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Thursday, February 27, 2014

TPT 28% sale! And an additional 10% OFF!!


In case you haven't heard TeachersPayTeachers is having a fabulous 28% off sale because they have 3 million teachers on their site!!! Woo hoo!! I just bought a bunch of goodies... only problem is I still have a bunch in my cart under my wish list!! IF you are like me, today is your chance to save!! Use the code TPT3 to save... plus all of my items are an additional 10% OFF!!! Go check out my goodies and enjoy the savings!! I appreciate your business, support, and blogship!!

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Give-aways Make My Heart Sing!

IT is true! Giveaways make my heart sing. Now if they would make my runny nose and sinus headache go away I would love them forever!  I have avoided this winter bug for months.. but somehow it found me!! But it is not enough to keep me away from sharing some amazing Blog Giveaway Happiness that is happening right now in blog land and I am so exciting to be participating in them!

Stephanie @ Mrs.D's Corner is hosting 3 amazing giveaways with some pretty awesome prizes! Click on the rafflecopters below to throw your name into the hat! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway a Rafflecopter giveaway a Rafflecopter giveaway


Shannon @Teach2Love
has a SPRING into Learning giveaway! 



Entry-Form

As you can see, there are prizes to be won!!! Get on out there and enter!! 

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Five for Friday: Moon Craters and Co-op Strip Paragraphs!!

What an amazing week! We were very productive both at school and at home. That always makes me feel energized and effective! Knowing my students were really engaged and learning all week long brings joy to my heart. I am teaming up with doodlebugs'  Five for Friday, although technically it is Saturday!






We started off the week with Reviewing fractions and playing Capture Equivalent Fractions as a review before we head in to some deeper concepts. My kids really enjoyed this and really showed me who was still struggling making matches. They were great about doing the work to solve the cards they weren't sure of!  Your students will love this hands on activity, too.  It is a free download from Math Coach's Corner on TPT.



Studying the Solar System hasn't really given us many opportunities for hands-on experiments, although my 5th graders love when I tell them I can't send them to the moon so we have to create a keynote, iMovie, or Prezi instead.  They really make me laugh! This week was an added treat as we were learning about the moon's surface and great facts like it has no atmosphere, Neil Armstrong's footprint is still there, there are 2 sides, etc. etc.  My team and I decided to make the moon more REAL.  We had students predict what type of space object (marble, big shooter sized marble, golf balls, plastic balls from the quarter machine at grocery stores, rubber bouncy balls, or wiffle balls) would leave the widest crater on the surface of the moon (aluminum pans of flour).  They loved it!!! We had over an hour of total engagement. I am blessed to have a Science Room so all of the extra flour didn't end up in my floor!   Since we are a 1:1 iPad classroom, we have incorporated the usage of them in all curricular areas.  One of the group jobs is to be the recorder, oops make that two jobs.. one for recording data on paper and one for recording the experiment with the iPad camera.  They love when I number them off 1-4 and pull spoons.  Anticipation as to which job will be theirs is visibly noticed!




My district practices G.L.A.D. (Guided Language Acquisition Design) and one of my favorite strategies that I have learned and use all of the time is the Co-op Strip Paragraph.  We recently read Black Cowboy, Wild Horses about a real African-American cowboy named Bob Lemmons. I gave them a non-fiction text to read about cowboys as well as a web site to read.  After reading it, students took notes on what was important to know about topics such as cowboys' daily life, their main job, training, etc. The purpose of this exercise was to get them prepared for a final project essay on cowboys, including Bob and Alice Greenough, another cowgirl biography we read.  I usually begin by writing a topic sentence and then have each table write one sentence together.  This time I decided to let them write their sentences while I orally told them what our expository writing was going to be about. I am so glad I did. One group provided us with a perfect starting sentence as you can see in the picture below.  After they all write the sentences, the class helps me put them in an order that flows and serves our purpose. As they decide which sentence goes next, I tear the strips so that they fit in our pocket chart, or this time, so they would fit on the white board space I had set aside.  The strips are torn so they end up looking like a paragraph fitting in margins. When I am finished, the students and I read the entire paragraph, deciding if we need to move words around, make any verb changes, and check for spelling.  After we wrote the generic paragraph on cowboys, we did it again with Bob as our subject.  Next week each team will write their own paragraph on Alice in a similar fashion and then each student will write their own final paragraph. Students really get engaged with this type of cooperative writing and my struggling writers get the opportunity to see and hear our class work together to write a well-written piece that they can use as a model for their own writing.






My oldest turned 25 this week!!!!! CRAZY how time has flown by! As in typical Susie style, we celebrated all week long, complete with 25 gifts of items that reminded me of her throughout her many styles and years, along with 25 reasons why we love her, dinner with our family and her fiance's family and a night out dancing with her friends.  Happy 25 mija, and may the next 25 be as fulfilling and loving as these past 25 were!

I just love these numbers from Pinkadots Elementary blogspot. Theresa and Robyn are wonderful bloggers and have such great creative activities. I am so honored they let me use their numbers.  Five for this week has got to be thank you God for rain!! California is really in a state of drought and I heard this week that 3 cities may soon be without running water. How does that happen in our world full of technology and all of the amazing minds? Because Mother Nature hasn't provided us with any in a really long time and we all know that humans are destroying our beautiful planet with all of the factories and pollution we are letting off into the environment.  I walked out of my door Friday morning after a day and night of rain and was greeted by one of my favorite roses dressed in drops. Beautiful end to my perfect week!

Hope your week was as fabulous as mine!

Sunday, February 2, 2014

More Giveaways and Bronco Sized Tears

Since my beloved Peyton is probably still crying, I wanted to make sure someone had a great week this week! I found these new blog giveaways that are just sinfully delicious. The continued generosity of educators continues to blow me away. 

Rosie's Rambles and Joy in the Journey both hit milestones and are hosting this larger than large giveaway. There are so many great things they had donated, they had to split it up into multiple giveaways... Ohh, I hope I win something out of there!! I have my eye on a few goodies!









Another give away I ran into is over at Teacher Gems. Once again, I am hoping I find an email this week in my inbox! 




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and S.O.L. Train is hosting yet another amazing giveaway!! Hers has multiple ways to win as well. So much goodness in one week, I can't stand it!!
 





May the winning force be with you all...