's been a long time - since I've blogged, and even longer since I've joined in for Five For Friday.

We've been involved in lots of fun activities that I wanted to be sure to share!

 First, my students have been loving science!

We use FOSS, and started with the Measuring Matter unit.

I love how the activities build teamwork and cooperation.

My third graders had never used a tape measure before.

 We've been working on variables in math.

We use Math Expressions Common Core in our district, and we start off right away with multiplication.

It can be challenging, and I needed an activity that would take the pressure off - at least for one day.

So we made this Apple Facts book.

 The adorable apples are from Creative Teaching Press, and my students loved coloring them!

Each student was assigned a product, and then they had to write two related factors that matched that product.

The letters on the cover of the booklet are from Creative Teaching Press too.

You can find the apples, and many others shapes, on the Creative Teaching Press site here.

They are called "Color Me Apples 6" Designer Cut-Outs".

 Our school did a Color Run fundraiser this week.

Our PTO did a great job of organizing the event.  

We used colored cornstarch to spray the runners - the kids LOVED it.

And yes, I was covered with orange cornstarch afterwards.  

 I sent home a parent check-in survey early in the week to get some feedback on how the parents feel the school year is going.

It can be a scary thing to send home a survey like this, you might get negative feedback.

But, most of the time parents are happy that you are interested in opinions.

I got this comment, and it made my day and week!

An updated version of this survey is FREE in my Teachers Pay Teachers store here.
I hope your feedback on it is as positive as mine.

I had some extra apples left from our Apple Facts project (they come in a pack of 36),

so I used them to decorate bags for our Fall Book Raffle.

Come back to this blog and I will explain how I conduct book raffles in my classroom.

I hope you'll follow me for updates!

And check in on Kacey's blog for more Five For Friday posts.

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