TpT Sale!

I'm having a 20% off sale on EVERYTHING at my TpT store!! I finally reached 100 followers over there and that certainly deserves a sale. While your there, don't forget to check out my Valentine's Day Math and Literacy Centers. The sale goes through tomorrow! Shop away!

How To Writing, Matter, and a Freebie

Wow, it's been a week since I've posted! I've been stalking all of your blogs and working late. These past couple of weeks have been sooooo busy for me! In fact, I'll be at work all day today..

Since I haven't posted in awhile, I'll catch you up on my classroom happenings!
First, we have been working on "How To" papers during writing time. Last week, I brought in PB & J and made a sandwich in front of the kiddos as they wrote down the steps (I also modeled the writing as I was making the sandwich). Here are some pics!

 

And then onto the revising and editing! We did these steps on separate days, but I didn't want to bore you with a thousand pictures. We used a different color for each step.

 And here are the final drafts!

This week, the students have been working on a "How To" paper on a topic of their choosing. I won't go into the details since it's pretty much the same as above. Though here is a web we created to brainstorm possible topics. They impressed me with all of their ideas. Note: Pretend to be a dinosaur. It's on the bottom left. Soooooo stinkin' cute!!! And yes, the student did pick that as his topic. I HAVE to show you all. Stay tuned! I forgot to take a pic.

We also have been learning about matter in science. We learned all about what matter is and the different states.

And what would a lesson be without a fun activity!? Each student received a card with some type of matter on it. They had to figure out which type it was and then place it on the "Solid," "Liquid," or "Gas" posters around the room. They did an amazing job!!! If you would like the organizer, click here, and if you would like all the cards click here. Keep in mind, I blew all these materials up poster size, but they certainly don't need to be in order to do the lesson.

Next week each student is going to get the regular size version to sort so that I can assess their learning. We are also going to take a "matter hunt" around the school! (You know your in the right profession when you get excited ~ maybe even more so than the kids ~ about these things. Haha!)

As always, pleeeeease oh pleeeeeease, leave me a comment if you take the freebies. It's nice to know you all are using them! It encourages me to post more! Annnnnnnd, if you're not a follower, why not?! :)

I Should Be Making Dinner...

I should be making dinner, but instead I'm lost in the blogging world! And I think I've spent the majority of the day blog stalking. That just means I have to do all my house work and errands tomorrow! EEEEEEKKK! Anyways, I posted new products to TpT earlier today and wanted to share. Take a look!
I posted a pronoun book and a preposition book for students to create.

And I also posted 6 literacy centers for St. Patrick's Day.

If you'd like to take a closer look at any of these items, click these links: pronoun books, preposition books, or St. Patrick's Day centers. Enjoy your weekend!

Computer Scare and Inflectional Endings! *Freebie*

My computer got a virus the other day and I freaked out! Wouldn't you?! My entire life is on this thing! And although I have USB drives for back-up, I don't have an external hard drive...yet! So after searching for a place that was open (it was late and I wanted it fixed ASAP!), I took it to a place that was recommended on Yelp. It wasn't ready for 24 hours (I lost lots of blogging time and my stress level was sky high!), but thank goodness all of my documents, pictures, fonts, music... were saved!!!!!

Anyways, my point is BE CAFEFUL which websites you click on! Anti-virus software can only do so much. I didn't open any weird emails, go to any weird sites (that I know of), or click on any suspicious links. In fact, the only thing I was doing was researching prepositions for a new student book I'm creating. I am now sooooo hesitant to do any school research on my home computer....especially after the guy at the computer store said he gets a lot of teachers in there with viruses. I guess a lot of us like to click away as we're looking for great ideas! My new mantra: Think (and look carefully) before I click!

I'm planning on spending the big bucks on an external hard drive this weekend! It's cheaper than getting rid of a virus, and definitely worth the stress relief if I do get another virus.

Besides dealing with this computer madness, I was also teaching base words and inflectional endings to my kiddos this week! My goodness I feel like I am teaching 3rd grade again sometimes with all this curriculum we now have to teach to FIRST GRADERS!

After going over some base words and their inflectional endings, the students completed a worksheet where they circled the base word and underlined the inflectional ending. Definitely NOT exciting, but it got the point across.

They did an amazing job on this! Sooooo, to further challenge them I gave the kiddos this page:

I created a list of base words and a set of inflectional endings at the bottom of the page. The students had to cut out the endings and find a base word to match it up to. The trick was that they had to match up ALL the base words and endings before they glued because there were several possibilities for some of the base words.

If you would like this page, here you go! Don't forget to think before you click as you search the web! :)

All About Multiple Meaning Words *Freebie Included*

Have you taught multiple meaning words to your kiddos yet?? If not, here are some ideas for teaching them. Bear with me...hopefully this won't be toooo long of a post.

First we discussed what multiple meaning words were. I gave the students a couple examples and they helped me illustrate the meanings. Their illustrations are better than what I can do. No kidding!

Then during center time, I made this word bank on the bottom of our white board and the kiddos were able to come up and write all the muliple meaning words they could think of. We'll come back to this chart again later...

Then we completed a multiple meaning match-up activity that came from my Grammar and Language Match-Up Packet on TpT. Here are what the cards look like:

And here are my kiddos walking around the classroom trying to find their match.

Once they found their match, they sat next to each other and discussed the meanings of the word.

Then each parter pair came up to the front of the room to share the meanings of their word.

Afterwards, we went back to our word bank the students created (see first photo above) and discussed each word and whether it was a multiple meaning word or not. That took FOREVER, but the kiddos seemed to enjoy it. Each word that passed our test (got a thumbs up from the majority of the class), went on our paper chart of multiple meaning words:

The next day, we reviewed what multiple meaning words were and each student picked a multiple meaning word to illustrate. We highlighted the multiple meaning word (my goodness, they loved using the highlighter!) and shared our papers with the class.

If you've made it this far, you certainly deserve a freebie. Here is the template for the multiple meaning word worksheet above. Enjoy!  And don't forget to become a follower of my little blog if you're not already!

Multiple Meaning Words

Currently in January...

I made this late last night, but then had trouble uploading it. But it's done now! Happy Wednesday.

Don't forget to head on over to Oh' Boy 4th Grade and check out what everyone is doing this month.

Valentine's TpT Sale

I'm having a sale on my 12 Valentine's Literacy Centers and 6 Math Centers! They are both 15% off today through Friday! Head on over to my store to have a look. And here's a direct link to the literacy centers and a direct link to the math centers.

Are YOU Ready for Valentine's Day?? Here's a FREEBIE to help!

Soooo, are you READY?! If not, don't fret, check out my Valentine's Literacy Centers posted on TpT. Just click this word right here! AND it gets better... I can help you get ready for FREE. If you purchased my Winter Word Building activity, then this is exactly the same, but obviously with a Valentine's theme. AND FOR FREE! Sorry, I'm going crazy with the caps tonight! Must be the wine. :)

Here's a little preview:

And before I give you the link to get this little freebie, can you do me a favor?? Look at the right side of my blog. Are you a follower? Yes? Thank you!! No? Just click that "Join This Site" button and I'll be so thrilled. Seriously! It doesn't take much to make my day! Okay, now here is the link. Enjoy!!!

New Products and Freebie Time

Good afternoon all! This week flew by! I am glad because I really need a weekend to recover. Apparently during my two weeks off, I forgot how much energy it takes to keep up with 6 and 7 year olds. I am happily doing nothing today.

I just posted two new products on my TpT page. One is a comprehension pack for cause and effect titled "Let's Focus On: Cause and Effect." The title is not so creative, but that is my area of weakness. I can never come up with clever names for things (especially bulletin boards!) Oh well. Here's a preview...and scroll down further for a freebie from this pack.

By the way, if anyone knows a good way to generate thumbnails from PDF's, please tell me! Mine look terrible! I'm hoping people think it's on purpose so they can't copy my work...but really, I just don't know how to make them look any better. It's $3.00 on my TpT site. To take a look, click here.

Here's the freebie! Have your students write their own cause and effect and illustrate it above.

Cause Freebie

The other product I posted is very similar except it's about facts and opinions. It's titled "Let's Focus On: Facts and Opinions." Again, forgive me for the blurriness. Here is a preview of that:

It's also $3.00 on my TpT site. To check it out, click here.

Enjoy your weekend!

Back to work I went..

Oh. My. Gosh! My kids were PERFECT today! It was like the first day of school all over again! Except that they knew the rules and routines so it was a million times better. Was your day like this too???? Please, oh please, let the entire week be like this because I was pooped after the day! I am going to sleep well tonight.

We wrote our New Year's Resolutions today and I noticed two things:

1. Some of them forgot how to write over the break.... Let's hope they remember everything I've taught them quickly!

2. The kids were soo open and honest with their goals. It seriously made my day reading their responses!

I also introduced my new Handwriting Binder during Center time. I got this idea from Pinterest a while back and finally put it into action. I just laminated a set of my handwriting worksheets and put them in a binder with an Expo pen. The kiddos can practice their handwriting now during Centers (believe me, some of them really need this extra practice!). I love that I don't have to waste tons of paper and the students love that they get to use a marker and erase their work!

Hope your day was as great as mine! I'm forcing myself to go to the gym now even though I'm e.x.h.a.u.s.t.e.d. I've got plans each night this week so tonight is really the only chance I've got to go. Now, let's see how long it takes me to get off my couch.