Perspective

Once again the "bug" has hit my house, this time ME! Of course..mommy is the last to get it. I hope we are done for this "season"! But tonight I was so happy that I felt better enough to attend a fund raiser for an AMAZING little girl! Reading the family blog, seeing the heartwarming and sometimes heart wrenching pictures puts so many things into perspective.

When I complain about getting a "bug" or that my daughter is always sick, or when I find myself losing my patience with her I remind myself of this strong, tough, inspirational little girl that I have never had the privilege of meeting. I went to high school with both of her parents, and as I read their blog I can't begin to describe their faith, love, compassion, and strength that they express, show, and LIVE daily!

So take a few minutes out of your day/night, head over and read... follow if you would like, or just keep this inspirational family in your thoughts and prayers: http://needhamcrew.blogspot.com/

Thanks,
Jessica

Piper

Piper and her sister Linley

Fairy!??!?

I am pretty upset that the grading fairy has yet to visit my classroom or the bag that I keep carrying back and forth to and from school. Who is keeping her busy? Seriously, I can't seem to find an extra minute to grade...and you may ask why not now? Well my three year old doesn't mind when I get on the computer (at least until she wants to play games), but as soon as those papers come out she wants to help! Which means coloring on the papers. I try to give her, her own papers to "grade" but she knows the difference...little smarty!

So my few days have been filled with laundry, doctor's visits, and a ton of cuddling...I seriously have a sore arm

*BREAK*

I'm back, not that you knew or even noticed I was gone, but I was! My daughter just decided that she is still sick. Since most of you all are teachers I have no problem sharing that I just saw EVERYTHING my child ate for the entire day! She is past the fever and we thought the throwing up...and is on antibiotics for the next 10 days for an ear infection...but woke up this morning with a lot of drainage and coughing. So she pretty much just coughed herself into throwing up.

Did I mention that after 3 1/2 days of this I headed back to work yesterday to be greeted by a puking student before the first bell even rang! Oh the joys.

Well seeing that I have not had a spare minute to make anything and that darn fairy isn't coming to visit any time soon...I'll share some freebies with you all that I have managed to find.

The first is a spelling freebie from Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies (click the name to navigate to the freebie) It's that time of year where the students are OVER doing spelling homework. For the past two weeks they have been doing Tic-Tac-Toe spelling...which most enjoy...especially the picture drawing exercises and the activity they can choose to do by cutting letters and their spelling words out of magazines and newspapers. But as I said I try to keep it different and interesting, so when I saw this activity I "hopped" on it :)

 Head over to Think, Wonder, Teach to pick up your cup of coffee (which I will probably need tomorrow after the night I think I am about to have!). Seriously though she is having some great give-a-ways this month, so go enter!

Have I mentioned how much I am jealous of LOVE Third Grade Gridiron?! Well I am a little jealous, she seems to have it together and the products she makes I swear she gets in my head when I am sleeping and makes them! Which saves me so much time, but I can't say I have saved so much money :) But this weekend she posted a Heroes of Our Democracy review packet that is amazing and FREE! So click her name above to retrieve. Also on her TPT store she posted a perimeter/area packet (FREE) that my kids LOVE.

Since this is just around the corner for me, I was so excited when 4th Grade Frolics posted this multiplication task card freebie! YEA! (is 2 digit multiplication though)

And finally to feed my crafty side here was a cute craft to do with pencil erasers. Ucreate with Kids posted a link to the original blog.

I hope you get some great freebies and ideas! Maybe I'll get to make/share some things of my own soon!

Have a great evening
Jessica

HUGE give-a-way

Head over to Pocket Full of Kinders...she is celebrating 400 followers and is having a MEGA, HUGE give-a-way....that I am a part of! That's right you could win a personalized bucket from my Quite A Pear store...for you or your classroom, or even as a gift for someone else.

So what are you waiting for? Head over and enter (well you can finish reading my post first)!!! Click below:

BTW....I do see that I have reached 500!!! I'm thrilled, excited, and in shock! I'm sorry I don't have a huge, mega give-a-way....yet. I know excuses, excuses, but I really do have them...right now I am typing this post with one hand, as my little girl is laying in my lap puking and fever filled, again! I told her she is doing her best to make me be as least productive as possible....with stacks of papers in my bag and bucket orders to be filled. But isn't that how it always happens? So I promise I will make it up to all my fabulous readers/followers!

Upgrade

As spring rolls around and the stores start stocking their shelves with everything "srpingy", bright, and beautiful...I start stalking all the stores for new buckets! People ask where I get them from, and I pretty much look EVERYWHERE. But this time of year, because buckets tend to be seasonal, they are EVERYWHERE. I love it! So I knew one of my favorite stores carried metal beverage buckets and metal utensil caddies. I could have kicked myself last year for not going with my gut and picking them up, so when I wanted to use caddies for my tables/groups I had to settle with what was left over...which wasn't too bad, but I knew they wouldn't last for much more than a year.

The old caddies...baskets

 

Therefore as soon as I saw them in the store I grabbed them, and have to admit...decorated them that night! I love how they came out and can't wait to put them in my FB "store". 

 

Have to admit the kids were excited too!

Here are two more organizers that we made in our continuous review of our roots:

This is a classic window foldable, with four flaps, we just cut the top two off to make a title bar

On the outside the students wrote the word and definition, on the inside they drew a picture and wrote a sentence. 

This one is what is called the envelope foldable. I just change it up a little and instead of the four flaps being long triangles, they bent the point of the triangle back to the top fold, and then cut off the smaller triangle they just made (hope that makes some sense). This one is a favorite.

On top of the flap they wrote the word they chose. Under the flap they had to write the definition and a sentence, some chose to draw a picture too, I didn't require it because of the area being smaller than usual.

~Jessica

Collecting Work

I'm not sure why, but I thought I had posted something about how I collect classwork. But when a follower posted a comment as to how I do this I searched through old posts and found nothing. So thank you for bringing it to my attention.

It's pretty simple, yet very effective. I don't know why it took me 4yrs into my teaching career to figure it out...but it is the one procedure that I never change!

Okay so this is how it is set up in my classroom, you can find the file folder pocket charts at any school supply store. I use regular file folders, as pictured below. You can find the printable here as well as the printable for my weekly behavior chart that I staple inside of the folder, Behavior Management Plan

On the tab of each (after laminating) I put each student's name on them as well as their number. I usually have to place two to three folders in each pocket (on the left side, complete). I also put their numbers on laminated cards or di-cuts and staple them to the pocket chart where their folder belongs. So for example the first pocket will have 1-2 stapled to the side (just to keep their folders in order and where they belong).

All of the folders start in the complete side. As the week progresses and classwork assignments are given the students have two options: if they complete their work they put it in their folder and keep it on the complete side, however, if they are still working on it and we are moving on they then put their assignment in their folder and move the folder to the not complete side. Again keeping their folder in the correct order. During the day/week when they finish something early or we have a few free minutes they go over to their folder and grab that unfinished assignment to complete. Once they finish their assignment they can move their folder back to the complete side.

This procedure helps with MANY things. First is that NOTHING ends up in their desk. Now I am not saying this NEVER happens (just desk dumped one of my student's desks this week as a matter of fact, and found an ENTIRE box of used, yes used, tissues as well as 5 missing assignments and numerous other homework and group work papers...it was horrible). But for the most part the students are really great about putting their work in the folders.

The next thing this helps with is when I am ready to grade/collect work I simply grab all of the folders in number order. Then I go through each folder and sort out their work. As I do this I am able to see who is finished and who is not, if there is still time for the students to complete the work I leave the assignment in the folder, if it is close to the end of the week or they need to be in study hall I take the assignment out and make a separate pile for study hall. As I am sorting because the folders are already in number order...after I grade...well entering them into the gradebook is quick!!!! Then even one step further, they are still in order when I go to file them for their Friday Folders!

Also to bring a little SPRING into your day...here is a pic of my most recent bucket, don't forget to stop by and "like" us at Quite a Pear!

Hope this helps!
~Jessica

What other job...

...would find its employee in her office at 5:45am, sitting at her computer, wearing an over sized sweatshirt and ball cap (large Micky D's sweet tea for energy) writing plans for someone to come in, take her place for the day because her child was up at 3am throwing up? I'm sure you have all heard/felt it before...I swear teachers are the only ones that have to do this! Of course my child gets sick on the week that my husband is actually on OUR schedule and in training (therefore can't take off), and I leave my work laptop at school the night before!

To top it off...she is perfectly fine today, no fever, not throwing up, nothing...of course. But I would not have felt comfortable taking my child to day care the next day when she was up at 3am puking.

Well you guys are the lucky ones because I have been up since 3am and checking things off my "to do" list. I am sure I'll crash any minute now, but until then I have pictures and links of my March Madness Tubs.

So a teacher friend found this blog: Teaching in Room 6 she posted (which is in the link to her blog) how she does Test Prep Stations (you may want to read the post first, to then read how I adapted it). I took it and RAN with it! My students are already familiar with Guided Reading and Guided Math, so transitioning them to stations/centers was not difficult. They actually liked the idea of being able to choose their own station and that they had most of the time to work on whatever activity they chose.

The thing I loved the MOST from Teaching in Room 6 post was the task cards(unseen001)!!! I already do something similar in both Guided Math and Guided Reading as a center but had used A TON of 3rd Grade Gridiron's "packets" LOVE her stuff on TPT. So finding these task cards was like hitting the lottery! I will admit it is a little hard to navigate, I felt like I kept having to click, then click this link again, and so on. But it is worth it. You also have to sign up (for free) with ProTeacher, but again so much stuff in these little task cards!

So here is how I set my March Madness Tubs up (I sort of took the usual Guided Math set up and "tweaked" it a little)

 

Tubs on the left are Math and the ones on the right are LA. I used a di-cut circle and vinyl numbers (went ahead and made 6 of them for each subject). 

 Close up of the tubs

This week I chose to only use 4 tubs (stations). 

They are as follows:

Math

• Tub 1: Measurement Task Cards (found on TPT..a little while ago)
• Tub 2: Coach Books (CRCT prep books)
• Tub 3: Measurement, Geometry, and Patterns packets from 3rd Grade Gridiron
• Tub 4: Elapsed Time and Word Problem Task Cards (from the ProTeacher link)

LA

• Tub 1: Kidsville Newspaper WS (made and posted in previous post, by me)
• Tub 2: Two sets of Reading Comprehension Task Cards (ProTeacher again)
• Tub 3: Coach Books (CRCT prep books)
• Tub 4: Vocabulary Building and Author's Purpose Task Cards (ProTeacher)

My students get to sign up, using a simple chart/table. They can choose one tub a day and then on Friday I will let me work on completing things they may need to complete. They have to work the entire time, if they finish early they may read or work on unfinished work, but may not go to another tub. If they don't finish I have put an envelope in each tub that says: I'm still working (pics following). If they finish they turn it in to their complete folders (regular classroom management procedure). During this time I am also seeing one or two small groups (just call them over) and working on weak skills that have been identified through our tons of benchmarking.

I chose to use the task cards by dividing them up into sets. That way more than one student can be working on the same task cards at one time and I'm not having to make doubles (double the work). I made a simple worksheet for each group of task cards, they are just divided into sets and numbered so the kids can write their answers down. This also helps for when they start with Set 2 of the cards and the first number card may be 11, they know where to write the answer. I am sure there are many many different ways you can use these cards.

Here are a few more close ups of my tubs

 

I'll post my sign up sheet, envelope label for still working, and an example of my WS where they record their answers soon...they are saved on my hard drive at school (of course). I hope I was able to give you a few ideas and maybe will help break up some of that mundane test prep.

ENJOY!
~Jessica

Tornadoes, Toddler, Testing, and so much more!

Okay so last week was a ridiculous blur! Starting the work week with conferences, yep Monday and Tuesday. Whoever thought that was such a great idea, seriously!?!? The rest of the week seemed to take FOREVER! To add to the craziness...let's throw in Dr. Seuss week, Benchmark testing (county mandated...again), and add tornado weather on the top. My daughter was not too thrilled with the weather so the sleeping or lets say the lack there of made for an exhausted weekend. Saturday she was up at 3AM and didn't nap until 1PM. I on the other hand was a walking zombie and absolutely worthless.

Now, I play catch up on a few things I wanted to share with you. We are in FULL March Madness mode in my room. Using the massive amounts of data we have and this AMAZING blog with tons of links (teasing you now, because I am wanting to add pictures and "close-ups" of my system)...we have begun the March to the CRCT (oooh I should so use that saying some how!).

The first thing I started in LA was reviewing our Greek and Latin. I have already introduced, taught, and quizzed them on most of our required prefixes, suffixes, and "root" words. So I am trying to make the review a little more interesting. BRING ON THE ORGANIZERS.

The first was for a prefix...the kids thought this was pretty neat.

 

As you can see we folded the paper "hot dog" (length wise), then folded it "hamburger" (width wise) twice. So if you opened the entire page you would have 8 boxes. We kept it folded in half length wise cutting one layer in order to make four flaps. the first flap we kept "normal" added our prefix and under the flap wrote the meaning. The other three flaps we folded up to make a crease marking the half way point of each flap. We then cut the one layer of the flap in half. Each student chose three words using that prefix. We wrote the words on the top flap (large), then cut the word at the break of the prefix and root word. Under the prefix they wrote the definition, then wrote the definition of the root/base word (I know I know those two are not interchangeable but I did it). Underneath the word they illustrated the word and wrote a sentence using the word (they were allowed to change the tense of the word. I am thinking you can only use this organizer for prefixes and suffixes. It seems complicated, but the kids really got it...connected with it, and understood it all better. 

Now that I have baffled your mind...here is the simple one:

Pretty simple...in the middle they drew a picture. I did have a student example, but it ended up weathered. :)

Next, a little find that I fell in LOVE with and just had to have them. Saw them in the Kirkland magazine and picked them up immediately (just so happen to pass one on the way home from work). They were even cuter in person!!

I will hopefully blog a little more this week and have a few links and ideas to break up that March Madness you have going on in your classroom!

~Jessica

Oh THANKS so much for the award, hopefully I'll get on that one soon as well.