TeachersPayTeachers Gift Card Giveaway!!!!

It has been a CRAZY week.  We started back to school on Wednesday and it has been three days of get-to-know-each-other games, slide presentations over rules and procedures, handing out books, covering books, storing mountains of tissue boxes, hand sanitizer, and clorox wipes...you know the drill!

It's the weekend and we need a WELL DESERVED break!  What better way to relax this weekend than with a Back to School Freebie and Raffle?!?!?

Enter the raffle below by following my blog and commenting on your favorite back to school activity.  

Click on the picture below to get a Book Fair (Reading Fair)project FREEBIE (for a VERY limited time) until Sunday!!!!  
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Book Fairy

I just got back from an amazing reading conference where I came back to my classroom packed with an armful of books, freebies, and ideas!  And now I am busily preparing to implement them into my classroom!  

One of my favorite ideas, and one of the easiest, is the idea of having a "Book Fairy" visit your classroom!  As teachers, we all know our students' hobbies, likes, and interests.  So finding books for your students is as easy as picking a book off your bookshelf, sticking a book fairy card on top of the book (they will know it's from you), and sticking them on their desk for them to find.  

They may not read every book you recommend, but they will be encouraged to at least try.  And eventually, they will read at least one of the books you suggest!

Click on the picture below to download your FREE Book Fairy cards!

Classroom FREEBIES that are a MUST HAVE!

These are some of my new favorite FREEBIES that I think every A+ class can benefit from!

How do you get your students to write A+ sentences?

How do you get your students to turn in A+ work?

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How do you get your students to have A+ reading responses?

 

How do you get your students to treat each other with A+ respect?

 

 

How do you get  A+ student participation?

 

How do you get  A+ test results?

 

Study Buddy and Friday Flash Freebie

Do your students know how to study for tests?  Sure, they know they have a test and they may look over their notes and they may even have a parent quiz them, but do they REALLY know how to study?

This is the question I have been asking myself for the past few months.  How do we expect our students to study for tests if we have never actually TAUGHT them how to study?!?!?

So, that is something my 4th graders have been working on...studying how to study!

We have been doing different activities such as flash cards, acronyms, games, etc that can help them study for tests (and maybe even have a little fun while doing so...who would have thought!  Studying can be fun?!?!?)

I also started using the STUDY BUDDY.  

The kids attach their Study Buddy (printed on bright paper so as not to be missed in the backpack!) to their study guide or review sheet.  They use the techniques we have learned in class and mark off what they did.  If they bring their Study Buddy back on the day of the test with a parent signature, I add 5 extra credit points on to their test grade.

This seems to be working well for my class, but you could be creative and change it up to do what works for you!

This is also this week's Friday Flash Freebie!  

Enjoy!

Celebrating Birthdays and a Friday Flash Freebie

I love celebrating birthdays in my classroom, but in the past, have struggled to stay organized and on top of each student's birthday (especially those summer half birthdays we celebrate in the winter).

I thought I would share how we celebrate birthdays in our classroom!  It is a "can't go wrong" system!  I promise!

Create a bulletin board where each student has two cards recognizing them for their birthday. 

The top card is their "ticket" for a birthday surprise.  When it is time to celebrate their birthday, they get to tear off their ticket and turn it in for their surprise.  

The bottom card stays up all year long.

No one will be forgotten and it makes it easy to remember!

One might say it is foolproof!

Click on the picture for a FREE birthday sign.

Today's Friday Flash Freebie is an early elementary unit on hibernation, migration, and adaptation.

It is a fun "winter is coming" unit!

It includes an interactive student booklet.

It also includes a no prep interactive lap book.

There a fun review activities!

And more!

Page 1 - Cover

Page 2 - Copyright

Page 3-6 - All About the Desert Writing

Page 7-14 - Migrating, Hibernating, Adapting Interactive Lap Book

Page 15 - Hibernating Animals Worksheet

Page 16 - Winter Alphabetical Order

Page 17 - Winter Writing

Page 18 - Winter Words

Enjoy!

Favorite Freebie Sites and a Friday Flash Freebie

Check out these AWESOME sites that offer freebie downloads EVERY teacher can use!

Finding the best sites is hard because there are literally millions of them out there.  Here are my Favs!

Doodle Art Alley offers fun and unique free printables that students can color.  The variety is amazing and goes from the various holidays to different subjects to motivating phrases.

Here is a fun site that offers free fonts that can be used in the classroom!

We Give Books is an awesome site where you have access to thousands of books for free.  Just sign up for a free membership.  The nice thing about this site is you can project the books on your Smartboard and read them together as a class.  There are plenty of books for upper elementary as well as primary grades, so head on over there and check it out!

I am not a huge fan of showing long videos in class.  However, I do think videos can add so much to a lesson.  PBS Learning (also called Teacher's Domain) gives you free access to thousands of educational video clips.  You can search by grade level, topic, and subjects.  

Math-Aids.com is a nice site to go to when you need extra Math practice in a certain area.  I actually do not use this site a whole lot for classroom work, but I do share this with parents who are looking for extra Math practice for their children.  It's free!

I am going to be honest,  I have not been using this next site for  very long.  However, I love it and know I will continue to use it.  A teacher friend recently told me about GoNoodle which is a nice site for 5 minute brain breaks.  It gets students out of their desks and moving which, let's face it, they need!

And....saving the BEST for last is TpT!  I feel like this is an obvious one but I had to list it.  This site is my #1 go-to when I am looking for something.  There are lots and lots of FREEBIES, but there are also bazillions (that's a word, right????) of reasonably priced resources.  And you get them instantly!  Memberships are free so if you haven't been there, check it out!

  

Download this Divisibility Rules poster for FREE a FLASH!

DEAR and DEAD Time and Friday Flash FREEBIE!!!!

My absolute FAVORITE time of the school day is DEAR time.  (For those of you unfamiliar with DEAR...it means Drop Everything And Read.)  My 4th graders have DEAR time every single day.  I love, love, love to read books (when I can find the time and lately that hasn't been very often) and I want my students to share the same love for books that I have. 

So this is how my DEAR time works.  Every day after our lunch recess, my students walk in the room, grab the book they are reading, and get comfortable.  They can sit pretty much wherever they want in the classroom.  I have a reading corner with bean bags and pillows they are allowed to use.  They can take off their shoes and sprawl out on the floor, they can lean up against the wall, or they can sit at their desk.  There is ABSOLUTELY NO TALKING and once they get comfortable, they must stay in that spot.  No switching books because that causes a distraction.  And now the stage is set...for the next 15 minutes the students can get lost in their books and think of nothing else.  And they do...  

Click on the picture above to download this FREEBIE poster to display during your DEAR time!

I also do DEAD time (Drop Everything And Draw), but this is much fewer and far between.  We are so busy in 4th grade, but I do think drawing is an important skill to have.  My goal is once a month.  The same rules apply...get comfortable and forget about everything else but drawing.  I do play music during DEAD time, but this is optional.

Click on the picture above to download the FREEBIE poster.

This weeks Flash Freebie is my newly created Literature Unit for SCAT by Carl Hiaasen.  

It includes vocabulary, review questions, a research project, and an end of the book test.

Enjoy it quickly...it won't be free for long.

Book Adventure and a Friday Flash FREEBIE!

I don't know how many of you are aware of Book Adventure, but we use it in our school to promote reading and it is wonderful!

I talked about Book Adventure quite some time ago, but I wanted to bring it up again because we use it DAILY in our classroom.

Book Adventure is a FREE online testing site powered by Sylvan Learning.

Each student needs to be registered for an account and from there they can go in and take tests for nearly all reading levels.

If students pass a quiz they earn points.  The goal is to keep earning as many points as you can.

As a teacher, you can go in and see how your students are doing, what books they have tested on, the reading level of these books, and the amount of points they have earned!

Our school uses this as an incentive all year and teachers incorporate it into their classroom accordingly.  

This semester, we are doing a football themed incentive where students move their football across a football field on a school bulletin board as they gain points towards their overall goal.

In my room, we have set a semester goal of 1,000 points by the end of the 1st semester.  (Last year each student set an individual goal instead.  Both ways work well.)

I have a student computer and a student iPad that students can use to take Book Adventure Tests.  Sometimes we will make a trip to the computer lab and take a test as a whole class.  

I have a Book Adventure Leaderboard where I list the top three students in the class and their points.  This gets the competition going for some of your higher readers.  

Click here for a FREEBIE Leaderboard poster.

I also offer prizes for every 500 points earned.

The possibilities are endless! 

Go to www.bookadventure.com and give it a try!

Today's Flash FREEBIE is my Biomes Poster Set.  

This is a Poster Set of the main Biomes. They can be printed out in color or grayscale and can be used as posters in which can be laminated and hung in the classroom or they can be distributed to each student as each biome is studied. I do both when I teach the biomes unit. There are nine posters of the following biomes: tropical rain forest, deciduous forest, coniferous (boreal) forest (taiga), desert, tundra, grassland, savannah, ocean, wetlands, and freshwater.

ENJOY!  And HAPPY FRIDAY!