Ready for another year!

Well I've made it through the first month of my 28th year!

I can't believe it!  Where have all the years gone.  

Here are a few of things that worked great to start off the year.  I covered my chalkboard with Better than Paper this year.   It was super easy to put up and I glued it right to the board.  It did take 2 rolls to cover this board, but so worth the time and effort.  It looks fantastic!  It's on sale on Amazon right how if you want to try it out.  

If you haven't tried the whole sheet shipping labels to make big stickers for your journals, you are so missing out.  I love how cute these turned out.  I used the 8 1/2 x 11 shipping labels.  Each sheet made two labels and the kids loved that their names were on the big stickers.

We are using a new series in math this year, Envision.  I am loving all of the lessons and the kids are starting to really get the hang of it.  We are currently working on repeated addition and arrays.  I wanted a fun game for us to play this week, so I made these cute task cards.  I'm planning to play a game of SCOOT with them.  The kids haven't played SCOOT yet, put I know they will love it.  

I wanted to make sure that the kids are focusing on rows and columns.  The set has 10 cards that focus on rows and 10 on columns.  We had a lot of confusion this week on which way a row or column went.  I just finished printing and laminating the cards.  I'm going to hang them around the room and then let the kids work with a partner to write the repeated addition sentence for each card.  Click on the cards to see more!

I hope everyone has a fantastic week!

What we do is MAKING a DIFFERENCE!

HAPPY TEACHING!

Welcome June!

It's SUMMER time EVERYONE!

Time to relax and enjoy some fun!

Time to reflect, get organized for next year, and make some goals!

Goal #1
Do a book study with my teacher friends!

THE WILD CARD!!!!
My book has been ordered and the Amazon man should be bringing it Monday!
I'm so excited to read this book!  Everyone that has read it says it is a GAME CHANGER!

Goal #2
Clean out my closet!  That one is on hold....  I just can't!

Goal #3
Organize all of my task cards and cute things I've bought on TPT into tubs by months.  The giant pile has been moved from the garage to my dining room.More about that later this week!

Goal #4
Get back to blogging!  I'm not sure exactly why I stopped but I'm back at it!

To celebrate the month of June I'm picking some of my favorite things to share with you!  They will be discounted for the week or something might be free for a day or two!  Check back often so you don't miss a DEAL!

Today's favorite thing for this week is my teacher planner!  Here is a picture of last year's version.  It has an editable file so that you can customize it.  Printing new covers is on my TO DO list for tomorrow.  You can snag a new teacher binder for only $4.50 all week long!  Just click on a picture to see more details of the binders.  

What I love about my binder is that I can keep everything from student contact information, parent conference forms, long range plans, to a log of all my passwords in one binder.  It even has a section to keep important dates/sessions to use for your professionalism.  

At the end of the day I only have to take the binder home with me!  

Everything I might need is right in there!

Over the different years I've wanted a new binder theme, so I have lots of different themes!

 A Safari Theme!

Polka Dot Kids!

Planning for next year already?  Looking for something to use in a center?

I'm in love with CLIP IT CARDS and have been making a bunch for next year.  As a thank you for visiting my blog tonight, you can download these adorable Clip It Cards for Free!  It will be a FLASH FREEBIE for the next 24 hours, so download it QUICK!  

I hope everyone is enjoying their SUMMER break or if you haven't made it to summer break yet I hope it comes soon!

Enjoy every minute!

Happy Teaching!

For the LOVE of TASK CARDS!

Tasks cards....  where have you been all my teaching life?  Better yet...  all my life!  I know that I would have loved them as a student.

My kids and I use task cards all of the time.  We use them for both math and ELA.  Sometimes I use them as a pretest to see where the kids are and then we do the set again to see the GROWTH!

Task cards are great to play a game of SCOOT!  Scoot is super easy and keeps the kids engaged!  Just print out a set of task cards and hang them all over the room.  Sometimes I hang them in order and sometimes I don't.  Assign each student a card to start at.  Once we start, they read the card, record their answer on their sheet, and wait for the bell.  I use a bell sound on my phone to signal for them to move to the next card.  You can also say "SCOOT" or use any ringtone that you have.   Everyone moves from card to card around the room.

If two kids are at the card at the same time, no problem.  Some of the kids work a little slower and it is perfectly OK with me for them to take their time and do their BEST WORK!  The task card in this picture is in orange.  I print a lot of the task cards on colored copy paper to save ink.

For a little variety, sometimes I just project the cards on my board.

We use dry erase markers and write our answers on white boards.  I really like this way because I can walk around and see really quick who has the correct answers and who needs more help!

If you haven't given task cards a try yet, why not give it a shot!

Once you try them, I PROMISE you will be hooked and so will your kids!  I can't even explain how excited they are when they come in and see the cards hung around the room!  Are we playing this morning?  I must get asked that a million times!  They are so quiet when we play and you can see the engagement in their eyes!  Makes a teacher's heart HAPPY!

Still not sure?  Will you try it for FREE?  Download my newest freebie and see what you think?  I know you and your kiddos will love task cards as much as we do!

Just click on the picture below to go to my TPT store and download them for FREE!

If you love them, please leave me a blog comment below or feedback on TPT.  A Valentine freebie set is in the works, so check back soon!

Happy Teaching!