Fifty Follower Freebie

I made a new game today to use as we are heading into FCAT crunch time. This is an excellent game for practicing reading, math, and science common test taking vocabulary. Play matching or memory - 3 sets of reading cards, 2 sets of math cards, and 3 sets of science cards (16 matches per set). Use in a center or just for review when kids finish work for fast finishers. Or, send sets home for practice. Directions for use as a center and for teachers to make up are included.

You can purchase this game at either my Teachers Notebook store or in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. However, the first two people to comment below with name and e-mail address will be the lucky recipients of this game to use in their classroom. I will warn you - I may not get to you until the weekend as I have a super busy week on tap.

Also, don't forget about the tablets for teachers giveaway going on at Teachers Notebook until January 31. You can enter once each day.





Happy Fifty Follower Freebie!

Tablet for the Teacher Giveaway / My Birthday / Gotta Go Back, Back, Back to School Again

Teacher's Notebook is giving away a free iPad Mini, Kindle Fire HD, or Nook HD. Click the picture on the right side of my blog to go there and enter. The contest runs from January 5 to January 31, and you can enter daily. If the winner comes from my blog, I could win one too!

My birthday was Friday and I celebrated by taking my niece to Universal for the day. A little cold and rainy, but we enjoyed ourselves (except a little sad because my aunt couldn't go as she was hurt from falling at Universal the day before so she stayed back at hotel to rest). My niece loved getting to ride The Mummy five times - she is a little roller coaster fanatic. Then we rode ET two times (this is her favorite ride there). We also saw Shrek and the Beetlejuice show. Then we went back and picked my aunt up for dinner at Don Pablos. When I lived in Orlando, this was one of my favorite places to eat so I was super excited to find one since I know most have closed. We had a wonderful dinner and then drove back home Saturday. I wrapped up the celebrations with dinner with family and friends at Olive Garden - what a fun night!

I am so exhausted today - the break went by WAY TOO FAST! I am looking forward to seeing my class tomorrow, but I could really use like 1 or 2 more days to unpack, do laundry, clean up, and rest up before going back to work. I go back to both jobs full swing tomorrow.

Hope everyone going back Monday is able to find the alarm not too disturbing when it goes off in the morning - for me I know it will be a Starbucks kind of day - and thanks to the many gift cards I got for Christmas and my birthday - that's not going to be a problem! :)

End of Year Giveaway / Winter Break Happenings

I am running a giveaway on my most popular product at my teachers notebook store. The item I am giving away is my original cause and effect game. This has been my best seller on both Teachers Notebook and Teachers Pay Teachers. Three lucky winners will win the game. Hop over to enter today - giveaway ends on January 1.

This winter break I have really enjoyed so far some down time. It has been wonderful to catch up with my Tivo, my Kindle, and my family and friends. I also went to Tijuana Flats Teacher Hero Day on December 27 and got my free meal and my mom bought a meal - we were told proceeds were going to those affected by the Sandy Hook incident. What a great thing the people there are doing to help others and to honor teachers. I enjoyed some Christmas time with my brother and nieces as they came to visit and I am looking forward to seeing my nieces again with my sister-in-law when I travel to Universal for my birthday in a few days! What fun :) Going with my aunt and my little cousin, plus meeting up with one of my teacher friends and her kids for lunch one day. This has been a great break so far. Having a puppy at Christmas time was fun too - Snowball thoroughly enjoyed the holiday! I also celebrated my mom's birthday over the break.

Licking his lips after enjoying his new peanut butter bones!

Passed out after way too much excitement for the day!

On the teacher side, I got report cards done, lesson plans for first week back done, and I made one game because I know I have measurement coming up and teaching the conversions is always so difficult for the kids. I made an "I Have, Who Has" game for both customary and metric conversion practice. If you want one, comment below (good for 4th -6th graders). I will give copies to the first 2 people to comment with their e-mail address.

Hope everyone had/is having a great vacation. May we all be rested and relaxed as we return back in January (and may the light bulbs start going off for our kiddos when we return).

New Item Freebie / Currently Linky

 Been super busy lately, but just made a new game for my fifth graders to use and have posted in in my teachers pay teachers and teachers notebook stores. These are "I Have/Who Has" games for practicing finding the Least Common Multiple and Greatest Common Factor of number pairs. There are 18 cards per game - one game for LCM and one game for GCF, plus teacher directions.  The first three to reply with their e-mail address will get a set for FREE!

Since I haven't been on a lot lately due to so much going on at work and school I decided to join Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for her Currently December Linky Party. She has also created a cute set of Currently's for use in your classroom. Check them out at her blog.

MIA & Problem/Solution Freebie Game

So I've been missing in action all week - spent the week in the hospital - so not fun. Of course, this is my "haha" for lesson planning all the way to Thanksgiving break the day I went into the hospital. So much for trying to get ahead. I still don't know quite what's wrong, but I am going to try to go back to work on Monday. Hoping all stays well and that I can survive the week until I can get in for a follow up with my own doctor on the following Monday. While I was sick, I apparently picked up some new followers so I am giving away my newest game to the first 3 people who comment below with their name and e-mail so I can send it your way. Made this game up today since I am working on problem and solution in class next week. Thought this would make a fun center game.

 

You can also purchase these at my teachers pay teachers store or my teachers notebook store.

Hope everyone has a great week. :) 

Greek and Latin Roots / 30 Follower Freebie

Spent the day resting and then creating 2 new items for my Teachers Pay Teachers store. In fifth grade, we work on Greek and Latin Roots, however it doesn't come up in our textbook until after FAT (statewide test). I decided to make a game that they can use in centers now, with little instruction to at least give them some exposure to the topic. The games I made this weekend are the first batch I am going to make. These games have students match the root to its definition. The next batch I plan on making will have students sort words and match up with their appropriate roots. I plan on making a final batch in which students will figure out the definition of a word, based on using the knowledge learned of the roots.

Check out these games. You can purchase them by clicking on the picture which will take you to my Teacher Pay Teacher store. The first 2 people to comment below with their name and e-mail and how they will use them will WIN them free in honor of my getting 30+ followers!

Want to Win a Free Laminator?

Heather over at Sensational Seconds is running a contest to win a free personal laminator because she loves her new one so much. I just signed up to follow her blog. Check her out and you might win a free laminator.

New Stuff / Freebie Linky Party

I am linking up with 2nd Grade Pad in her Favorite Freebie Linky Party.  My favorite freebie I have created is a group of 3 since they all go together. I have made black & white polka dot jobs & classroom numbers, black & white polka dot calendar icons, and black & white polka dot classroom objective signs/labels.

The story behind these is this year our school wide theme was detective and I could not find much to go with it. Plus I was in a car accident in May which left my summer funds pretty depleted. After trolling Pinterest and blogs all summer, I decided to try my hand at graphic design and make my own things for the classroom. I have had a ton of downloads of these items from my teacher pay teacher store.

Hope you can enjoy these items!

So I spent some time this morning making new games for my classroom and that I could put on TeachersPayTeachers.

I have created two new center games working with prefixes and suffixes.

You can download samples of the games or purchase from my store. The games are geared for 3rd-5th graders. The first 3 people to comment below with their e-mail address will get a free copy of my new games.Also, the first 5 new followers will get a copy of these games and one item of their choice of my TeachersPayTeachers store so send your friends on over.

Here's a "snapshot" of the new games. Click on the pictures to go to their pages on my tpt store.

Twenty-five Follower Freebie

Little freebie for tonight. I just made these for my own classroom, so I thought I would share.

Classroom jobs and 24 matching student number cards (I put these in a pocket chart)

Get them at my TeachersPayTeachers store.

A second freebie, is calendar numbers which match the jobs and student numbers. I have made 31 calendar icons and a few "no school" day ones too.

These are also available at my TeachersPayTeachers store.

Liebster Blog Award & Another Freebie

 To make my day the other day, I was nominated for another award! Thanks to Rebecca at First Grade Fascination for the nomination for the...

(This award is named for the German word "Liebster", which translates to "beloved" or "favorite" and is given to a "new, up and coming blogger".)

Here are the rules:
1. Link back to person who gave it to you.
2. Post the award to your blog.
3.Give the award to at least 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers.
4.Leave a comment on the five blogs to let them know that they have been offered the award.

The 5 blogs I am nominating for this award are:

Sparkles, Smiles, and Student Teaching

Teaching is Bliss

The 4th Grade Adventures of Mrs. Tinez's Class

Teacher on the Loose

Live, Laugh, Love, Second 

I am giving away another freebie which you can get at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. I made these smaller versions of the daily objective/schedule cards to use for my homework board so I can write the homework on a card which matches the schedule but takes up less space. Hope you enjoy these!


There are 14 cards and 2 blanks cards for you to label yourself. Here is a preview. Cards are 3" X 4".

Busy Worker Bee Today & Freebie

I feel like I accomplished so much today, but when I look at my still to do list it is overwhelming.

Finished list...

• Got all clipboards finished today (I definitely need more clipboards I discovered)
• Got desks arranged
• Finished all bulletin boards
• Rearranged room
• Made signs for the all the subjects for my front board for our daily schedule and objectives - keep reading for a freebie of these
• Made a clip behavior chart!
• Made CAFE signs!
• Finished lining the rest of my drawers with scrapbook paper - thank you Pinterest (I think I can now do this professionally I have done so many)

To do list...

• Spray paint draw holders - they are currently blue and I lined all the drawers with black/silver scrapbook paper so painting them all black
• Change calendar - I don't like the way it looks with everything else in my room
• Put kids' textbooks in desks and clean out cubbies from the summer
• MAYBE make a cute little curtain to cover my teacher bookshelves & cubbies?
• Get my teacher bulletin board area set up
• Set up my desk (we had our school painted over the summer so EVERYTHING got packed up)
• Make (OK edit) back-to-school PowerPoint I put up for Meet the Teacher
• Finish editing back-to-school newsletter
• Sit back, relax, and wait to meet the kiddies!

The fun news is that on my first day back to work, I get to celebrate by going to see the musical "Grease" with a bunch of family and friends and people from my dance studio. Should be lots of fun!

Freebie Time

Head on over to my Teacher Pay Teachers page and download this freebie.

There are 16 pages of cards (2 cards per page) for a variety of subjects and school events. I have also included a few blank ones so you may write on them yourselves. Please view the credit list in this document for information about the fonts used. Fonts for these documents are from

http://www.kevinandamanda.com/fonts/  and

www.helloliteracy.blogspot.com.

Meet the Teacher

I am beginning to think about getting ready for Meet the Teacher night at our school. I have done some cute things in the past for this. One thing I usually create is a "scavenger hunt" for the students and parents to do, that way they have something fun to keep them occupied while waiting for a turn to speak with me. I feel this is so much better than parents standing around or me giving a big "speech" to the whole group. The kids get to find out about the classroom and parents get involved. Then I can take time to welcome families individually to my classroom.

Click on the picture above for a free copy of a scavenger hunt I made for the theme "Lights, Camera, Action, Learning" my school did. I hung signs with the names of the streets over each area I wanted parents to visit. I will probably be updating this same sheet this year with Detective Headquarters, Courthouse, Sheriff's Office, and some other cutesy detective place since our theme this year is "On the Case for Learning".

Free Giveaway at Teaching Maddeness

Teaching Maddeness is having a 500 Follower Giveaway!

To celebrate 500 Followers Teaching Maddeness is giving away a $50 Giftcard to Amazon!

If you don't win that, you could be one of four runners up to receive...
$5 of resources from Teacher's Clubhouse or Lightbulb Minds

Book Report of Choice Project

     Another book report project I enjoy doing with my students is the book report project of choice. Students all fill out the same packet which asks them to find publishing information, describe main characters and setting, summarize the main events, identify/illustrate the problem and solution, and write a book recommendation.

    In presenting the book, the project is differentiated in that students select which style they want to use to present:

• Scrappy - make a scrapbook of the main character's life
• Artistic - create a poster showcasing the main events in the character's life
• Dramatic - act out the major events from the book
• Constructive - build a scene using materials of choice
• Choice - students can submit other ideas - most of mine choose to create a Power Point or a Windows Movie Maker file

This is a fun project, because it's always so neat to see what the students come up with for their projects. This is usually the second project my students do during the year.

Click here to get a free copy of the first page.

Click here to purchase my book report project of choice.