Busy First Week Back!

You know it's been a busy week when you start a Five for Friday post on one Friday and end up actually posting it the following Friday...

1.

Last week was full of meetings and room prep...and meetings. Is everyone else's pre-planning like that? A lot of the meetings were worthwhile this year though, and for the first time in a while I actually didn't have to worry about changing rooms or redecorating at all. It was nice to walk in and only have to put my chairs down and do a few other prep things before getting right to the planning. 

2.

The planning this year is bound to be one of my biggest challenges. I'm looping with a little more than half of my class, so most of the things I did last year in class need to be done a little differently this year so that I can keep it fresh. That means finding all new read-alouds, and doing some different community building activities than before. 

So, I came up with a few new activities that I thought went really well! I went ahead and added them to my store. Check 'em out!

These Back-to-School Classroom Procedures Task Cards were perfect for reviewing my classroom procedures of course, but also handy in teaching my kids how we use task cards! I know we'll be using them all year long, so it's great for the kids to get practice with this routine now.

We also played this fun get to know you activity I came up with. My kids played "The School Supply Headband Game" with these school supply cards I made. Kids picked a card, and held it to their forehead. They broke into partners, and they gave each other clues about their picture until they could guess what was on their card. To add a little challenge, I had a rule that each clue could only be one word. When kids guessed their card, they got a new card and switched partners. The kids loved it!

I'm actually making permanent headbands in case we play with other cards
later in the year! The kids loved it and asked to play again later.

3.

I didn't think up all new things and make up all of my own materials, of course! There were still some tried and true activities that I'd learned about on blogs that I hadn't had a chance to try last year. I saw the activity "Saving Fred" on Ideas by Jivey last year and though I'd give it a try. It turned out great! 

In the end, 4 out of 5 of my groups were able to save Fred in the 15 minute time limit I gave them! The kids had a blast, built up some teamwork skills, and everyone enjoyed a gummy worm in the end! 

4.

I was also able to use an activity I first learned about and tried a couple years ago that I thought went really well. I started by talking with my kids about how the things we say and do can have lasting effects. Then we read the book Mr. Peabody's Apples (by...Madonna). Afterwards I gave each kid a tissue paper heart and had them crumple it up. I told them that the wrinkles in the paper were like hurtful words being said. I asked them to apologize by smoothing out the heart. They quickly realized that it was impossible to completely smooth out the paper, kind of like how it can be really difficult to completely erase the hurt we cause other people's hearts when we say or do hurtful things. I think it made a big impact on them, and I'm hoping they'll remember this activity all year long.

5.

I started launching my reader's workshop early in the week, and read The Name Jar the first couple days of reading. The kids really enjoyed this book. And it was perfect because I really think that my student who moved here from Korea just days before school started really believed that I picked it out just for her! If you haven't read this one yet, check it out! And be sure to grab up this book packet from the Collaboration Cuties to go along with it.

I started The Year of Billy Miller on Thursday. This is a pretty good book to start off the year for a few reasons. Billy is starting a school year for one. It has a great message. And it doesn't hurt that it is kind of short. So we'll be ready to start a new book right around the time we're done launching our reader's workshop and in the swing of things. 

All in all we're off to a great start! I'm really excited about the possibilities for this year! It's great to have one of the smallest classes I've had in years (just 20 kids!), and I'm excited to be teaching just 4th grade this year because it means that for the next two years I'll be doing a 3rd then 4th loop. That means I'll be able to pull all of the best parts of the past two years and tweak them rather than reinventing the wheel completely!

How has your first week gone? Check in with Doodle Bugs Teaching to see some more Five for Friday posts!

Five for Friday - Sore muscles, a big sale, and a giveaway!

After a LONG week of basement and bathroom remodeling, I'm exhausted! But I'm still taking a moment before I collapse from exhaustion to chime in for Five for Friday by Doodle Bugs Teaching!

1.

It's hard to believe that it's already Back to School time! I'm excited to be seeing some of my old 3rd grade kiddos as my new 4th graders! It should really help with all of that beginning of the year rules and expectation setting stuff. Only half the kids need to be caught up to speed! I am lucky that I still have a couple weeks until the kids come back. I have a LOT to do! I've got to finish this remodel AND get ready for the new year! 

The basement is almost totally drywalled! I now have more tools than Home Depot. And the bathroom is...unusable so far! I'm hoping to wrap up most of the work by this weekend!

2.

The best part about Back to School time is that this is the perfect time to fill your online shopping cart and save a bundle of money! That's right, the TpT Back to School Sale is happening next Monday, August 4th and Tuesday the 5th. 

Everything in my store will be marked 20% off! Then, use the code BTS14 to get an ADDITIONAL 10% off! 

3.

Need some ideas of what to buy? Here are the two most wishlisted items in my store:

My Wonder Novel Study Unit is 174 pages long! If you haven't read this book yet then you're doing yourself a serious disservice! Be sure to check out my unit for the companion novel/sequel The Julian Chapter too!

One of my favorite products is my second most wishlisted! The Book of Awesome Tasks is a half-page book that you can make for your kids. Test their creativity and make them do a little work without them realizing it! My kids love the book, especially during rainy indoor recess days! 

And I hope you'll peruse the rest of my store too. I have a lot of dollar items that'll be a steal during the sale, over 20 freebies up for download all the time, and a ton of other great things, all in the 3-5 buck range...super cheap during the sale! All of the money I make in my store goes to a really great cause! I'll be sharing more about that later!

4.

Of course, I'm not going to miss my chance to grab up some things. One thing I'm especially looking forward to is the 4th Grade Math Bundle from Jessica Scott's TpT store. You might know Jessica from her blog, I {heart} Recess!

I'll be teaching 4th grade math for the first time this year (I taught 3rd last year) and I need all the help I can get! This set currently includes 5 products, but if you buy it now at the cheaper price you can re-download it later when the 6th product is added!

Check out some other products you might like to buy!

An InLinkz Link-up

5.

Now that you've seen some cool stuff to buy, here's a chance to get a gift card to help you get those things!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Five for Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July! 

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

1.

This is what our 4th Fest looks like...

How do you all celebrate the 4th? I know a lot of people get really into going to a huge fireworks display, or have a picnic or BBQ...but Killer B and I have always been a bit more laid back. We usually buy a few rockets and roman candles to set off for our dogs to watch, and that's about it! Woohoo!

Seriously though, we're almost always visiting family in Atlanta around this time of year, so it's hard to do too much.

It's kind of a bummer that this holiday is in the summer. It'd be a lot of fun to celebrate it with the kids at school. There are so many cool things you could do with them too! 

2.

Don't forget to stop by and enter this giveaway! Today's the last day to enter! There are lots of great prizes to be won!

3.

I'm sharing my favorite font of all time today! It's one I made a while back for the express purpose of using only a little ink. I make a lot of my bigger TpT files using this font. It's called Nick's Typewriter because it's my handwriting in typewriter style letters. Grab it up for free! 

4.

Not at all related to the Fourth of July, but I'm getting excited about the Institute on Academic Differentiation I'll be attending in a couple of weeks at the University of Virginia! The leader of the institute is Carol Ann Tomlinson. The workshops are all about things like flexible grouping, mindset, close reading, teaching up for complexity, etc. The institute is offered at two levels, and I'm excited to be going to the more advanced version because I hopefully won't have to worry about any of the workshops being too introductory. 

Monticello is right next door! I'm looking forward to
marking this site off of my must-see list!

Spending a week away from my lovely wife, while doing teachery things in the summer is sure to be a challenge...but luckily I'll have some good company! My principal and another teacher from my team are going with me! They're both cool, so I'm sure dinners and after workshop activities will be fun too. This is one of the few times that being a male teacher in elementary pays off by the way...can you say "hotel room to myself?" I can! I can finally snore all I want without Killer B punching me in my sleep!

Hopefully if the jealousy I have of all my BBBs who are going to the TpT Conference in Vegas hasn't worn off by then, this'll help.

5.

Just for fun I thought I'd put some of the patriotic products in my TpT store on sale for Independence Day! Actually they're on sale all weekend. I also put all of my Kaboom math games on sale too, because you know... kaboom... like fireworks!

So grab some stuff at 20% off and let's help stimulate the American economy together! ;)

Here's a few of my favorites that are on sale:

The full list of all 10 on sale items can be seen here:

My BBB Emily over at I Love My Classroom is also having a sale!

Enjoy your weekend!

Five for Friday - Finished Testing, Lifehack, and Tunes Tuesday Coming!

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching for Five for Friday! 

It's been a busy week! I'm definitely ready for the weekend!

I'm excited to announce that our state testing for the year is over! I've taken down the black paper covering everything, and our schedule is back to normal! Woohoo! The kids loved their testing treats, and today we're celebrating by having a Pajama/Game Day! (Really the games are only happening for an hour in the afternoon, but still!)

Wednesday, my kids finished up their Rube Goldberg Device projects and shared them with the class. Here's a tiny 5 second clip of my favorite one! 

This week I taught a pretty cool lesson that goes along with one of the new Common Core standards. It's all about "Shades of Meaning." I feel like when kids come to me and tell me what a synonym means they always say, "two words that mean the same thing." But that's not really true. It's a misconception that really needs to be cleared up. For example, sad, glum, and depressed are synonyms. But they have shades of meaning. 

The common core standard asks you to distinguish shades of meaning between words that describe states of mind. I started my kids off with something a little more concrete, the color green. Mint, Olive, and Kelly are all Green. But they're very different too. 

This eventually led to an understanding that words like Question, Ponder, Wonder, and Inquire are all synonyms too...but there are nuances to those words that make them different. The lesson and sheets I used for the lesson, along with an interactive notebook piece and a poem activity are in my store for 2 smackeroos. Smackeroos, clams, bread, and dough are all slang synonyms for money!  ;)

Here comes Lifehack for Teachers #4! Have you or your kids ever had a word that you just can't seem to remember how to spell? Become a better speller by forcing yourself to spell it all the time by making it your password!

Tunes Tuesday is coming up again! Tuesday, April 15th will be our Tunes Tuesday for Social Studies! If you're a blogger, then I hope you'll start preparing a post now about how you use music to teach Social Studies, or link up a previous post of yours!

Thanks for reading!

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!