Fun Valentine Lessons and Activities

Valentine's celebrations are over in my class.

We have a 4 day weekend for Presidents Day so my students got their sugar fixes today.

I'm sharing some snapshots of our fun filled day.

We started off with a team building activity. Each team got mixed up heart puzzle pieces and the goal of each 4 member team was to make a heart with four different colors. When all the hearts were mended and each team member had 4 colors, then each student glued their puzzle down.

My treat for my students was giving them a box of candy hearts, but before they could eat them we did all kinds of math. This included probability, fractional parts, bar graphing and pictographs of the heart colors and determining the area and perimeter of the box.

We made adorable Love is Valentine crafts for a table decoration.

It was a day of sweet success!

Find more great ideas on my Pinterest page or TPT store

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration

Come Join the group!

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

Find more great ideas on my Pinterest page or TPT store

Error Analysis Activity: Building Critical Thinking

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 which is perfect for error analysis and building critical thinking.

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.

~Enjoy

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!

Swap the Squiggle Writing

My class had the greatest time doing Swap the Squiggle writing.

 The idea is to take a random squiggle and create a picture to write a story about. But my twist on this popular idea is to "Swap the Squiggle" which involves a group/team effort in creating the final picture. I have found that this activity helps motivate reluctant writers. What fun! These 15 squiggle writing prompts will be sure to engage your students.

Grab it at my  TPT store

Here's one of the cutest prompts generated today. 5 people worked on this picture.

A story was written about a girl stepping in gum.


Find more great ideas on my TPT store

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!

Swat It Games Giveaway

Click pictures to view

So my Dollar Tree shopping spree landed me with these Jumbo fly swatters.

My first thought was that these were some overkill fly swatters for a tiny fly.

But I'm not using them to kill flies.

I'm using them for my Swat It team games.

More games to come too! I'm working on one for place value as well as Sight Word sets. So go grab your Jumbo Swatters!

Display the concept cards on your board, split into teams, and call off questions.

Teams have a swatting good time to hit the answers first!

I'm having a giveaway for these games

1 winner will win all 8 games I've made so far

7 winners will get to choose 1 game of their choice

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Skee Ball School Style

One of my favorite childhood games was Skee Ball.

I could spend hours upon hours playing it at the beach arcades during summer to collect as many tickets as I possibly could manage.

So I made a school style Skee Ball for PE.
I made 3 sets, as I plan to use them relay team style. Each student on the team will toss a tennis ball into the marked buckets. At the end of each round teams will total their point value using white boards.

This would also be a great summer party game too.

The red, white, and blue tubs came from Dollar Tree.

I laminated the numbered labels to then hot glue onto painted clothespins.

Wala! Just clip the pins to the tubs and play SkeeBall to your heart's content!

Here's an online SkeeBall version too!

Keep in touch. Find me at:

My TPT store

Pinterest

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!

Listening Skills in the Classroom

Here are some ways I support listening skills in my class.

I Have/Who Has or Follow Me activities are such a hit with my students and you target content area learning while you are at it.

The basic guidelines involve giving one prompt card to each student. One student begins by stating "I Have ________ Who has ___________?  Whoever has the answer to that prompt shares their card until you've looped around to all the cards.

Here's a site that lets you generate your own cards

My Zoom Around the Room game is a favorite too. Students race to answer a category type question. I use it for a quick time filler and always leave it in my sub plans for an additional resource as needed.

I posted about it {HERE}

What ideas do you have for listening?

~Enjoy

Find more great ideas on my Pinterest page or TPT store

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!

Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking and Creativity

With common core standards and 21st century learning comes the necessity for the 4 C's

Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, and Creativity.

This wonderful video by Fablevision Studios encompasses these skills.

How are you planning to help your students go Above and Beyond?

On a personal note, my niece had to complete some service hours for her government class and I kept her busy with teacher stuff.  She came over one Saturday and laminated, cut, cut , cut, laminated, cut, cut, cut.  We practiced the 4 C's together. We had a little trouble on the communication part, as she tuned me out by either watching I Love Lucy on TV, or CONSTANTLY checking her Iphone. I told her I should not have given her my guest Wifi password, LOL. She did share with me this way COOL video of one of my fav tunes. The original song is by Goyte "Somebody That I Used to Know" But this Cover Band, Walk Off the Earth,  took the song to a whole new level, AND uses the 4'Cs of collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity. They share ONE guitar to perform the song.  What do you think? 

Stop by and visit

My TPT store

Pinterest

 

Playground Magic

I like to incorporate physical activity into my content area curriculum when possible. I've posted several ways I do this through Spelling Relays, Compass Rose Relays, and most recently Place Value relays.
I've also done Junk Food Tag when learning about nutrition and Landform Tag games during my geography unit. You can see pictures of these game ideas {HERE}.  Currently my school playground is basic in set up, with some four square courts, basketball courts, hopscotch and circle courts and a basic number grid.  My PIE in the SKY wish list would include more interactive playground court games as seen on these sites. I'm allowed to wish right?

Peaceful Playground Stencils  

(This site has a quarterly drawing for a free USA map stencil)

Education Technology Stencils

  

A is for Assessments: Fun Ways to Evaluate Student Learning

I'm sharing my bag of tricks for great assessment ideas for the classroom.

Here are some of my favorites:

 

Grade the Teacher 

 

This is by far my absolute favorite way to assess my students in the classroom.

It is so versatile and engaging and can be used for any subject. Plus it builds critical thinking and reasoning skills. Students get to "grade" the teacher's work, which is purposely filled with errors for them to find. It's great for an exit ticket and error analysis. Plus, students don't even realize they are doing ALL the work by correcting and reteaching the teacher! It is such a hit with the students. Grab it at my TPT store.

 

Carousel Writing

Create a set of questions related to a topic of study. Write them out on chart paper. These questions will be used as brainstorming sheets for a pre lesson assessment, and then again for a post lesson assessment.  Group students at one of the chart questions and have them discuss and record ideas. Upon a designated signal pass the charts to a new group and continue the same process. Each group will respond and add to all question charts.  The neat part of this is if you do the same questions as a post Carousel Writing you can see growth in ideas.  The samples below were for a science unit on Living Things. The pre lesson Carousel brainstorming was in red and the post lesson was in green.

Stoplight Vocabulary

This idea comes from the book Getting Into Words by Shira Lubliner.

Use this web link printable to color code vocabulary word familiarity in stoplight colors:

Red: If you don't know the word
Yellow: If you have heard the word, but not sure of its meaning
Green: If you know the word and can use it in a sentence

What are some fun ways you assess students?

Keep in touch. Find me at:

My TPT store

Pinterest

Memory Game for Student of the Week Activities

This team building game is great for building classroom relationships and was inspired by a familiar baby shower game. Of all the games played at baby showers...grabbing baby pins in rice, stealing clothespins from shower guests, and wrapping toilet paper around the  mother to be, I must admit that the baby item memory tray game is my favorite.  

I use this concept in my classroom as a Get to Know You activity at the beginning of the school year, but it can also be used as a part of your star Student of the Week activities. Students bring in 15 small items that are special in some way to them to display on a memory tray. The tray is passed around to classmates as they study and memorize the items.

Once the tray is out of sight, give students a {classmate memory tray worksheet} to fill out. Afterwards the star student gets to share about the items. I used to always do "Me Bag" sharing for Back to Schoolbut this now takes its place. The classmate memory trays build classmate connections as well as recall and memory skills.  Can't beat that! 

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!  (Freebie ideas and giveaways are sometimes shared there!)

Keep in touch. Find me at:

My TPT store

Pinterest

A Spin on Squiggle Writing- Creative Writing Idea

Raise your hand if you've done Squiggle Writing at some point in your classroom.  If not, then you've got to learn about this "oldie but goodie". It's been a standby, staple lesson in my classroom for years (30 years to be exact). 

Here's the nitty gritty directions. Basically you draw a random squiggle on paper and let students create an illustration out of it. Then they follow by writing a creatively, cute story.

Now, here's my spin on the traditional Squiggle writing.  Instead of having it be an independent activity, I've made it interactive and called it "Swap the Squiggle". The low down here is students start with their own squiggle for a brief amount of time to begin decorating and on a teacher signal move/swap their squiggle with another classmate. Ideally, you would swap the squiggles several times and then end by returning it to the original squiggle owner. Then the story writing begins! All of my classes have 

 L-O-V-E-D my "Swap the Squiggle" because it's a team effort and the end illustration ends up being a squiggle surprise. 

I've included 15 squiggle writing paper templates for writing fun. Grab it HERE

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!

The BEST Brain Break Game

This is a must have Brain Break game in my classroom. Students don't even realize they are learning in this fast paced category game.  Students compete in pairs to name a category answer. The winner gets to race/advance around the room until beat by another opponent. It's a great listening skill game as well.  The 100 + category cards I've made are open ended making this a game to come back to AGAIN and AGAIN. It's perfect as a quick time filler which my students beg for.  

I always leave a copy of this game in my sub tub and I don't know how many "Thank You's" I've gotten from appreciative substitutes! 

Sidenote: I also modify this and use it for transition times like waiting in line. When I do, I just call off a category and call on random students to share their ideas.  Do you have more great transition tips?
       

                                        You can RACE to grab your copy here.

 

 

Stay in touch. Find me at:

My TPT store

I recently started a Facebook Group for teachers to share ideas, questions, and inspiration. 

Come Join the group!

Cool Compliments and Study Jams

My end of the year is FAST approaching.  I love to do an activity  I call "Cool Compliments". This one is perfect for the end of the year since classmates have learned lots about their friends. First we discuss what compliments are: positive and uplifting comments. Then each student tapes their "Cool Compliment" poster to their back and the fun begins. With pens in hand, students form writing trains around the room. Bending, squatting, leaning and smiling while feeling the warm fuzzies being written on their backs! The poster is then taken off and read.
What a keepsake.

Another similar idea I use ALL year long as a wonderful review tool for ANY topic is Study Jams. Tape a "Study Jam" sheet on their back with a topic indicated and let them study and review for a test!
What a perfect way to engage their learning in a hands on way. And students have a ready made study guide to take home.

Both the Cool Compliment and Study Jam sheets are here.  Have fun!

Keep in touch. Find me at:

My TPT store

Pinterest