Formative Freebies and Paybacks!

     Ever have a moment as a parent where you have to step back and just let it happen?  I encountered that recently when my daughter came home in tears one day after school...upset that she got stuck with most of the work for a group project.  The educator in me began asking all the right questions..."Who's in your group?"  "What's the assignment?"  "How did you get stuck putting it all together?"  After a quick investigation, I learned that her 3 fellow group members were all boys.  They had done some of the work at school, but when it came time to put it all together, I guess they decided that should be "all her."  In their words..."You put it together for us and we'll present it."  It was 3 against 1, and since she's the compliant "teacher pleaser" she brought the work home to put the poster together herself.  It broke my heart to see her upset, but I quickly noticed her demeanor change as she began laying it all out for the task ahead.  I asked if I could help in any way and she simply said, "No! I got this!"
Three hours later, she reappeared with a huge smile on her face holding a BRIGHT HOT PINK poster with the most beautifully (and girly) decorated poster you have ever seen.  It had ribbons, flowery sequins, bows, lace...you name it!!  She even sprayed it with perfume before going out the door the next morning!!  Yep, my daughter decided if the BOYS were going to stick hours of work on her and they got the job of a 2 minute presentation, she was going to make it as painful as possible for them.  The teacher in me was thinking, "Oh no, the decorating was a bit much!"  But the mother in me was saying, "YOU GO GIRL!"   Her teacher, who was obviously aware of what had transpired, simply walked by her in class, leaned down and whispered, "I LOVE IT!"

     I recently conducted a formative assessment professional development with a wonderful colleague of mine.  We had the best time sharing some strategies for quick checks in the classroom.  A lot of the ideas came from my "Let's Recap" packet (also free in my TpT store), but we threw in a few different ones I thought I'd also make available for grabs.  Hope you can put to good use in your classroom!

Bananas for my daughter who can "hold her own" when necessary!

Election Day Freebie

Election Day is sneaking up fast!  I always enjoyed election time in my classroom.  Students hear their parents talking about it, they can't escape from it being all over the television, so they are naturally curious about it.  What a better time to teach them how the democratic process works.  Whatever the grade level, you can adapt election type activities to fit the needs of your classroom.  Host a mock election, complete with registration cards.  Do some research on the candidates with your older students.  Tie in some quality literature to enhance your election studies. Check out some of my favorites: (Duck for President by Doreen Cronin, Election Day by Lynn Peppas, See How They Run by Susan E. Goodman, Vote! by Eileen Christelow, Letters from the Campaign Trail: LaRue for Mayor by Mark Teague, President of the Whole Fifth Grade by Sherri Winston, If I Ran for President by Catherine Stier)  If your school is a voting site, request one of the workers on their break to come speak to your class about the process.  They may even allow your class to come do a quick tour of the voting machines.  My class was invited to do this during a local election last year and my students were fascinated by the curtains more than anything else.  :-) During our mock classroom election we had to build a privacy area so they could vote in private!   Whatever you decide to do, have FUN and make it meaningful.  After all, we're blessed to live in a democratic society where we the people, have a voice!  Students need to learn this at an early age so they will not be afraid of the process as adults. 
 
Here's an Election Day Fun Freebie for you to get you started!  :-)  Click on the image to grab it!  

Bananas for my freedom and always thankful for those who serve to protect it,

Interactive Notebooking

Interactive Notebooks...Who has started?  Whose district has required it?  Or who is doing them on their own?  Why the surge of interactive notebooking for students?  From what I've read, research shows it fosters creativity, organization, and independent thinking.  Who doesn't want that for their students?  I personally like them because they serve as great review tools, they are of high interest to my students, and students take total ownership in their learning!  Let's face it, some topics don't lend themselves to "hands on" learning.  Interactive notebooks ARE hands on no matter what topic you're teaching.  What they are NOT, is students listening to a lecture and taking notes (insert high school and college flashbacks here).  They're called interactive for a reason, right?  

Students are DOING.  So what are they doing?  They are cutting, bending, folding, coloring, drawing, labeling, creating, writing to explain, and quite simply "showing what they know." It goes without saying that if your students can explain it, they KNOW it!  My students have been "notebooking" for 3 years now.  They WE get a little better each year.  I also try to tackle a little more each year.  I started with ONE Social Studies unit my first year.  (Geography)  The following year I added another S.S. unit. (Government)  This past year I added Economics and am now full throttle with math notebooking. (addition/subtraction, numeracy, money, multiplication, division, fractions, geometry, etc.)  They are available as individual units or cheaper all bundled up.  I'm still creating and adding!


 The few things that stand out about notebooking with my kids is 1.) They love it!   2.)  They have no choice but to be organized!   3.)  Their parents love it because their child IS organized and has access to all of their notes in ONE place.  4.) They are retaining the information better!  (Test scores are climbing!)  5.)  It has helped ME get organized AND more excited about teaching some topics that could normally be considered "boring" or "difficult" to teach.
I'd love to say there was some magic road map that helped me start at point A with interactive notebooks, but there wasn't.  A lot of it was trial and error (and continues to be a work in progress)!! But I would say that the place to start is the curriculum.
A.  Know what you're responsible for teaching and teach it in a way that your students can respond to it!
B.  Get familiar with foldables!  There's nothing MORE FUN than folding paper in a variety of ways to motivate your students into getting information down!
C.  Let go!  You'll be amazed at how creative your students will be if you let them.  TRUE STORY:  I was using the Government interactive notebook template that I created with my students and there's a picture of an old scroll in there.  Students were to cut it out and glue it in their notebooks and add some of the rights we as American citizens have in our country.  I was monitoring their progress when I noticed a student wadding his scroll up.  My first thought was "That little STINKER..." (and I won't go any further with that).  When I asked him what he was doing, he informed me that he was making his scroll look OLD (like the REAL Bill of Rights image we had just seen).  Not only that, but when he was finished making it look 'old,' he wrote some of the rights he had learned, rolled it up to look like a real scroll, and asked me for a piece of ribbon so he could tie it like a real scroll.  :-) He wanted to "QUIZ" his parents about some of our American rights and let them unroll the scroll when he got home in his notebook to see if they were right.

Need some additional interactive notebook ideas?  Try this INB LINKY!    What have you tried?  Success stories you'd like to share?  We'd love to hear! 






NEW to the Interactive Notebooking Party....GRAMMAR GATORS!  Learning about the parts of speech is full of some Super Hero fun!  

Bananas for writing to explain, so you can truly tell "THEY'VE GOT IT!"

Fall Sale Blog Hop...Swing on in!

Happy Saturday!  The weather was cooler this week in Tn.  It's actually beginning to feel like fall in the mornings and evenings!  I can't think of a better way to celebrate than with a fall sale!  Join bunches and bunches of bloggers this weekend only for a 2 day sale...Sat. Sept. 22nd and Sunday Sept. 23rd.  Grab some Items for up to 20% off throughout our stores!  Some of my favorite items on sale this weekend include:

Go to Starbucks in your PJ's (drive-thru), come back for some Happy hopping and Happy shopping! 

Bananas for Blog Hoppin' fun in your PJ's with a Pumpkin Spice latte'!  

Spotlight Saturday & Birthdays

Why is it as a kid we LONG for our birthdays to come, and the older we get we LONG NOT to see our birthday show up?  I experienced that this week turning _____ (fill in the blank with anything you'd like as long as it's lower than 35)  NOT!     :-)   It didn't help with my own children thinking I was one year younger than I really am.  When I added that extra year onto the one they thought I was, they were like, "Hmmmm...REALLY?"   Thank heavens for 1st graders who honestly have no sense of time and age.  One of the 1st graders at my school heard it was my birthday and said, "Happy Birthday...are you past 25 yet?"  

Welcome back for another edition of Spotlight Saturday.  I've got some great freebies for you again today.  

Teaching by Hart has a cool math warm up for you in her "Spot the Imposter" freebie.  It's so simple, but so fun, and sparks some great math conversations.  Need a time filler?  Engaging warm up?  Thought provoking small group starter?  Grab Kim's imposter sheets where which are loaded with numbers.  All the numbers on a page have something in common.  There is one, "the imposter" that doesn't fit.  Students begin searching for odds, evens, multiples, etc.  Looking forward to the fun I can have with this one!

Sometimes you run into things and think..."Why didn't I think of that?"  I took one look at these and thought back to the years I taught Kindergarten and First grades.  Where were these when I needed something "magical" to motivate some of my kiddos to read?  Everybody needs some fun reading glasses, right?  Check out Tracy's Guided Reading Glasses for grades K-4.  You just provide the popsicle sticks and you've got yourself a class full of adorable little reading nerds.  :-)  

Second Story Window has 6 weeks of spelling homework for you, which can be used with any spelling words, in her Spelling Tic Tac Toe Homework pack.   Students use their spelling words to do a variety of activities.  It also incorporates a little student or family choice as to which parts are completed.  It serves 1-3 grades the best and is a nice alternative to the normally boring spelling homework sheets you usually see.  

In closing, I hope you were able to grab my "Writing a Paragraph Hamburger Style" freebie this week.  If you missed it, head back to my home page and check the post prior to this one to snatch.  

Bananas for birthdays even when the candles take up a LOT of space on the cake,

Writing a Paragraph Hamburger Style Freebie

I have been asked many times in the last few weeks what I think about my new job as Literacy Coach.  I love so many parts of my job, but like anything in the education world, it's challenging, overwhelming at times, and so fast paced that it's often 2:00 before I realize I haven't eaten lunch.  
Just when I was feeling a little lonely one day, a teacher asked me if I'd be willing to come into her classroom to model a revising/editing writing lesson.  I couldn't say "YES" fast enough!  I have tons of graphic organizers, posters, handouts, flipcharts, etc. on writing that I've used over the years, but I found myself with this incredible urge to go ahead and create something new.  After discussing what her class needs were, I put together the following freebie that is focused not only on putting a simple paragraph together (hamburger style), but putting a really GOOD paragraph together (BIG MAC style).  This little freebie is designed to be used with beginning paragraph writers.  It encourages them to plan ahead with a graphic organizer, attempt a first draft, practice editing together (which prompts great classroom discussion), compare/contrast the difference between a simple paragraph and one that is a little more elaborate and FAR more interesting, and finally, share what they've learned.  
The class that I visited had already completed their graphic organizers and first drafts, but were able to take it one step further and APPLY their newly acquired editing skills and edit their own papers with the correct editing marks.


I had such a BLAST going in her classroom this week and certainly look forward to reading their published BIG MACS in a few days!  :-)   If you need a quick and easy freebie that is easily modified to fit many genres, GRAB IT!   Either pic will get you to the link to download! 




What are some of your BEST writing instruction tips for teachers? 

Bananas for BIG MACS (Yum!) 

Spotlight Saturday Freebies

Welcome back to another Spotlight Saturday!  I took a 2 week vacation from blogging.  I'd like to say that I was parked beach front somewhere reading a good book, but it was actually due to some crazy schedules, a sick child, a trip "home" to see my parents, and a stubborn laptop. 
Hopefully this post finds you transitioning smoothly into the new school year, enjoying your new students, and tackling all the adventures each new school year brings.  How about some freebies??

Christina would love for you to check out one of her management systems where students are trained to use their non verbal cues to let you know what they need.  Needing the restroom, a sharpened pencil, a tissue, a drink, and having a question or answer to share are included in her "Show Me the Number" system.  This system can be used with any grade level.  Go check it out!



Ms. Soud knows the importance of parent communication!  She's sharing a Parent Contact Journal with you.  It includes an interest inventory for your students, Parent Contact Form, Parent Contact Log, Behavior Journal, and a Classroom Newsletter editable with Powerpoint.  The forms are nicely organized and the clipart makes you feel right at home as a teacher.  These forms are mostly suitable for K-2 grade levels.  Grab a helpful freebie!


Last, but certainly not least, we have Denise's literacy center using the BOOK ORDERS you send home with students all the time.  What a clever idea to put the extra book order forms (You know you get TONS)  in a center and let the students do some activities using those forms!  Reap the benefits from getting those forms out, utilizing them, AND sending them home for students to order!  Who doesn't love the bonus points from a book order?  You'll never get tired of these!  

If you downloaded a freebie today, don't forget to leave some feedback!  Sometimes that's all it takes to keep these fabulous creators going!   

ENJOY the rest of your weekend, friends.  Catch a good college football game, grill out, hang out with some friends, and schedule a nap!  Those lesson plans aren't going anywhere.   



Bananas for the nap I WILL make time for this weekend,