SNOW MUCH FUN WINTER PLACE VALUE CENTERS

Hello everyone!  I am oh so very happy today because.....

HAHAHA YES!!! We got a snow day today!  And.... We get one tomorrow too!! Woohoo!! Why do we get another one you may ask??? Well... the Virginia, Maryland, D.C. area is predicted to get 25+ inches of snow this weekend thanks to a very large winter blizzard!  I haven't experienced one of these this 1993 when I was 4 years old!!! BUT my hubby and I have plans to make camp in our living room with netflix, candles, wine, fluffy cuddly blankets, and lots and lots of snacks!! So I am very excited for that! I;m also quite excited to see what my little Bella does in her first snow experience ever!!

Soooo...Since I had today off I made myself very comfy on the couch with some Disney movies and got to work on a new product I have been working on.  I have a good size group of kiddos in my classroom who are still struggling with place value.  So, I wanted to make a fun unit for them to work on in small groups!  

This pack is winter themed and focuses in Place Value.  There are 5 different centers in the pack.  I'll give you a little closer look at them below..

The first center in the pack is a  match the pictures game.  

In this game, the students must match the snowball cards with the correct base ten block card.  

Once they match all the cards correctly they can write their answers on this recording sheet to be collected.  

The next center is is a Guess the Number center.  

Here, the students must read the word form on each card and be able to come up with the correct number.  

Once they come up with the correct number, they write it on the recording sheet below. 

The next center is "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?"

In this center the students will have a bunch of different snow balls laid out on the floor.  They will need to place three snowballs together to create a snowman.  However, the snowballs must all represent the same number in word form, base ten form, and standard form.  

Once they think they have all the snowballs sorted out and the snowmen created they can then record their answers on the recording sheet below. 

The next center is the Finding Ten center.  Many of my little 2nd graders struggle with understanding that 10 ones make a rod of ten which goes in the tens place value spot.  This center is a great way for them to practice finding ten in a large group of ones.  

To begin, they look at a card and try and pick out the groups of tens.  Once they find the groups of ten then they can count to see how many ones are left over.  

Once they get the correct amount of tens and the correct amount of ones they can put their answers on the recording sheet below. 

Finally, the last center is a game board center!!!

The game that is included in this center has the students once again focus on the word form in place value.  

They must use counters to work their way around the board till they reach the end.  

They will pick a card from the pile of cards and read the place value word form that they see.  If they can tell their partner what number those words represent then they can move ahead one spot.  If they cant tell what number is represented then they must stay on the spot they are at.  

However there are also reward cards and trick cards in this deck.  If they pick up a special snowflake card they may move up two spaces or take an extra turn.  If they pick up a wacky wind card they may have to lose a turn or move back two spaces.  I know my kiddos will love this one!!

I'm hoping that these centers will engage my little guys who are struggling with this concept and help them to understand it better!  I'll let you know how it goes!!

Hello everyone! It is currently 12:38 on a Saturday night and I am laying in bed watching a movie and blogging!  It has been a crazy few weeks with wedding stuff, teaching and  a HUGE grad school project!! If anyone has every put together and administered a Qualitative reading assessment then you'll feel my pain! haha!  Anyway, the point of my rant was to explain that I am just now getting to sit down and relax and decompress so blogging about the new project I have been working on seems to be a great choice!

So.... above you will see a picture titled, Gold Star Homework.  I have been racking my brain for a very long time to think of a way to make homework more interesting for my kiddos.  I for 1 am not a huge proponent of homework as a teacher.  I do see the positives of homework, however I do not feel like homework needs to be an every night occurrence in order to be effective.  WIth that being said, I do give homework in my classroom, just not that much.  However with math i think it is a bit of a different story.  

In my classroom I have kiddos that are all over the board with where they stand in Language Arts, Math, Science you name it.  Many of my kiddos are low or speak English as a second language.  For the most part my kids English is fine, however their parents do not speak it at all.  This makes it very difficult to get homework accomplished most of the time because the kids do not always have someone to help them at home.  

As I said before I have since been racking my brain for a new homework idea to help stir some interest as well as give a good review of the concepts taught before the end of the unit comes to a close.  I have come up with my Gold Star Homework idea because of all of this.  These packets are full of different activities for the students to practice the concept/concepts they have been leaning in class.  It is a packet that should be given out closer to the end of the unit for a review.  

So lets get down to the nitty gritty shall we!!!

Every packet will include a page like the one seen above.  It gives the students and parents a brief description of the new friend they will be helping to earn a gold star!  This example introduces the kiddos to their new friend Andy.  Andy needs some help with addition and it is up to the students to help Andy earn his gold star in addition.  There is a gold ticket at the bottom of this page  This ticket is where the gold star will be cut out a glued onto.  Each packet will have a new friend for the students to help out and each packet will have a page like the one above to introduce them to the kids 

Each packet will also include the page like you see above.  This page is more for the parents then it is the kids.  The kids will know how these packets work once they start using them often.  This page goes over the purpose of the packet as well as how it works.  Also, this page has the gold star on it that the students will cut out and glue to the golden ticket if they receive the proper amount of points once the packet is turned in.

This page acts as both the grade sheet for the teacher as well as a tracking sheet for students and parents.  This page shows parents and students each assignment in the packet along with how man points each is worth.  They can easily keep track of their points with this sheet to ensure that they are working hard to earn that gold star!  Once the packet is turned in the teacher will use this sheet to grade the materials and then return it to the student once finished.  If the student earned all required points in the packet then they get to put out the gold star and glue it on to the ticket for both themselves and their new friend.  

Now, below you will see some example pages from the this particular packet which focuses on addition.  Not all packets will have the same amount of activities, pages, or points.  

There will also be an "extra practice" page at the end of every packet for those students who worry that they may not have got every other one correct this is a page for them to earn some extra point to help their friend earn that gold star.  In reality it's just a clever way for the teachers to get their kiddos to practice even MORE!!!! Hehehe we teachers are so sneaky!  

Anyway... I just gave out my first packet last week so I will keep you posted on how it goes.   The kids were really excited about it when I passed it out, and went over it!  They thought of it as a challenge and thought it was really neat that they were meeting a new friend and helping them with their math skills.  We will see how it goes and if the outcome is a positive one!!! I'm really excited about the idea and have high hopes for good things to come from it!  Math is tough and those end of the unit tests that we teachers are forced to give are even harder and outrageous then ever before.  Hopefully we can make some progress with a little bit of fun practice!!!

Oh and I am currently in the process of making my money packet right now and both will be up in my store as soon as money is done!  This will be an ongoing work in progress as i continue to make some for each concept!  

It is now currently 1:07 and my eyes are getting a little sleepy!  Time for sleep and hopefully sweet dreams!  Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Hello everyone!  It has been a millennium since I have blogged to say the least.  I have had one crazy year so far!  I got engaged, applied for a job in Virginia, took and interview, got hired that day, moved down a week later, got a lease on an apartment and started the week after.  I am also currently in graduate school and working very hard on planning my wedding.  It has been CRAZY, but it has been a great crazy!!! Anyway, I am very excited to find a little slice of time to share on my blog, I have missed it so!! Tonight I wanted to introduce you to my new little project I began working on this weekend. 

This year our school adopted the Math Daily 3 outline for teaching math.  This way of teaching has the teacher instruct students in a 10-15 minute mini lesson at the beginning of each class.  Then the teacher releases his/her students into their centers rotations. I use a 4 center rotation in my classroom.  These include a math facts center, hands on center, with the teacher center, and an at your seat center.  My students rotate to their centers in their groups for about 15 minutes each.  I usually get to 2 center rotations each day which then requires us to finish the other 2 rotations the next day.   

My school also decided to adopt the LEARN model method of lesson planning this year as well.  it is a detailed lesson plan specifically geared toward Math Daily 3.  one of the sections on the lesson plan requires the teacher to give a brief summary of what they will be doing for their 10-15 minute introduction lesson.  Although it sounds quite easy to come up with a 10-15 minute mini lesson it ended up being more difficult then I thought.  I talked with many different teachers and we came up with some different ideas to mix things up and not continue to do the same routine for our introductions.  

I decided to take our ideas and begin created some presentations to use in my classroom to help the 10-15 minute introduction go more smoothly without a lot of set up.  I just created my first PPT today to use tomorrow with my kiddos.  This one is for our new unit of addition with regrouping.  I plan on putting the presentation up on the smartboard and having the students follow along with their white boards.  Here is what it looks like!!

I begin my presentation with a few review slides of what we learned in our introduction lesson.  Here are some examples:

I then go into creating slides that have practice problems on them for the kiddos to complete on their whiteboards and showing their work.

My first shot with this will be tomorrow and I am anxious to see how it works!  i will keep everyone posted!  I am hoping it is interactive enough for them!  I plan on having students solve the problems in their own way for problem 3 and then have at least 1 student show the class how they solved it!

So there ya have it!! I hope that my kiddos feel as excited about it as I do!!! Wish me luck!

Spreading Holiday Cheer

The holidays are just around the corner, and as always I feel in the spirit of giving thanks.  One of the things I am extremely grateful for this year is the blogging community of teachers that I have joined.  I have learned so much and have been inspired by so many!  Every teacher in the blogging community is so kind, and ready to share their ideas and helpful hints.  Because of all of this, I decided that it would be wonderful to create a linky party to celebrate all of those amazing bloggers and give them thanks.  So, this linky party is for anyone who would like to spread some holiday cheer and thank those that have inspired or helped them through their teacher/blogger journey.  

All you need to do is the following:

1. Think of a teacher/blogger that inspires you.
2. Copy the picture below and paste it into a PowerPoint document.  
3. Add text over top of the picture that you copied & pasted into your PowerPoint answering the questions that it asks you.
4. Save that as a picture to your computer.
5. Share that picture on your own blog, instagram, Facebook, or wherever you would like to spread that holiday cheer to teachers far and near.
6. Write a blog post about the teacher/blogger you chose and link up your blog post below! 

Ok then!  Let's start off the holiday season in good spirits and enjoy spreading the cheer as far as we can!  Enjoy!! i cannot wait to read about all of the amazing teacher/bloggers out there!

Happy Holidays!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Made it Monday: TPT Seller Organizer

Hello everyone!!! I am so very excited for this Monday Made It with the lovely Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics! This is one of my favorite Linky Parties because she gives everyone an opportunity to showcase some of the amazing creativity that all of my fellow bloggers work on each and every week. I had been so disappointed that I could not attend the TPT conference in Vegas this year, but was so happy and thankful for all of the follow bloggers who came back and blogged about their trip and what they learned.  I'm pretty sure I read each and every post about Vegas and i learned so much.  I took everything I learned very seriously and have been working rigorously to follow the advice of all those amazing people!  Therefore, i began working on a project to get myself organized and help promote my products and TPT store.  I have been working on this product for quite some time now creating, deleting, starting over, fixing, and tweaking and it was worth every second!!  Sooooo... I would love to take you through a picture walk of my new product with some detailed explanations!  I hope you enjoy!

(click on the graphic above to be taken to my tpt store)

This is the front cover of MY organizer.  I created 3 different covers that are editable so that you can put the name of your store on the front!  I am obsessed with all of the Melonheadz graphics which I am sure many of you are, so each cover includes those graphics!  They make every tpt product so much cuter!!

This section is for you to be able to keep track of the items you sold every day, every month, every year. It will help you see which items are selling the most, which ones may need to be updated, and how much money you are making.  There is space for date, product name, and amount of $ made from each purchase.

This section is where you can get your creative juices flowing!  Here you will be able to keep track of all those amazing ideas going on in your brain!  If you are like me I have 50 million little scraps of paper laying everywhere where I jot down ideas that pop into my head.  Some ideas are in notebooks, some are in my planner, some are on napkins.  WIth this, I can keep all my ideas in one neat and organized place.  There is room for product details, clip art you could use for that product, backgrounds that would look nice, and fonts.  

The section is where you can keep track of any giveaways you may want to have on any of the products in your store.  Giveaways are a great way to build up your followers and create great relationships among other bloggers!  You can ask others to join in on your giveaway which will bring more followers to them as well!  There is room for giveaway details, promoting ideas, and who is included in the giveaway.  For the promoting section you can jot down ideas on where you want to promote your giveaway (IG, facebook ect) and you can jot down ideas on how follower will have to enter to win.

Throwing a sale for your TPT store is always fun, and it's a great way to get your products out there to the public!  Everyone loves a good sale, and many people have your products on their wish list in hopes that those items may go on sale one day for them to be able to afford it (or justify buying it lol).  Here you can jot down your sale theme (Ex: swimming into summer with a great sale).  You can also write down your sale percentage amount, sale dates, and products that will be included.

I dont know about you guys, but I have about 16 pages of wish listed items that i have found on tpt and eventually want to buy.  Since I have such a big list I tend to forget that they are on there.  With this section, you can keep track of the items you have on your wish list that you absolutly must have at some point.  There is room for the item name, the cost of the item, the date you purchased it, and there is a section for how you can use the product.  I like this section because some times we all need a little pep talk in order to justify buying something.  If you have this space to truly think about how you can incorporate the item successfully into your classroom then it will be worth while to buy!

I am a HUGE supporter and avid user of to do lists.  I have them all over my house and on my smart phone in order to keep track and check things off as i go.  I just love the feeling of writing in that check mark when i finish something on my list!  This section has a to do list for each month and there is also an "extra page" included at the end that you can add to each months check list if you run out of room.

Finally, the last section of this pack is a monthly calendar section where you can keep track off all of your life's events so that you can plan time to sit back, relax, and do what you do best which is create!  The calendars are updated for the 2014-2015 year from august through July.  

Well, I hope you like what you see and if you decide that this may be something that would work for you I hope you enjoy it and it brings you great organizational frame of mind!  I will be keeping in touch with how it works for me in the coming months!  

Also, you can click on the front cover of this pack at the top of this page to be taken to my TPT store!