Spring Cleaning Sale

I'd like to say I'm doing some REAL spring cleaning at home, but I'm NOT!  I'm enjoying my spring break!  I'll do some cleaning out of closets soon enough.  The weather hasn't even been warm enough yet to put away the winter clothes!  Brrrrr!  I am, however, planning to do some spring cleaning in my TpT shopping cart!  I know MANY, MANY sellers that are having a sale on Saturday, March 30th and Sunday, March 31st to help teachers clean out their wish lists and carts!  I've put EVERYTHING in my store 10% off for those two days!  Join the fun and grab some terrific spring savings!    :-)

Bananas for spring cleaning that doesn't involve closets!
Have a blessed Easter, my friends!

Be sure to visit all the shops throwing a spring cleaning sale this weekend. 

1. Confessions of a Teaching Junkie	2. My Life as a Third Grade Teacher	3. Maggie's Kinder Corner
4. HoJo's Teaching Adventures	5. Krista Wallden ~ The Creative Chalkboard	6. Dilly Dabbles
7. The Hazel Owl	8. Amy Marshall - The Resource(ful) Room!	9. Mrs. Hoffer's Spot
10. Laura Martin-Peace, Love, and First Grade	11. Swinging Through Second Grade	12. Mrs. Russell's Room
13. Smedley's Smorgasboard	14. Laura Candler's Teaching Resources	15. Teaching: The Art of Possibility
16. Elementary Matters	17. Jeannie Hunter-The 2nd Grade Surprise	18. Teaching FSL (French)
19. Rachel Lynette	20. Third Grade Bookworm	21. Extra Special Teaching
22. Alessia Albanese	23. Kinderkay - Love Those Kinders!	24. Across the Hall in 2nd Grade
25. Smiling In Second Grade	26. Hello Mrs Sykes	27. Ms. Fultz's Corner
28. Fluttering Through First Grade	29. The Science Penguin	30. Kerri B
31. Surfin' Through Second	32. Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business	33. Mandy's Tips for Teachers
34. The Hands-On Teacher in First!	35. and they all fall down	36. Kindergarten Lifestyle
37. Karen Stamp	38. Teresa Williams	39. Teach With Laughter
40. Crayonbox Learning	41. 2nd Grade Pad	42. Pirate Girl's Education Invasion
43. Practice Makes Perfect	44. My Journey to 5th Grade	45. Chalk One Up for the Teacher
46. Funky Fresh Firsties	47. Ms. Smarty Pants	48. Teacher's Toolkit
49. The Fun Factory	50. Primary Paradise	51. Digital Classroom Clipart
52. Mel D from Seusstastic	53. Simply Skilled in Second	54. Growing Firsties
55. Lessons with Laughter	56. Amber Polk	57. Michelle Harper No Monkey Business
58. Katie-Teacher to the Core	59. Gina Coniglio	60. Tiffani Mugurussa-Time4Kindergarten
61. Teaching by Hart	62. Sugar and Spice (Christina DeCarbo)	63. Latoya Reed
64. Teach123	65. *Bunting, Books, and Bainbridge*	66. Runde's Room
67. Stellar Students	68. Gina Szczodrowski	69. Teaching With a Mountain View
70. Jamie Rector (2nd Grade Stuff)	71. Fabulously First	72. Hunter's Tales from Teaching
73. Mrs. Pauley's Kindergarten	74. Linda Kamp	75. Kyp McLaren
76. Fourth and Ten	77. Learning in Wonderland	78. Ann-Marie Parisi
79. I Teach. What's Your Super Power?	80. Literacy Without Worksheets	81. Karen Jones
82. Lucky In Learning	83. Mrs. Lirette's Learning Detectives	84. Happy Teacher Heaven
85. Melissa Machan - First Grade Smiles	86. Little Second-Grade Somebodies	87. Bedford, Love, and Teaching
88. The Creative Classroom	89. Lesson Plan SOS	90. Keeping it Captivating
91. Sweet Times in First`	92. Primary Buzz	93. Kindergarten Kel
94. The Paper Maid	95. Downeast Teach	96. Aisne's Creations
97. Primary Inspired	98. Teacher's Take-Out	99. Angelica Sandoval
100. Teacher Laura	101. 4th Grade Frolics	102. Ashley Hughes

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On Spring Break It's Raining Main Ideas & Details!

It's Spring Break, and although it's not raining, it HAS been snowing!  Snow? On Spring break?  OUCH!  What's the weather like where you are?  Hopefully a little warmer than where I am! 

It IS raining Main Ideas and Details, however...at least in our school.  One of the most challenging skills our students face and need to see over and over again, is the task of identifying the difference between main idea and the details that support it.  Hoping you and your students will find the FREEBIE adorable rainy day frogs helpful as you get closer to testing time!

Speaking of testing, I'm getting a Pinterest board up and going on Test Prep ideas!  Do you have any test taking strategies, resources, suggestions that you'd like to see on the Test Prep board?  Or would you like to contribute to that board?  Leave me a note with details! 


Bananas for time away from work to unwind with my family, despite the weather!  :-)

101 Things to do with Travel Brochures & Spring Break

It's SPRING BREAK TIME for me in a couple of days! (3 days, 7 hours, and 22 seconds, but who's counting?) As if Spring break isn't wonderful enough, my district threw in an extra MONDAY off the week after Spring Break.  It's like this little bonus that I know I will cherish come Sunday evening at the end of the week!  What are your plans for the break?  (Or what WERE they if you've already had yours?) 

WHEREVER you go, I've got a job for you!  Stop at some rest areas to grab some free travel brochures! LOAD UP! If the rest areas don't have a lot of options, check your hotel lobby!   I'm always grabbing those free travel brochures to use with my students.  It doesn't matter what they're advertising, I can find a use for them.  :-)  I finally decided to create a packet that would assist teachers in creating a travel brochure center for students.  The Brochure Bundle consists of 101 activities to do with a variety of brochures.   The activity cards consist of Language, Reading, Math, Social Studies, and Science tasks that I'm SURE you can find a brochure for!  They're great tools for formative assessments on skills you've taught, review for state mandated testing, cooperative group assignments, pre-assessing activities, or even homework tasks that students can pack up and take home with them! 

They're colorful and high interest so students can't wait to see what brochures and activities will appear in the centers!  Since there are SO many brochures out there, it's possible they will never see the same brochure twice!  I keep mine in a clear, large, plastic pencil box that I got from a bargain bin.  If you can find the pencil boxes with handles, they look more like 'suitcases' and make the activities even more appealing.  

I geared these activities with 3rd grade in mind, but they really cover material that is addressed in grades 2-4 nicely.  Don't see a task in there that you'd like to see added?  Just email me.  I'll see what I can do!  

Surely you know me well enough by now to know I can't get too far along with this post without making it a little fun and interesting!  SO...the first 5 people to email me a photo of their collected brochures, gets the unit for FREE!  Safe travels!  nomonkeybusinessmichelle@gmail.com

Bananas for freebie brochures that you can engage kids with and especially bananas for Spring Break!

SWEEP the Constructive Response Assessments

With the introduction of Common Core, our students have been required to take Constructive Response assessments in Math.  These are nothing more than challenging word problems that are equipped with multi-steps.  Students, however, are required to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the problem in a variety of ways. They are often asked to explain their thinking, show an equation to match the problem, and/or draw a diagram.  Our teachers quickly learned that students would often know how to solve a problem, but leave out key steps that the problem had asked them to display.  Missing that information led to students not earning all of their mathematical content or mathematical practice points.  Our fabulous educators got together and brainstormed all the different ways that students could demonstrate their knowledge base of the task.  SO...at our school, we "S.W.E.E.P." the Constructive Response assessments (CRAs) by "putting in symbols where necessary, using words or labels to display what we're working with (yards, pounds, cookies, etc.),  writing mathematical equations to match the task, explaining our thinking, and drawing pictures or diagrams to show what we know!"  SWEEP!
I created this little mini-poster for teachers to display in their classrooms. They're training students to solve word problems using the S.W.E.E.P. acronym.  It's making a difference in student responses.  Their answers are not only more thorough, but teachers can easily identify where mistakes might be occurring.  
If your students are taking CRAs, feel free to use the S.W.E.E.P. mini poster to give students an additional strategy for what to include or double check for when tackling these type tasks.  

Bananas for brooms I don't have to actually use ;-)