Five for Friday

Happy Saturday, Friends!

I'm back again this week to link up with Doodlebugs Teaching for another:

This week we were finishing up our learning on Data Analysis. In 3rd grade, students are required to   create their own pictographs and bar graphs and be able to analyze their data as well. So..to practice this skill students were put into groups. With their partners they were required to generate a question they wanted to collect data on. For homework, they went home and conducted their surveys. The next day in school, they organized their data then created a bar graph and pictograph to represent the data collected. They then generated questions that other students would need to answer in regards to their graphs. 

Some of the graphs included these topics: Favorite fun thing to do, favorite pizza topping, favorite NFL team, favorite sport, favorite gaming system, favorite flower, favorite color, and favorite food.

Once all of the posters were done I went and hung/posted them all throughout our classroom. I announced to the students that we would be playing Musical Math Mania!! They were sooo excited but had no clue what the game even was! LOL. 

I played some music and they would boogie around the room. As soon as the music stopped they needed to quickly get to the nearest poster and start analyzing the data! They recorded the answers to the questions on their posters in their math notebooks. When the music started again, they would be able to boogie around the room again until the music stopped.

They LOVED this game and got a lot of really great practice in and didn't even realize it!

We started working on contractions this week. The students had so much fun working on this center, I decided to give it a facelift and add to my TPT store. 

I've also decided to put it on sale for only $2.00 for the rest of this weekend! 

 This week we also started learning about fractions.

 I did an introductory lesson to fractions using Whole Brain Teaching for my observation. I think it went pretty well. We spent some time discussing what fractions were, looked at examples, talked about fraction examples and non-examples then did a quick assessment on our learning using these task cards 

All 28 of my students demonstrated complete understanding after our introductory lesson! 

Whole Brain Teaching has truly transformed my teaching…. If you have never heard of WBT, definitely check it out!! There are even opportunities for FREE WBT conferences here!

Here is an awesome video of the fabulous Farrah Shipley teaching fractions to Kindergartners!! 

 

Once the kids got down fraction of a whole, we moved on to fraction of a set. We called up on some students to the front of the room and started identifying fractions. 1/4 of the students are girls, 3/4 of the students are boys, etc. I then had the kids draw themselves and had them add as much details as possible. They put themselves onto their poster boards then wrote fraction sentences about their groups! 

I hope you have a great weekend!

Five for Friday

Aloha, fellow teacher friends!

It sure has been awhile..but I'm here to share with you what I've been up to this past week.

Today I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for:

This week we went on field trip to the Living Art Marine Center. The kids got to touch the invertebrate sea creatures, and even do their very own Gyotaku printings! 

We've been hard at work learning about the Elements of Art. This week we learned about lines and shapes. We created the beautiful piece of artwork pictured above using various types of lines and went around the school hunting for geometric and organic shapes. 

All of the activities we did this week can be found in this resource! 

We've been working on determining the author or main character's point of view and providing text evidence to support our answers. 

These task cards from Adventures of Mrs. Smith have been such a huge help for us to practice this skill! {Click on the photo below if you'd like to check it out on TPT} 

We've also begun to work on data analysis this week ...

This past week, we have been having some CRAZY traffic on Oahu due to the zip mobile being broken. Being that we live on an island, there aren't any replacement parts nor did anywhere on the island carry these said parts. SO 2 lanes on the free way going West bound (which is where all the heavy afternoon traffic is) were closed causing a normal 1 hour commute in traffic to be anywhere from 3-6 hours!!! 

The hubby and I unfortunately live on the West side..so we took advantage and headed into town (opposite direction) and went in search of a happy hour. Lucky thing, we rolled up to a restaurant where my brother was starting a beer tasting (for a new restaurant he is opening) so we got in on it!! 

We got to sample all of these delicious craft beers. My favorite was the Belching Beaver Milk Stout (tastes exactly like coffee!) 

Happy Easter! I hope you enjoy this weekend with loved ones!! 

All I Want for Christmas is a…. TpT Gift Certificate! {GIVEAWAY!!}

Did you know that TpT now sells gift certificates?! This has been my go to perfect, no brainer gift for other teacher friends and student teachers! 

I know that most of us are now on our much needed Winter Break and don't even want to think about school or working!  I hope that you are able to find the time to relax and enjoy yourselves with family and loved ones….Too often we as teachers forget to enjoy ourselves and relax!

 The break is going to fly by for us all, and on that dreaded Sunday before returning back to school, most of us will be scrambling to come up with our lesson plans for the upcoming week. 

Don't sweat it though, because I will be giving away a $10 TpT Gift Certificate to one lucky follower!

 You can use it for some top-notch resources upon returning to school, OR gift it to another teaching buddy of yours :) I am linking up with Laura Candler from Corkboard Connections and a BUNCH of other great teacher bloggers who are also giving away a $10 certificate on their own blogs. Be sure to head through the link-up at the bottom of this post and enter each drawing!  

How to Enter

I'm using Rafflecopter to host my giveaway, and you can earn up to 5 entries if you complete all the items listed. To enter the contest, complete any or all of these entries before midnight EST on December 23rd. Be sure to read the terms and conditions before you complete the entry form.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Remember, if anyone asks you what YOU want for Christmas, be sure to tell them that all you want for Christmas is a TpT gift certificate! I sincerely hope your winter holiday is fabulous and that you enjoy time with the special people in your life! Be sure to check your email on December 24th to see if you won!

An InLinkz Link-up

Holiday Gifts

Happy December, Friends! 

Today I am linking up with my blogging buddies from the Elementary Grapevine to present to you a Holiday Blog Hop!!

Today I will be sharing some gift ideas with you that I have done in the past.

Student Gifts

Each year, I order books from Scholastic and stock up on the multiplication flash cards from the Target dollar section. I will usually add in a candy cane, Christmas pencil, and some type of holiday straw into their gift bags. 

I also bake these melted snowman cookies for them. 

If you would like detailed directions on how to create these cookies, as well as an awesome sugar cookie recipe you can check out this post.

If you're interested in using these editable cookie bag toppers, you can download a free copy in my TPT store.

Parent Gifts

Each year my students make snowman finger printed ornaments to gift to their families. It is super simple and easy. I purchase clear plastic ornaments (because the glass ones easily shatter) and fill them with glitter (fake snow).

Faculty Gifts

I usually like to give something small to the office staff, custodians, counselors, etc. They help to ensure the school runs smoothly but often get overlooked. It can get a bit pricy when purchasing something for all of these people, so I usually like to bake something. 

One year I made some chocolate covered pretzels and decorated them with sprinkles. In addition I baked some brownies and added some candy canes to this cute holiday box and then tied it up with a cute bow.

Another idea is to make some puppy chow, add some holiday m&ms and throw them into a Mason Jar. This comes out SUPER CUTE and who doesn't like puppy chow?! 

In the back row of the photo above, I also used some large Mason jars and added dry cookie ingredients. I decided to do M&M cookies, since they're much more colorful than plain chocolate chips (although I believe they have red and green chocolate chips now!) 

I added some ribbon and tied on directions on how to prep. the cookies (along with the wet ingredients needed). You can snag the labels I used here. 

I hope you are able to use some of these ideas this holiday season! All of these gifts are easily adaptable for anyone :) What are your go-to holiday gifts? I'd love to hear in the comment section below! 

Head on over to Lory's blog to find out about Classroom Snowball Fights!! 

Juggling Housework and Work-work

Being a teacher is rough because our jobs never end. If you're like me, I know you've got a to-do list somewhere that is about a mile long. One thing many people don't know is that when teachers go home, they are still working- grading papers, lesson planning, creating/finding awesome resources for their students to learn with, printing, laminating, cutting, gluing, etc.

Teachers are T.I.R.E.D. 

(like this guy)

I can get so caught up and stressed out about all the things I need to get done at home..that I can sometimes  quite often neglect the housework. I get so caught up in crafting, grading, multi-tasking and using every bit of space I can find in my house….then get soo tired..very very tired....that things stay out on the table, overnight. Overnight turns to several days. Before I know it..my house looks like a disaster zone!

 When this (above photo) happens, I get even more stressed about the mess, then think of all the time it'll take to get it cleaned. 

Please tell me that I am not the only one here, people!

SOOOO Today I wanted to share with you all how I avoid ending up in this situation!

I follow THIS:

This cleaning schedule helps me to stay on task and keep my house orderly. It only takes about 30 minutes each day to tidy up (keeping in mind my 1,100 sq. ft. home is probably much smaller than yours). As soon as I walk into the door, I get cleaning. 

I love it! It's soo much easier to clean a little each day, than to have a whole entire messy home to clean up all at one time. 

I feel relaxed and happy when I walk into my house when it's clean. I can focus and get work done a lot better when I have a clean home. 

This is what I came home to today…

Can you see my little puppy looking at the camera? He blends in with the kitchen rug ;)

I recently got rid of my dish rack. I love how spacious the counter looks now! Rather than using the dish rack, I pull out the drawers of the dish washer and let all my dishes dry in there. I can put them away when I have the chance and it isn't a total eye sore. The dish rack just looked super cluttered to me!

Do you feel a cleaning schedule can help you?  

If you do decide to try this out..I would LOVE to hear how it works for you!