Earth Day Posters Freebie!

Earth Day is coming up in a few short weeks (April 22). Here are some Earth Day posters you can grab for free!

Earth Day Posters

Just click the image to get them from my TpT store. Enjoy!

12 Days of Christmas Mystery Markdown!

Only twelve more days until Christmas and four more days of school! This month is just flying by. To get in the holiday spirit, I'm hosting a 12 Days of Christmas Mystery Markdown.

Visit my TpT store every day until Christmas to find a great teaching resource marked down as much as 70%. I'm not going to tell you what the deal of the day is... You have to snoop around to find it! Have fun!

An InLinkz Link-up

Fa-La-La Freebies

I'm linking up with Primary Powers to bring you some awesome holiday freebies! We all know how hard the days leading up to winter break can be. The kids are all n-u-t-t-y, right? Here are a few fun activities to keep them learning despite the Christmas Crazies.

This is a writing activity for targeted towards primary grades. Santa's reindeer are on strike. Students will think of another animal that can take their place pulling Santa's sleigh. A Venn diagram is included to compare and contrast the two animals as well as a graphic organizer for planning a persuasive writing piece. Your students will then write a persuasive letter to Santa using the included letter writing template. Just click the picture to download from my TpT store.

This freebie is a hands-on math center to help students practice sorting odd and even numbers. Just choose a cookie and decide which cookie sheet it belongs on - odd or even? This activity focuses on two-digit numbers.

This activity is just plain fun! Students decorate the Christmas tree based on their answers about themselves. Once complete, the tree pictures make a cute holiday bulletin board or window display.

I hope you enjoy these freebies and have a stress-free, not-too-crazy last few days of school! Be sure to click the linky button at the top to find more holiday goodies for your class.

Happy Easter...and a Freebie

I hope everyone has a beautiful Easter day! I woke up to the nice surprise of seeing my Jumpin' Jellybeans game in TpT's weekly newsletter. In case you didn't see it, you can download it from my store. It's a fun, small-group game for practicing multiplication facts. Just click on the picture to get it.

 

 Have a wonderful day!

Black History Month in the Classroom

February is Black History Month. If you're like me, you have little time in your day to fit in extra learning when it doesn't align with the required curriculum. But there is so much rich history to be learned by studying the important historical figures that we celebrate in February!

Since our social studies block has all but been eliminated by walk-to-intervention time, I'm planning to integrate Black History Month into my language arts block. If you look at the Common Core Standards, you'll see that many of the "Speaking and Listening" standards provide a perfect opportunity to read, learn, and talk about African-American history.

One of my favorite books to read aloud is My Daddy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. written by his own son. It gives a new perspective to the story of Dr. King, one that the children can relate to... a proud son talking about his loving father.

I will read this book in January, since that's when we celebrate MLK's birthday. But, it's a great way to start a study of African-American history. After reading this book, I give students an opportunity to write about their own fathers. This allows for making text-to-self connections and integrates writing into our studies. 

We follow up the book and writing with the video Our Friend, Martin (You can view the entire movie for free on youtube!) and a comprehension packet that involves main idea, text features, vocabulary, and context clues.

 

After completing our studies of Dr. King, we start researching other important figures in African-American history: Rosa Parks, Mae Jemison, Frederick Douglass, Jackie Robinson, Booker T. Washington, and Mary McLeod Bethune are a few that we focus on. The students get to choose one of the above people to research with their group. They use the facts they learn to create a poster, write a short biographical report, and then present it in front of the class.

We have the advantage of being just a few miles away from Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach. A field trip to the college and Mary McLeod's home isn't always possible, but we can pretty easily bring in a speaker from the college to talk about her life and accomplishments.

Most communities have some sort of African-American organization that can provide speakers to schools. One to try is the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs. Listening to a speaker, asking questions, and talking about what they learned are important skills for our students to learn.

Have fun celebrating Black History Month!

Unwrap Your Holiday Freebies!!

How would you like to get 50 free resources for your classroom? I know I would! For the third year in a row, Teachers Pay Teachers has put out a Winter Holidays Tips and Freebies Book. It includes holiday teaching tips and products from 50 different sellers. This book is completely free to anyone who wants it. All you have to do is go download it and enjoy.

There are actually 4 different books to choose from...
  
   

I am pleased and honored to have been included in the Grades 1-2 book with my Reindeer On Strike! Writing Activity...

Go get your freebies now! They're free for a limited time. All you have to do is click on any of the pictures above.

Happy Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving week at school! Two days of fun followed by three days off. What could be better? It seems that we spend every single second of our day stuffing the kids full of knowledge, testing, remediating, retesting, and analyzing data. There's so little time left for anything fun. But Thanksgiving week is a nice reprieve from all of that work!

Here are some of the fun things we did this week..

•  made Indian pudding in the crockpot
• played a game of "Classroom Feud" with questions about Thanksgiving
• made handprint turkeys
• went on a virtual field trip to Plymouth Plantation

Want to try making Indian pudding yourself? It's super easy and really tasty! The following recipe is done in the oven instead of the crockpot. It's much better that way!

 I wish everyone a happy and healthy Thanksgiving! Don't forget to check out the big sale at Teachers Pay Teachers on Monday and Tuesday. Everything will be discounted!