Social Studies Buddies - clock buddies w/ social studies

How do you partner students in your classroom? Social Studies Buddies is a great tool for partnering your kiddos quickly and by reinforcing content from social studies class! All I have to say is "Everyone get with your George Washington partner!" and students automatically have a partner.

How to use:
1. Each student gets a copy of the Social Studies Buddies page (I have them glue it in the first page of their Social Studies notebook). Students will write their own name on the bottom of this page where it says "This page belongs to "and that is the last time they will write their own name on this page.

2. Ask students to find a partner in the class and write it under the first line (under Pocahontas).

3. Then ask students to find a new parter to write their name under the second line (under John Smith). 

4. Keep going until everyone's page is filled! If you have a small class, you can either stop and not fill out a few of the people or you can put students in groups of 3.

5. Whenever you're doing a partner activity, pick a historical figure from this page and ask your students to partner up with them. Students will quickly be partnered up and you'll be referencing important historical figures all year!

In my class, we do this on the first day of school. It's a great activity to get students circulating and introducing themselves to students outside their typical friendship circles. My students need a lot of scaffolding, so we find one partner at a time and go sit down in between partner-finding. In my first year, we didn't do this and it got confusing very quickly. I always ask students to leave their Robert E. Lee and Arthur Ashe partner blank. I choose those partners so I know I'm picking a good partner for each student to work with in a heterogenous or homogenous manner. That way I can ask students to get with their Robert E. Lee or Arthur Ashe partner if I specifically need solid partnerships for a given activity. 

Alternatively, you could partner everyone up yourself!

If you grab this product, Social Studies Buddies, before Tuesday, you'll get 50% off! Enjoy!

Classroom Schedule Cards in Chevron!

I just added a new set of daily classroom schedule cards in my TPT store! I have a polka dot set in my store already but now I've got a chevron set! 

As usual with my product postings, during the first 24 hours this product will be 50% off!!!!

I print these labels out, laminate and put adhesive magnetic strips on the back of each card, however some of my brilliant coworkers opted to use this set in a pocket chart. Once laminated, one of my student's weekly jobs is to arrange the class schedule on the white board every morning.

I've listened to loads of feedback and suggestions so this set includes over 70 class cards (from Recess to Guided Reading and everything in between).  You can read which classes are included in the product listing {here}.

The set also includes blank cards so you can write your own if needed. However, if you have another class you'd like me to add to this set, please comment on this blog post and let me know. I love adding to these sets to make them work for teachers at every school!

My purchases in the BTS sale!

 I am so excited about my haul in this year's BTS sale! The sale isn't over yet, so I wanted to share my finds so that you still have enough time to snag these resources on sale if you'd like!

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Powerpoint Template- This is completely editable and I can use it to review all sorts of content in my classroom on my SMART Board. I use review games a LOT in my class so I'm super excited about this find from Best Teacher Resources. She has a ton of other Powerpoint review TV games that I wishlisted for the future (modeled after Wheel of Fortune, Family Feud, Jeopardy or Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader) as well as other review games like Connect 4.

I need help! Number Cards- I can already tell that these are going to be a life saver in my class! Usually when I'm doing guided reading or writing conferences, I have students that need help but I can't get to them because I'm busy. With this new product, I can have the students grab a numbered card and call them over in order when I have a free moment. This way the students can get back to work quickly and I can minimize interruption time. So glad I found this!

Kid Team Signs- These signs are from the wonderful Tara at Fourth Grade Frolics and I've been eyeing them up ever since she posted her Monday Made It last week. She added them to her store this week! They are just SO cute. I plan on printing two of each sign, gluing them together back to back, laminating and then hanging them from the ceiling on a string over each table in my classroom. 

Mystery Walker Tool Kit- This tool kit from Leslie's Locker has been on my wish list all summer. I was intrigued when I saw the title of this product, but I was sold when I read the first sentence of the product description: "Looking for a way to help keep your students quiet and well behaved in the hallways?" Um yes!!! So every day the students will know the teacher has their eye on a "mystery walker" of the day, but the students don't know who it is so they all have to be on their best behavior in the hallway because if it was them all day AND they were a model citizen in the hallways, they get a happy note home! I think this is a super cute idea and I know that my kids always like when random names are pulled... plus the mystery all day just makes this a winning system that I can't wait to implement!

Line Up Buddies- This product is a great classroom management tool from Michelle at Apples and ABCs! I always stagger my students lining up (usually by colors they're wearing or by birthday months) but sometimes it's hard to me to keep track of what I've already called and I struggle coming up with new ideas so this tool is great! You pull a stick out of the jar (remember how I love pulling random names?!) and it will say something like "If your name starts with ____" and the teacher fills in the blank. Easy, fun, printable, done. You can read more about this product at Michelle's blog post about the resource {here}.

Bulletin Board Banners- These little pendants from popular TPT store SunnyDays have been sitting on my wishlist for a while and I am so happy to have finally purchased them! These are themed pendants that can be displayed in your classroom. The product comes with a set of 25 (back to school, summer, field trip, book report). I will print these out and have my students write and color on their pendants and then they will be hung on a hallway wall on a string. Cute, quick and easy! I think parents will love finding their child's little banner at Back to School Night!!!

Nautical Name Plates- I love anchors. Ok, I'm borderline obsessed with them. But how cute are these name tags from Style and Paste?! I love buying digital name tags because you pay a small fee ONCE and then reprint them every year, rather than paying like $5 for a pack of 20. Brilliant. Adorable. Sold. Happy teacher.

Measurement Facts and Conversions SMART Board Pack- These are cute and colorful, but they're also jam-packed with content, which is to be expected since they are from the incredibly amazing FlapJack Educational Resources. I teach in a non-common core state but these SMART Board lessons align perfectly to our measurement standards in Virginia as well. Included in this pack are lessons on capacity, metric length, time, customary length and weight. Seriously these SMART Boards are so good I almost feel like I'm cheating as a teacher by buying them. But I'm ok with that!

Owl Poke Multiplication Cards- I also purchased this from FlapJack Educational Resources mainly because owls. But really because they're self-checking! You can see a video about how to set these cards up and use them {here}. I can set up a center or have this as a fast finisher activity and the students can be whizzing through these cards getting immediate feedback while I can be helping another group of students. Score!

Sooooo clearly I went a little overboard and unfortunately for my bank account, I can keep shopping today! Hope everyone is having a great time taking advantage of the sales!

Fourth of July Sale

I'm having a fourth of July sale in my store! 20% of all products today and tomorrow! 

(Feel free to steal the button if you're having a sale too, just give credit to this blog!)

Two for Tuesday- Novel Study and Decimals Game

I just hit up a bunch of stores in this linky party and got so many new products for my classroom at half off!!! So I had to "pay it forward" and link up as well.

That's right, these products are now 50% off in my store  today ONLY!

This novel study packet is based off the book, "Because of Winn Dixie" by Kate DiCamillo. It can be used for guided reading groups, lit circles or whole class novel study. The enclosed activites encourage students to make connections, learn new vocabulary, write and summarize.
The skills that this packet focuses on are:
*Parts of speech (verbs)
*Paragraph Practice
*Dictionary Use & Vocabulary
*Predictions
*Character Mapping
*Summarizing
*Visualization

The second product is math-related!

Students can put the cards in order from least to greatest or greatest to least. This sort includes decimals up to the thousandths place. This can be used as a quick math center or enrichment activity. Print, laminate, & cut and you have a quick and easy math center for years to come.

I used this in my fourth grade class as a math center. The students were beyond excited to get to this specific math center. I gave them each a set to keep and they were playing war with the cards during indoor recess.

When students are finished putting the cards in order from greatest to least (or vice versa) you can have them partner up and play "war" with the cards. War is a card game where both of the students have a pile of cards facing down. At the same time, both students pull the top card off their deck and put it face up in front of them. The card with the highest value wins.

Don't miss this Clip Art freebie from Creative Clips

A link to this freebie on Teachers Pay Teachers has gone viral today and for good reason: Krista Wallden is giving away a School Favorites Clip Art pack for free! AND if she gets 2000 ratings on this product, she'll post another freebie!

Do yourself a favor and download (and also don't forget to leave a rating!) The stripey apples are my favorite and the owls are a close second.

Just click the picture below to follow the link to the product:

I just checked out her store and she also has a ton of other amazing freebies. Six pages worth to be exact!

Teachers Pay Teachers Facelift

My last day of work for the summer was June 18th. Ever since then I've been incredibly unproductive. It's been great. And by great I mean that I don't have bags under my eyes anymore!

But I've decided I want to be prepared as possible for this upcoming year. As a fourth year teacher, I hope to have more time to complete all the pinterest projects I've always dreamed of completing. I know... dreams of grandeur and it's not even July!

I began with wanting to create some new products for my TPT store. I sat and I thought.

I sat.

I thought.

And the creativity bug never bit me. My determination continued. Mostly because I wanted a reason to justify purchasing some new clip art and digital papers from Etsy.

So I decided to give my current TPT products a facelift! Here's the before and after:

A lot of my products didn't even have cover pages, so I created some of those. Like this one:

Now I'm just waiting for some ideas so that I can add some new products to my store this summer while I have time (and am not sleep deprived!)

Has anyone else ever done this before?

Back to School Sale on TPT

For those of you that don't know, TPT is having their annual Back to School Sale right now! In addition to that, my shop will be hosting a 20% off sale... which means everything from my shop is 28% off if you use the code BTS13 today AND tomorrow!!!

Hurry on over to my store {here}!!!

Book Talk Thursday- Baloney!

How stinkin' cute is this book?

I've seen it before at book stores and such, and it's such an eye-catching book. But what made me fall in love was the book's description.

This book is PERFECT for my ELL kids. The majority of my students are in our ELL program (English Language Learners) or have been in the past. So I think they could really connect to this book. But like the description says, everyone can relate to learning how to read! We've all done it.

So, obviously, I immediately checked out this book and added it to my Amazon wishlist because borrowing this book from the library isn't going to cut it. And I couldn't help but write a blog about it for Andrea's Book Talk Thursday!!!

I found this great activity on TPT by Smart Chick Teaching Resources.

The activity she created to go along with this book focuses on context clues. Context clues are useful to all students, we know this. But context clues are invaluable to ELL students. 

Sometimes my students get stuck on a word during a test and freeze up! One time during a test, one of my students had never heard the word "jug" before and she decided she could NOT answer the question because of this. It was a math measurement problem and if she had gathered context clues, she would have been able to easily solve the problem. So every year, context clues is a main focus in my classroom.

With this activity from Smart Chick Teaching Resources, the students fill in a chart during their quest to find the meaning of the strange, outlandish words in "Baloney" by Jon Scieszka. They have to identify the clues that helped them determine their hypothetical meaning of the word.

For example, here is a page from the book-

The students would have to guess what they thought "Torakku" meant and identify the clues in the text and illustrations that helped them arrive to that conclusion.

So glad I found this book and Smart Chick Teaching Resources today!

Trick or Treat Sale

What else is there to do while preparing for "Frankenstorm" to hit the East coast? Stock up on food, water and TPT products!

I am having a 20% off sale at my store this weekend, along with a ton of other bloggers.

Thank you Alisha for the button!

Click {here} to visit my store!

Be sure to check out my most recent product, my Math Quick Checks and Social Studies Quick Checks!

These are my math checks

These are my Social Studies Quick Checks for VA Studies:

Math Quick Checks

The newest product in my TPT store is my Math Quick Checks. They're just little cards with math questions on them that I printed on colorful cardstock, laminated and put on a binder ring.

    

 I keep the cards on a hook right next to my door. The yellow are math questions and the pink are social studies questions (coming soon!)

This set includes questions for the entire year's worth of math based on the Common Core curriculum and the Virginia Standards of Learning. Quizzing them all year on questions from the first unit on will help them retain information and prepare them for those high-stakes tests!

I have been using these in my classroom the past week and the kids are loving them. I use them during all transition times: before we go to lunch, music, computer lab, outside the bathroom, etc.

Today, before computer lab, we were running late and didn't get to do the quick checks. My kids were so disappointed. They were asking me why we didn't ask them! Usually I'm the one asking the questions, but they love being the "teacher" and asking their peers the questions. Sometimes if I have them out at recess, the kids like to quiz me on the questions to see if they'll stump me! So funny.

You can purchase them at my TPT store here:

Keep an eye out for science, language arts and social studies quick check questions! I'm working on them now :)

Flashback Freebie

Lisa from Learning is Something to Treasure is having a brilliant linky party. It's called flashback freebie!

So the flashback freebie that I want to feature on this blog post is one of my math freebies from my TPT store. Right now in fourth grade we are reviewing ordering numbers. In my teachers pay teachers store, you will find an Ordering Decimals packet for free. My kiddos loved this when I used it last year.

I pass out these cards to students (the packet comes with 18 cards) and the students are asked to sort them from greatest to least, or least to greatest. You can give each student 18 cards or give one student one card and make this a class activity.

When students are finished putting the cards in order from greatest to least (or vice versa) you can have them partner up and play "war" with the cards. War is a card game where both of the students have a pile of cards facing down. At the same time, both students pull the top card off their deck and put it face up in front of them. The card with the highest value wins.


So please download this product from my teachers pay teachers store for free!

Classroom DIY

Here's what I've been up to in my classroom:

Monday Made-It #1: Paint chips hung on a hook on a computer with students' log-in information! The math fact fluency program we use is called Reflex. Our county bought us a subscription and it is great! Their reflex passwords are blue. The purple paint chips are for Raz-Kids and then there are green paint chips with their regular log-in information :)

Monday Made It #2: Binder clips labeled with students names and put on their "mailboxes"/cubbies instead of the number system that I was using. My messengers could never remember students' numbers.

Monday Made-It #3: I made all of my students a paint chip bookmark. I think I want to do a monthly bookmark. They love them! And there are tons of easy, free projects on Pinterest. I want to try the cereal box bookmarks next.

Monday Made-It #4: My classroom library got a makeover thanks to Donors Choose! I asked for some book bins and voila!

Also, I am having a sale on my TPT store! It's for today and tomorrow! Snag some good deals here: