Snow and a MOVE!

Well the last two weeks have been some of the busiest ever!  Here in TN we finally got hit with ice and SNOW!  As exciting as it was it couldn't have hit at a worst time....  my family was in the process of moving to a new home!   Who knew that movers would move your house even with ice coming down from the sky.  So after two weeks of packing and then unpacking my family is finally settled in the home I hope and pray we will stay in for the next 20 years.  As long as the hubbies company doesn't pull something crazy, we should be able to stay put for a long time.  I sure hope so because I truly LOVE this house!

I haven't had a lot of time to work on TPT, but I did just finish something that I have been working on for my kiddos.  We loved our animal projects so much that I decided to do one for countries.  It is the same format, just tailored to hit those Social Studies standards.  Here is a sample of some of the pages.
It has a parent letter to explain the project.  It has two sets of poster cut outs.  One set has lines and the other doesn't.

Click on the pictures to see the packet in more detail.

After we finish ours, I will be sure to post pictures of them.  I know the kids will do great with this!

Happy Teaching!
Tracy

For the Love of Pinterest!

We have been out of school for three days now for snow.  How did I pass the time.....  I spent lots of time on Pinterest.  How can you spend hours and hours without even realizing it?  I don't know!  I thought I would take a second to share two of my boards.  These two are my favorites.

The first board I created was for Common Core Ideas in Grades K-3.  I have lots of bloggers, teachers, and TPT authors that pin on this board.  If you love to pin like I do, I would love to have you join us! All you have to do is follow the board and then send me an email with your Pinterest information (tracysmith827@gmail.com) and I will add you.

This are some of the great pins just added to the board.  We try to pin lots of free ideas and freebies so that we have a good balance.  Click the board to see some of the great stuff we have found to teach our kiddos!

Another board I have is for holiday ideas for grades K-5.  I really enjoy the different holiday times with the kids.  So I started the board so I could save the pins and overnight it got so many followers I decided to make it a priority to find things each week related to the events coming up in school.  Here are some of the fantastic things I have found while planning for Dr. Suess Week and Read Across America.  Click on the picture and take a look at the wonderful ideas all of these extremely creative people have come up with.  This board features almost all freebies.  I do find a few things here and there that you have to purchase but 99% of the board is IDEAS and FREEBIES!

I hope these boards might help a few people get some new ideas for their classroom!  If you have a great Pinterest board, let us know about it in the comments sections so we can follow it!

Well this teacher better get to bed!  Can't wait to see my kids tomorrow!  

Happy Teaching!

Tracy

No Copies, No Prep Reading Instruction!

This year my big area to work on has been reading instruction.  We are reading a lot more novels and I am always looking for ways to make it better.  One day when were low on paper and I didn't have time to make copies I decided to throw all of the questions I was going to ask about the chapter we were reading onto Powerpoint.  It worked so well that I came up with a new idea....  no copies reading instruction.

I started off small and then added borders and clipart.  Soon my little idea had become the only way I teach novels these days.  Everything is projectable!  No Prep for the teacher! It requires text evidence! Best of all no paper!  Most important.... My kids love it!

When the kids come in each morning, on my screen is the chapter they need to read and a question/thought for them to think about while they read.  After we have had a chance to read on our own, we work through the next slide that has questions for that chapter.  Sometimes we do them as a group, we might work on them at tables in small groups, or sometimes we even write our own answers out on notebook paper.  Whichever we do it, the kids love it!

It has also been really easy for kids to use if they are absent.  They still get all of the questions the other kids had and I can just print out the slides they missed.  So it was almost like they didn't miss the instruction at all!

We have been out of school for two days with ice covered roads.  So I used my time and made up a new packet for us to use this week.  It goes with the Magic Tree House, Abe Lincoln at Last!  If you haven't read it with your kids, I highly recommend it.  You can teach so many common core skills within this book.  It has a great twist in it that really uses text evidence well.  Here are a few pages from the packet.  Click on them to see the packet in my TPT store.

This is one of the "While You Read" pages.  Each chapter has one to give the kids something to focus on while they are reading.  

Each chapter has a list of questions to help you discuss the chapter with the kids. 

At the end of the book, this packet has 3 different activities for the kids to do.  This one focuses on sequencing.

I hope everyone has a great day!  I'm off to work on finishing our science fair project.  Yes, it is due tomorrow!  Nothing like waiting till the last minute!

Happy Teaching!
Tracy

Will it SNOW?

Well Memphis is suppose to get a little ice and maybe some snow!  For those of you who don't live around here....  SNOW is the end of the world for people here.  I grew up in New York so snow isn't a big deal to me, but for the majority of people here they MUST go to the grocery store to get milk and bread!  Cracks me up!  So I decided to stay home today and create some new things for my class and pull out some old things that I haven't used yet this year.

The first one is a version of my favorite math fluency game....  BUMP!  If you haven't played BUMP with your kids, you are missing a good time.  All you need is a game board, cubes, and dice.  I made this board last year and totally forgot about it.  It is a FREEBIE in my TPT store.  Click on the picture to download it.  It is a great activity for early finishers or you can use it with the whole class.

I made a bunch of copies of the game and laminated them to use during math centers this week.  I know I have them somewhere in my classroom, but today was a day to make things!  

I wanted to show you some pictures of something that just came to me during our fraction unit.  Did you know how great a red Solo cup was?  Well let me tell you....  We were struggling with fractional parts of the circles.  I walked over to my table to get a drink of Diet Pepsi while we were working on fractions and it came to me!  Use the red Solo cups as tracers!  Normally these cups sole purpose are for Mrs. Smith's drink with lots of ice.  Not anymore!  Problem solved.  The kids circles were the same size and it was so much easier to help them divide and shade into fractions!  Here are some pictures of the cups in action.  Isn't it funny how you think something will be so easy and then while the kids are struggling and you are about to bang your head against the wall an idea comes to you!  Now don't get me wrong, they aren't always a good idea but this one was!  Why I can't think of these things before is a mystery to me.  

Here are some of the kiddos working on fractions with their perfect circles!

Made things so much easier!  So having Solo cups is a much needed item for any fraction unit.  

Well I better get back to making things for centers this week!  

I've got my fingers crossed for some Memphis SNOW!

Happy Teaching!

Tracy