Another TpT Sale!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!  In case you haven’t heard, Teachers Pay Teachers is having another one of their huge sales.  Be sure to drop by and visit your favorite sellers and stock up on goodies for your classroom.



The countdown to summer is on!  I have a few more things I need to cover with my class but I like to spend this time having the students practice their basic facts.  One of my class’s favorite games is BOOM!  Students take turns drawing fact cards. They get to keep the card if they know the correct answer. The winner is the person with the most cards when the BOOM! card is drawn. I store the game in a decorated Pringles can which the kids get excited over.


If you’re like me and you need some more games for practicing math facts, check out these BOOM! games that will be on sale in my TpT store May 7-8.



If you want to give it a try before you buy, the addition version is FREE!

I hope you’re having an awesome week!

Foldable Fun–Geometry

WARNING: This post contains A LOT of graphics!



My students get a kick out of adding new things to their math journals and they learn so much doing it.  We recently added these to our journals as a way for us to remember some key terms associated with 3 dimensional shapes.  The kids love turning a flat piece of paper into a 3 dimensional shape.



I love that these foldables flatten out so that the journal can be closed without smooshing the shape.



It can also be lifted up so that notes can be written underneath.



And, it’s super easy for your kids to make.  Here’s how to do it…























If you give this a try, I would love to hear how they turn out.  I hope you enjoy your weekend!

Teacher Appreciation at TN

Whew!  Our state testing is over and I can breathe a huge sigh of relief!  For those who haven’t tested yet, HANG IN THERE!  It’s almost over!

I’m checking in today to make sure you know about the huge sale at Teacher’s Notebook.  This is a great time to stock up on all those lovely items on your wish list. 



To make things even better, Teachers Notebook is also hosting an AMAZING giveaway.  Be sure to enter for your chance to win a $100 gift card to Oriental Trading.



If you teach volume to kids who are not ready for formulas, check out my volume bundle.



This bundle includes:

• foldables for note taking
• PowerPoint for teaching and practicing how to find volume
• matching game in both color and black and white
• 2 volume worksheets

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!  I hope it’s a great one!

Testing Makes Me Grumpy

It’s that time of year again – state testing.  Ugh!  I’m counting down the days until it’s over and I can teach the way I want to.  For all my fellow Texas teachers, this is for you…

Good luck to all of you who have state tests coming up!

Font.My for Android Users

I don't know about you, but after seeing so many iPad users/bloggers create their own fonts, I've been green with envy.  I wanted so badly to make my own fonts but I don't have an iPad.  However, I DO have an android tablet and this past weekend I discovered an amazing new app in the Play store. Drum roll, please...

The trial version is free and you can make and download 1 font (lower case letters only).  It didn't take me long to decide I needed, okay, wanted the full version. I was able to get the full version for $2.99 which I thought was a good deal.  

This is an example of the first font that I created.  It's pretty basic but I still love it.  I'm sure I'll be creating plenty more.  This app is so simple to use that my children were zipping right through it creating their own fonts too.

Even though this isn't the typical Monday Made It post, I thought I would link up any way cuz I'm just so dang happy about my new find!!  I want to make sure all the Android users out there find out about this one!!

Have a great week!

Foldable Fun + Freebie

I love foldables!  I love math journals!  AND, I love seeing how much foldable goodness we can add to our journals.  I even enjoy seeing just how poofy our journals get.  I have a tip for you at the bottom of this post if poofy journals bother you.

My favorite type of foldable is one that requires very little prep time.  It’s even better if it’s FREE!  I found this neat freebie on Mrs. Lyon’s blog and it happened to coincide with what we’re studying right now.  Without hesitating, I snagged it right up. 



To add a little pizzazz to our journals we trimmed off the margins.  Then cut out the title and cut off the note at the bottom. 



We folded over the name section and cut it into strips to create flaps.



We then glued all our pieces into our journals.



Viola – a fast, quick and FREE resource for our math journals. If you want your own copy of this freebie, drop by Mrs. Lyon’s TPT store.

Poofy Journal Tip
Buy a package of 7 inch rubber bands.  I got mine at Staples.  Punch a hole at the top of the back cover and thread the rubber band through it.  Then the rubber band can be as a strap to keep the journals closed.  I’ve noticed that using the rubber band has made my journals less poofy (and easier to manage).  You can see an example (although not a very good one) at the top of the picture above.

CSI: Inferences cont.

I recently posted about some of the activities I used to teach my class about inferences.  I’m continuing the post today with one more activity from my inferencing bag of tricks.



Evidence Bags Our final “fun” activity was to look at some evidence bags I had collected. Once again this was some trash I found around my house but I didn’t tell them that. The trash was stored in resealable bags so that it looked like real evidence.



In this case, we didn’t have much evidence to look at but we ended up spending a lot of time analyzing it! I wanted the kids to tell me whose trash this was and what was wrong with them. There isn’t enough evidence here for them to figure out an exact person but I wanted them to be able to tell me whether it was a child or an adult. It’s obvious that this person was sick but I wanted a more specific description. What kind of illness did this person have? I started with the cough drops and then moved on to the cough syrup.  At this point they had a good idea about the illness but were stumped on whether it was a child or an adult.  They really got stumped with the Sudafed but one of my bright kids suggested we look at the dosing instructions to find out what age this medicine is intended for.  Each kid had their own chart to fill in as we went.





This is my second evidence bag.  I told the class that I found this trash at the ball park in town.  Once again, I wanted them to figure out who (child or adult; male or female) and what might have happened. 



My class was uber involved in these inference activities.  They even wanted to help make more evidence bags so that we could do the activity again.  I’m hoping that next year I’ll have some more bags put together so that the kids can work on them in small groups.  I’m going to be on the look-out for some interesting trash and may even go dumpster diving to get it!  It’s for a good cause, right?

Before I go, I want to share this picture I found on Pinterest.  We recently studied our solar system and this is the reaction some of our lovelies had.  I love the look on that cat’s face!!

Source: Uploaded by user via Deirdre on Pinterest