Teacher Appreciation

As we hit Teacher Appreciation week, I first want to give a shout out to my own children's teachers past and present!  THANK YOU!  THANK YOU for challenging them, loving them, encouraging them, teaching them, and caring about them each and every day.  You often have a thankless job, but there ARE a few of us who know just how hard you work, how much money you spend, how much time you sacrifice, and how much you must truly care about kids to be doing what you do each and every day.  

Here's a poem I found online about teachers that is PERFECT for this week.  Enjoy! 

Teachers

by Kevin William Huff

Teachers
Paint their minds
and guide their thoughts
Share their achievements
and advise their faults

Inspire a Love
of knowledge and truth
As you light the path
Which leads our youth

For our future brightens
with each lesson you teach
Each smile you lengthen
Each goal you help reach

For the dawn of each poet
each philosopher and king
Begins with a Teacher
And the wisdom they bring.

What a better way to celebrate teachers on TpT than to have another one of their GIGANTIC Sales!  Most sellers will offer 20% off and TpT will tack on another 8% off of that!  You get 28% off WITH THIS PROMO CODE:  TAD13 (Don't you just LOVE the adorable sign created by Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs?!)

Are you a seller that is participating?  What is that FAVORITE item in your store that will be available for purchase @ 28% off??   LINK UP ONE item from your TpT store that buyers ought to check out!  

BUYERS:  Here ya' go...Here's that one item from some of TpT's BEST Sellers that is worth investigating!

Elevator Up or Down...and Teachers' kids

 I never was a "teacher's kid," so I can't help but wonder how that feels sometimes to my own children.  The "other kids" think it's awesome.  My own children have been informed on many occasions, "You get to stay after school with your mom??"  "That's so cool!"  Although my children would assure them it wasn't all that great, I'm not so positive they were believed.  Just recently my daughter, who was helping me carry a load to my office, and  got on the elevator with me (the cool, but creepy elevator that the teachers get to ride, but not students), a young child commented on how privileged my daughter was for getting to ride that elevator!!  When the doors closed, my daughter said, "Ummm...does she know this elevator only goes up ONE floor, it gets stuck all the time, and it's S-L-O-W-E-R than Christmas?"   :-)  
I guess not! 
This led to my next dinner conversation with my kiddos:  I asked them to share all the PROS and CONS of being a teacher's kid.  I challenge you to have this conversation with your kids if you have any.  It's quite enlightening!  WHO KNEW?  Sharing some of my favorite responses:

PROS:  1.) You have to torture yourself and get up early with us. (*This was positive???)
2.)  When I'm not feeling well, it's nice that you're so close. (Awwww)  3.)  You have the same schedule as us.  4.) If I don't understand something at school, you're pretty good at re-teaching it to me. (*This was ONLY relevant for the child NOT in high school!)   5.) You love snow days as much as we do!  (GUILTY!)  

CONS:  1.) There is NO hiding...grades, homework, behavior...You know TOO much. (*I thought this should go on the PROS list, but this was THEIR list!)  2.) You sometimes think we are your teaching assistants..."Want to help me cut this out?"  "Want to help me grade papers?" (loving their impressions of me doing this)  3.) There are no shortcuts when it comes to school projects...you won't let us out the door unless it looks like it could hang on a bulletin board.  (I told them they'd thank me one day for this!)  4.) How many times have we had to stay after school in your classroom until you got finished working?  (Ouch!)  

The list went on and on, and we had some great laughs about it all as they recalled specific incidents, events, and embarrassing moments.  Despite the CONS list, I did get them to admit it wasn't SO TERRIBLE being a teacher's kid, and the creepy, ever so 
S-L-O-W elevator WAS kind of fun (and SCARY)!

In honor of the creepy, old elevator, I have created some games that are great for review, centers, or paired practice.  Kids will enjoy working through the skill cards, and climbing up and down the unpredictable elevator until they get to the top floor for a win.  So far, I have an elevator game for each of the following topics:  math facts to 20, multiplication, money, rounding, simplifying fractions, shapes, time, and place value.  There are MORE TO COME soon!  I'd LOVE to hear what YOUR children think the pros and cons are of being a teacher's kid!  If you don't have kids, ask another teacher's kids.  BE ONE OF THE FIRST FIVE TO SHARE YOUR COMMENTS (and email address) and I'll be happy to send you one of the Elevator games for FREE.  Just let me know which one you want! 

Bananas for my honest children and YES, the elevator, which has helped me with BIG LOADS on many occasions.   

TEST Prep Help

Oooooo it's April!  You know what that means?  I wasn't necessarily referring to the countdown until summer vacation, either.  I was talking about that "T" word...TESTING time!  So, what do you do to prepare your students for testing?  I blogged last year about our S.P.O.R.T day, which was a huge success!  Our third grade team will be at it again this year wearing their SPORTY gear and reviewing in a fun, relaxing way, using games, hands on activities, and athletic events!  Here's a link to that post from last year in case you missed it!  

http://nomonkeybusinessmichelle.blogspot.com/2012/04/sport-day-sale-on-tn.html

I've also added a new pinterest board this year called TEST PREP!  Be sure to investigate it, AND leave me your pinterest information if you're interested in becoming a collaborator on that board!  :-)


So what do researchers say about getting students ready for testing?   TIPS FOR TESTING:
1.) Discuss the test with your students.  Think about it...we as adults usually don't like surprises and neither do students.  Discuss the format, time frame, and why they're taking the test.
2.) Practice with your students.  If your state provides practice or sample materials, get them out and use them.  The format will be very similar to the actual test and will not seem so foreign on test taking days.
3.)Teach test taking strategies.  I found a FREE pdf file that does a nice job explaining some strategies you should expose students to when taking tests.  *This requires some pre-planning and NOT waiting until the last minute to teach them. Teach them throughout the year for the best success. 
  http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/downloads/pdf/test_taking_skills.pdf
4.)  Review content with your students.  This can be done in a variety of ways and will take some time.  Reviewing content should occur gradually and not all in a couple of settings.  That can be too overwhelming!

SO...teacher friends...you're in the trenches WITH the students.  What kinds of activities, resources, tips, or HELP can you share with the rest of us as we all travel down the "T" path this month?  We'd love to know what has worked for you!  LINK UP with 2 of your favorite resources.  It can be a blog post, website, product (ONE FREE and ONE PAID  OR BOTH FREE!) Share your best Test Prep strategies with us! 

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!

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 ;-)