Busy? Yeah, me too.

I don't know about you but back to school means back to chaos in my house.  I have two littles and a busy hungry husband.  When I get home from work I am exhausted and so is everyone else.  But I still have to clean, cook, and tend to my littles.  Oh, and get ready for the next day to start bright and early at 4 a.m. Yikes. 

So, recently I started planning and prepping our dinners in advance.  I found this great website that does the planning for you and you just follow the directions.  The menus listed on Once a Month Mom listed as traditional before 2011 are free.  I am not being paid to tell you about this.  I just wanted to share something that works for my family.  Clean up and cooking are a breeze!  We loved all the recipes.  And that says something!  My family is picky picky picky.  The best part:  I don't have to think!  Although it is a little odd to buy that many groceries all at once for me since I'm a weekly shopper.  Once I did it, I was hooked.  HOOKED!

I just spend a few hours doing the shopping and prepping and I am set for a few weeks at a time.    There is  a subscription if you want to use a more recent or a different menu plan and it is pretty reasonable.  They have something for everyone from diary and gluten free to vegetarian options.  I only wish I had found this sooner!

Cool Sites to spark imaginations!

So recently I have been updating my class webpage with links and resources for my students and I came across some really awesome sites that I wanted to share with my fellow teachers.

Wonderopolis
There is even a widget to embed in your class website with neat facts and content.  It's great for sparking that curiosity in all of us!

 Make Me Genius
Science Videos for kids!

Museum Box
Not well known here in the U.S.A., this sites allows students to create a virtual box to teach and learn about a topic. 

http://www.101qs.com/
Kids can ask questions based on a picture prompt.  A great inquiry building tool!

Amusement Park Physics

Texas Performance Standards Projects
This isn't necessarily for students but a great resource for you if you are looking for projects to challenge your gifted students.  This is a major focus of mine this year.

 

Give away update

Well folks, there weren't any entries.  Therefore no winner.


I will try again another day.  So stay tuned!

Teachers Pay Teachers Sale!

The BIG Sale is happening at Teachers Pay Teachers on August 18-19th!  I am also adding an extra 15% off during the sale on most of my products!  Click HERE picture below to go directly to my store!  Enter promo code BTS13 at check out!

STEM activity

This was my first week of school and boy am I zonked!

I spend the first week or two of school doing team building, routines, procedures, and getting to know you.  Anyway, this activity will get your students minds wondering and help them to work in teams of 2-3 to solve a problem.  I especially like that this activity encompasses all parts of the engineering design process and I use my posters to help the students see the process as part of the lesson.

Here is what you need:

• Straws
• Aluminum foil
• Scissors
• Masking Tape
• Optional:  Wax paper
• Weights (If you don't have any weights to use you can use small found objects of the same size and weight)

Make a kit of all the materials your students will need in a basket and you will also need either a plastic tub filled with water or an aquarium.  I made 8 kits for my class.  To introduce the idea I asked my students to close their eyes and image they were on a beautiful island.  But they were trapped and in order to get off the island they had to build a raft that would hold their whole crew plus some.

Students should work in small groups to draft a plan on paper and develop their model raft.  The winning group was the one that was able to hold the most weight.  If you want to increase the difficulty of the activity you can use Popsicle sticks instead of straws.

Freebie Friday!

Have you ever gone digging through your desk trying to find that one precious paper clip?  That is me.  All the time.  And those little desk trays do nothing for me. The very shallow drawers in my desk won't let me fit one of those anyway.  I saw one of those teacher toolboxes a few years ago in another teacher's classroom and have been secretly envious ever since.  She didn't have hers decorated pinterest style but I loved the idea instantly.

And then, the age of pinterest rolled into my life.  I sort of forgot all about it until I saw them on  the addicting site.  Then it hit me!  I had to get my hands on one of these right away.  It would solve my never ending search for paperclips, staples, and the like.  So, I waited patiently for them to come into stock at my local Lowe's with no luck for months.  Finally, I bit the bullet and bought one off Amazon.   I have it in my classroom now and I absolutely love it.  I can actually find my supplies for once!  I am no longer that teacher walking around asking for a paperclip. 



This week's featured freebie is the template I used to create my labels for the 27 drawer stack on organizer!  You can download it my teachers pay teachers store here! :)

Be sure to follow me to stay posted on the latest freebies!

Give Away!

Guess what? 

I'm giving away my Engineering Design Posters from my Teachers Pay Teachers Store to one lucky winner at this time next week!  To check them out go here.

Good Luck!  You can enter once daily.  So don't forget to come back and enter tomorrow!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Liebster Award Nomination

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Freebie Friday!

Today's featured Friday Freebie is an pdf file for all grade levels. A sign out sheet for students to log their time in and out of the classroom. This generates instant documentation, reinforces telling time, and is great for parent conferences. Just print, and copy double sided and insert in a binder and you will have set up your sign out system for the school year. You can download it here! I post freebies often, so please follow me!

Pencils: Why you should not be giving them away

They make me crazy. The sharpening. The erasers that disappear faster than the lead. The lead that breaks. Oh, and then there is the sharpener racket. What finally worked for me: I stopped giving out pencils. I got really tired of spending MY hard earned money on pencils. While my own children needed things as well. So I quit. And it was liberating! When a kid tells me they have a pencil problem I say "Oh, that is too bad. I'm sure you can find a way to solve it" in my sweetest voice. If they persist, I tell them to ask a friend or use a hand sharpener and remind them to be responsible and bring more tomorrow. The hand sharpeners are on my supply list every year but you can also score them very cheap at the dollar store. Yet strangely, they always go missing as fast as the pencils. The big hand crank or electric sharpeners are off limits during non-transition times. They are available at arrival, dismissal, after lunch, etc. I have a little basket with two or three of them by the trash can. If you are consistent, the class will become more responsible with their pencils over time. At the end of the day I gather up all the pencils that are on the floor and put them in a little cup. I show the class the cup of pencils and tell them when they loose a pencil it goes in the cup. The cup is where they can find a pencil if they don't have one. When it is empty, that is it. There are no more. Eventually, they will catch on that you are not giving away pencils and will bring their own. But it takes time, especially if you have been giving away pencils and they have to expect it. But your students will learn something more valuable: responsibility. I have even gone as far as creating an anchor chart about pencils. It lists problems and solutions. I really think that if we as teachers are consistent and uphold responsibility then the students will learn to be responsible. Part of the reason why so many students have learned to rely on teachers to provide them with supplies is because we do it so willingly. It really irks me when a student comes to school with an iPod but can't remember their pencil. Occasionally, I have one or two students that just can not remember a pencil or that always have a problem. I send their parents an email or note and ask them to send in a few packs of pencils. If the parents can't or won't buy the pencils then I get several from the cup of lost pencils instead. The student sharpens all of them. Then, I give the student a zip lock baggie with their name on it and I store it in my teacher cabinet. They get one at a time. If you don't think this is an option: I saw a system on teachers pay teachers that I thought was neat by wise owl. Oh and I got so sick of buying expensive and cheap electric sharpeners that I quit doing so. Either way, the motor in them would burn up.

Class Dojo Review

Last school year I started using this fabulous free website to help my student see and understand their behavior. The price was right! http://www.classdojo.com/ It took some time to get all of it set up but the investment was worth it. What resulted was a quick and easy way to communicate with parents and I saw a drastic improvement in student behavior. Parents really loved that they could see in real time how their children did that day if they wanted. I tried to really emphasize the positive and rewarded points to students for doing the right thing. At the end of the month my team held a "dojo party." We created a tiered rewards system so that the students would get small prizes, coupons, and certificates for their earnings. One of the rewards was the code to be able to customize their little monster. They loved it!

August currently

Awww, do you see that?  It's my first currently post! 

Freebie Friday!

This Friday I am featuring my sign out vocabulary choice menu's. You can download them all for free! Plus they are editable! Check out all my freebies in my TPT store for more free items for your classroom!

Follow my blog for more freebies every Friday!