May 22, 2014

End of the Year Fun~May Madness

My May has been extremely busy so far! Here's my May in pictures...

May 12-13: I attended the Google Summit at Kalahari. I love learning new things, especially in regards to incorporating technology in the classroom, so I had a blast! :)
May 15: My three language arts classes each had their own wax museum.  My students wrote five paragraph biographies in April, and then we practiced working on our wax museum speeches after that.  We invited parents and other classes to attend.  I'd never done a wax museum before, but I was so happy with how it went that I would definitely do one again! 
May 16: My students turned in their last book project of the year, and they absolutely ROCKED! I tweaked Primary Polka Dot's Instagram inspired project to work for our reports.  The students thought it was really cool, and t









May 10 & 17: I worked at the Scholastic Warehouse Sale. If you've never been to one before, you NEED to go! Most books are 50% off (some newer titles are 20% off).  It's the 5th or 6th year I've worked at the sales; they take place in December and May every year.  Working at the sales has really helped me build up my classroom library over the years!


May 21: I'm the advisor for my school's student council.  We went to a senior living facility to play some
 B-I-N-G-O!

All May: We've been working on our last set of literature groups for the year. I got the idea for using Kidblog during our lit. groups from Amelia (Where the Wild Things Learn). It's been a great way for students to demonstrate their comprehension and provide thoughtful feedback to one another.

Students who have finished their posts early are now using PowToon to create video summaries of their stories. I showed the students how to create their own videos using the free features, and they picked up on it super quickly.  I'm amazed at what they've been able to make already..I will have to post one of their videos soon! 













May 13, 2014

2,000 FOLLOWERS GIVEAWAY!

I am ecstatic to announce that I have reached 2,000 followers on TpT!  It's a HUGE milestone for me. I feel so blessed! So, with the help of some wonderful TpT sellers/friends/bloggers, I am raffling off three different prize packages.  See the amazing prizes below! Good luck, and thanks again for following me! :)

Prize Pack #1









 Prize Pack #2







Prize Pack #3



May 11, 2014

Hocus Pocus, Keep Them Focused! Part 2

We all know teachers are magic, but it seems that this time of year, our magical powers need a little extra umph and a maybe even an ABRACADABRA to get us to that last day of school!  So, I teamed up with some amazing intermediate bloggers to create some magic of our own!  You may recall that a couple of weeks ago, we joined forces to swap some of our favorite resources, armed with the goal of putting a little extra magic in our lessons and keeping our students engaged during these final weeks of the school year.

Credit goes to these talented graphic & font artists: Krista Wallden, KG Fonts & CC Fonts.
As promised, we’re all back today with Part 2 of our blog hop giveaway – the big reveal – viola!

I was lucky enough to be paired up with Jessica from I Heart Recess! As I mentioned in my last post, I took a look in her store and fell in love with her "Gearing up for the Test: 3-5 ELA Review Game".  
I used this product with my students before our big state tests! As expected, it did a great job of keeping my students engaged.  They absolutely loved the game! They enjoyed being able to review the concepts that we had learned in a group. And as a teacher, I loved that they were reviewing the following CCSS reading skills: context clues, theme, main idea, text structure, text features, making inferences, point of view, and character traits in a group.  I was impressed with the amount of questions Jessica provided for each of the reading skills.  Just look below to see all of the context clue cards! Since my students didn't get through all of the cards (yes, that is how many there are!), I was able to use them as a part of  my whole class review game later in the day.  I highly recommend this product!

Test Prep: Gearing Up for the Test ELA Review Game for 3-5



Now to our second round of magic giveaway!  We decided to switch things up a bit by having several winners this time around!   In fact, 14 classrooms will receive a little magic for their own classrooms!  Each of the blogs featured below will be giving their prize to a different winner!

So, perhaps you want to know what MY winner will collect!  Whoever is drawn as the winner from my blog will receive their choice of a 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th grade Memory Book! Your students will love reminiscing on the current school year and making goals for next year! :)


Here’s what you need to do for this giveaway:

Stop by each blog to read about all the magic that has been spread around classrooms near and far!

Enter to win each blogger’s resource using the raffle below.  Each blog is showcasing the same Rafflecopter, so you can just add entries as you go! 

While you are at each blog, if you’re not a blog follower already, sign on to follow!  (You can earn bonus entries for following all blogs once you unlock the additional entries.)

Again, a total of 14 winners will be named!   Each blog will award a winner.  That individual will receive the prize listed at that blog!

Here’s the list of blogs to visit: 
Swap Stop A
Teaching FourthTeaching with Blonde Ambition

Swap Stop B 
Fifth in the Middlehttp://thebrownbagteacher.blogspot.com/

Swap Stop C 
http://iheartrecess.blogspot.com/http://middlegradesmaven.blogspot.com/

Swap Stop D 
http://crafting-connections.blogspot.com/http://www.theteacherstudio.com/

Swap Stop E 
http://createteachandshare.blogspot.com/http://teachingtoinspirein5th.blogspot.com/

Swap Stop F 
One Lesson at a Timehttp://www.commoncoreandsomuchmore.com/

Swap Stop G 
Photobuckethttp://www.thesciencepenguin.com/

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Well, friends, here’s the blogosphere sending a little magic your way this May! :)