Was it just me or was it almost impossible to get out of bed this morning? I thought I was ready for today but as soon as I realized I had to get out of my pajamas and back to work I was over it! I think my kiddos felt the same. 13 school days till winter break...not that I'm counting or anything!
Just in case anyone else had a bad case of the Monday blues today I am sharing a little freebie that I hope you will find useful! We are working on two-step word problems...those tricky little problems are causing trouble in our classroom! I made this center over the weekend. The first set has smaller numbers and the second set a bit bigger so you could differentiate this center or use them at different points in your two step word problem adventure! I made sure to put a place for each step to remind students that they have to do TWO problems to find the answer. Click here or on the picture below if you would like to try it out!
I definitely feel rested and ready for a new week! I had a fabulous Thanksgiving break with my family!
I am totally ready for Christmas but know I have a lot to cover in these 2.5 weeks before! My kiddos have been making simple mistakes in their writing! They are forgetting capital letters, punctuation, and are misspelling words! I made this little pack to get us through the next couple weeks and hopefully help with this issue. It's up in my TPT store now!
I am also linking up with Oh Boy Fourth Grade for the first time today to do Currently December! Exciting!
Listening- I have come to LOVE football Sundays as it gives me time to blog and plan while my hubby watches game after game and entertains the baby. I also love that they are just a few feet away so that I can go cuddle up for a few for a break every now and then.
Loving- I LOVE Christmas time and am enjoying decorating our new home!
Thinking- I lost my mother to breast cancer 5 years ago. And for those of you who've lost someone close you know how bittersweet the holidays can be. BUT I just keep in mind that she's looking over me and I know she loved to see me smile...so I keep my head up and share favorite memories with my family!
Wanting- I want a warm brownie with ice cream and hot fudge more than anything right now. I am certain it is just what I need but then I think of everything I've eaten this weekend.... Yikes!
Needing- I am so BEHIND on Christmas shopping! Usually I shop all year long and just store things away but this year between having a baby and moving I did not!
Favorite Tradition- This is my favorite time of year so I have so many from going to see lights, eating egg puff and cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, playing Apples to Apples...,.I cannot wait to share these traditions and start new ones with my baby boy!
I have been having so much fun sprucing up my blog! I am learning so much and in the process getting more and more addicted!
We are still measuring up a storm in my room and this week we've moved on to comparing measurements. As I've mentioned before we are in the middle of revamping our curriculum to align with the new standards so we are all scrambling for resources! We did A TON of hands on learning and math discussions in math this week. I think the only time we took out our pencils was to measure them. I started the week by taping down this measuring line.
I used a scrapbooking 1" hole punch so each circle is an inch long. I taped down with packing tape and plan to add numbers next week so that we can compare how tall we each are.
We rounded up a bunch of random things and compared their measurements. We used sentences like:
The water bottle is 3 inches shorter than the board game.
The cup is 5 inches longer than the coin.
This anchor chart helped them remember terms during math talks.
We also made turkeys but before we put them together we made sure to get some more measurement practice in...
I am hoping these next 2 days go by fast! I LOVE Thanksgiving and can't wait to celebrate my son's first. What are your plans?
Boy was I happy to see 3 p.m today! This little post will be short and sweet because Alyse from Keep Calm and Apple On is visiting this weekend and we are working together to fancy up our blogs! Yup exciting Friday night for this dull teacher!
We have been writing book reviews so I thought I'd share the organizer I made to go with what our units ask us to do. In our book review we have an introduction which tells the book and the author, a short summary, our opinion of the book, and if we'd recommend it and to who. If you want to do an anchor chart for book review the download also includes labels for an anchor chart. Click the pic and it's yours!
I feel like I should do FIFTEEN or even FIFTY for Friday because it's been a while since my last post!
I have been crazy busy and here's why....
A blog post last weekend just wasn't going to happen. My hubby, myself, and our baby boy were ALL in a wedding! Our best friends got hitched! Our weekend was filled with wedding festivities. I'm telling you I was so busy I barely snapped any pictures! Luckily others did. Here's my family at the wedding...
It's blurry and I have some scary eyes but love this pic that was snapped by a friend. We are dancing with our sleepy boy!
This kid loves the dance floor.
New. Favorite. Picture.
The wedding festivities did not have a happy ending. The hubs and I as well as many other members of the wedding party all got a NASTY stomach bug. No fun and another reason I have been gone from blogland.
We read The Giving Tree this week. This story makes me tear up every time. We talked about how characters change over time and analyzed the tree and the boy. Found this version on youtube which the kids enjoyed.
This next idea could very well been a genius plan I had all along OR it could have been laziness on my part....haha! We have been working on measurement so I had the kids measure and draw out their OWN graphic organizer instead of pre-folding them like I usually do. This took a good 30 minutes or so and we really had to work step by step but they did great and they got some measurement practice in!
After making our own graphic organizers we discussed the different changes the tree and the boy went through and wrote a sentence to describe the character at the given time in the story.
We are also currently conducting a little science experiment in our classroom inspired by the story/riddle Pumpkin in a Jar. We have this story in a Houghton Miflin book we use at our school but if you follow the link it will take you to a very similar version.
We planted 3 seeds in a jar (and by jar I mean giant cheese puffs tub that's the same shape as a jar).
Can't wait to see what happens!
I introduced measurement a couple weeks back. Before we measured anything I wanted to have a discussion about why standard units of measurement were important. I told them a story about how another teacher wanted a purple rug like ours and needed the measurements to see if it would fit. I divided my students into 5 groups. Each group used ONE students' foot to be their unit of measurement. I chose that student to make sure their were variety of sizes. Surprisingly no one noticed me walking around examining students' feet! They worked together to trace, cut out, and measure a rug with their feet.
I had them each record their measurements on a their slates.
Surprise! Surprise! We all had different measurements. I had them discuss and try and figure out why and then we watched How Big is A Foot.
We have also been singing this FABULOUS song created by Bethany over at Polka, Dots, and Sticky Glue Spots. It's sung to the tune of Oh My Darling Clementine. So cute!
Finally my grandma wrote a book!!! It was released last week. If you or someone you know enjoys historical fiction you've got to grab a copy! Click HERE to read more about it and get a copy!
