My New Obsession

Okay to I have to admit I have a problem...well, maybe an obsession. I am completely obsessed with different markers/pens to use with my interactive notebooks!

Seriously I find myself staring at the different Sharpies (fine point), Felt Pens (love them, but not how quickly they dry out), and any other type of "fancy" marker/pen I can use for my notebooks.

As you can see in previous posts I love to make my notebooks eye catching, exciting, and colorful! Warning, if you are going to use these markers/pens you must have a buffer page in your notebook at all times, and of course you can't use the back of the pages. With this said, I have almost filled an entire spiral notebook for math already!

The current problem that I have is my daughter found my stash in my bookbag! I really didn't want to share AT ALL!!!! Because no on touches my pens, NO ONE! Okay so she does, but I must say she has been really good with them, and basically uses them to play school...setting different ones out for different students. But I am thinking when I have a little extra cash I am going to invest in a second set that will be mine ONLY, and keep the others in my bag for when she wants to play school!

I also wanted to let you know that I have seen a little break in the clouds of testing, teaching, lesson planning, data collecting, meeting, conferencing, and so on...therefore I have put together TWO, yep TWO great things to give you all! I know, it's long overdue! I was all ready to post one tonight, wrote the post and everything! Then realized I had everything I needed, minus the pictures that explain the "how to"! UGH! So stay tuned!

Simply Science Interactives

We have just wrapped up a great Figurative Language unit for reading, and I hope I can share it with you all sooner than later (not that I am trying to tease you or anything).

To answer a few questions about my interactive notes...

Common Core: yes we are following common core, still learning it though. Not only am I new to a grade level, but the change up of content is throwing me for a little bit of a loop. Therefore it is not the most "fluent" order, but again I am working on it :)

Where do I get the notes: ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE! I do type them up myself, usually I am sitting at the table/desk/couch with my textbooks open, testing questions/books, internet pages up and as I toggle back and forth I type them up. They also vary based on content, some content naturally lends itself to interactive notes, sometimes I really have to stretch.

With that said, again I hope to maybe compile a few packets of notes, but for now...enjoy some Science notes.

Interactively Math!

Well a MUCH better week this week and a long weekend! Whoohoooo!

Here are some of my math interactive notes, I love how math is coming together this year. I never would have thought it, but I think it is becoming my strength!

Keep an eye out for a few interactive notes bundles (hopefully will get to them this weekend, but my TO DO list is always more than I CAN DO)

ENJOY!

 

Hospital, Transmisssion, Conferences, and Interactive Notes (Part1)

Well this past week and a half has been unbelievable to say the least.

It is so true that when it rains it pours!!! My hubby was out of town from Wednesday to Wednesday so things were already difficult. I had almost made it through the weekend when my mom calls to let me know that she was going to the hospital. WHAT!??!?  Turns out she had had some chest pain the night prior and hadn't felt well all day. Long story short heart conditions run in my family so she went to the hospital to make sure all was well. Fortunately it was, but after they decided to keep her overnight. Therefore I had to take care of my sister and get her situated and then take 1/2 a day on that Monday so I could take care of my mommy.

Then Wednesday as I was on my way to work...my car (well mini van...what we call the Boeing 747, it looks like one and sounds like one taking off) decided it was not going to work. I knew right away it was the transmission. UGH!!! I managed to drive it to the dealership where they confirmed my fear (seeing that the Boeing was worth almost the same price of what it is worth) I could not make a huge decision like that without my husband. Therefore I got a courtesy car (with the help of some co-workers) and headed to the airport to pick up my husband!

There were also a ton of little things that just piled up as well: the buyer on our house backed out after over 2 months under contract, my little girl decided while running on the drive way she would take a chunk of skin off her big toe, I bit into a yummy breaded mushroom only to have it's scorching juices burn my lip to the point of blistering...all of these events don't even MENTION school!!!!! That's a whole other post!

Well I think and hope we made it through the down pour. I now have a new to me SUV! WHOOHOOOO! Conferences are almost over, and I have a three day weekend coming up! YEA!

So a few of you had asked for more pictures of my interactive notes. I finally got around to taking pictures of my notebooks for you all. I won't post them all right now, but will try and post subject by subject. If you are anything like me you want to see other notes to get ideas. Hope you enjoy!

Be prepared for a TON of pictures :)

"I saw this idea on Pinterest"

How many of you start a lot of your conversations with co-teachers that way? I know we do!

What did we do back in the day before there were blogs or Pinterest?

So...I saw this idea on Pinterest...seriously I did! A few of my teacher friends had pinned it and I couldn't wait to use it. The students LOVED it and were so excited to use them.

Place Value Cups (or renamed by my students...it's a like a Decoder or a Vault Lock)

I gave each student five cups and a blue pen to start with. Depending on grade level, abilitiy, and lesson you can adjust how many cups you give your students. What's awesome about this is that I bought 50 cups for less than a dollar!

You have to discuss/talk with the students as to how all the cups have to stay in the same direction. This was a little hard for me because I am left-handed...but they caught on pretty well.

Because I used these cups with my decimal unit we started with marking a decimal point on one. The remainder of the cups they had to mark with the numbers 0-9 on the rim of the cup. Spacing was a little bit of an issue, but again they caught on  (maybe after one or two mess ups).

This is how they were looking as they were writing the numbers:

I also love that because we were using them for decimals including whole numbers and decimals, they could move the cups around to make the number they needed.

So here is how I used them:

I either called out a number or wrote one on the board using word form or fraction form:

This is three and three hundredths

 This would be two hundred sixty-five thousandths

You can also use this for "regular" place value. This would be one hundred and fourty-three 



 And decimals again...nineteen ten-thousandths



We had a lot of fun using these, hope you do too!