Back to School Prep: 5 for Friday Edition

Fair started this week and for me that's the final sign that summer is over and back-to-school prep starts to kick into high gear. Today you'll find a mix of tried-and-true plus new ideas for the school year and I thought I would share with you too!

I found a WONDERFUL organizational tool from Meg at Fourth Grade Studio: Dry Erase Labels!! Last year, we started a math intervention time before lunch. This was a thirty minute block of additional math practice that included a spiral review then a time to practice and apply skills through math games and apps. I like to try and give students a variety to choose from as well as differentiate to the necessary skill level. Print-and-go games and card games are my favorite: this gives partners and groups a chance to work as well as a chance for me to work with students individually.

All of the choice and leveling is great, but it can get disorganized quickly. This is where the labels come in handy. Using my 10 drawer cart, I have enough room for all of the centers we are using + supplies needed. Then, when I switch to a new set of games I don't have to peel off the label, just wipe and write! Love it! Double plus, my hand-me-down drawers have two colors, so I can eventually have a red level and orange level for a visual reminder of which games to choose from.

These are the centers we will start the year off with!

As I'm making my annual pilgrimages for fun office supplies and materials I'm adding  index cards to the list thanks to a post from The Panicked Teacher. How fun is this all about me tower? Click the picture to see more from the original post on how to set things up + all the necessary labels.

I'm also picking up all of the necessary items for one of my favorite team activities: Save Fred. I've used it the last two years and each group of students have really enjoyed trying to save my poor friend. You can read more about how to the the activity here or by clicking on the picture.

I wanted to share the link to 50+ ideas submitted by readers a couple of years ago. So many wonderful--- oldie but goodie ideas, you don't want to miss out! That's one thing I love about blogging: the sharing of ideas and learning from others!

I've done a lot of planning this last spring and summer to gear up for the new year. We adopted the Journeys curriculum last year, and if you have this curriculum and missed yesterday's post, you may want to check it out here or by clicking the picture below for tips, tricks, and ideas for the coming school year. 

  Also, come back tomorrow... something BIG is going to happen!

0

Surviving Spring & Welcome to Summer Blog Hop & Freebie!

We are in the final countdown of the school year {19.5 days, not that I'm counting...}

It's also that time of the year when it starts getting crazy. Schedule changes = crazy kids. Crazy kiddos on top of altered schedules = crazy teacher. This past week was full: a home room day, music practice/ spring program, water festival field trip, and an arbor day presentation. By the end of the week I had several students asking when things would go back to normal; I couldn't have agreed with them more! Although we had a fun week, it was exhausting.

Spring fever has most definitely hit my classroom. After talking to several of my BBBs, it seems to be a rampant fever that has spread across the country. We've come together to share a few survival tips, freebies, and giveaways (TPT Gift Certificates or a Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener) along the way to help us all survive until the end of the school year!

Now, I know that food isn't always allowed in schools as a reward. We don't have those restrictions yet... so I'm going to hold an ice cream day for one of my classes. This group was a struggling group at the beginning of the year and have come so far. I want to be able to reward this group while throwing in some review too. {If your school doesn't allow food, maybe your students would still enjoy some summery treat fun in activities you use.}

I created a pack of math and ELA centers with an ice cream theme. If you use an ABC countdown to the end of the school year, this pack could be utilized on an "I is for ice cream day" too. Activities include: Scoops of Synonyms, Dishin' Up Decimals, Equivalent Fraction Sundaes, Parts of Speech Push-Ups, Sentence Shake Up, and Colorful Cones Place Value Scoot.

You can check out the full pack by clicking here or on the pictures below.

The freebie I'm sharing with you comes from this pack. It's a decimal game that can be played with partners or small groups to work with decimals. Students are asked to round or distinguish between odd or even numbers in a certain place value. I hope that you can use this game in your math centers this spring!

After entering my code below in the Rafflecopter, be sure to visit Michele to continue the blog hop!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Also, be sure to catch more motivating ideas and link up your own at Joanne's Student Motivation Saturdays linky! Just a few more weeks friends and sweet summer time will be here... we can make it!

6

Hodge Podge of Holidays {Tons of Pictures and Links!}

During my minor blogging hiatus the start of the holiday season was upon us... Halloween, Veterans Day, now Thanksgiving and holiday fun will continue full steam ahead. Since I was wrapped up in a few other projects at the time, I thought I'd reflect a bit on what we've been doing in the classroom. If nothing else, maybe you'll find a few ideas for next year to pin?

Halloween was my first official holiday as a general education classroom teacher. I survived, fairly unscathed, school wise. At home, we were moving, so things were hectic, but I survived on the home front too.

We created name symmetry posters for the hallway. A cute and fun project that you can read more about here.

 One of my student's brought in treats that I thought were super cute. A twist on the "dirt cake". Cupcakes complete with popsicle stick tombstones.

 The hubby and I went to a Halloween party put on by one of the teachers. Midmove, we threw something together. A hunter and the hunted.. brown shirt, some tin foil and masking tape and we became a hunter and deer. 

 Which fit in well with the rest of the Duck Dynasty crew that we attended the party with! 

 On the day of Halloween, I whipped up a shirt. It seemed fitting for the day! 

During the day, students wrote about what might happen if their pumpkin/Jack-O-Latern came to life. After students finished their writing, they were to color a picture of the pumpkins, from their I had a surprise...

Colar Mix app {free} will animate their drawings. This pumpkin sheet was a freebie and made for a wonderful surprise!

During our homeroom time, I did center rotations. Yay for freebies from TPT. I found a variety of math games and "just for fun" stuff to help our morning go a little quicker.

Halloween Board Games

 Math Zombie is one of my kiddos favorite basic math skills app, regardless of the time the year.  

We also did a listening/describing activity with "Go Away Big Scary Green Monster." 

Students attempted to illustrate the monster they heard about. Then, I left subplans for the students to write about their own monsters and partner with someone else to describe them. Fun activity that I learned about from 4th Grade Frolics.

The next holiday that we celebrated was Veterans Day. The highlight was the Veterans Day presentation, with students taking the time to shake the hands of veterans who attended on that morning and tell them thank you. One Veteran who attended had never been thanked like that before and sent in a letter of thanks that was so powerful.

To build up for the presentation, we wanted to be sure that our students understood the meaning behind the holiday.

I used part of Lovin' Lit's awesome Veterans Day Pack. The timeline and nonfiction reading activity was perfect for my crew.

I also utilized this freebie choice board one afternoon it comes from Ashleigh. Students loved the freedom from the choices in the activities. I asked that the choose one activity from the first two rows before doing one of the more time consuming activities from the bottom row. They were more than okay with that, and engaged throughout the hour.

Describing a veteran

Writing a news article over a veteran.

Creating picture books of national symbols on the iPad

Creating a card to give to a veteran.

Veterans Day acrostic poem

Synonyms for patriotic words

Our last classroom holiday focus was Thanksgiving.

We did a writing project with Pic Collage that you can read about here. 

Not pictured, but we also did the "How to Bake a Turkey" activity from Lovin Lit's pack. Another huge hit... but whenever YouTube is involved it usually is. A terrific way to review transition words. 

We also had another homeroom day... love them! Another morning filled with centers!! Again several TPT freebies!!

Thanksgiving Roll & Covers

Variety of Thanksgiving themed word searches

Thanksgiving "Scrattle" (Scrabble + Battle.. it was fun stuff!)

Thanksgiving bump

Students also loved reviewing text features with Amelia's Thanksgiving Centers. Such a great pack!!

Whew... now that I'm all caught up, it's almost Christmas! I have two new products that should be ready and uploaded for the big sale on Monday.. and for any early birds wanting to get a jump on their planning for the week, my store will by 20% off starting tomorrow!

 Happy Holidays friends!

2