I hear this often. How precious is that?
Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder. Some may say its a weed regarding certain “flowers” I’m given, but they are pretty and who is to say what is a weed and what is a flower!
All of these were picked, grown, or arranged by one (or more) of my three little children: Li’l Bro is 9, Li’l Miss is 8, and Li’l Bit is 4 (currently).
Hope your day is equally blessed and filled with love!
We’ve had our fair share of summer schooling, and we’ve had our fair share of summer lovin’ fun! The two phrases don’t seem to be synonymous with some of my students!
I love to find ideas on Pinterest. The key is to actually implement or at least try out those ideas. The two I’ll share more about below actually worked and are some I’ll keep in my bagbin of tricks for my official PreK sweetie. Continue reading
I don’t know how many of my readers shop at Teachers Pay Teachers, but if you do, NOW is the time to buy!
From NOW through midnight on August 5th, my entire store as well as many other sellers’ entire stores will be on sale.
My store is on sale 20% OFF and TpT adds an extra 10% to the reduced price, which amounts to a total savings of 28% OFF my regular prices. USE promo code BTS14 for the extra discount!
All of my bundles are on sale including my best-selling Bright Beginning Binder Bundle! It is a great product for morning work, early finishers, RTI and children who need some differentiation.
I also have a wide range of products that are uniquely designed for hands-on learning, such as my Books of the Bible folder game, my brand-new Alphabet Match Cards set or 25 Writing Prompts for Upper Elementary.
I really try to update here. It seems life gets in the way. But that is a good thing, no?
I am blessedly. Busy.
Spending time at the creek with our children … and watching our oldest and youngest son enjoy fishing together … and watching our Papa try to keep up with the grandchildren, which he actually can! Not bad for 70+ years old!
I don’t really understand how he has the patience for this, but he creates each scene and films it on the app on his little brother’s iPod. Then puts it all together and adds the voice-over. You just have to watch this 30-second spot to understand why I’m kind of proud of this.
This past year, one of our focuses in math was to master those addition and subtraction facts within 20. Some days, the recall was instantaneous. And other days, well, it wasn’t! I found it helpful to give my students a plethora of tools they could use to help them gain confidence and master those facts!
I would include these on a rotating basis in a bin they could pull from for independent review, free choice, or when waiting on me to work with them one-on-one. I am going to try something slightly different with our bin system, but they will still include cool tools for math review and mastery.
I rarely if ever pay full price for tools such as these. I am including links to these tools on Amazon, but I would encourage anyone reading to frequent garage sales, thrift shops, and consignment sales, because teaching tools are ALWAYS to be found at these places! Oh and retiring teachers can also be a gold mine of resources; they have certainly blessed me and my students!
I found these Math Wrap-ups at a local consignment sale for school supplies. I have the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division sets. They really do work, and my students enjoy the kinesthetic component of this tool.
I found the Magic Math Machines at our local dollar store for … you guessed it, $1! I bought the addition and subtraction versions and now I wish I had purchased the multiplication and division versions which the store had at the time. They are simple but cool. They don’t require batteries and they don’t make any noise just like the wrap-ups. 🙂 These tools are useful for self-checking as each fact answer is revealed when the student pushes the buttons. You really can’t read the answer until you push it, which makes for a fun activity. Another thing we discovered is that these really help students see the patterns in those basic math facts!
The Math Shark is one of our favorites. Not only does it have options for those basic addition and subtraction facts, but it also covers fractions, decimals and percents. DO NOT purchase this at amazon! It is really overpriced there. I found mine at a local liquidation store for $15. I remember contemplating the purchase, but I knew it retailed for much more at amazon and I really wanted to try it. It is electronic, but it is very basic and can be silenced! Again, we use it for individual review work and for challenges too. The feedback from this is instant, and if the student answer incorrectly the correct answer is displayed along with the original equation so they see the whole equation correctly. I like that feature very much!
This simple tool, Number Dice, goes the distance in our school! I do have on my wish list at amazon some 10-sided number dice. In the meantime, I use other creative ways to get them thinking and challenge them! In this photo below, my student was instructed to add shake the box and add the two numbers together inside it. Then he rolled and added the third die to that number. This could be used with any number of dice and with any type of dice.
Summology is a unique game I picked up at a conference a few years ago. It wasn’t cheap, but to be honest, I loved that the tiles are all wood and the storage case is as well. I also knew the uses are many, and that it isn’t something you could easily replicate. We use it infrequently, but when I put it in a math bin, they get excited to see what equations they can make. It includes tiles for all four of the basic operations, but they are easily pulled since they are white. You can use all of them or just one operation or some of them. Whatever works for your students! You can purchase Summology only at the Simply Fun site or at one of their conference booths.
Last but not least, I am always thinking of new ways to use my Page Protector Printable concept to practice math facts. This Brick Builders Math Pack turned out to be bigger than I had originally planned, and it includes some ELA in addition to the math focuses on math facts within 20, place value to hundreds, and some word problems too! We pull this out on occasion for review and hopefully in the not-too-distant future I’ll be making a Multiplication pack sure to please the brick lovers in your classroom!
For your next stop on the Just the Math Facts Blog Hop, check out Sally’s blog post at Elementary Matters!
My Li’l Bit, who is 4, is very interested in the ABCs, and more importantly, she understands completely now that each letter makes certain sounds and that those letters make words! She was so excited today to try out a new ABC Letter Sound activity! She was able to try this fun resource out thanks to Green Apple Lessons, who sent it our way! Julie and I along with other awesome TpT sellers participated in a Blog Hop hosted by Cara’s Creative Classroom!
This resource kept my incoming PreK student very engaged and she asked me with a smile on her face, “Do I get to keep this, Mommy?” I assured her she could!
It was so beautiful in our neck of the woods today that we decided to test it out on the back porch! Li’l Miss decided to first put out the letter cards in alphabetical order. Her 8-year-old sister suggested this, and Li’l Bit thought it was a great idea! With Li’l Miss’s help, Li’l Bit soon had all of the letter cards lined up in ABC order.
I made sure the picture cards were in random order. The very first card she picked up was a zipper for Z, and Li’l Bit said, “Oh, zip … that’s a Z sound!” She was off to a great start! She loved figuring out which letter each picture card belonged to as she pulled card after card. Each letter card has a corresponding picture card.
Since we were outside on the steps, which she chose as her learning space, she was was able to work on gross motor skills too! She just knew she could get the umbrella under the letter U card by twisting around, and she did!
After she was all finished, she broke into an impromptu rendition of the ABC song! She asked me one more time, “You are going to put this in my ABC center box, right, Mommy?” I said I was and she was a very happy and proud 4-year-old girl!
This ABC activity would make a great activity for early finishers, center time, small groups, or even in a speech therapy setting. The possibilities for using these cards are endless! Please check out this ABC Letter and Sound activity and many other early and elementary education learning resources at Green Apple Lessons TpT store!
Be sure to continue reading the other blogs linked below for more practical, kid-tested, and high-quality products from some stellar stores at Teachers Pay Teachers.
Recently, I read about how some states don’t allow the loss of recess for behavior management while others still allow it. I can’t even imagine the huge responsibility today’s teachers have to manage classrooms and the behavior struggles of some of their students, but I do tend to agree that recess and time OUTSIDE is GOOD for students and shouldn’t be taken away. This infographic below doesn’t speak well for America in regards to physical activity for schoolchildren.
When I informed my 14YO son, who will be entering 8th grade, that there is no recess at school, he was speechless. In China, where he attended school until age 10, they were given a 2-hour break each day plus they went outside twice a day no matter the temperature or weather. Exercise is very important to the Chinese people, so it isn’t something they’re willing to give up even at school.
We don’t call it recess here, rather we call it “GET OUTSIDE! NOW!”
OK, I exaggerate. I don’t always say that, but I do send them outside and I engage with them outside too. Like today, when I took 4 of our 6 children down to the creek. Li’l Miss and Li’l Bit made a wading pool and searched for found objects like Indian money (or fossils) and feathers and smoothed glass that was once a shard but has been smoothed on the edges by the constant running water of the creek.
My oldest son and youngest son took their fishing poles and both caught some fish. They showed their sisters how to safely grab a fish without getting spiked by his fins, and they observed the differences between the fish they caught.
Not only that, we were all out in the sun gathering some vitamin K. When we’re outside, we do wear the appropriate sunblock, but our bodies do naturally need things the sunshine provides in moderation.
We also pick fresh veggies and fruit, take care of them, and tend to animals and our property while outside as well. I don’t have any photos I can find of us playing football or riding bikes, because I’m often in the middle of the mix. My point is that I do think time in the outdoors has so many benefits.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. I know for many if not most classroom teachers, you aren’t given a choice but are rather told what time outdoors is and how long it is: please share if you feel more is needed or less or how the allotted time outdoors you and your class are given affects the school day.
I know, another post about canning. And fresh, REAL food.
I do feel super blessed at the bounty we’ve had this week. Including dozens of eggs, even some from our spring chicks! So exciting!
I’ve canned 16 quarts of corn, which will taste SO GOOD this winter.
I’ve cooked so much fresh food.
I will be canning tomatoes tomorrow.
Last night, I cut up some yellow squash and fried it. YUM. I have fried green tomatoes as well. I know, fried food, but really I fry it in olive oil and with a very light corn meal breading. What’s not to love?
Cabbage and Corned Beef, Fresh Black-eyed Peas, Fried Green Tomatoes
Let’s chat: What is your favorite summer meal or fresh vegetable?
While the Prez and I were in Las Vegas for the Teachers Pay Teachers Conference, we decided to take the 40-minute drive out of the city to see the Hoover Dam. It is named one of the modern wonders of the world and an engineering marvel. It was built during the Great Depression at a time when people didn’t expect modern men to build such a monstrosity.
