an excuse to craft, sneaky peeky, and a winner!

Since I’ve moved to 2nd grade, I am addicted to making little crafty goodness. For Johnny Appleseed’s birthday we made Linda Kamp’s knapsack craft and inferred what we thought he’d have inside-this is a great little file btw. Ok, direct correlation to common core>check

Today for Columbus Day we made Teri’s {cupcake for the teacher} ship craft. Or we started it. That’s another story. So I was thinking…what can I do to make this all mesh and fit nicely with our curriculum, and have something to display for our student-led conferences tomorrow night?

enter the double bubble-can I tell you how much I love thinking maps!

tomorrow my kiddos will fill these out with traits. We’ve worked dutifully naming inner character traits and backing them up with evidence from the text. So hard. They are great at it since I used the terms inner trait and outer trait. No more skinny, blonde, wearing a coat traits here! Thanks Amanda!

here’s a little sneak peek at some matter we changed up today! Can’t wait to share! Excuse the cornball picture-you have to keep it lively for the kiddos!

and Jen and I have a winner! Congrats Paula! Your goodies are on the way!

a giveaway with the teacher’s cauldron

Jen and I are teaming up to giveaway the products from our swap.

You’ll get my Process Skills for Little Scientists and Jen’s 3 Little Pigs Literacy and Math. I’ve used them both-they are student tested and teacher approved!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

product swap with Jen @ the teacher’s cauldron!

So I decided to join Jessica Standford’s product swap. I had missed out the first go-round, but got in quick this time!

So I really lucked out friends. I was paired up with Jen @ The Teacher’s Cauldron. She may have been slightly let down, but not me! woot woot! I mean, she’s a blog celeb! And her blog name…Cauldron…Halloween…witches…love!

So I headed over the Jen’s TpT store right then and there. I got to choose any of her products to review fo free! I chose the 3 Little Pigs Literacy and Math. I chose this file because 1. we are teaching traditional literature this month 2. my son’s teacher {my sweet teammie} was currently teaching with 3 Little Pigs and he was lovin it! 3. I love traditional stories because you can compare points of view, work on fact vs. opinion, lots of great writing opportunities, and they’re just plain good stuff. But you’ll get to read all about that later! and 4. It was so stinkin’ cute!

So first things first, I printed! Now my printer does this crazy thing…it spits at me. I think he’s been trading notes with our 3 year old.

ok

ok

spit!

I love the Counting Pigs math activity. It was the first thing I printed! I had lots of cutting to do while I watched Breaking Bad and read US Weekly in the dark! There’s also a Piggie Family: Matching addition to subtraction fact families,
This Little Piggie Regroups where you can use 2-digit addition, 2-digit subtraction, 3-digit addition, or 3-digit subtraction. We won’t regroup until next semester and this will be a great center! and Run, Piggie, Run! Telling Time to hour and half hour. Could those names be better!! so cute!

I love this game. It’s super easy to differentiate since I can have them count by 2s, 5’s, 10’s, etc. and since he’s reading the story in class, my middle Lamb was my guinea pig! We played together with his older bro.

As soon as he saw the Wanted poster, he grabbed it! I personally think he’s quite talented! Besides this little gem that I can use again and again, there’s some great adjective lessons. We used one as a Mad Libs. I gave the sheet {minus the word bank} to middle man and he went to town! We love Mad Libs! Of course there’s other adjective activities with sentence strips and word banks for your writing centers. My favorite literacy activity is the Who is the Wolf? My kiddos love bubble maps-they’re nerds like me! I can’t wait to work on point of view with this pack!

I’ll have even more goodness to share once I use everything the week after next {it’s a 2 day week this week!} I’m pretty pumped since I have all I need right here!

so, teaching 3 Little Pigs explicitly or not, there’s something for every little kiddo here! go.grab.it.now.

Thannk you to Jessica for setting this up-it’s such a great way to see what’s out there.

And a big thank you to Jen for swapping with me! Since she’s on top of things-she’d already posted about my Process Skills for Little Scientists!

and SURPRISE! Jen and I will be doing a rafflecopter to give away one of each file PLUS my whole store will be on sale this weekend! Happy day!

Thanks Becca Foxwell for the adorable button!

matter matters {and a giveaway}

Today we raced our ice off!

Along with the Common Core, our state adopted “essential standards” in SS and Science. For the most part, not much was changed. But they removed teaching gas from our matter standards…I know, how do you teach matter and then later weather changes without gas??? So, I’ll probably just keep up my same stuff!

But I did adapt a few of my matter lessons to focus solely on liquids and solids.

Yesterday I told the kids since I’d really dropped the ball on our matter study {it’s just not as fun without gas, what is?!} that we would have an ice race the following day! Woot! Well, since they had NO CLUE, they were excited today!

This was our first changing matter experiment. The only directions I gave to to be the first person to get all three pieces of ice to melt. We all wrote 10:22 on our time card {cause no one was allowed to touch the baggie til I said go} and off they went indeed. They sure came up with some interesting ways to melt little pieces of ice!

banging

smooshing

caught ya! Great idea though!

these gals stuck to friction

and she got it! No pieces left

Afterwards we discussed why I even had them do this experiment. They knew ice is solid and when it melts it’s a liquid. But after writing the method they used, we discussed what each had in common…creating heat! So in bog bold letters on the back of their index cards we wrote HEAT CAN CHANGE MATTER

I just updated my Marvelous Matter for Little Scientists unit to include this activity, as well as a Matter Menu where they will create a restaurant menu full of liquids, solids, and a combo option too. I also added a comic strip and additional Matter Changing Superhero template! Because in science, matter matters!

         

First THREE peeps to comment with their favorite science unit to teach will get a few copy! Be sure to leave your email address!

a disturbance in the dojo {freebie}

So, have you seen the new features on class dojo! Awesome!
It’s funny that the kids noticed them right away!

My fav is printed reports to pdf! yes! I have 4 parents without email, thus I cannot email the weekly report. Now instead of copying and pasting or printing from a webpage…ugh…I can print the report!

 

So since I first posted I’ve had a few teachers email me questions, but one teacher is really having a hard time with parents so I thought I’d share her woes since they may be yours too

“…They are thrilled to receive points and no CHILD has cried, whimpered or complained about a lost point.  Did I mention the kids love love love Dojo?

The parents, a different story.  Three have expressed concerns.  Two because the child lost a point for not doing homework and "after all it was not the child's fault but the parent's and can I please just give the child back the point?"  The third is concerned because her child is so worried because other kids have lost points and she feels so bad for these kids. …

So my questions are~Do you have parents like this?  Do you have any suggestions? “

so here are my thoughts…

No. My parents that have had an opinion love it because they can see it anytime they want. My argument would be that any system you used would have the same rules, consequences, and rewards. The website just makes it manageable. Would the child have lost a ticket or moved a card for not having their homework? yep. SOooo what's the difference. 

If your admin supports it, then there is no argument for the parent. However, I know this isn't always the case. There will be those admin who cave in or parents who simply look for something to complain about. 

As for the child who feels bad for the others, that's just part of life. Applaud her for having compassion! But really, wouldn't she feel bad for them losing a ticket, a chip, or moving a card, or moving down on a clip chart?! {insert eye roll here!}

Sounds like the parents just need a good little explanation letter. They need to be reminded that for the hours the kids are at school, there are consequences for their actions. If the kids love it, the parents need to get on board too!

so I was wondering if anyone else out there is having these issues?

and in other dojo news…I’ve officially had my first bad days with my kiddos…They drove me batty yesterday. So much so, I took away their Snazzy Snack {after they’d written up the recipe} and cut out planting in the garden day. errrr. Good thing it was Friday! Look at these sad point totals for the WEEK!

On a happy note, I always spotlight my point leaders in my newsletter. But I wanted a little something to award the kids for being leaders! I made this little Class Dojo Award Pack freebie, so scoop it up! It doesn’t reference dojo in case you do not use it. Just all karate-fied.

so-o-o, so-o-o, fontified

ok, so it took me awhile to get on board, but Ginger convinced me during our little trip to Columbia! I downloaded ifont maker yesterday evening and here’s what we’ve done so far!

I made all mine last night. My 3 year old takes the iPad to mamaw’s house each day and when I opened my app today, he had traced over all my letters! haha

So I had to let everyone make a font. AND now THEY are obsessed! My 13 year old’s and 7 year old's fonts are below. I love Jake’s! He is so creative. Jackson is so by-the-book. Can you not just see their personalities in their fonts!? I have so many ideas now! I may have to take a sick day or something!

Just kidding. But if you have an iPad-buy this app! It’s the only app I’ve ever paid for! I swear! We have them downloaded on the pc and ready to use! I’ll have their little handwriting forever!

I’ll have these and all the others along my sidebar. My sickingly creative friends will be adding some as well. My teammie friend Katie has already caught the bug!

something happened to rachel everyday-my personal fav. But I’ll have it up soon! Thank you to Ginger and Amanda for the inspiration!

fall flash sale

I reached my husband’s personal goal for sales this quarter and beyond! I am thrilled! Perfect timing since we are maybe moving, maybe building, and all. So I decided to join in on the Fall Sale hosted by Second Grade Math Maniac! Ain’t that sign adorable!

I’m also tacking on an extra day since I was out of the loop for awhile!

Here’s a few FALL must have’s!

So freakin’ cute! I loved displaying these guys after we planted in our garden! and I even wrote a poem with my 7 year old for this file! Don’t judge

I’m teaching matter now, so you should, too! I am working on a few additions to this that you’ll get soon if you’ve bought it!

I love teaching about Day of the Dead! I use this mini-book to get it all started

Happy Fall!