If you're still in school, it's a great time to pick up one of my end of the year products. :)
Or to pick up my newest product, Math Contracts for Addition Facts.
Enjoy your days, sweet friends! :)
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Birthday Sale!
I've been receiving lots of coupons from my favorite
stores this week, gotta love a good birthday discount, so in honor of my
birthday, I'm throwing a sale! :) The sale is only good for today, June
9th, 2012. :)
Friday, June 8, 2012
The Friday Five Vol. 2 and a Giveaway Winner!
All images are linked to their original blog post/author via Pinterest. :)
1. {this collection of healthy lunches}
I don't care if the blogger wrote this post about what she packs for her daughter's lunch, I'm so packing some of these for myself next year! Packing a lunch is really my least favorite thing to do. I get excited about it for a week once school starts and then it becomes my arch nemesis again. Thus the reason I usually eat Larbars, baby carrots, and fruit for lunch. There is little to no thinking required!
2. {this quote}
This time last year, I was touring Julia's kitchen at the Smithsonian! It was amazing to see all the gadgets she had collected. :) Especially since I love cooking myself. Not only do I love Julia, this quote pretty much describes how I feel about teaching, so blessed to do something for a living I'm passionate and interested in!
3. {this mantra for everyday}
I ADORE birthdays, especially the birthdays of my family and friends. Plus, MY birthday is tomorrow. :) I LOVE birthdays!!! Birthdays are so magical, if only we could wake up everyday with excitement and wonder that a birthday morning wake up brings. :)
4. {this missing parts bucket}
Seriously, how genius is this? My students are always leaving cubes and dice and money on the floor and it drives me BONKERS. I love the idea of having a central location for those missing pieces, and then putting them in their proper place place at a later, more convenient time!
5. {these end of the year awards}
I love, love, love the idea of students making awards for each other. I can't wait to do this with my fourth graders next year. I'm thinking of possibly having them do them once a month, so my kiddos get to hear how wonderful their classmates think they are ALL year long!
Do you have a Friday Five of your own? Please link up in the comments and share!
I selected the winner of my Math Contracts for Addition Facts giveaway, drum roll please. :)
Congratulations, Allison! I will be emailing you the file sometime this morning! :)
Have a fantastic weekend, everyone! :)
1. {this collection of healthy lunches}
I don't care if the blogger wrote this post about what she packs for her daughter's lunch, I'm so packing some of these for myself next year! Packing a lunch is really my least favorite thing to do. I get excited about it for a week once school starts and then it becomes my arch nemesis again. Thus the reason I usually eat Larbars, baby carrots, and fruit for lunch. There is little to no thinking required!
2. {this quote}
This time last year, I was touring Julia's kitchen at the Smithsonian! It was amazing to see all the gadgets she had collected. :) Especially since I love cooking myself. Not only do I love Julia, this quote pretty much describes how I feel about teaching, so blessed to do something for a living I'm passionate and interested in!
3. {this mantra for everyday}
I ADORE birthdays, especially the birthdays of my family and friends. Plus, MY birthday is tomorrow. :) I LOVE birthdays!!! Birthdays are so magical, if only we could wake up everyday with excitement and wonder that a birthday morning wake up brings. :)
4. {this missing parts bucket}
Seriously, how genius is this? My students are always leaving cubes and dice and money on the floor and it drives me BONKERS. I love the idea of having a central location for those missing pieces, and then putting them in their proper place place at a later, more convenient time!
5. {these end of the year awards}
I love, love, love the idea of students making awards for each other. I can't wait to do this with my fourth graders next year. I'm thinking of possibly having them do them once a month, so my kiddos get to hear how wonderful their classmates think they are ALL year long!
Do you have a Friday Five of your own? Please link up in the comments and share!
I selected the winner of my Math Contracts for Addition Facts giveaway, drum roll please. :)
Have a fantastic weekend, everyone! :)
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Blogger Tutorials and Giveaways
I've noticed over the past few weeks, things were kinda quiet on the comment front. I figured it was due to the craziness that is the end of the school year. So I didn't think that much about it. Until I went blog surfing yesterday. I noticed that someone had me on their blogroll and I was SO honored. Until I noticed my post was from January. I then went looking in my Google Reader, because I follow my own blog, and noticed none of my posts had synced since the end of January!
Oh my word. My heart sank. No wonder nobody there weren't many comments happening lately, my followers weren't being notified that I made a new post! :(
I did some investigating, aka googling, to find out why. Which ended up taking forever. Blogger's help boards aren't exactly the most user friendly place to hang out when you have a problem.
Basically, I found out I played around with my Blogger settings a little bit too much back when my blog was a baby, and caused my new posts to not sync up to my followers Google Readers and Reading Lists.
Since I had such a hard time finding the answer to why this was happening, and since it's a relatively easy fix once you know what to do, I made a little tutorial for ya'll. Just in case it happens to you. Which I hope it doesn't. But just in case. My year and a half in girl scouts taught me to be prepared! I know this solution works, because all of a sudden, BAM! comments started to happen. :)
Now, if this doesn't fix your problem, I don't know what to do! :( Other than eat some chocolate, breathe, and call tech support. I suggest Dove Dark Chocolate Squares, but you go ahead and grab what is closest to ya. A handful of chocolate chips from your pantry could work too!
Also, I purchased a domain for my blog, so that buttons and pins on other blogs would still lead people to my blog, rather than a dead link if I just transferred it to a new blogspot address, once my new design is completed. Again, this is an easy process that but the steps to do so is not easily laid out in anywhere in Google/Blogger that I could find.
I'd like to thank the poor tech help guys Blogger that I frantically spoke with on the phone yesterday. I'd bake them cookies if I remember their names. Or knew where to send them.
So again, I made a little tutorial for ya'll for if/when you switch to your own domain name.
My apologizes for flooding your readers/reading lists yesterday! I promise to never play where I don't belong, aka where I don't know what I'm doing, ever again! Pinky promises, because I really wasted a huge chunk of my day on technology forums yesterday, which is kinda where I don't like hanging out online. I'd much rather be reading blogs or pinning things. However, it did help me communicate with my sweet friends again, so it was worth it. :)
On an unrelated note, there are lots of giveways happening in the blog world! Ginger has reached 1,000 followers and I'm so honored to be a part of her giveaway. I'm giving away my Arrays Full of Sunshine craftivity! Check out here giveaway {here}!
I'm also giving away my new product, Addition Facts Math Contracts {here}, I'm picking my winner tomorrow so enter soon! :)
On my to do list today is a trip to Hobby Lobby. I might not buy anything, but I'm getting some inspiration for a fun summer series for my bloggy! What's on your to do list today? Or do you forget about making a list since for many of us, it's summer?!
Oh my word. My heart sank. No wonder nobody there weren't many comments happening lately, my followers weren't being notified that I made a new post! :(
I did some investigating, aka googling, to find out why. Which ended up taking forever. Blogger's help boards aren't exactly the most user friendly place to hang out when you have a problem.
Basically, I found out I played around with my Blogger settings a little bit too much back when my blog was a baby, and caused my new posts to not sync up to my followers Google Readers and Reading Lists.
Since I had such a hard time finding the answer to why this was happening, and since it's a relatively easy fix once you know what to do, I made a little tutorial for ya'll. Just in case it happens to you. Which I hope it doesn't. But just in case. My year and a half in girl scouts taught me to be prepared! I know this solution works, because all of a sudden, BAM! comments started to happen. :)
Also, I purchased a domain for my blog, so that buttons and pins on other blogs would still lead people to my blog, rather than a dead link if I just transferred it to a new blogspot address, once my new design is completed. Again, this is an easy process that but the steps to do so is not easily laid out in anywhere in Google/Blogger that I could find.
I'd like to thank the poor tech help guys Blogger that I frantically spoke with on the phone yesterday. I'd bake them cookies if I remember their names. Or knew where to send them.
They would probably look like this. I made these cookies. They were good. So here's your cookies Google Guys.
So again, I made a little tutorial for ya'll for if/when you switch to your own domain name.
My apologizes for flooding your readers/reading lists yesterday! I promise to never play where I don't belong, aka where I don't know what I'm doing, ever again! Pinky promises, because I really wasted a huge chunk of my day on technology forums yesterday, which is kinda where I don't like hanging out online. I'd much rather be reading blogs or pinning things. However, it did help me communicate with my sweet friends again, so it was worth it. :)
On an unrelated note, there are lots of giveways happening in the blog world! Ginger has reached 1,000 followers and I'm so honored to be a part of her giveaway. I'm giving away my Arrays Full of Sunshine craftivity! Check out here giveaway {here}!
On my to do list today is a trip to Hobby Lobby. I might not buy anything, but I'm getting some inspiration for a fun summer series for my bloggy! What's on your to do list today? Or do you forget about making a list since for many of us, it's summer?!
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Math Contracts for Addition Facts {Giveaway}
A couple of times on this little ole blog, I've talked about my homework routine, and how math fact practice is a part of it. I received many emails/comments about my math contracts, and I have been working hard on making my contracts into something I feel that could be used by all teachers in grades 1-5. So far, I have addition completed, and will be working on subtraction, multiplication, and division soon.
I feel that fact fluency is really important. I can vividly remember the tears and frustration my kiddos expressed when I taught third grade and we were doing two and three digit addition, with and without regrouping. Most of those tears happened because they didn't know their basic math facts, and would have to use 100s charts, fingers, or snapping cubes to figure out the answers to the basic facts. Then try to apply the strategies we were currently learning in class for higher level concepts involving addition.
You can only imagine how frustrated the kiddos got when we did two and three digit multiplication, when they didn't have their basic multiplication facts mastered. :(
For many years, my district has used the Investigations math program. For many reasons I love it. I love the critical thinking components, the rich discussions, and the encouragement to use more than one strategy to solve a problem. However, it does not, at least with our very early edition, address math fact fluency. So for many years, we didn't push that in our rooms, thus developing very strong problem solvers who didn't have multiplication, addition, subtraction, or division facts mastered by fifth grade, making the introduction of higher level thinking concepts using these basic facts very hard.
For the past few years, my district has been doing fact fluency assessments, which has helped, but there was still a need for more to be done in terms of math fact fluency. While I tried to fit in a few minutes in class, but it wasn't enough. So I started the math contracts as part of my homework routine. I had my students take them home on Tuesdays, and they were due the next Tuesday. The mix of games and paper practice was the perfect fit for many of my families. For example, on a busy night, they might not have time to sit down and do a spinner game together, but they do have on the suggested apps downloaded on their phone, so little Susy practiced her facts while waiting for dance practice.
I do believe strongly in developmentally appropriate practices in mathematics, and believe that my students should have a strong understanding of the concept, strategies mastered for the concept (such as drawing a picture, number lines, etc), and then move onto practice of a concept with for speed and accuracy.
With this in mind, I've tinkered with my math fact contracts to create something I think works for everyone. Included in my math contracts for addition facts pack is a basic contract that can just be used for general addition fact practice, as well has contracts that focus on sums to 10, sums to 12, and sums to 18. Well it was appropriate for my third graders and end of the year second graders to practice sums to 18 for speed and accuracy for homework, I don't know if it's necessarily appropriate for a first grader, especially in the beginning and middle of the year.
Below is a screenshot for the contract that focuses on sums to 10.
I addressed this in my teacher note in the download that there will be some boxes that may go over or under the focus sum. I feel that this is okay. Sprinkling of problems a little above the targeted sum can present a manageable challenge, while problems with a smaller sum than the targeted focus is always a good review!
You can check out my math contracts in both of my stores, but you could also win a copy of your own too! Just enter using the Rafflecopter below. I'll be picking a winner on Friday!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Also, my followers on TpT, you probably got a message saying Fourth and Ten posted a new item, that IS me! Some of you may have noticed a URL change as well. I'm slowly transitioning to my new name. I hope to have a blog redesign completed soon!
I feel that fact fluency is really important. I can vividly remember the tears and frustration my kiddos expressed when I taught third grade and we were doing two and three digit addition, with and without regrouping. Most of those tears happened because they didn't know their basic math facts, and would have to use 100s charts, fingers, or snapping cubes to figure out the answers to the basic facts. Then try to apply the strategies we were currently learning in class for higher level concepts involving addition.
You can only imagine how frustrated the kiddos got when we did two and three digit multiplication, when they didn't have their basic multiplication facts mastered. :(
For many years, my district has used the Investigations math program. For many reasons I love it. I love the critical thinking components, the rich discussions, and the encouragement to use more than one strategy to solve a problem. However, it does not, at least with our very early edition, address math fact fluency. So for many years, we didn't push that in our rooms, thus developing very strong problem solvers who didn't have multiplication, addition, subtraction, or division facts mastered by fifth grade, making the introduction of higher level thinking concepts using these basic facts very hard.
For the past few years, my district has been doing fact fluency assessments, which has helped, but there was still a need for more to be done in terms of math fact fluency. While I tried to fit in a few minutes in class, but it wasn't enough. So I started the math contracts as part of my homework routine. I had my students take them home on Tuesdays, and they were due the next Tuesday. The mix of games and paper practice was the perfect fit for many of my families. For example, on a busy night, they might not have time to sit down and do a spinner game together, but they do have on the suggested apps downloaded on their phone, so little Susy practiced her facts while waiting for dance practice.
I do believe strongly in developmentally appropriate practices in mathematics, and believe that my students should have a strong understanding of the concept, strategies mastered for the concept (such as drawing a picture, number lines, etc), and then move onto practice of a concept with for speed and accuracy.
With this in mind, I've tinkered with my math fact contracts to create something I think works for everyone. Included in my math contracts for addition facts pack is a basic contract that can just be used for general addition fact practice, as well has contracts that focus on sums to 10, sums to 12, and sums to 18. Well it was appropriate for my third graders and end of the year second graders to practice sums to 18 for speed and accuracy for homework, I don't know if it's necessarily appropriate for a first grader, especially in the beginning and middle of the year.
Below is a screenshot for the contract that focuses on sums to 10.
I addressed this in my teacher note in the download that there will be some boxes that may go over or under the focus sum. I feel that this is okay. Sprinkling of problems a little above the targeted sum can present a manageable challenge, while problems with a smaller sum than the targeted focus is always a good review!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Also, my followers on TpT, you probably got a message saying Fourth and Ten posted a new item, that IS me! Some of you may have noticed a URL change as well. I'm slowly transitioning to my new name. I hope to have a blog redesign completed soon!
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
June Currently
It's that magical time again, time for Farley's Currently.
Oh, and have you checked her new blog design? Oh my gosh, it's perfect!
It's so Farley in every single way!
I really love June. It's my favorite month. It may or may not be because my birthday is in June, and I really love birthdays, especially my own. :)
So here's my currently....goodness I love these things!
Wish: Due to the fact we're building a house and my husband had some unexpected medical problems, we aren't going anywhere on vacation this year. Stinks, but sometimes that happens. I'm hoping on my husband's off days we can maybe do some "staycation" activities and visit local museums, amusement parks, etc.
Went: A year ago today we were in beautiful Southern California for my best friend's wedding!
Want: Since a big vacation will have to wait, I'd love to go to our favorite getaway together, Nashville, or to Chicago for a weekend.
If you haven't linked up, please do, I so love reading everyone's Currently posts! Of course, since it's the summer, I actually get to read them all! :)
Oh, and have you checked her new blog design? Oh my gosh, it's perfect!
It's so Farley in every single way!
I really love June. It's my favorite month. It may or may not be because my birthday is in June, and I really love birthdays, especially my own. :)
So here's my currently....goodness I love these things!
Wish: Due to the fact we're building a house and my husband had some unexpected medical problems, we aren't going anywhere on vacation this year. Stinks, but sometimes that happens. I'm hoping on my husband's off days we can maybe do some "staycation" activities and visit local museums, amusement parks, etc.
Went: A year ago today we were in beautiful Southern California for my best friend's wedding!
Want: Since a big vacation will have to wait, I'd love to go to our favorite getaway together, Nashville, or to Chicago for a weekend.
If you haven't linked up, please do, I so love reading everyone's Currently posts! Of course, since it's the summer, I actually get to read them all! :)
Monday, June 4, 2012
My List of Rockin' Resources
This morning, I'm linking up with the sweet Kelly at the Teacher Idea Factory for her first linky party. What a perfect idea for a linky party, as so many of us are wrapping up the year and putting in our orders for next year!
There are lots of resources that I love in my classroom, but here would be my top five all time, can't live without items! :)
1. {my library}
I have a pretty large library that I'm very proud of! Over the past five years, I've collected lots of books from Goodwill, Scholastic book orders, and donations from my student's families. I always put a blurb in my welcome back packet about how if their family has any books at home they would like to donate, our room would greatly appreciate it.
2. {chart paper}
My students and I are always making an anchor chart for something, so I always have several tablets of chart paper on my classroom order.
3. {my smartboard}
I use my Smartboard all day, and love everything about it. I have a set of Sento clickers for my Smartboard but I don't use them as much as I would like.
4. {my organization station}
I have my students turn in their work into their pockets when I'm collecting work for a grade. I LOVE it. Mine is labeled by number so I don't have to change the names each year. On days where we have multiple tests, I just quickly pull the papers out and paper clip them together before they turn them in!
5. {clipboards} and {dry erase boards}
I love to get my students up and out of their desks, so we use clipboards and work around the room a lot. We use our clipboards daily!
I use dry erase boards a lot too, but this year my littles couldn't handle it. They wanted to scribble all over their boards instead of do math work or would never put the lids on their markers properly, meaning I was constantly giving out new markers. So I stopped using them, but I'm looking forward to *hopefully* using them a lot next year!
What items are a must have for you in your classroom? Link up and share!
Friday, June 1, 2012
The Friday Five...Vol 1
PTL! My classroom is finally all moved, my school order is complete, and I only have to go back to school to drop off my classroom key next week! I'm excited! Now I finally get to enjoy my summer. Although I'm sure it will be a very busy one, with learning a new curriculum, creating new products, and preparing for our upcoming move.
In between all the a/v cart moving this week, I've become even more of a Pinterest junkie, and here are my five favorite pins this week!
1. {yellow and gray bedrooms}
I love, love everything about this room. Especially the bedding, however, we have much darker furniture like the one in the second picture. Either way, I adore the combination of gray and yellow together.
2. {hacked hardware store storage}
I do a lot of formative assessing by having my kiddos respond to multiple choice questions with sign language, but I love this idea too. I especially love that it has number options too.
I also love these finger print choice cards that Amanda shared from Angela Bunyi.
I'm lucky enough that I have a set of Senteo clickers for my Smartboard but they aren't always the best when you want to do a quick, on the fly review!
4. {this summer scheduling organizer}
Like many other teachers, I have a to do list a mile long for school and for home. So I LOVE this awesome and FREE summer scheduling resource that Nicole from Rowdy in Room 300 posted to TpT!
5. {this picture}
There simply are no words.....lol.
I hope everyone is enjoying your Fridays! What's something you're loving this weekend, leave a comment below, or make your own Friday Five post and leave a link to it in the comments, I'd love to check out your Friday Five! :)
In between all the a/v cart moving this week, I've become even more of a Pinterest junkie, and here are my five favorite pins this week!
1. {yellow and gray bedrooms}
I love, love everything about this room. Especially the bedding, however, we have much darker furniture like the one in the second picture. Either way, I adore the combination of gray and yellow together.
2. {hacked hardware store storage}
How genius is this? I've seen storage organizers from the hardware store updated with scrapbook paper many times, but oh my goodness, spray painting the units makes them look so sleek and sophisticated. I've had one of these on my desk for years, and brought it home today to make it over!
3. {multiple choice sticks}
I do a lot of formative assessing by having my kiddos respond to multiple choice questions with sign language, but I love this idea too. I especially love that it has number options too.
I also love these finger print choice cards that Amanda shared from Angela Bunyi.
4. {this summer scheduling organizer}
Like many other teachers, I have a to do list a mile long for school and for home. So I LOVE this awesome and FREE summer scheduling resource that Nicole from Rowdy in Room 300 posted to TpT!
5. {this picture}
There simply are no words.....lol.
I hope everyone is enjoying your Fridays! What's something you're loving this weekend, leave a comment below, or make your own Friday Five post and leave a link to it in the comments, I'd love to check out your Friday Five! :)
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