Terri's Teaching Treasures

Teacher Appreciation Sale and a Freebie!

2013-05-05T10:19:00.000-07:00

Yay it is sale time again!!! Now I can get the rest of the stuff on my wishlist :) Here is a quick shout out the Zip-a-dee-doo-dah Designs for their great sale graphics. Trust me when I say if you haven't discovered her clip art you are missing out. Click on the picture to discover her awesome work !

Everything in my store will be on sale with deals up to 20% off. Please be one of the smart shoppers and use the TpT code of TAD13 to get an additional savings of 10% off. OK, time for some math.... That means with my 20% off and TpT's 10% off you can get 28% off!!!!What a great way to approach the end of the school year.
The 10% off from TpT during check out is only good until midnight May 8th, Hawaii time. Aww sandy beaches of Hawaii......sorry I digress. Anyways, I am keeping my store on sale for the 9th as well, but you will only be able to get the 20% off this day. I know I want the whole deal so Sunday will be my shopping day and do I ever have a lot in my cart waiting.

If you are looking for some great deals for your cart here are a couple of my products:

My Best Selling Item

Best Seller

Math made fun

Click here to check out all my 141 products on TpT !

Ok, Ok... I know I said there would be a freebie. Well here it is. I use this story and worksheet for introducing the importance of government. My students always love it and the trolls make their way into many of our conversations. Click on the picture to download the file.

Have fun shopping and don't forget to check below for other great TpT sellers putting their stores on sale.

Cheers,

Kandinsky Trees

2013-05-04T18:23:00.000-07:00

I thought I would share with you all one of the art projects my students had a ton of fun doing. They were super excited that they got to rip up old book pages and even one of the novels we did this year, Maniac Magee. Don't worry the novel was already ripped and missing pages (unreadable) !

I got the inspiration from Jennifer, from Runde's Room. She has so many wonderful art ideas and is the blog I pin the most to my Pinterest boards :)

Materials Needed:

*Old book pages

*8.5 x 11 card stock

*Water colour paints

*Black acrylic paint

*glue sticks

To inspire my students, I first showed my students different pictures of Kandinsky's work and we talked about all the concentric circles. They were surprised that someone could be famous for painting circles.

We then started to work on the Kandinsky Trees. First of all they had to rip old book pages and glue them randomly on the 8.5 x 11 card stock paper. Once the glue dried it was time to paint the ground. They could use any colour of water colour paint they wanted to. More drying time...... Now for the acrylic paint. After a chat about how acrylic paint cannot be washed off their clothes and that they would need to be careful we began with the drawing/painting of the trees. I first had students sketch LIGHTLY with a pencil the shape of their tree and then paint them with black acrylic paint. You guessed it... more drying time....

While the paint was drying in each part, students worked on colouring their circles. I printed them a page with a bunch of different sized circles and they decorated them with markers or pencil crayons. Since it was Spring time the criteria was brightly coloured circles.

Once all the paint was dried and the circles were coloured it was time to cut them out and glue them on the branches.

Here are some of the final paintings. I may be biased but I think they turned out pretty great :)

Cheers,

Amazon.com Widgets

Crazy Busy

2013-04-13T15:07:00.005-07:00

I just wanted to let you all know that I am still a round and have been crazy busy with finishing up my masters degree. My posts are few and far between lately but I will be back in full force soon :) I have lots of pictures on my camera and can't wait to post on here about what has been going on in my classroom !

Cheers,

Easter Planning

2013-03-25T05:30:00.000-07:00

Back to work today and focused on Easter. It is weird to me how our Spring Break doesn't run into Easter as we just got back from a week off and now we have 2 short weeks in a row.

If you are planning like I am check out the Easter items in my TpT store. The last one is one of my highest downloaded freebies! Just click on the pictures to get the items :)

Here's a fun one for any grade level. Easter BINGO complete with 30 playing cards and 30 cute graphic calling cards.

A 52 page Easter package that includes Language Arts and Math activities. Fun, colorful graphics are used to add fun to your resources!
Activities included are:
*Vowel Sound Sorts
*Rhyming Activity
*Contraction worksheets and Concentration Game
*Compound Words
*Alphabetical Order
*Sentence Writing
*Acrostic Poetry
*Writing Paper
*Addition and Subtraction Facts
*Pattern Building
*Jellybean Graphing
*Counting
*Word Searches
*Crossword Puzzle and Mazes
*Coloring Pages
And now for the FREEBIE!!!!
A fun Concentration Game with a focus on building contractions.

I always like to find picture books to read to my class that is grade appropriate. Sometimes it is hard and so far this is the only Easter picture book that I have found that my Grade 4/5 students enjoy. If you know of any other I would love for you to leave a comment below with the name of it.

Happy planning and Cheers,

Catching Up...

2013-03-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

Wow I just realized how long it has been since I posted on my blog. As usual life is crazy right now with finishing my masters degree. My first ahhhh date is April 8th because my action research is due on April 7th and then all I have to worry about is my course work. I look forward to having more time to blog this summer when everything is done.

Well anyways I thought I would share a few things that have been going on in my classroom over the past while. Warning this is a long post....

I was looking for a Valentine's Day ( I know... I know it is almost Easter and I am sharing about Valentine's Day.... Read above :) ) activity to do with my class and saw heart maps all over the internet. Most people have used them for writer's workshop but I thought I would give them a try as a relatively easy Valentine's project. I was a little worried how the boys in my class would like them but they were actually more excited than the girls to work on their hearts.

Here are some close ups of a few of them.

The heart maps will do double duty because when we start writer's workshop this term I will remind them of all the things they put in their heart maps as inspiration.

OOOHHH I am so excited to share this with you. Right now we are working on inferring using Jennifer Runde's Inferring with Chris Van Allsburg Unit and my class is LOVING it ! ! !

Here is the anchor chart used for the first unit for The Wretched Stone. Me being me I even colour coordinated it to my classroom colours :)

I have to say I was pretty impressed with my students' responses. I was even shocked that one student understood Chris Van Allsburg's hidden message right away. Smart cookie he is! I guess he does have a great teacher after all :)

Here is my anchor chart for inferring inspired by Pinterest of course.

Isn't Pinterest great for classroom ideas. Here is a link to my Pinterest boards if you want to check out all the treasures I find there.

Well since I shared a great find on TpT I thought I would also share my latest item I posted on TpT. It is a fun one for sure. Are you just as addicted to 4 Pictures 1 Word as I am? Well Guess the Word is inspired by the fun game.

Along with the 20 cards (which can be laminated and used as a literacy centre) there is a recording sheet so students/teacher can keep track of which ones they completed.

Today is the last day of my Spring Break so I am back to work tomorrow. I am excited to hear all about the adventures my students went on over this past week. I am sure they are more exciting than what I did. The highlight of my Spring Break was spending Thursday with my husband and son driving (3 hours) up North to snowy Mackenzie so my husband could do 30 minutes of work and then shopping for soccer gear for my son on our way back. Oh yeah and I checked out the new Dollar Tree in town.

Cheers and have a great week,

Super Sunday Game

2013-02-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned the other day I am not a football fan but I did find a way to make the Superbowl fun this year!!! Some wonderful blogger friends of mine all got together to have a TPT Super Sunday Sale Game of our own. What can be more exciting than this???

How to Play the Game:
All of the resources posted below have a letter hidden somewhere in them. (Hint: You can find this hidden letter on the second page of the resource.) All of the letters will spell out: 49'ers or Ravens.
So for instance if you purchase my Valentine's Day BINGO Game you will find a number 9 hidden on the second page. Collect the letters to spell a team's name, or even enough for both names, and then cheer on your favourite team!! After the game, check to see if you have the letters to spell out the winning team's name. If you do, be the first to post your name and email address AND the items you purchased that spell out the winning team on The Diary of a Not So Wimpy Teacher's blog. Within 24 hours all of the sellers listed below will email you one free item from their store. Ready....Set...Game on !!

4 CUPID-A Sweet Sight Word Game
9 Valentine's Day BINGO Game
E Enemy Pie Reader's Companion or, Super "e" Heroes-A CVCe Word Game, or It's About Elapsed Time
R Prefix/Suffix/Root-of-the-Day-Book-and-Bundle
S St. Patrick's Day Craftivities
R Roll and Graph a President
A American Symbols Activities
V Valentine's Literacy Centers Aligned to Common Core
E Enemy Pie Reader's Companion or, Super "e" Heroes-A CVCe Word Game, or It's About Elapsed Time
N Mixed Numbers Concentration/Matching Cards
S Iditarod Themed Bulletin Board Project with Student Activities and extra clip art images

Cheers,

Sunday Sale!

2013-02-01T16:34:00.000-08:00

Well most people are excited that the Super Bowl is on Sunday. Not me. I am not a football fan at all. For me the game stops too much. I am sure some of you are thinking I am crazy but hey, I live in Canada and hockey is the craze here!!
What I am excited about on Sunday is the HUGE Super Sunday Sale at TpT!!!!
Everything in my store will be on sale with deals up to 20% off. Please be one of the smart shoppers and use the TpT code of SUPER to get an additional savings of 10% off. OK, time for some math.... That means with my 20% off and TpT's 10% off you can get 28% off!!!! Now that is better than football (and maybe hockey) any day !!!!

The 10% off from TpT during check out is only good until midnight Feb. 3rd, Hawaii time. Aww warm Hawaii......sorry I digress. Anyways, I am keeping my store on sale for Monday as well, but you will only be able to get the 20% off this day. I know I want the whole deal so Sunday will be my shopping day and do I ever have a lot in my cart waiting. Good thing yesterday was pay day :)

If you are looking for some great deals for your cart here are a couple of my products:

For Intermediate Grades:

My Best Selling Item

Math made fun

Perfect for FSL

For Primary Grades:

50 pages

3 Great Games

Best Seller

Click here to check out all my 141 products on TpT !

Have fun shopping on Sunday (and maybe watching some football) and don't forget to check below for other great TpT sellers putting their stores on sale.

Cheers,

Winter Wonderland Art

2013-01-27T16:18:00.001-08:00

Well the last two weeks have been busy at our school with 4 days of skiing. We lucked out and had beautiful weather with around -2 degrees Celsius all days :) It feels like we didn't do much school work over these 2 weeks. During the first week skiing was Wednesday and Thursday so on Friday my kiddos were EXHAUSTED. I decided that we would watch Maniac Magee since we just finished the novel. It isn't the best quality but hey it filled the time while my class recouped from skiing.
During the second week we went on Wednesday and Friday so they were not as tired and we could get some work done. We completed a winter art project (inspired by this Pinterest link) that had to be done over 3 days because of waiting for paint to dry. Biggest lesson my class learned....patience !
As I did my example I took pictures so you can see the steps.
Step 1: Paint the snow at the bottom of the page. I told my class that about 1/3 of the page should be the snow base.

Step 2: THE HARDEST STEP
Somewhere in the top part of the page paint a white circlish (new made-up word) shape. We used plastic plates for the paint and students had 2 colours only (white and blue). To the white add a SMALL amount of blue paint. Paint around the white circlish shape with the new paint colour. It is okay (preferable even) to overlap the paint to help with blending and not making it look like stripes around the middle circle. Then continue this with gradually adding blue paint to make it darker as you move outward from the white circlish shape. Let dry

Step 3: Using black paint only, paint shilouttes of things you would see outside during winter. Let dry.

Ok this is where my students struggled with patience. They wanted to do the final stage and set he finished product.

Step 4: Add snow if wanted. I used a Q-tip here but some of my students used a paintbrush. It is up to you. Let dry and then display.

My school only had a lighter blue paint so it was hard to make it dark. I would love to have done this with a navy blue paint but that is life. I think they still turned out okay and the bulletin board is eye-catching in the hallway.

Here are some examples that my Gr4/5s did.

Have fun painting with your class and if you need an idea for paint containers in your classroom check out my previous post on reusing Lunchable containers for paint !

Since this project was inspired by Pinterest I thought I would leave a link to my Winter Pinterest Board ! I would love for you to follow any of my boards. If you have a great Pinterest board dedicated to art I would LOVE it if you could leave a link in the comments so I can follow it also. I am obsessed with Pinterest and finding new art ideas :)

Cheers,

Amazon.com Widgets

February Freebie Linky

2013-01-24T17:44:00.000-08:00

I am excited to be participating in Laura Candler's February Freebies Link Up!
If you have seen my classroom you will know I like pink which is one of the reasons why I get excited about Valentine's Day. Another reason I love Valentine's Day is it gives me an excuse to celebrate with my kiddos at school.
Every year I give them treat bags and Valentine's cards. Well I was getting tired of the same old cards usually related to some TV show so I made my own. My class always gets excited when I tell them that I made the cards myself. You can get my 9 cards FREE by clicking on the picture and downloading them :)

Don't forget to visit Laura's blog to check out other February Freebies !

Cheers,

Amazon.com Widgets

Flocabulary !!!

2013-01-20T11:04:00.001-08:00

Where has this website been my entire (8 year) teaching career? If you haven't checked out Flocabulary.com you should. I was searching for some fun video about prefixes on YouTube and I found this one
From there I went to check out what Flocabulary was and I fell in love. I signed up for a free 14 day trial and my students and I went exploring. Many of them already knew about it from last years teacher and showed me some great videos. When you sign up you can get lesson plans and everything for Grades K-12!!
I noticed today that they have a section which aligns the videos to the Common Core Standards for those districts using them.

Cheers and happy exploring,

Amazon.com Widgets

No Bones About It, Science is Fun!

2013-01-06T11:57:00.000-08:00

Well it is the last day of Christmas break for me and I cannot wait to go back to school. Is it weird that over the holidays I was missing my kiddos and wondering what they were doing? I am sure I have said it already this year but I love my class. They are fantastic and interesting!!! Of course they are not without their problems (no class is perfect after all) but they are so open to trying anything and they are respectful and encouraging to each other. Perhaps this is a rare thing these days as I have not had a class like this in a few years. Anyways I digress with their greatness...
Back to what I was going to start to write. We will be continuing with our study of the human body so I was looking up new books about bones, to bring into the classroom. There are so many to choose from so why is my classroom library lacking in this area....hmmmm Well I did some shopping this morning and this is what I ordered (All books about bones/human body except the Madonna box set. It was too good of a deal to pass up and my students love her books.).

We are having such a fun time learning about the human body and sometimes I let my class continue working on Science way longer than we should. I would teach Science all day long to them if I could. They didn't want to move on from the nervous system and the brain and now they don't want to move on from the bones. Here are some picture from what we have been doing in class.

Here are a couple of pictures of bones that I had on display for my class. The human bones are from the high school. I am told they are real but I am not too sure. My class enjoyed looking at the long bones (see below for our in depth look at long bones) and identifying the spongy bone and the canals that run through the bones.

These are only some of the bones. I left the rest in the box so the table wouldn't get too cluttered. My class wants to assemble the entire skeleton so I think I will set up stations around the classroom and one can be assembling the skeleton.

Along with the human bones are some animal bones as well. There are 2 small animal skulls in the second picture and 2 moose bones (brought in by a student) in the third picture. Can you spot them?

Before we looked at the skeleton we read some facts about the bones in our text book and then had an in-depth look at certain bone types. Here is the anchor chart for the long bone. Students made a to scale model of one of their long bones from card stock and then we labeled and coloured it to match as we filled out the anchor chart.
They had fun making a bone that was the same length as theirs and then they compared bone lengths. It was great to see that when we looked at the real skeleton that they remembered aspects of the long bone from this lesson.

Here is the anchor chart from our lesson on keeping bones healthy. I divided my class into four groups (5 students each group) by putting the names of the minerals (Calcium, Vitamin C, Phosphorus, and Vitamin D)
in a can and students had to pull one out and find their partners.
There task was to research on the computer how their mineral helped their bones and what foods they could find the mineral in. Then they had to go through magazines and find the foods to glue on the anchor chart. One person from each group was to present their information to the class.
Next we are moving on to look at muscles and how the bones move. Exciting stuff happening in my classroom!!!!

If you have studied the human body in your classroom I would love to hear about what you have done. I am always looking for new activities to do with my class.
Cheers,

Amazon.com Widgets

Bloggers from Around the World!

2013-01-02T11:52:00.000-08:00

The Internet is a wonderful tool for connecting teachers all over the world. I love visiting other blogs and discovering where the teacher-author is from. It is neat to see ideas I use in my classroom here in Canada being used elsewhere in the world and it is even better finding new teaching ideas from fellow bloggers.

Michelle at Making It As A Middle School Teacher has created a genius linky party to feature bloggers who are outside of the United States.

Head on over to the party to check out other bloggers from around the world. I am excited to see how many countries will be covered by this one linky party. Canada...check :)

Updated: Feb. 17, 2013
The Adventures of an Occasional Teacher is also hosting a linky party that showcases Canadian blogs. Of course, me being a proud Canadian I linked up immediately. Check out the other bloggers by clicking on the picture.

Cheers,

Total Participation in Your Classroom

2013-01-01T17:02:00.000-08:00

First of all I would like to say HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all. 2012 was a fabulous year and I can only hope that 2013 will be as great!
I thought I would start the new year off by sharing with you my favourite professional resource that I discovered in 2012. Total Participation Techniques has transformed my teaching and allowed all my students to be more involved in lessons.
Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner

My administrator brought the book to the school at the end of August and he showed it to me. I asked to borrow it and by the time I was done the second chapter I had ordered a copy for myself.If you are anything like myself you will write all over your books to make notes. Well since it wasn't my book I had to use sticky notes and then would transfer the notes to my book when I got it in the mail. There was a lot of recopying to do :)

The book has many (37 to be exact) practical techniques to involve your students in every lesson. They encourage you to have a kit in/at each child's desk with materials ready for total participation. I am still working on this but have many materials ready in the classroom for students to use.

I recently purchased individual whiteboards from Really Good Stuff so that students would have their own and we could stop using the flimsy laminated paper we had before. My students were very excited about having their own whiteboard.

Other great resources for students to have are Yes/No cards, multiple choice cards with A,B,C,D choices, and number cards.

The techniques allow students to mingle with peers while discussing/figuring out concepts taught. This relies on having students work with partners a lot. You can put students with partners in many ways such as desk partners, grade partners, or number partners. One of the best (and used the most in my classroom) techniques for putting students in partners is the use of an appointment card. The book goes into great detail on this partnering technique and I immediately fell in love with the practicality and ease of this technique.

Basically, students setup appointments ahead of time and when you need them to work with a partner you have them pull out their laminated appointment card and say "I want you to work with your 2pm appointment." My students always ask if they can meet with their appointment partners and are disappointed when they choice partners in a different manner. Click on the picture of the appointment cards for a ready-to-go template.

Tip: If you have an odd number of students make sure they make an appointment where there will be 3 of them in a group.

Trust me when I say that this is the professional resource to have in EVERY classroom. I have only gone into details about one of the techniques so there are 36 more for you to explore.

Cheers,

Amazon.com Widgets

Dodecahedrons

2012-12-28T15:07:00.000-08:00

What in the world is a dodecahedron you ask? Thanks to an anonymous commenter I now know that a dodecahedron is a 12-sided shape and NOT what I made :) So let me try this again...

What in the world is an icosahedron you ask?It is a 20 sided shape(That I always thought was called a dodecahedron. Dodecahedron is so much funner to say.)! A long time ago (9 years) I did this project with a group of students and then forgot all about it. Well this year I wanted to do an art project with my class that could be hung up. I searched Pinterest and didn't find any inspiration. How can that be you ask? I know, I know. No inspiration on Pinterest....unheard of. Anyways I pulled out an old box and saw my flattened example of a dodecahedron and I knew instantly I wanted my kiddos to make their own.
Here is a look at the finished product!

Materials needed:
-materials to color with, scissors, glue stick, string, circle template (see below)

Step 1: Have students decorate 20 of the circles. Click on the picture for a copy of the template.They may complain that they have to do 20 of them and that they won't have enough ideas. I alleviated this worry by having the class brainstorm a list of possible things to draw. Each time we worked on the ~~dodecahedrons~~ icosahedrons the list was put up. I also told them that if they were really stuck they could do 2 of the same design therefore only having to come up with 10 ideas (not one students picked this option).

Tip: Do not cut out any circles until all 20 are colored. I also have my students lightly put their initials on the back of the circles when they cut them out so if they are dropped on the floor they can get back to the rightful owner.

Step 2: After all 20 circles are decorated, have students cut them out and fold up the sides like the picture shows.

Tip: I let my students use stencils if they wanted to so that students who were self-conscious of their drawing abilities could have fun and be creative.

Step 3: Take 5 of the folder circles and glue (glue sticks work best) the sides together as the picture shows. Once students glue together the last 2 flaps it will pop up to create a half dome shape. This will become the top or the bottom of the final dodecahedron.

Do this twice creating 2 separate 5-sided domes.

Students will now have used 10 of their circles.

Tip: Before gluing the top on make sure you attach string through the middle of one of the domes so you can hang it up.

Step 4: With the remaining 10 circles, have students glue them together to create a long strip like the picture shows.

Step 5: Take the top dome and the long strip. Glue the top flaps of the long strip to the flaps on the dome working your way around the dome circle. To check as you go along, when you are gluing the flaps together you will be creating groups of 5 circles. This may sound confusing right now but it becomes very clear as you are gluing!

Once the top dome is glued to the long strip repeat step 5 with the bottom dome.

When the ~~dodecahedron~~ icosahedron is complete students can hang them up!

I know that Christmas has come and gone and you may not be able to make Christmas ~~dodecahedrons~~ icosahedron right now but you can either save this for next year or adapt it to use right now. You can have a ~~dodecahedron~~ icosahedron with a different theme; Valentine's Day, Spring, Summer, a unit in Science, or use it for teaching 3-D shapes in Math.

Here are a few of the Christmas books I read to my students this year. They especially liked The Christmas Orange.

Amazon.com Widgets

Cheers,

It is Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

2012-11-24T20:12:00.000-08:00

Well things have been busy in my house as usual. Winter soccer season is well on its way so I spend 3 nights a week at the soccer fields watching my son. We have an indoor soccer facility here so he can play all year long. It truly is an odd feeling being bundled up when it is -30 and watching the kids run around in shorts on the field. One more month and then I get a small break from Masters class but I finished another assignment today so I am one step closer to being finished!!! A big celebration will need to happen when I am done:)

Tonight I had a few minutes so I thought I would gear up for the annual Cyber Monday sale on Teachers Pay Teachers. Of course EVERYTHING in my store will be 20% off and then you can get an additional 10% off during check out with the TpT code CMT12.

Thanks Michelle The 3AM Teacher for the cute graphics for the sale! If you haven't checked out her graphics you definitely should. They are a great way to spruce up your worksheets or products.

I have my wishlist on TpT well stocked and am looking forward to the sale on Monday. It is a great way to stock up on things for the upcoming holidays. If you haven't filled your wishlist or are looking for some new things to bring into your classroom here are a few of my newest Christmas/Winter products.

Let your students practice putting Christmas words in alphabetical order with strings of Christmas lights! This would be great for a literacy center.

Are you looking for a unit that covers multiple subject areas? This 54 page unit has activities for Language Arts, Math, PE, and more.

Here is my newest winter product and I recently used it with my Gr4/5 students and they had a blast. What a great way to practice multiplication facts to 10x10. There are 30 cards in total so everyone can participate.

Here are 2 freebies for you to get you in the Christmas/Winter spirit!!! Creative ways for your students to practice both ordinal numbers and rhyming. I hope you enjoy them.

There are many, many sellers putting their stores on sale for the Cyber Monday sale and here are a few lovely sellers with great deals:

Cheers,

This week...

2012-11-11T10:10:00.000-08:00

Once again I am finding myself with VERY little time to take care of my blog. I miss blogging a lot but I am swamped with my master's work and running my son around to soccer. Maybe someday I will have a laptop and then I can blog while I am being soccer mom 3 days a week! Wouldn't that be great???? Three blog posts a week. I would be happy if I could get one post every 2 weeks.

Anyways, I have a few spare moments so I thought I would let you know some of the things I used in my classroom this week.
My master's action research project is all about goal setting and students taking ownership for their learning. So far my class has completed the first 6 weeks of my data collecting with no goal setting and this week we had our transition week where I taught them about creating SMART goals. I found a unit on TpT which was almost perfect for what I needed. It has posters and practice activities for creating SMART goals. You can find it here but take note that the meaning she wrote for the R is reason when everything else has it as realistic or relevant. I have emailed to ask for her to include a realistic or relevant poster as well. She quickly got back to me and said she was going to work on one!

In science we are learning about the human body and we started with the nervous system. My students are loving it! We completed an experiment to see if the brain can learn where students had to be timed completing a 25 piece puzzle. They did the puzzle 4 times and then looked at their time results. Every student but one, had bettered their time. With their partner they discussed what they thought this meant about their brain (that it can learn, that it can memorize things, that it works faster by remembering things if you do them over an over again). We then had a class talk about how this related to school (the more you practice things the better you will remember them). They had so much fun they wanted to be timed doing EVERY puzzle I had.
Continuing with the brain, we watched the video below and then students worked in groups of 3 to create a poster that showed what they learned about the brain. The title of the posters are, How Our Brains Learn. They are still working on the posters but I will be sure to post pictures when they are done because some of them are very creative.

When we went to watch the YouTube video the computer was acting up and would not download the video quick enough. After being frustrated I called another teacher who showed me how to download the video to my computer and then put it in a Smartboard file so we didn't have to wait for it to download each time! This is now how I will be showing most of my YouTube clips to my students!

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada so we had our school assembly on Friday. It was a short assembly and there were no videos shown. I find that students are really impacted by the videos so I wanted to show them a couple. Here is one:

During snack time I read my students A Bear in War by Stephanie Innes. One student was so moved that she began to cry because she said she was thinking of her great-grandpa.

Before I go I want to share with you a picture I found on Pinterest. Sorry I cannot remember exactly where I found it but when I did I immediately grabbed it and printed it off. I have to remind myself every once in a while when I am feeling overwhelmed with the responsibilities of being a teacher that someone is trusting me with their most precious gift and it is an honor.

I hope this week coming up is going to be as great as the past week!

Cheers,

Spooktacular Halloween

2012-10-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

I am not sure if I have mentioned this before but I love, love, LOVE Halloween. I love everything about it (well except the amount of candy I eat) from the cute decorations and colours, to the excitement about costumes. OOOHHH and I found some Halloween things at the local dollar store to match my classroom colours (lime green, turquoise, pink, and black.
Since I love Halloween so much it seems that many of my seasonal products are geared towards it. Here are a few of my favourites (a treat is waiting for you at the end):

Great for students in Grade 4-7 to practice their multiplication facts to 12 x 12!

Do you teach French as a second language? If so, this unit is a fun way to introduce students to Halloween vocabulary!

2 Halloween themed games for your students to practice contractions. Cute candy corn and pumpkin graphics make this a hit with all students.

A complete Halloween Unit for students in Grades 1-4. Includes everything from word wall signs to Math activities to BINGO games! This 75 page unit is my best selling Halloween product.

Have your students practice their addition facts to 20 with this package. It includes flash cards, games, and 8 practice worksheets!

Get your classroom looking Halloweenie with these 4 different bulletin board borders. A colourful way to spruce up your Halloween displays.

Can you say Trick or Treat? No tricks here, just a treat! Click on the picture to get 2 FREE Halloween worksheets. The first one is a Halloween Scramble and the second one is a Halloween sentence writing activity.

I hope you enjoy Halloween as much as I do:)
Cheers,

Amazon.com Widgets

Art Makes Me Happy

2012-10-03T13:25:00.000-07:00

I am home from work today with no voice. I guess I was talking too much during parent-teacher interviews last night. Well since I have been so busy lately and have neglected my blog, I thought this would be a great time to catch up.

I love finding new art ideas online so I thought I would share this one that I do with my class at the beginning of every year (it is great for teacher on call work as well).

Here is how it works:
1.) Give students half a piece of 8 1/2x11 white card stock and 7 different coloured happy face stickers.
2.) Tell students to put the stickers anywhere on their paper.
3.) Once all the stickers are on the paper tell students that they have to create a scene without moving any of the stickers (I have an example for them). The stickers can be people, animals, or bugs. Really they can be anything with a face. I have had students turn them into suns or flowers. It is interesting to see their faces when they realize where they put the stickers. Some of them are even upside down :) I tell them the whole page has to be part of the scene and that I want colours (no black and white). To add some humour I also tell them they cannot tell me that their picture is 7 people in a snow storm.

4.) When students are finished I give them some tape and let them hang their masterpieces anywhere on the door.

Here are some pictures of what this years crew did. There are not very many because some students moved to another classroom and a couple are not finished.

This activity helps me assess students persistence with work, especially when they put stickers upside down. It is great for seeing who can adapt to unforeseen circumstances. Every year a couple of students cannot handle it and ask to start over because they don't want their stickers where they put them. I always let them start over but I put the stickers on the page for them (none upside down). From this years crew I could quickly see that I needed to focus art lessons on adding details and colouring neatly in one direction. I don't think they were lacking in the creativity department so this is great.In terms of coloring neatly, they are in grade 4/5 and in my opinion should have neater colouring skills. We just completed a new art project this week that focused specifically on colouring neatly in small areas. I will post this soon.

Whenever we complete an art project I have students reflect on their work. Actually we are doing a lot of reflecting on all our work this year since I have a group of students who are deep thinkers and have risen to the challenge of wanting to reflect on their progress. Really they are a dream class but I digress. Anyways here is a link to the art reflection sheets I have my students complete.

Cheers,

Amazon.com Widgets

Finally done!!!

2012-09-08T13:15:00.000-07:00

Well my first week is over and my book bins finally came in. I didn't get my classroom library completely finished until Friday evening (you can see the time in some of the pictures) and then madly took pictures before I had to rush home to make dinner. Ugh (or any other disturbing noise you prefer to make) making dinner on a Friday evening is not my most favourite task to do. Anyways enough about what I don't like to do on a Friday evening.

Here are the pictures of my classroom !!! I am so excited to have it completed. After looking at the pictures my classroom looks bigger than it actually is. Well maybe that has to do with the fact that I only have 19 Grade 4/5s this year. Yup you read it right... 19! The perks of working at a school on the outskirts (only a 15 minutes drive ...ssshhhh don't tell the police) of town. I guess this makes up for having to wake up early to start school earlier than the school in town. Okay, okay I am getting to the pictures. Warning there are a LOT of pictures.
Here they are :)

Just a reminder of what my room looked like when I first walked into it in August.

And a view when you walk into the room now ! Ahhh much better and brighter:)

Another view. This time from the back right corner.

View from the front left corner. I love my fluffy turquoise chair form Ashley Furniture Home Store ! And the kids love to read in it !!!

Ok now for come close ups ...

This is the bulletin board that is by my desk. It has our calendar and job chart on it. The blank spots will be filled with students pictures and news throughout the year.

Here is a close up of my jobs chart. I am so in love with it. I got it from the wonderful Bridget who writes the blog Little Lovely Leaders. They come in a rainbow of colours and you can get them here. As you can see from the picture I don't have names on the clothes pins yet. That is one of my many weekend to-do tasks. I was going through some boxes of old stuff and I found that a long time ago I bought plastic clothes pins and they just happened to match my colour scheme this year. Perfect.

Here is a picture of my classroom library and the much anticipated book bins from Really Good Stuff. I ordered 3 different sets of the large rectangular book baskets. I didn't want the yellow ones that come with the mix and match set so I just ordered 12 of each of the 3 colours I wanted. To go along with them I ordered the basket label holders but printed off my own labels with a black and white polka dot theme to match my room. These labels will be posted soon !

I was super excited (wow I get excited a lot) when I found this pink shag carpet at Walmart and the green basket at Micheal's. The green basket had a chalkboard sign on the front which I printed "Recycling" on for our paper recycling. I am not sure about it though because it has only been 4 days of school and I have rewritten "recycling" 2 times because the students keep smearing it.

Another view of my library with my READ sign included. You can get your very own customizable READ sign here. The top big baskets are also from Really Good Stuff and hold my non-fiction and picture books. I will eventually separate my non-fiction books into more specific categories but for now this works. The pink basket on top of the filing cabinet hold student headphones all nicely kept in individual Ziploc bags.

The bulletin boards above my classroom library. The one on the left will eventually have my genre posters on them when the order comes in from Scholastic. For now they have on them Comprehension Strategies posters from Lyndsey who has the blog A Year Of Many Firsts. You can get the posters FREE here.

Here is my whiteboard which is between my library and my desk. It is all ready to go for Monday.

I write the days schedule on the board and have the students practice reading handwriting. Right now it is in printing because they haven't learned all the letters yet. At the top is my welcome sign (sorry for the glare). One of my students asked to have one for her bedroom. Cute. You can get yours here and they are customizable.
The owl sign is one that I made on VistaPrint and it is for work that has no names. I will have to make a new one to match my classroom colours.
I am not sure if you can see what the sign above the books says but it says "Mrs. Browne's Picks" These are the books that I recommend. I change them every once in awhile to expose books to kids that they might not pick.
The times written on the board are for a math activity we did where they were trying to match their place value card with the card of someone else's in the classroom. The entire class had to find their partner and sit down. We did it 3 times and they had to try and beat their time. We will do it again next week and see if they can do even better. I am going to do a post about my first week activities and it will be there with more details.
The little black box is my word box. Read this post to find out how great it is!

This is my desk area (no kidding you say!) Not much to explain here. You can see my teacher tool box and daily folder organizers on the back shelf. See the post about them here and here.

A close up of my hand in drawers.

Last year students handed everything into one bin and then I had to spend valuable time sorting through it all before I could even start to mark. I dreaded it every time. When I saw this drawer organizer I knew immediately what I wanted to do with it. I bought some fancy Martha Stewart labels and wrote on them in decorative printing. There is one draw for each subject students will hand work in for. So far it has worked wonders. All I say to the collector is to hand in collected work to the correct drawer and voila organization is done. Why didn't I think of this YEARS ago?

I found the flowers at Micheal's a few weeks ago and bought them because they matched my room colours. At the time I didn't know what I was going to do with them. While I was getting my room together the top shelf of the organizer sat empty an the flowers lay on a desk. As soon as I cut them shorter and put them in the case I knew they would fill the empty spot on my shelf. A couple of my girls stop to smell the flowers (mmm plastic flower smell) every time they hand something in.

I really wanted to recognize student accomplishments this year so I created my Stellar Work board.

They will get to clip up any work they are proud of, no matter what the mark is. Some of them wondered if it had to be perfect work and I said of course not. It can be ANYTHING you are proud of. When I created this I only had 16 students on my class list but now I am up to 19 so I have to rearrange it. On a side note I would like to thank my son for helping my colour all of the clothes pins black. I am a little crazy I know but the normal clothes pin colour was driving my crazy and that was all I could focus on so we watched Big Brother and coloured away. They look much better than this and all it cost me was an ice cream sandwich (cheap labor) for my son :)

My computer area. Last year the computers were along the wall and every time a student went on them I had some students who were completely distracted and could not focus on their work. So this year I turned them so that no one else can see what they are doing. I hope this works.

Just behind my computers is the back sink counter and my Boggle Board. See this post about my Boggle Board.

The black basket hold our outdoor sports equipment and the pink basket is for empty juice containers. Can you spot my turquoise vacuum? I actually ran for it in Canadian Tire when I spotted it down the isle. I think I embarrassed my son and husband. Hey, who doesn't need a matching vacuum for their classroom? ! The clear tub has all our Action School equipment and I am not sure where it's final home will be but it fits here for now.

Every year I have to go over how to set up a page and usually I do it all on the Smartboard but my Smartboard has been broken all week. Yup you heard me right.... ALL week. AHHHHHH It was tough to go without it and I used so much chart paper. It brought me back to the days long ago (5 years tops) when I didn't have a Smartboard to use in the classroom. Anyways I wander... I had to make up my very specific rules for setting up a page.

The biggest question I get is why the Date and then Name. Well students know how much room their name takes up and can judge where to start it. The date length always changes and often kids will run out of room and start writing up or down the page. This way they will have all the room they need for the date no matter how long it is. Brilliant, I know :P

A view of all of my bins for student duo-tangs. I made the labels to match my colour scheme and you can get them here.

They do not keep them in their desk (too much clutter) and all the duo-tangs for one subject are all the same colour. For instance my Social Studies duo-tangs are ALL purple. This makes it easy for me to see that students have the right book out and it makes it easy for them to find the duo-tang if they misplace it or put it in the wrong bin. My class supply list is very specific and I keep a box of extra duo-tangs handy so them when we are labeling them and a student doesn't have the proper colour they bring me one of their odd colour (or ones with the cute animal pictures on them that parents insist on buying their child even though it is NOT on the list) duo-tangs and I give them one that is the proper colour.

This is a picture of one of the activities we did this week (post to come) and my puzzle table. Last year students would start a puzzle on the floor and then have to clean it up before it was finished. Not this year! I found a small table in the school and snagged it for my room. As you can see they have already started one.

Here is a picture of my behaviour chart (see post here) and some of the chart paper I had to use. Remember my Smartboard was broken :( Did you notice what time it was when I took this picture on a Friday night. How late do you end up staying at school?

Wow this post has taken me longer than I expected and my family is waiting to pack up and go camping for the night so I am off. I hope you found something useful in this post and don't forget to check back soon (hint: I will be writing it tomorrow night when we get back) to see what we did the first week in my classroom.
Cheers,

A Rockin' Bulletin Board

2012-09-03T19:32:00.001-07:00

Phew.... this was the last day in my classroom before kids arrive tomorrow. I am as done as I can be for now. I know I said that I would post pictures of my room once it is done but I am not going to. Hold on don't get mad....Here is why: I ordered book baskets for my classroom library from Really Good Stuff and then didn't arrive. Well that is until an hour after we left for our last weekend trip before school starts. Since it is a long weekend they are sitting in the post office waiting for me.
Hmmm I know it is Labor Day and all but doesn't the post office know I have important things in my parcels? Ok enough ranting:)
I will go get my baskets tomorrow after work, set up my library, and then take pictures of my classroom to show you !
In the mean time I have pictures of the bulletin board outside my room.

I am pleased with how it turned out. I knew I wanted to do a Rock n' Roll themed board for my Grade 4/5s but I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do. As soon as I saw School Girl Style's new classroom theme I knew immediately what I was going to do. All the credit goes to her for the design. Granted I am no artist but I think I did okay.

I am not sure if you can tell but these are glitter stars and I used more duct tape for the border. Duct tape is my new love. I was beside myself when I saw sheets of duct tape at Micheal's the other day.

A close up of the letters.

The guitars. My son said they look like ukelele's but I think they look like electric guitars (sort of).

Well tomorrow is the first day back with students so I hope I can sleep and that Wide Awake by Katy Perry is not going to be my theme song.
If you are heading back to school tomorrow have a great first day and if you have already been back have a great week!
Cheers,

Amazon.com Widgets

A Little Bit More - Day 2

2012-08-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

I popped into the school again today to get a little bit more setup in my room. Once again I did more talking than I wanted to so progress was slow. I think I need to go in after 10pm to avoid talking to people :)
So here is a little of what I did today...

Here is my Boggle board. I have to admit I think I spent way too much time making this. I had my iPod out and I was using the level to make sure things were straight. It is in the middle of a wall so I didn't have close edges to line up with. Hmmm I just noticed my title isn't spaced properly. I will have to fix that.

A close up of the border. Bulletin board trimmer, duct tape, and ribbon made the perfect border!

A close up of the letters that will be changed each week. I laminated them so I could stick them on with that blue putty stuff for hanging posters.

I got the letters from Rebecca at Create, Teach, Share. I was going to make my own worksheet for students to write their answers on but Rebecca has a perfect one. Why mess with perfection?!
* I just found some more Boggle recording sheets and these ones have a place for keeping a score. These would be good if you are having a competition or having kids graph their scores. Get them from Tracy here.While you are at it why not check out her blog, Creekside Teacher Tales!

Here is the main wall in my classroom that students face for lessons. Please ignore the mess on the desks. I wanted to show you the color blocking I am doing. I am amazed that it wasn't until I did this that I truly noticed my Smartboard wasn't centered. Last year the entire bulletin board was the same color so it wasn't as noticeable. WHO puts up a Smartboard and doesn't center it? I hope it doesn't bug me too much.

My favorite bulletin board so far. In person it looks way better. Don't tell anyone else this but I stood and stared at it for awhile :) At the bottom is my teacher toolbox which matches so nicely. See previous post about the toolbox here.

I don't have anything on my boards yet but you will have to wait until the final reveal to see them completely finished.

I am still waiting for my Really Good Stuff book baskets so I cannot show you any pictures of my classroom library but I did start organizing the books into genre groupings. They are all over the floor right now.

I only have another week before we are back to school and I am leaving for a short trip on Thursday, so the final reveal will be soon.

If you are back at school I hope things are going smoothly and if you are still on summer break, relax a little more.
Cheers,

Amazon.com Widgets

Back To School Expo

2012-08-22T19:56:00.001-07:00

I am super excited that the Back to School Expo is almost here. On August 25th, FIVE fantastic teachers will be presenting to help you get ready for back to school. Topics include decorating your classroom, using technology in the classroom, reading success, creating a positive environment with back to school activities, and how to use math journals with your students!

All of this awesomeness costs only $10. Along with getting a ticket to the presentations (a $19.95 value) you will get a goodie bag that is worth over $160, and 30% off select teaching items in the vendor hall.

I will have 3 items in the vendor hall on sale. My 21 Literacy Worksheets for Any Picture Book, 40 Page Back to School Unit, and 21 PE Stations will all be 30% off. Only those people attending the Back to School Expo will have access to the incredible Vendor Hall. I cannot wait. I will be filling my cart :)

Don't wait too long to get this great deal because starting August 24th the ticket prices will be back up to $19.95. Get your ticket now while it is half price!!!
Just click on either picture to get your ticket! Cheers,

Classroom Set Up Day 1

2012-08-21T05:30:00.000-07:00

Yay, I finally went into my classroom to start setting up today. My dining room was starting to get overtaken by stuff that I had to bring to the school so I thought it was time to head into the class. This is the first year I have taken any pictures of the set up process so we will see how it goes.

This was the view when I first walked into the room. Wow, it is very beige and this picture really shows the dirty (stinky) carpet.
My son and I immediately opened the windows to air it out and then went searching for more desks and chairs.

This is my helper for the day! My 11 year old son, Parker. He was such a trooper and only asked to go on the computer 2 times.

Just before we left I took a few more pictures. Not too many though because I have a looonngg way to go still.

The desks are set up close to where they will be. I like to start my class of in rows until I get to know all the names and then they are in groups and other configurations. We do so many group/partner activities that it is easier to not have them in rows. It saves time moving desks.

Not sure if I am going to keep my math manipulative drawers here in the corner but for now it works.

My first pom pom flower to be hung up!!!!!!!!!

This is the view of my back sink counter. Yup a mess. Can you see my turquoise hand vacuum? I was so excited to find one that will match my class colors.

I am not sure who gave me the idea to decorate the ugly, grey filing cabinets but it was someone in blogger land. I found the green place mats for cheap at Jysk and added magnets to the back to hang them.

A close up of the backpack hook numbers I made.

This area will be my reading area. I am still waiting to get my baskets from Really Good Stuff so I can bring the rest of my books and start organizing.

I didn't get any bulletin boards done today and hope to start them tomorrow. Like I said I have a lot of work to do still. Stay tuned for more pictures of my adventures in setting up my classroom.
Cheers,

More Pinterest Inspiration!

2012-08-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

I cannot remember if I have raved about the teacher toolboxes which are all over Pinterest but I am sure I have. Well I received my toolbox from Amazon and finally finished it! I am so in love with it and cannot wait until I can get it into my classroom. I am going in tomorrow to start setting up even though we still have 2 weeks off.

So here is what I did to make it...

When I ordered it all they had was grey ones. It took me awhile to decide if this was the one I really wanted but I was stuck on the layout of the drawers so I went ahead and ordered it.

I bought some spray paint that is made for plastics and painted it black. Krylon Fusion For Plastic to be exact.

I then made the labels to match my classroom colors, using a turquoise and lime green zebra print from Sassy Designs. Once the labels were finished I printed them on card stock and put them in each drawer. To make sure they will stay in place I used a wee bit of tape to secure them.
I decided that I wanted it a little more fancy than just the plain black top so I took 3 strips of ribbon and attached them around the outside. Voila ! It is done and ready to use:)

Here is a close up of the draws for you to see. I have created an editable PowerPoint file if you want to get these labels and customize them to your needs. To get the labels for only $1.50 and save yourself some time click here.

Stay tuned for pictures of my completely set up classroom.
Cheers,

Amazon.com Widgets

Getting Organized With Flowers

2012-08-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

We still have just over 2 weeks left of summer holidays here so I have started getting organized. Today I decided to make the labels for my magazine folders.

I use one folder for each day of the week and this is where I keep all my prep stuff. I prefer the magazine folders over the file folders because they can hold more things.
Last year I had just the file folders on my desk and they would get knocked off and everything would be all over. I also didn't like that they took up so much room on my desk. I plan on putting my magazine folders on the shelf behind my desk so this should be better :)

Here are the labels I made and you can get them for FREE by clicking here! I hope you can use them.

Cheers,