Author Archives: Leslie

About Leslie

Wife. Daughter. Sister. Mother of 6. Follower of Christ. Teacher. Resource Specialist. Wearer of Many Proverbial Hats.

Monday Made It: Place Value “Blocks”

Sometimes you just need to PAINT and CUT and DO even when you’re in 3rd grade. Yesterday was one of those days where I threw caution to the wind and decided we would spend some time painting and cutting and would *hopefully* have a fabulous math tool to show for our work and repurposing.

It is no secret I save trash, especially pieces of cardboard. Don’t EVER throw away cardboard labels. They are SO VERY USEFUL: canvas for painting, repairing paperback book covers, matting a picture, AND for making place value “blocks”!

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First, my 3rd graders painted the back of the cardboard labels with various colors of craft paint. After allowing it to dry, we used rulers and a bic black ink pen to create the grids for hundred blocks and then cut some of those down for base tens and ones pieces. Continue reading

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A Walk Around Our Library {A.K.A. The Schoolroom}

We are so blessed to have a room dedicated to school. I know the thoughts are mixed on this, but for us with six children I’m so thankful we have a place to land. We don’t always stay in the room for every subject or every assignment, of course, but we do use this room A LOT every day, including Saturdays and Sundays.

I call it the library and our one-room schoolhouse!

Without further ado, here’s a look around the room from a wide-angle viewpoint.

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This photo was taken panoramic from the end of the room next to our supply shelves looking toward the front with our large window and 15-foot-long bench seat! That spot gets used A LOT too as the sun comes over our home and doesn’t flood the window until late afternoon as the sun is going down. I love curling on this bench with a good book and a few little ones crowded around me (and sometimes some furry friends too). Continue reading

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Book Talk Tuesday: Separate Read-Alouds

Normally, I choose one read-aloud to read to our two 3rd graders, Li’l Bro, 9, and Li’l Miss, 8. After reading The Trumpet of the Swan and The Wind in the Willows aloud this summer with our rising third graders, I decided to change it up and choose two different books to read with them aloud and individually.

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For two reasons: one, these books have been on my short list a long time but they never seem to make it to the top and two, while reading aloud to them I can also have them read-aloud to me for assessments and building their reading fluency. I always have my notebook in hand to take notes as they read. I’ve also begun to time them though they don’t know it, and I’m so pleased with their progress!

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They are loving this new set-up and I am loving it too. Sometimes a certain Li’l Bit, 4 and in PreK, listens in while I read with Li’l Miss, but more often than not I’ve already read with her and she is {somewhat} happily working on something independent from one of her busy bins. Continue reading

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PreK with Li’l Bit {Week 3}

I’m a little behind in posting but I want to document this year of PreK with Li’l Bit so I am forging ahead. This post will be shorter because of the aforementioned scheduling issues and because I don’t have as many photos of our week 3 adventures.

We were studying Letter A during this week, and Li’l Bit was thrilled to start our Monday off with apple stamping!

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Since her brother and sister are studying Botany this year, we all studied the inside of the apple and counted the seeds inside as well!

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Continue reading

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3rd Grade Math: Place Value to Millions

The first three weeks of school have flown by really. In 3rd grade math, I wanted to review and assess, so I started with some Place Value lessons and activities. I was pleasantly surprised to see my peeps recalling a lot of math knowledge and exercising their noodles as well!

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I decided to make one of those Place Value Strips I’ve seen all over Pinterest after trying to find one someone else had shared with no success. I printed each of our strips on different colors of paper, but if you didn’t have colored paper or you didn’t need multiple copies you could just have your students edge each strip with a different color marker. I made a little freebie you’re welcome to download to guide your students in making their own Place Value Strips, which show them how the numbers add up to millions. Continue reading

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PreK with Li’l Bit {Week 2}

Li’l Bit, age 4 1/2, just finished up Week 2 with God’s Little Explorers. She was happy to work on a letter that she knows very well, so we worked on the different ways the Letter G can look. So often, even in children’s books the Letter G looks very different. We read a LOT of books this week, some suggested in GLE and some that we have and complimented our study of gardens and growing and the Letter G. Here’s a peak at the ones we read:

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Firs,t we made a Craft for our Alphabet Page. I’m all about taking an idea and tweaking as needed to use what we have and/or what I know our Li’l Bit will enjoy! I know she LOVES using my old scrapbook templates for tracing and cutting, so I pulled out the flower one and away she went! I forgot to take a finished photo, but you can see she was working on glueing down all of her flower parts to make a “garden” on her Letter G page!

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She also checked on her growing plant from the county fair every.single.day. Thankfully, no more mishaps like the one with Li’l Miss dropping hers on the floor, since Li’l Bit usually checked on Li’l Bro’s each day too! We talked a lot about how g can be used with other letters to make different sounds like gr for GROW! Continue reading

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CVC Word Work Freebie

I have a brand-new resource I made for Li’l Bit to work with her magnetic letters, and I’d love to share it with my readers!

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Just CLICK HERE to go to dropbox where you can download your own copy FOR FREE! If you’d like to share, PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE, link your friends back to this page on my blog. Let me know what you think! I will be working on some more magnetic letter resources soon.

If you like this freebie, you might also like Magnetic Letters Print and Go: Vowel Blends.

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PreK with Li’l Bit {Week 1}

I am so excited about this curriculum, God’s Little Explorers, that I’m using with Li’l Bit, who for anyone new reading is 4 1/2 years old. She is LOVING it, which is what makes me the most excited. Well that and we are talking about the Lord each and every day! I knew this year I needed something ready to go, and while GLE does just that, I really like that Stacie has written the lesson plans in such a way that I can pick and choose and also move things around here and there as needed within each week. She gives plenty of extra ideas and EVERYTHING is linked. Can I get an AMEN?!

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While we did the X Marks the Spot hunt inside, we took the tic-tac-toe game outside, since we were going exploring with Li’l Bit’s 3rd grade brother and sister for an assignment for school. Li’l Bit took a basket to collect sticks and rocks for the Os to go with our letter Xs for the game once we got back inside. She dropped one stick along the way, but we improvised with a marker. She loves tic-tac-toe so this was a lot of fun and gave us plenty of opportunities to practice the sound of X too!

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We actually just completed Week 2 of 28 weeks this week, but clearly I’m behind on my blogging. Since the first three weeks of school have gone so well, I’m not going to pile on the Mommy Blogger guilt LOL! I do, however, want to try my best to post each week about our journey together through God’s Little Explorers. While we were beginning, I decided to do some informal assessments as suggested by Stacie, and Li’l Bit loved sharing with me the letters she knows while making “Alphabet Cake!” 😀

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 As you can see from the photo collages of our Week 1 adventures with the Letter X, Li’l Bit was having so much fun with school! Li’l Bit’s favorite activity of the week was the the Scavenger Hunt that went along with “X Marks the Spot.” She wanted to do it over and over again! She is also so proud of her treasure map and can hardly wait for each Monday when she can add a new clue to her map (for each letter we’ve studied).

 I also highly recommend the Bible which Stacie suggested. I’ve never been a big fan of Bible storybooks, but this one really is great! It isn’t a story, but rather is truly the Scriptures written with illustrations. Of course, not all of the Scriptures are included but many events and stories from both the Old and New Testaments are included.

I will be sharing about this past week of exploring shortly! This week has been so fun especially for Li’l Bit as she made a BOOK! She is so proud of her hard work!

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Back-to-School eBooks Are Back!

Whether you’re new to Teachers Pay Teachers and the amazing resources there or you’ve been finding gems there for a long while, you’ll want to check out this year’s Back-to-School ebooks for every grade and subject from Kindergarten through 12th grade!

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You can find the K-2 ebook by clicking the image above. Links for the other ebooks are just below the image. These books contain HUNDREDS of free resources, but they don’t stop there! Each and every page has Back-to-School tips from teachers as well as links to resources that will help you and your students have a successful transition BACK TO SCHOOL!

Grades 3-5 ELA Back-to-School eBook

Grades 3-5 Math and Science Back-to-School eBook

Grades 6-12 ELA Back-to-School eBook

Grades 6-12 Math Back-to-School eBook

Grades 6-12 Science Back-to-School eBook

Grades 6-12 Social Studies Back-to-School eBook

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Getting Organized! School is in Session on Monday!

I have had a LOT of piles going on in our library … piles of books, piles of notebooks, piles of trash bags, piles of NEWLY purchased school supplies including Ticonderoga pencils! It always feels good to clean out stuff you know you’ll never use again, and it feels good to try some new things and some old faithfuls (like those pencils)! I snagged a pile of spiral notebooks because Office Depot had them for 1 cent! They let me get up to 10 of each color, but I think I ended up with 5 of each.

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I started working on our new “I Can Write A … ” board on Tuesday.

I didn’t get to work on it again until today, and I LOVE the way it turned out. Here is a very poor-quality picture of the BEFORE including yet another pile that is now gone as of today!

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The resource includes so many writing choices that I didn’t have space to put them all up on the board at one time, but I think that is a good thing! I am still finishing up the notebook with all of the full-size writing helps and templates, but I have it all printed out! I should add Joey doesn’t suggest putting all of the templates in a notebook, but I’m going to *try* it since I have just two students using this! I reserve the right to adjust as needed. 😉 Continue reading

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