Aaargh You a Pirate?

I am so excited to announce this amazing book study with you. My friend Jenn from Rowdy in First Grade and I are cohosting the book study on Teach Like a Pirate. Have you heard of this book before? Read it? It is a really good book. And we have gathered some FANTABULOUS bloggers to join us and lead discussions on each chapter. Each chapter (or set of 2 chapters for some) will have a host (or two) that will post their in depth thoughts about their chapter. Jenn and I will post little blurbs about each chapter, but to get to the really good stuff and the discussion, you will want to head to the blog host for that chapter. Since there are a lot of amazing book studies going on this summer, we tried to make ours last only a month, so there will be posts on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. Here are the blogs you will want to follow.

Chapter 1- (June 11)

Chapter 2- (June 13)

Chapter 3- (June 16)

Chapter 4- (June 18)

Chapter 5- (June 20)

Chapter 6- (June 23)

Chapter 7- (June 25)

Chapter 8&9- (June 27)

Chapter 10&11- (July 2)

 

Chapter 12- (July 4)

Chapter 13- (July 7)

and

Chapter 14- (July 9)

Chapter 15- (July 11)

Chapter 16- (July 14)

 

Chapter 17- (July 16)

Chapter 18&19-(July 18)

and

If you have read the book or are planning to read the book and want to join in the discussion and posts, we would LOVE to read your thoughts. We are going to have a link up where you can add a link to your posts for each chapter. If you link up, make sure you put your blog name AND which chapter the link will take readers to. This way you can link up multiple times. Make sense?  

So what do you say? Aaargh you a pirate? 

Monday Made It

It is the first weekly Monday Made It of the summer and I am so excited. Last year I participated in a couple of these and just loved them. I think what I love more is looking at everyone else's posts and getting ideas for what I want to do. I have a lot of ideas,  but sadly I am not sure how many I will get done due to extreme exhaustion. (That is a story for another day.) Onto my Monday Made It...

One thing that I recently made is an activity for the classroom. I like to call it "30 minutes of teacher sanity right before a long weekend, vacation, etc." You know, when the kids just need something fun but still semi educational? Or you are in a pinch because you are so drained you didn't plan enough.

My students LOVE these activities. To make it more fun, we turn it into a competition. Each group works together to see who can come up with the most words. Typically I set the timer for about 20 minutes and they just work together to come up with words. First of all, they are working together. Second, they are working on spelling and vocabulary. and Third, they aren't being crazy about the upcoming long weekend or whatever it may be.

 I included 12 different phrases for students to use. They are:
Back to School
Happy Halloween
Happy Thanksgiving
Happy Holidays
Merry Christmas
Happy New Year
Valentines Day
Groundhog Day
St Patricks Day
Hoppy Easter
Honor the Veterans
Summer Vacation

If you click the cover page, it will take you to the listing on TpT where you can download the preview to get the Groundhog Day one for free.

My next Monday Made It is for my daughter. Her birthday is coming up (seriously 2 years already?! I have no idea where the time went!) Her party is next Friday and I kinda haven't sent out invitations. Ooops. Good thing I have already verbally invited everyone that will be coming. I have seen tons of cute "ticket" style invitations floating around etsy, ebay, pinterest, etc. So I decided to give it a try to make it myself.

Personally I think they turned out really cute! And she loves them! Or just loves that Sofia is on them. I also made her a Happy Birthday Banner and Thank You cards but I will share those once they are printed out.

I am off to look at everyone else's posts to get ideas for what to make for next week!

It's JUUUUUUNE

And that means a lot of things... summer vacation, Payton's birthday, Tim's birthday, Vacations... but it also means...

I know everyone loves this as much as I do! And I am actually doing it on the first day it was posted for once!

 

Listening- Tim tell Payton that she can NOT watch Henry Hugglemonster right now. Cute Disney Jr show... not so cute when it is constantly on!

Loving- self explanatory. I am having a somewhat mostly all stress free summer vacation so far.

Thinking- I just got a realllllly good pin code from Disney (if you don't know what a Disney pin code is then you have NOT visited Disney enough) but the dates are not what I want. But I am going to see if it is a possibility at all. It isn't looking like it though.

Wanting- Well, we are still waiting to see if my dad is going to get off work for our vacation. If he is then we are heading to Disney (pin code out the window) and if not, then just us 3 are heading to Atlanta. But I hate waiting until the last minute to plan!

Needing- nothing. I am good to go right now.

Vacay essentials- well this is the most time I get to spend with my husband and daughter at the same time. Sun- girl needs to get some color back and Relax- with a good book.  Or just relax in general.

Hurry and click the first pic to head to Farley's blog and get your link on!

The F word

No no, not THAT F word... Freebie!!! What?! I have a freebie for you! Yes I do! Being on summer vacation has done me some good already! And, it will do you some good because I have freebies! Are you excited?!
I have started planning for next year already. I know, summer break just started, but we all know teachers work on summer break. And I have had ideas in my head for so long that I had to get started. Every year I have at least a handful of kids that really need phonics help, but there is no time for that during regular instruction time. So, I am going to work with those children during morning work time. I bought a third grade phonics workbook but I needed more. So the first thing I made (for the first week of phonics fun- that is what I am going to call it) is a making words activity.

 

I will be doing this with my group, but it can be done as a center activity. (I realize this is definitely NOT something most third grade teachers need, but my tier 3 kids do. Feel free to pass it on to your friends that teach younger grades.) Each student will get a 3 letter word mat, 4 letter word mat, and a set of alphabet cards.  All of the image cards will be flipped upside down. One student will pick a card, say the word, and then we will discuss the sounds they hear and how to spell it. So if they picked the star (it says color on it, so the answer is pink), they would say pink and identify which letters make that sound. They would find the letters in their pile and put them on the mat. Then they will record the answer on their recording sheet.

 

There are a total of 11 cards for students to work through. To make it more "fun" looking, I am going to print the word mats and alphabet cards on bright colored paper. Or if I am feeling extra ambitious, I may print the word mats on white and color the beach balls in. 

I really think my kids will love this. Once we do a few together, I may turn it into a friendly competition. We will pick a card and then see who can come up with the correct spelling of the word first. The winner will get smart beads and a note sent home. (If you haven't seen my post on how I use smart beads in my room, you can click here.) 

I hope you enjoy this freebie! (click on the cover page picture to take you to the posting).

Ready for another F word. Two of them actually. Fabulous Finds (from Target of course)

A couple teacher friends posted pics of this AMAZING find in the dollar spot... and so I hunted them down and finally found them in my third target. I bought every single one they had (23). 

Book boxes! For $1! Now, I know they don't match. And well, they certainly don't go with my plans of doing a pirate theme, but I needed them, and for $1, I don't care if they match. Plus I am thinking of doing bright colors with a touch of pirate anyways. I am thinking of putting these on a shelf where you wouldn't be able to tell that they didn't match anyways.

My next target dollar spot find...

Happiness! All kinds of sticky notes and tabs. There were all different sized flags and even regular post its. But I didn't get those (yet). The 2 packs of dry erase markers were perfect because my students are going to need them for our multiplication tests next year (post coming next week). And the other thing you see is a 2 pack of mini erasers. Yes I know my kids could use socks or fabric scraps, but these were cute. For now, I only have 8 of each, but I will be going back to get a class set.

I am linking up with 

Summer Bucket List

Summer is here. And it.is.amazing! We have spent the past 3 days outside playing and "swimming" in our little inflatable pool. Our yard is just not made for a real pool, but our little one works just fine. I have a LOT that I want to get done this summer. And since I am such a list kinda person, I decided to link up with Teri, Hadar, and April for their Summer Bucket List linky!

 

So what is on my list?!

1. Go on vacation... it is still semi up in the air. We KNOW we are going to Atlanta for at least 2 nights to go to the Chipper Jones retirement game during alumni weekend. We went to Atlanta last year and went to two games during alumni weekend and had a blast.  (These pics are from my mommy blog. I couldn't resist sharing.)

 BUT... we are waiting to see if my dad gets his vacation time approved. Because if he does, Payton will be taking her very first trip to

 

IF my dad gets off, the three of us will spend 2 nights in Atl and meet up with my parents in Disney for 6 nights. If he doesn't then the three of us will spend 4 or 5 nights in Atl and do Disney next year. 

2. Spend time with Tim and Payton. Obviously. I don't get nearly enough time with them during the school year, especially the three of us together. In order to make our day care needs work, Tim and I work opposite times usually. So summer is our time to really spend together.

Last summer on the Maid of the Mist

 3. Organize. This has been my goal the past couple years. It is a slow process but I am getting there. I have decided to use binders instead of files. I have almost all of my science stuff organized. And most of my reading and language arts stuff. Math needs a ton of work and social studies has not even been started yet. 

This is something I already do (not my pic) but this board is FULL of good ideas.

4. Work on things for my classroom next year. I am doing a pirate theme and I have a TON of ideas. So I need to get going on those.  (no pictures here... you will have to wait until the big classroom reveal)

5. Create and mark things off the to do list for TpT. I have a TON of things to create this summer. I have been adding to my to do list all school year.

6. Read... I love to read and don't do it nearly enough. I have a TON of books (both ebook and in print) that are waiting to be read. 

Dry Erase Love

Do your kids LOVE dry erase boards and markers? Mine do. I mean I could make the most boring lesson stellar just by letting them do their work on dry erase boards. Well, I was lucky enough to be able to review some dry erase pockets from My Binding. I received a set of 5 dry erase pockets and it couldn't have been at a better time. See, we were working on cursive and my kids needed to practice writing all their letters in more than just one word. (And what's even better is that at the same time as I got these, my school gave me 10 more- so now I have almost a full class set!!) So we started with just a couple words.  I told them to just practice writing words on their own, their name, anything, just to get used to writing.

And then I made them write me a paragraph about their favorite thing about third grade. A pretty menial task on a normal day, but being able to write it on these cool dry erase pockets, wow it was the best activity ever!!

And I promise you I did NOT tell them to write that I was their favorite thing about third grade. I just had the best kids this year, and I really will miss them! Thank you My Binding for letting me review this amazing product!! My kids saw them sitting on the table waiting to be used and were begging every day for when we could use them! 

Next year

I know I am not the only one who starts thinking about NEXT school year once summer hits as soon as state testing time comes. I mean I have to take everything down and pack it up (and this year PACK IT ALL UP to move to a new class) so why not start thinking about what I could do better next year. Every year during TCAP as I walk around my room praying that my kids do their best and picking up pencils, I start thinking of things I can do next year. And Kim from Joy in Sixth Grade has the perfect linky for this!

 Last year, my friend Lisa had an amazing blog post about her fluency time. And she helped me out a ton getting it started in my own class. And once we started it, my kids NEVER wanted to miss it. If we had to for an assembly, they were crushed! It was a nice transition when we returned from lunch to get them back into the swing of things in the classroom and get ready to finish their learning for the day. To see my blog post about this, you can click here.

 Seriously I say this every year. And I start off so well. And then something happens and all of a sudden I have hundreds of papers to grade and some are going in the blue bin (recycling bin) I just want to cry. I had a good system- grade during our Chinese time (30 min a day), grade when we went to the restroom (twice a day as a class), and grade when I was waiting to pick my kids up from support. I have no clue what happened but it fell apart.

I am not sure WHY I never did this this year because I had full intentions to do it. Something just always came up. I bought a third grade phonics book and I am going to use it next year. I have a really good morning work routine (you can read about that here) but the kids who REALLY need help with their phonics need the time with me. So I decided that I will have those students grab their breakfast and meet with me to work on some phonics skills. Then when we go over morning work as a class, they can just do it with us. So they are still exposed to the morning work skills but also getting the help they really need (because really, there is no other time in my day to work on phonics).

 My amazing friend Jenn helped me out a TON getting my math time situated towards the end of this year. And my kids LOVED it. In fact, I noticed in just the couple weeks we did it, their comprehension of the math skills was soaring. One of my lowest students was one of the first ones to be able to understand mixed numbers!! I have to be able to implement this ALL the time because they loved it, and it works. Read about that here.

 What? You don't know what it means to teach like a pirate? Well I highly suggest you grab yourself a copy of this book and start reading.... (hint: there is going to be a pretty awesome book study on this book this summer). The pirate theme really has nothing to do with this book. I just had a REALLY good idea for a bulletin board (details later once I have it up and done next year) and it spiraled out of control.