Time to do some shopping! - TpT Sitewide Sale

So if you're an avid blog reader like myself then you can't have missed the news...TpT's throwing another big sitewide sale! The sale is Thursday, February 27th through Friday the 28th! Everything in my store that is $2 and up will be marked 20% off! Throw in the promo code TPT3 after that and get a total of 28% off! This is a great chance to grab up some things on the cheap!

To make your shopping a little easier I thought I'd highlight a few things from my store, and show you a few things I have on my own shopping list! 

 By far the number 1 most wish listed item in my store is my best-selling novel study unit for the book Wonder by RJ Palacio. I've written a few posts before about how truly awesome this book is. If you haven't read it, take my word for it and go ahead and buy it now. Then go grab up this 170 page novel unit too! 

I've broken down the chapters and done all the work for you! Tons of great activities to do whole class or in small groups are included as well!

One of my other highly wish listed items is The Book of Awesome Tasks. This is a unique solution for the problem of "too much indoor recess." Simply print double-sided and fold in half to make each student a booklet with 45 highly engaging activities. 

My kids love working in these as a brain break, and it keeps them nice and quiet during indoor recess! Check it out!

I feel like I'd be letting you down if I didn't remind you that this is a great chance to grab up my two newest novel units while the discount is in effect!

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is an excellent choice for historical fiction. This unit includes a chapter by chapter breakdown like my other units, several whole group and small group activities, and lots more unique activities to complement the novel or a study of Japan!

Don't miss out on your chance to grab my newest (and probably favorite) unit on the Newbery Award winning book The One and Only Ivan. This is a great piece of fiction that is based on the true story of a gorilla who was kept in a tiny cage in a shopping mall for nearly 30 years. 

The chapter by chapter break down and standard whole and small group activities are complimented by a slew of unique activities for this book, AND a set of lapbook activities. This is an excellent book to use with your kids, and the lapbook is a great addition to a student portfolio or evidence to send home with a kid to show all their learning this year.

I've got some things I'd love to have from other sellers too! Check them out:

I love using task cards with my kids, and I end up making a lot of them for different things. But when someone else has already put together a 50 card set...why do the work when they've done it for you?! These Main Idea task cards from Pinkadots look like they could come in handy!

I Love My Classroom has a great set of figurative language cards as well! The kids can always use practice with this, and I like that the questions are multiple choice. No kid wants to have to write our onomatopoeia as an answer to a task card! ;)

We are just about to begin our Energy and Electricity unit of study, and interactive notebooks are a great way to have kids take notes, store useful information, and stay engaged! This set from I Heart Recess looks like it comes with a lot of great stuff (even a set of task cards!)

Don't forget to go through and leave feedback on any of your old purchases so you can earn that TpT credit and use it along with all the other discounts! 

I'm linking up with a bunch of other teachers involved in the sale! Be sure to check them out! And thanks to Theresa from Pinkadots Elementary for hosting the linky! Also, check out another linky on Mrs. Beattie's Classroom!

An InLinkz Link-up

Five for Fraturday - Science, Math, Writing, Reading, and More!

So, I DID start writing this 5 for Friday post for Doodle Bugs Teaching's Linky on Friday! Once again things got busy and it just wasn't in the cards to get this post published before the clock struck midnight!

So this was another busy week that just seemed to fly by! Here goes:

1. Pictures!

This week we had Fall Picture Day! I was sooo busy on the first day of school that I never managed to get my kiddos' pictures! Aagh! So I just decided to wait til Picture Day to get them because I knew they'd be dressed up! 

I hung this fancy green frame with fishing line from the ceiling. I had prepared these photo booth props for kids to use for the pictures and they turned out really cute. There were several mustaches, lips, bow ties, and glasses to choose from, each attached to the end of a dowel. 

2. Ecosystems Scoot!

We've been studying biomes and ecosystem stuff in Science lately, and this set of cards was a perfect check-in to see what we knew and didn't know still.

The kids LOVE playing Scoot, and the best thing is that they don't even realize that they are basically taking a test! 
Grab yourself a lifetime supply of copies of this game for just $3 by heading over to my store!

3. Read Bead Board version 2013!

I've talked about my Read Beads in previous posts, but didn't have a picture of my display board for this year until now! Here it is! 

I leave the board up all year long. Those fall leaves will turn into snowflakes, then spring flowers, then green leaves as we pass through the seasons. 

Kids LOVE collecting the read beads, and I think it makes a handsome display outside my room's door and takes the pressure off constantly worrying about changing the board.

4. Writing Workshop - Mentor Texts & Writing Activity

This week in Writer's Workshop we took a break from writing Small Moment Narratives to do a different kind of activity. I started the week by reading the book Fortunately to the kids. This book follows a pattern that goes back and forth between things like "Fortunately I was invited to a party!" "Unfortunately the party was in Florida, and I live in New York." "Fortunately a friend lent me his plane!" and so on. Unfortunately (ha!) this book is lacking in strong adjectives and vivid verbs. After reading it to get the pattern down, the kids begin writing their own stories. 

The next day I read Fortunately, Unfortunately to the kiddos. This book follows the same pattern, but features an occasional adjective that spices up the writing. We make note of that, and then we begin editing our stories by adding in interesting words.

Finally, I read That's Good! That's Bad! to the kids on the third day. This story follows a similar pattern, but the difference is that nearly every page is packed with strong adjectives and vivid verbs! The kids really can see the difference that those interesting words make. We pull out Fortunately at this point and practice by sticking in good words. The kids continue editing their pieces at this point (and now they really have the hang of it!)

On the fourth day we don't read a picture book, because instead we share our own "Fortunately" stories!

5. Measurement and Addition in Math

In Math this week we started working on lines, segments, and measuring perimeter of triangles and quadrilaterals. One of my independent centers this week involved the use of my newest TpT product, these Insect Measurement Task Cards. The cards have detailed photos of some unique bugs on them. I post the cards around the room, and when kids get to that center they get to walk around the room with their record sheet and go on a "bug hunt." I asked my kids to measure all of the bugs and then add up the measurements. Anytime you can practice multiple skills while keeping the kids highly engaged is a win in my book! Task cards beat out a worksheet any day...but they are essentially getting the same practice! Grab up a copy of my cards for just $2 and use them in your classroom for years to come!


So that made up a big portion of my week! Of course a whole lot more went down than that, but those were definitely some of the highlights! I managed to make it home with a little less work on my plate than the past three weekends! I'm hoping that I'll keep getting ahead a little more each week!

Tried it Tuesday and What I'll do differently!

I've got two this time!
So, I've tried the old shaving cream on the desk routine before, but not with 5th graders until today. 

 As I somewhat anticipated, some of the kids took it a step further than they needed to. Before I knew it these three had smeared the shaving cream all over their faces to make beards. Usually I'd cover my kids' faces on here, but that would have defeated the purpose of this picture, so I got permission for this one. The kiddo in the middle told me he was Santa Claus and that "he sees me when I'm sleeping." It cracked me up so much because it was SUPER creepy when he said it and he wasn't trying to be creepy. 

So, my second one is my Human Body Systems lapbook activity. The kids have been studying the human body for the last few weeks and we've been keeping KLEW charts inside the flaps. 

We learn about a new system every couple days. I've been doing a series of cool experiments, watching Brainpop clips, reading informational texts, and of course having class discussions to go along with the lapbooks.  The kids have learned a lot and have come up with a lot of great wonderings. I think the best part of the lapbook has been that they've got a place to record their wonderings.

Find the lapbook in my TpT store:

Finally, I'm linking up with the brand new "What will you do differently?" linky from joyin6th! 

I was a little late to the party when it comes to using task cards in my classroom, I think. Though I think I'm the only teacher in my school who uses them. Reading a thousand blogs has its advantages I suppose! I've blogged before about how I've used task cards to great effect since I learned about them, and I'm looking forward to making a set of them for all of the math units I'll be teaching next year. I want to use them throughout the year as part of my math workshop. They make a great independent center.

In other unrelated life news, I'm officially down 17 pounds since I started trying to lose weight 6 weeks or so ago! I'm pretty excited. It's crazy how I don't even crave or want some of the bad foods that I used to snack on with reckless abandon. I'm looking to make even more progress over the summer!
I've also got a bunch of great TpT products in the works that I'm super excited about. One of the big ones is one I'm working on collaboratively with my brother! He's a high school English teacher in GA, and also happens to be an awesome artist. I've told him all about the unexpected success I've seen with my TpT store and he has decided to set one up himself  for his secondary lit resources and to start working on clip art! The stuff he's made me for my current project is just ridiculously good and I see lots of cha-chings in his future as a clip artist. 
Whelp, 9 days of school to go! Still trying not to be too jealous as I read everyone else's posts about summer!

My newest love...task cards!

I've been reading a lot about task cards lately, and have seen a lot of them on TpT, so I decided to try them out in my room. Admittedly, at first I didn't really get it. It just seemed like they were a worksheet broken up into a bunch of cards. In the end I realized they can be more than that. 

I am currently teaching my ratio, unit rates, proportion and scale math unit. This is one of those skill sets that kind of just need to be practiced a lot for kids to get them. I took some time to make a set of 40 cards, ten for each of the skills. Each day this week during my math workshop the independent practice group has been working on the task cards. To make them more engaging I spread them throughout the room for kids to find. 

The kids really seemed to have a great time finding the cards and solving them. I asked the kids for their honest feedback after the first day of using them and they pretty much unanimously said that they really liked how they only had to focus on one problem at a time and didn't have to sit at their desk working independently for that center.

This activity paired with doing fun things at the "Teacher Center" like M&M ratios and baking cookies (we gave the students a recipe for one cookie and they needed to figure out to make cookies for 24 people), really has made math time fly by this week!

I'll definitely be using task cards again. As many other teachers have discovered, they could be used in pretty much any subject area. I'll be posting my Ratio set of 40 cards on my TpT store at some point this weekend! EDIT: I got productive and posted them! Here they are!

Have any of you used task cards yet? What do you like about them? Not like? 

I know a lot of you out there are getting ready for summer vacation...NOT ME! We go to school til June 11th, so we still have loads of school to go. For the last 20 days of school I like to do fun things with the kids each day for just a few minutes. Sidewalk chalk, rock-paper-scissors tournament, etc. What fun & free ideas have you got?