Today I'm linking up with the Tattooed Teacher for a fun new linky she's just started!
For the next 3-4 weeks, Rachel will be posting new 'assessments' to help us all get to know one another a little better! I can't wait to see what else she has in store :)
On to today's assessment……
Don't forget to head on over to Rachel's blog so you can link up too!
Today I'm linking up with the fabulous Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made it!
I finally got around to putting together my Plan book for this upcoming school year.
So far, I've created a new plan book every summer. You can check out my past planner post here and here.
This year I wanted to go for a bright and colorful book with some awesome Melonheadz clipart!
I am soooo happy with the way this book turned out- My heart feels happy every time I look at it :)
It took me quite awhile to print, but it is definitely worth it to print on your own! Once I was done printing, I took it to Office Max to get bound. It only cost me around $4.00!
If you are interested in purchasing this planner, I will have it on sale for the rest of today in my TPT Shop!
Hey, teacher friend! Building Relationships is such an important component to having a successful school year! Today, I'm here to share with you an idea on how to build those positive relationships with students (and families) before the year even begins.
Every summer I look forward to getting my class list and finding out who my "kids" will be for the next year! :) Once I get that list, I always hand write a post-card to each child so that I can introduce myself, invite them to our school's Meet and Greet and get them excited for a fun year of learning!
I feel that this simple gesture helps soooo much in building positive relationships with both my students AND parents. I have so many parents thanking me for sending their child mail. Many of them say it was the first time their child ever received mail and they wish they could've captured the look of sheer joy and excitement as they read the post-card out loud. These postcards help to let my students know that I care and they seem to be a little less nervous upon meeting me (because they feel they kind of already know me).
Since we don't have any Dollar Stores here in Hawaii, I would have to buy the postcards from a regular teacher supply store. They would usually cost me about $15 each year PLUS shipping of the cards. Last year, I decided to just save myself some money and create some postcards of my own!
I finally got around to putting it all together into an editable file. There are 11 different postcard styles to choose from! The best thing about this is that with one purchase, you have a multitude of postcard options for future years! You can get your copy here
Included in your purchase is a PowerPoint file. You have the option to insert text boxes so that you can type your message instead of handwriting them all. I've also included BLANK versions of all templates so that you can customize them with your own text/saying.
You will need to print on both sides of the card stock…so I recommend playing around with printing a little before printing out all your postcards! To see a detailed preview of what's included, you can check that out here.
A fun way to personalize each postcard is to add a QR code to it. Click here for a tutorial on how to do that.
If you're interested in these FREE printable Post Cards that are customized to each grade level, sign up for my email newsletter to get this exclusive FREEBIE!*This postcard set is NOT editable.
It sure have been awhile since my last Bright Ideas Post..but I am so excited to be linking up for this month's June Bright Ideas Hop!
Do you use technology in your classroom?
If you answered yes to the above question you have probably experienced the headache of explaining, redirecting, waiting, and trouble shooting your 28 little angels to a certain website (where you plan to begin your lesson or activity). During this time, you have probably also witnessed little voices shouting out and hands being raised asking "Wait..what was I supposed to type?" or "What was I supposed to click after this step?".
Today I have the solution to this problem!
Google Tone allows teachers to send webpages directly to their students through a sound wave.
Accessing a site will now be easy and quick! No more wasted time.
Here's how to get started:
Download Google Tone from the Chrome Web Store.
After downloading, you will get a little blue megaphone icon added next to your URL address bar.
Thank you so much for stopping by today!!
I hope that this tip can save you some precious time in your classroom :)
If you enjoyed this bright idea, please consider joining me on Facebook or Instagram for more great ideas!
For more bright ideas from other bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic/grade level that interests you.
Happy summer to those of you who are already on summer break. I hope that you are taking some time for yourself and relaxing! Today I am spending the day in a PD. I'm using my little break to type up this quick post.
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!
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!!
