Drop Your Pebble in the Water for Oklahoma

The ripple of a pebble is powerful.

I ran across this poem by Joseph Norris {HERE} and thought it reflects the inspiring amount of relief effort going on for the Oklahoma tornado.

You can do your part by checking out Teacher's Notebook Moore Relief Bundle

An amazing amount of teacher products have been donated to this cause.

You can purchase the bundle and all proceeds will go to help Moore, OK and you get a bunch of teaching goodies in return.

Relief bundles are also available at Teachers Pay Teachers.  Click the picture below to access those bundles.

In addition, on Monday, May 27th I will donate sale proceeds from my store to the Red Cross earmarked for Moore, Oklahoma.

Hit the Beach with Relay Learning Fun

Tomorrow is my last day of school and of course my students have summer on their minds already.

So we did the cutest learning relay today from Miss Math Dork, Beach Bum Relay.

I love the versatility of this fun team relay. I used the template provided to program math review questions for each of the ten rounds. Each team task had a question for each team member to correctly solve before having it checked by the teacher. I threw in all kinds of skills we learned this year: long division, decimals, place value, rounding and multi digit multiplication. If the team got all 4 questions right one of the team members was assigned to draw a portion of a beach scene picture. As the rounds progressed, teams ended up being on different rounds based on their team accuracy and time spent on drawing. My class loved it and everyone was engaged. As you can see every teams final beach scene came out uniquely theirs!

Here's a picture of the teams in drawing action

If you'd like to finish your year on a sunny note, be sure to check this lesson out over at Jamie's store

Recipe for Mom

My students celebrated their moms by making this flower pot recipe holder craft.

They attached a "Recipe for Mom" card.

The craft came from Oriental Trading, but the exact craft is no longer available on their site.

I had leftovers from years ago when I purchased it. I hope they'll bring it back because I've done this same project every year.  Happy Mother's Day!

You Have Made a Difference

Enjoy this Teacher Appreciation Song by Brain Asselin

May we all realize the differences, small and large, we make in our classrooms everyday.

I'm proud to call teaching my profession.

Teachers, I know, also appreciate a SALE.

Don't forget about Teachers Pay Teachers Sale May 7th and 8th

My store will be 20% off, and if you use the code TAD13 at checkout you'll get a total of 28% off!

Can't beat that!

Accountable Learning with Right Wrong Strategy

My class tackled multi step math problems with a new strategy I put in place called Right  vs Wrong.
The purpose of it is to help student verify the answers given by their classmates.

First students work in pairs to solve a problem and show their answers in complete detail.

Then, in pairs students rotate and review fellow classmates work.

I placed a simple Right Wrong chart next to each problem to review.

Students read, reviewed and verified if they thought the answer was right or wrong.

If they thought it was wrong they had to give a reason.

Here it is in action

Reading and verifying

Student is marking the Right Wrong chart with their input

Sample chart when we finished

Reasons are given for why classmates thought a given problem was wrong

My students loved this strategy and it required student engagement and accountability.

I've made new Right vs. Wrong printables you can grab for free at my TPT store if you'd like to try this strategy.

While you are grabbing the freebie, feel free to browse my store and fill your cart for the TPT Teacher Appreciation Sale on May 7th and 8th.  My store will be 20% off and if you use the code TAD13 on checkout you'll get a total of 28% off  your order. Happy Shopping

Taking Care of Earth

Get your kids thinking about trash and being responsible with how they throw it away.

My annual Earth Day unit would not be complete without using the cute and creative Wartville Wizard story. The characters in the story literally get trash "stick ons" for being slobs, until the town wizard teaches them the valuable lesson of caring for our resources.

This Power over Trash writing activity ends my read aloud.

Students think of a consequence for littering and illustrate it...complete with a "stick on"
trash object.

Love it...a not very happy slob's consequence is for trash to stick to their feet so they can't move.

A little pestering to help slobs throw away trash might help here.

Yuck, a trash shower ought to teach everyone a lesson!

You can get this lesson at my TPT store

Ladybug Math Fun

I'm enjoying a beautiful spring Saturday.

Last week I was in the midst of state testing, but I was able to add a sprinkle of learning fun into my afternoons.

We did ladybug math!

I hit two concepts: fractions and symmetry

Students received a certain number of ladybugs spots (I did purposely give odd numbers)

The spots were then placed on the wings symmetrically, if possible.

Then the students wrote a fraction sentence and added the spots together.

The ladybugs were placed on a bulletin board with this learning target poster.

Click to download

If you'd like the math pieces of this lesson you can click {HERE}

Credit for the ladybug pattern I used for my math lesson goes to Janet Rainey.

Edible Landforms and More

Have food = Will Learn

My class does this edible model of landforms every year.

We start with a graham cracker base.

Cover 3/4 with brown icing and 1/4 with blue icing.

Use various food items to represent landforms:

Brown M&M for an island

Blue M&M for a lake

SnowCap candies for mountains

Fudge Graham cookies split into pieces to form a canyon. Then use blue sprinkles to show a river between the canyon

Wafter type cookie for a plateau

Coconut colored green with food coloring for showing the plains

I also mix in some landform videos and songs I've found online

Landforms - Educational Songs By The Obies - YouTube.mp4 from NIS on Vimeo.

Surprise Wake Up

I had an exciting wake up call early this morning.

 At 2:45 AM I heard my doorbell ring twice and Harley started barking.
I look out front and see police cars, an ambulance and firetruck.
Not so good to wake up to.
 I answer the door to a police officer that tells me they need to search my backyard for a suspect that might be hiding. From what information I was given, officers were responding to an unrelated call in my neighborhood. The responding police car was hit by a suspect driving in a darkened, unlit car who then fled on foot into a closeby neighbor's yard.

So, their first search was by a handful of police with night vision in my yard for the suspect.
No spotting of the suspect though.
I have a north bank hill full of very thick shrubs (perfect for hiding, I might say) and police inform me they would be returning to search it with a dog.

Fast forward to another knock on my door to more officers that prepare to search with the trained german shepard. They wanted to be sure no people or pets were in the backyard as they proceeded.

Wow, it was a sight to see 13 armed officers and the police dog surveying my yard.

They clearly announced one last warning to anyone hiding before they brought in the dog.

They fanned out in the yard and screened it a second time and I could hear the dog make his barking calls here and there. No luck in finding anything though and the police proceeded to search my nearest neighbor's yards too.  This is for sure NOT an everyday, typical event in my area, so it made for a very surprising start to my weekend. I can't remember the last time I was still awake at 5:00 AM!

Since I slept in today (I have an good excuse) I'm a little late announcing that I'm having a Spring Sale in my TPT store.

You can see other stores having sales too at Mel's Frog Spot  blog

Spending Money on Spring Break

I spent money on Spring Break, and not in the way I wanted.

If I've not shared before, I have a beautiful yard, but it is a 1/2 acre.

1/2 acre = lots of my time maintaining it over Spring Break.

Good thing I have my good buddy, Harley, along to keep me company.

He gets to lounge in the cool mondo grass while I sweat it out with weeding
The start of spending money was on replacing 2 sprinkler valves plus broken sprinkler repair.

Sidenote Harley story:  My parents dogsit Harley at their house while I work when they are in town.
My dad took him on a walk the other day, and 2 loose dogs came charging up to Harley.
Harley gave them a back off warning growl, and that's when the dogfight started.
The 2 boxers had the advantage because Harley was leashed up. My dad was hollering, and went into the middle of the street with the 2 dogs following. A car stopped and tried to help by honking repeatedly to get the dogs away but it continued. Harley came out of the tag team fight with no injuries, but my dad was upset that numerous parents walking their kids to the nearby school did not even mention to him as they passed by that these 2 dogs were laying loose up the way in a driveway.
It would have given him the chance to change paths or avoid the confrontation.

**********************

This pretty group of flowers sprouted up as a surprise.
Squirrels must have spread them to my yard.
Not quite sure what kind of flower it is though.

A big chunk of my unexpected Spring Break spending went to cutting down these 3 Queen Palms.

I wouldn't have cut them down except their roots were eventually going to destroy my brick planter. In order to save the planter, they had to go.

Cutting down in process

If yard work weren't enough add in some home maintenance.

My dishwasher has a leaking valve and needs to be repaired. 

Don't you love waiting for repairmen? I have a window of between 12pm and 3pm for it to be fixed.

Who has bets it is at 3 pm?

Hope your break will be more cost effective than mine or at least spent on something more FUN!