Five for Pi Day!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for another Five for Friday! It's been an exciting week! But it's not over yet, there's a lot still going on, so check it all out!

I'm joining in with some of my BBBs and throwing a special Pi Day Sale! That's 20% off all of the math products in my store. That makes some of them cost a mere 80 cents! This is a great time to grab up some projects or games!

My big celebration ends tonight at midnight EST!

Head on over to this post to enter for your chance to win one of the four prize packs! 

So I was looking around instagram the other day (do you follow me? My username is reitz2001) and I saw a great idea from a fellow PA Blogger, Autumn (user firstgradetchrlady on instagram) from the blog First Grade Teacher Lady. She had taken the free Red Apple Teacher calendar from Scholastic and turned it into a cool banner. Well, I happened to have the same calender from a recent book order taking up space on my counter. I knew I'd never hang up or use the calendar as an actual calendar...so I turned it into a banner like Autumn's and hung it up in my classroom library! I think it turned out great!

Cool, right?!

This week I introduced a new feature on my blog! Each week I'll be posting a new time-saving, efficiency-bringing lifehack! I'll be keeping them all in one handy spot, which is accessible from my new tab bar at the top of the page! Stop by each week to pick up a new tip!

Another cool feature that I'm bringing back from the dead for a brand new life is Tunes Tuesday! Now each month will have a new theme! The first link-up will be next Tuesday, March 18th! The topic is science! I hope you'll link up a post showing how you use music to teach Science!

In other news, we've got a lot going on at school right now!

In writing we're working on poetry. We study many of the different types of poetry, and of course we have to cover Haiku! I've already read Dogku and If Not For the Cat. So this past week we read Haiku Hike (written by kids!) and Guyku (which should really just be called Kidku!) 

Our Mentor Sentence this past week came from Thundercake, and we just finished reading a kid favorite, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. 


Our newest read-aloud is a book that is new to me, but is really entertaining. It's being called a mix of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and A Night at the Museum. So far the kids are really into it and it is a perfect read-aloud to discuss foreshadowing!

In math we're doing a bunch of review before our big state tests. I don't believe in doing a lot of "test prep," so for me reviewing for the test is business as usual...math workshop with a bunch of math games, task cards, a good project to work on, etc. is enough prep for me!

One of the things kids really need to work with a lot are word problems. 

These task cards have the kids solving multiplication and division problems. But there's a twist! Each word problem has too much information! The kids really have to read the problem carefully to determine which operation is needed and which numbers they need to use!  I put them here in my store! (Remember the Pi Day Sale!)  Placing the cards all around the room and letting kids wander and solve them is a perfect way to do a "worksheet that's not a worksheet!"

Whew! That was a lot! I'm looking forward to the weekend!