tothesquareinch

Teacher Appreciation Week!

tothesquareinch — Tue, 07 May 2013 00:31:06 +0000

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! Hopefully everyone’s kiddos + parents are treating them nicely State testing + grading took over most of my life this month. I can’t believe it’s May already!!

Incase you haven’t heard, TpT is having an AMAZING sale tomorrow! Get 28% off at my store with coupon code TAD13 on May 7th and 8th!

Find my store here

I can’t wait to purchase a bunch of super fun items! My cart is stocked with fun clip art and activities. Check out some of my new Bingo Games…my students are currently obsessed with all things Bingo and are totally loving these! We played the week of the state exam in the periods after 2 hours of testing. The fact that all of my classes were engaged in meaningful review AFTER taking parts of the test still amazing me!

Teachers Notebook is also having an awesome sale and giveaway!

What are you planning on getting?!

Meet Jess!!

tothesquareinch — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 14:28:40 +0000

Remember when this used to be a math and SCIENCE blog?! Well, I am not teaching science this year. I loved sharing awesome science ideas on this blog and I am pretty sure you guys liked seeing them too. Although I haven’t taught much of anything but math lessons lately, I am lucky to have a best friend who is a science teacher!

Meet my BEST FRIEND, Jessica Smith!

She is an amazing science teacher and mama in Indianapolis! Jess and I met in grad school and pretty much have been BFFs ever since! Jess just opened an awesome TpT shop and I figured it would be pretty cool to interview her….with a fun giveaway Enjoy!

What grade and subject do you teach? How long have you been teaching?

I teach 7th grade Science & Reading (my favorite subjects!!) & this is my 4th year teaching!!

What is your favorite part about teaching?

My favorite part of teaching is definitely interacting with the kids. Building fun yet mutually respectful relationships with these 7th graders is so fulfilling! I truly believe Middle Schoolers are the GREATEST!!

How do you incorporate other subjects into science?

Science is the best because you can easily incorporate reading strategies, math, & history all in one! The kids in our school need as much statistical math as possible, which is easy to tie into data collecting (graphs, finding percentages, mean/median/mode, etc.) Vocabulary is a HUGE part of my curriculum & figuring out meanings of science words using their word parts. Of course, there’s also so much history when talking about scientific discoveries and the scientists that have shaped our knowledge of concepts today. Gregor Mendel is my favorite

If you could give one piece of advice to a new teacher, what would it be?

IT GETS BETTER! I PROMISE!!! My 1st year of teaching was the most CHALLENGING/AWFUL year of my life (even more challenging than being a first time momma!). I remember late night lesson plans, feeling hopelessly alone without a professor constantly giving me feedback about my teaching, grading papers until I screamed, and lots of wine & bubble baths. Once you establish some core routine & base lessons, you will FLOURISH as a teacher and it will get better and better every year! USE YOUR RESOURCES and ASK FOR HELP. Take your good/fresh ideas, and RUN with them! Lastly, try your best to focus on the great kids in your class — it is SO easy to give so much of your time & attention to the booger heads. Be the teacher you want YOUR kid to have!

Seriously, HOW AMAZING IS SHE?! Want to find out? Check out Jess’ store and leave me a comment with your favorite product (make sure you include your e-mail address)! You have a chance to win a BFF METRIC COMBO PACK including…

The Bubble Gum Lab

Click picture to see full description

Metric Mania Lab

Click the picture to see full description

Metric Units of Measure Journal

Click the picture to see full description

Around Here…..

tothesquareinch — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 01:30:38 +0000

Busy, busy, busy! Prepping for state exams + wedding planning…

my life is a crazy mix of…

this (for the sweets table at my wedding)

and this (seriously, my kiddos LOVED these Algebra Turnover Cards!)
and obsessing over all the beautiful products I will be making with this

Happy Sunday night! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Foldables EVERYWHERE!

tothesquareinch — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:36:55 +0000

This is currently what my folder of foldables looks like…

Seriously, how do you organize your foldables? I can’t tell you how many times I teach a topic and find that I have a foldable for that….two weeks later!

Happiest of Spring Holidays!

tothesquareinch — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 22:20:31 +0000

Happy springtime holidays, blog readers! This week was our shortened spring break (still making up days from Sandy!). We had Tuesday-Friday off Can’t complain! I had my amazing bridal shower this past weekend. It was amazing to see so many of my out of town friends!!

Happy almost Easter, to those of you who celebrate it! Just wanted to link this fun freebie I made the other day….Order of Operations task cards! I know my students ALWAYS need more practice with this!

Check it out here!

Also, I am throwing a little 20% off sale in my TpT shop this weekend. Enjoy!

Happy St. Patty’s Day!

tothesquareinch — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 05:01:10 +0000

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Enjoy 20% off at my Teachers Pay Teachers store for today only

Pi Day 2013

tothesquareinch — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 01:00:59 +0000

Any big plans for Pi Day?! I seriously LOVE Pi Day. Unfortunately, my students will be taking a mock state assessment on Pi Day. We are introducing geometry over the next week though, so I will definitely be doing some fun Pi activities.
Check out my Pi Day activities from last year:

I also added a super fun “Working with Circles” activities and interactive notebook pages to my TpT store. Check it out

So what has been going on around you? We are lost in the world of test prep and it is AMAZING to see my students using their Interactive Math Notebooks as references. I MUST post about them soon.

Mean, Median, Mode + Range

tothesquareinch — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 17:03:58 +0000

Mean, median, mode + range is the bane of my existence. Seriously. The only math test I ever remember failing was in 5th grade. It was all mean, median, mode + range. I mixed the four up and got pretty much every question wrong. This year I have been working SO hard to get my students to master these concepts! It’s not that they don’t know HOW to find each one, they just forget which is which. One of the things we do is we chant as a class different things to help us remember. For example for mean, we YELL:

Me: ”Step 1″

Class: “ADD UP ALL THE NUMBERS”

Me: “Step 2″

Class: “DIVIDE BY THE NUMBER OF NUMBERS”

Silly I know, but it helps my more auditory learners REMEMBER.

Another way we work on this is by constantly spiraling. All year long homework’s, Do Nows, etc have range, mean, median and mode questions.

We currently have off for President’s Day today (it was supposed to be a week long February break, but the vacation was cancelled due to the days we lost from Hurricane Sandy). I made a fun Presidential themed mean, median, mode and range worksheet which will be my Do Now when we return to school tomorrow. CLick on the link below to download:

President’s Day Freebie

And if you like it, check out the Mean, Median, Mode + Range Interactive Notebook Pages, Activities and Task Cards pack on TpT.

Mean, Median, Mode + Range Interactive Notebook Pages

How do you teach Mean, Median, Mode + Range? Do you have off this week?!

Hurricane NEMO?!

tothesquareinch — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 22:29:19 +0000

Hope everyone on the East Coast is surviving Hurricane Nemo! Snowed in here with my family, enjoying a day of hanging out in my PJs and getting ready for the school week. My brother, formally a Florida resident for the past 4 years, did a pretty good job with the snowblower.

This week we worked on integers! It was so great to see my students get excited about integers and fully grasp the concept of negative and positive numbers. I took parts of my Introduction to Integers pack and turned them into stations.

Some of the stations included:

Students filled out foldables in their interactive notebooks

Integer Pick! Students turned over integer cards and placed them on number lines in order

Working with integer task cards

Ordering Integers

Building a number line as a class

It’s so awesome to hear my students EXCITED about what we are learning and brainstorming real life examples of integers! Check out these activities here:

Oh, and congrats to Lori and Jacquie for winning my Superbowl Giveaway

Happy Superbowl!

tothesquareinch — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 13:06:56 +0000

Happy Superbowl, blog world! If you know me, you know I am a huge football fan. I absolutely love watching during the regular season…unfortunately, I am almost 100% uninterested in the Superbowl this year. I am not into either of the teams this year…and not going to lie, I am still bitter about the Giant’s poor performance this year Wahhhhh….that being said, we’re still having a party with lots of delicious food and my football obsessed fiancé, brothers & dad will be cheering on whoever they feel like cheering for. I’ll be watching the game, but I will also be making awesome wedding crafts with my mom and BFF, Amanda…o yeah and shopping these amazing sales! In case you haven’t read a single blog this week, there is a 28% off sale at Teachers Pay Teachers today!!

{Check out my store}

I’ve added a ton of fun, new products over the last few days. Check them out and snag them for cheap

Hope everyone has a super fun weekend! I am going to pick some random winners to receive one of the products listed in this post. Leave me a comment with your favorite (make sure to include your email!)