Throwback Thursday {July 10th}

Oh how I am enjoying summer! I stumbled across the image below on Pinterest and it perfectly sums up the things I love about summer, so I had to share it! 

Now, in attempt to get myself more involved with "blog life" over the summer I have decided to try and keep up with as many summertime linkys as I can. :) Hope from Shenanigans in Second is hosting a Throwback Thursday summer linky. Now, my blog doesn't have enough activity yet to really do a Throwback some justice, however, I decided to join up anyhow. This is a post back from 2012 when I first wrote about how much my kiddos LOVE to play Scoot. It explains how to play it and had a link to a freebie. Two years later and this game has lost none of its appeal within my classroom. I have created numerous new Scoot-style games for my kiddos since this post. I make my own game cards and use them as either a Scoot activity or a Classroom Hunt, where the kiddos search the room for the cards and then write the answers on their answer sheet. I'm posting a link to my Division Scoot/Classroom Hunt game that is listed on TPT and on sale right now for $1.50. This was actually one of my thirdies favorites this year and they enjoyed the different ways they were asked to think about division during this activity. Interested? Head on over to TPT and grab yourself a copy. Be the first to comment on this post and include your email and I will send it to you for free! 

SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 2012

Scoot!

One of my favorite activities to do with my students is Scoot! I didn't create this game... I found it on ProTeacher a while back and have been using it ever since! Here's how we play Scoot:

* Number students desks and put some sort of question on each desk.
(I bought some cheap little plastic traffic cones at the Dollar Store a while back and have them numbered, so when we want to play this game I just take them out and put one on each desk - so simple!)

* Print out a student worksheet with the same number of answer blocks as there are desks/questions
 (I have a generic template I created in Word and most of the time that is all I need! I just inserted a table into a Word document and numbered each box - done! Sometimes I will add to the boxes when I'm looking for something more specific in the answer, like in the example below.)

* Have each student pick a desk to start at. They solve the problem on the desk and put the answer in the corresponding number square on their worksheet. After a few moments, the teacher says "Scoot!" and the kids all move to the next desk and problem.

 (A little tip - I do make sure I put the number cones in number order as the kids go around the room - it is less confusing this way. Also, we practice simply scooting MULTIPLE times before we ever even try to play the game. I will admit the first couple times you are bound to get a child or two who will put their answer in the wrong box but if you play this a few times they catch on quick!)

That's it! We LOVE this game. I use it for reading to review different skills quite often. For example, when going over parts of speech, I will put a different word on each desk and the students must write whether it is a noun, verb, adjective, etc in the corresponding answer box. For math, the possibilities for this game are endless! I attached a copy of the Fraction of a Set Scoot we played during our fraction unit. I set it up so that there was a small pile of mixed coins on every desk. The students then scooted around the room figuring out the fraction of each coin in the set on their desk. This was a great way to review the different coins with my kiddos as well as practice fractions. At the end they used their fraction worksheets to figure out bonus problems I asked them, such as, "How much was desk #5 worth?" or "What was the quarter total for desk #9?" I know I've said it already, but I just love Scoot! The kids see it as a game, it is easy set up for the teacher, and a great way to assess kids on multiple items!

Click Here to download Fraction of a Set Scoot

(P.S. Being new to the blog world I have NO IDEA how to upload an image of my documents other than taking a picture. Any tip from fellow bloggers out there would be appreciated! Happy Bloggin'!)

Monday Made It {#1}

Today I am linking up for my 1st {Monday Made It} of the summer! Thanks Tara for creating this fun linky which I {hope} will keep me motivated to create all summer long! 

My first Monday Made It is a a gift I made for a good friend's wedding. I had seen these jute wrapped monogrammed door hangers all over Pinterest and Etsy and finally decided I would try and make my own! 

This was my inspiration via Etsy:

And here is how mine came out:

I was pretty happy with it and look forward to making one for myself! I might even make some fun letters for my classroom - I'm thinking READ or WELCOME wrapped in different colored yarn! :) A small warning though - this is very time consuming! 

My 2nd Monday Made It was a quick, easy craft I made with some of my favorite teacher buddies. It is a post-it note "holder" to keep on my desk at school. Cute, easy, and functional - works for me!

My last Monday Made It involved covering letters for the word READ that I've had on my bookshelf forever in scrapbook paper. I've had these letters for years, I got them on sale at Hobby Lobby and always wanted to make them bright and colorful. I finally got around to it. :) Here it is along with my summer reading pile - I can't wait to get through all these books! So far I have read Beautiful Chaos (from the Beautiful Creatures series) and am now in the middle of the final book in the series, Beautiful Redemption. I loved this series - they are definitely YA but that seems to be my thing all of the sudden so I'm just going to throw caution to the wind and enjoy it! 

That's it for this week! Check back next Monday to see how my current work in progress turns out! Hint - it's an adorable welcome sign for my front door. :)

Book Talk Tuesdays!

Hi Friends! I am linking up with Deanna from Mrs. Jump's Class for her Book Talk Tuesday Linky! I love the idea of sharing my favorite books with the blogging community and am even more pumped to get some new book ideas for this summer and my classroom!

I want to share with you today my favorite "find" of this school year. It is a wonderful little book called The Little Red Pen!

I came upon this book while searching for a fun read aloud to review personification right before our 3rd grade standardized test in reading. It is a funny, engaging read aloud about a little red pen who is struggling to complete all her grading and correcting on her own and asks for help from the other supplies. They all say no, and then the little red pen goes missing! The other supplies realize she has ended up in the {gasp!} wastebasket and they must work together to save her. 

My students LOVED this book. They found it hilarious and loved the different personalities of each of the office supplies. They fought over who got to check it out next at the library! And it was indeed the perfect book to review personification! I highly recommend you check it out! 

I'm now going to switch gears for a moment and share with you my most current read for pleasure novel that I just finished. It is called Reconstructing Amelia.

Here is the Amazon description of this book: 

In Reconstructing Amelia, the stunning debut novel from Kimberly McCreight, Kate's in the middle of the biggest meeting of her career when she gets the telephone call from Grace Hall, her daughter’s exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Amelia has been suspended, effective immediately, and Kate must come get her daughter—now. But Kate’s stress over leaving work quickly turns to panic when she arrives at the school and finds it surrounded by police officers, fire trucks, and an ambulance. By then it’s already too late for Amelia. And for Kate.

An academic overachiever despondent over getting caught cheating has jumped to her death. At least that’s the story Grace Hall tells Kate. And clouded as she is by her guilt and grief, it is the one she forces herself to believe. Until she gets an anonymous text: She didn’t jump.

Reconstructing Amelia is about secret first loves, old friendships, and an all-girls club steeped in tradition. But, most of all, it’s the story of how far a mother will go to vindicate the memory of a daughter whose life she couldn’t save.

I will say, this is not an uplifting, positive novel. It is dark, sad, and at times disturbing when you read about what happens at Amelia's private school. There is also quite a bit of offensive language throughout the book. That being said, it is an intriguing, fast paced mystery of a read that I could not put down. I was desperate to learn more about the months and days leading up to Amelia's death and what truly happened that day on the roof. And I will say, I did not see the ending coming. 

Well, those are my book shares for this week. Be sure to link up with Deanna Jump so that you can share your favorite literary treasures as well! 

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles - Part 1 & a Freebie!

Our class has been reading a wonderful read aloud, The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews Edwards. I wasn't sure about this book as a read aloud at first, it's a bit longer than other read alouds I've done and it has no pictures. However, the no pictures part is also why I chose it. I wanted to end the year with a fun fantasy read aloud that really got my kids imaginations going. They've been told to pay attention to each characters description as we read because they will need it for a fun end of year project. We are also keeping a list of the characters and places in Whangdoodleland.

For homework last week students were asked to create their own Whangdoodle slippers. The Whangdoodle, you see, always wears a pair of slippers on his hind feet. These slippers change each year and he never knows what the next  pair will look like until he "grows" them. So my kiddos were asked to create the Whangdoodle's newest pair of slippers. Here is what they came up with:

I love how unique and individual each pair looks! This is just part one of our classroom transformation into Whangdoodleland! As we progress in the book we will do a variety of other activities, culminating in turning our classroom into Whangdoodleland! Children will draw and create "lifesize" characters from the book and create the setting of Whangdoodleland. This is something we are VERY excited about and I cannot wait to share the final product with you all! 

I wanted to end this post with a freebie! This an a quick Subtraction with Regrouping Classroom Hunt I created and we used last week in my classroom. The kids love getting to move around and search for the problems. I had some VERY good hiding places this time (the underside of our lampshade and tucked inside a tissue box were some favorites). The kids enjoyed it and I hope you do too! Click on the image below to go to my TPT store and grab this freebie! :)

Have a great weekend!