Sneak Peek...Oh, Lucky Day Giveaway!

I know it's not happening until Saturday, but I can't wait to share some exciting news with you!

MANY generous members of the Teaching Blog Circle have joined me in celebrating my first GIVEAWAY!  Hooray!

A full blog post along with a Rafflecopter will be posted on Saturday morning.  There are so many great items being given away, but I can only let you in on one for now.  It's this....

Now, I'm thinking that this is going to look pretty sharp over your shoulder with your lesson plan book or laptop inside.  It's roomy enough to fit supplies, books, your lunch bag...(and all of those things that seem to get toted back and forth to school every day whether you use them or not!)

There are SEVENTEEN (and maybe a one or two more by Saturday!) wonderful and generous bloggers linked up to this giveaway and I am looking forward to sharing them all with you!!

Grab the button below if you feel like passing a little luck around!  

Be sure to leave me a comment- I'd love to come follow you, too!

See you all on Saturday!

<center> <a href="http://theteacherschair.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img alt="The Teacher’s Chair" src="http://i894.photobucket.com/albums/ac147/traceyschumacher/giveawaybutton_zpsa8ad633c.png" /></a></center>

May the odds be ever in your favor! :)

Student Teacher Shout Out and some Weather Ideas

Have any of you had a student teacher?  Over the years, I have been blessed to have many great ones.  This, however, is the first time I have a student teacher that I can blog about.  In short, she is AWESOME!  In two short weeks, she's learned, planned, taught and basically has my kids writing her little love notes already! I'm glad...she is totally deserving of it.

The first subject Ms. A. took over was science. First, she planned an experiment (with a beautiful experiment journal included) on clouds.  It was a Pinterest inspired experiment that had the students hypothesizing about what happens when cumulus clouds condense into cumulonimbus clouds. The kids loved it.

This is how it all went down:
1.  Small containers were filled with water.
2.  Shaving cream was sprayed on top of the water.  A very thin layer on one side and a thicker layer on the other.
3.  Food coloring was added to the top of the shaving cream.
4.  The heavier clouds pulled the food coloring (rain) down faster than the thin clouds.  The thin clouds produced a drizzle.

She really did a great job pulling this together.  We had some very interested meteorologists in the room!

Ms. A. ended the week with a cute water cycle song and art project.  It went so well that the kids asked for copies of the song to take home to share with their siblings.  I think the projects came out super cute and will serve as a meaningful visual for the kids.

Ms. A. will be with us for the next few weeks (how lucky are we?)  I am already missing her when she leaves!

Funny Money

We are really starting to get into our money unit in class.  The same group of competitive kiddies who had a blast beating their teacher in the "Deep Sea Dive to Zero," laughed themselves silly as they once again claimed victory in the "Race Your Teacher to $1.00" game.

In order to practice identifying coin values, I turned on my ActivBoard and got my kids involved with a very funny game on the "Practical Money Skills for Life" website.  If you are interested in information to improve your students' (or your own!)  financial literacy, this site is for you!  It is packed with information, lesson plans, games and resources.  The game we chose to play was "Ed's Bank," and boy, did we laugh ourselves silly!

The goal of the game is to fill Ed's bank with the greatest amount of money possible.  For the kids, skill wise, it is really important to identify which coins have the greatest value.  They try to drag the coins into the bank as quickly as they can.  I swear, it was like an aerobic money workout! Even the kids who weren't up at the board were screeching with delight!  

After a round is up, the kids can choose whether to keep saving or go shopping!  They need different amounts to purchase items for Ed, and once they do, they are rewarded with Ed's silly antics.  I tell ya, this was like laughter therapy for my student teacher, my TA and myself.

If you have a few extra minutes before or after math one day...try Ed's Bank.  Your students' hearts will be going, "Cha-ching!"

Health and Wellness for Teachers

Ok, this may be off the teaching topic a bit, so that's why I called it "Health and Wellness for Teachers." I did this little cleanse over the break and some of you have been asking to hear about it, so here it goes...

I needed a detox and I needed it fast! Last week we had our winter break.  One of my girlies was sick, so I was sort of land-locked at home. I saw information about the 3 Day Detox on the Dr. Oz show not long ago, and have been wanting to try it for a while...but not before one last hurrah at one of our favorite restaurants:  The Red Hat in Irvington-on-the-Hudson. I figured I had to have the banana bread pudding one more time before I began...

I read different reviews and heard a lot of complaints about the taste of the smoothies, but I have to say- this was totally doable! Maybe it's because I'm a big smoothie drinker anyway - I have been a big fan of  Kimberly Snyder's Glowing Green Smoothies for a few years. A big part of why this worked was that I was prepared. I pre-chopped and bagged mostly everything.  I was worried that I wouldn't feel like doing much chopping and cleaning during this cleanse.  Besides from a headache on the morning of Day 2, I felt pretty good!

Maybe I was a little cranky on Day 3.  Maybe it was because my husband was cooking up some french fries to go along with the ribs he was eating...whatever - I was doing a good thing and told him, "Dr. Oz wouldn't do that to me!" (In which he replied,"I'd never ask you to do what Dr. Oz is asking you to do right now." Darn his quick response skills!)

I know a lot of us are visual learners, so let's get a look at the smoothies.  You will see them below in the order I drank them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  You are allowed a "snack smoothie" which is a repeat of one of the 3, but I didn't seem to want it ( I wanted the Valentine's chocolate in the closet, but that is another story).

The morning smoothie was my favorite - nice and fruity.  The green one was, well, very green.  Lots of celery and cucumber flavor there folks.  You are allowed 1 Stevia in the morning tea, so I decided to put it in the green smoothie instead - it was a definite improvement of the taste.  The evening smoothie was good and had a little kick from the cayenne pepper, but I got it down...because I knew what was comin' next...something I never ever do...my favorite part of this whole darn detox:

No...that's not my bathtub;  you just caught me in the middle of a daydream!  I have never tried a bath with Epsom Salt.  Wow- how relaxing! So relaxing, in fact, that when I researched "epsom salt bath" there is a little disclaimer that one should not lock oneself in the bathroom for fear of falling asleep and drowning!  I didn't lock the door - I was too scared, haha!

In the end, it was all good.  Most importantly my little girlie was feeling better, but I was feeling better too!  

HERE'S TO YOUR HEALTH!!

Geometry Freebie

With all of that talk about Geometry this weekend, you know I'd have a little freebie for you ;)  For this activity, I had the kids sit around the perimeter of my carpet in a what we call a "sharing square."  I literally dumped all of the pattern blocks in the middle of the carpet - this alone was thrilling for them!  They loved this very hands-on activity!  If you didn't get to see the other activities we did this week, scroll down a bit and check out the fun.

The picture will bring you straight to the Google Doc. Enjoy! 

I thought I would finally try my hand out at adding the little Amazon widget this morning, too!  Love this:

Snowy Day Geometry

Hurricane Nemo did not stop my students from coming into school for a little snowy day learning!  We actually had a big turn-out for an early dismissal.  I am glad we did, too, because I had a little something special planned for Geometry!  Yes, it's an old standby... but it's fun and it's delicious and it always gets the kids really psyched!  The best part was that they got to take it all home with them to build their shapes again!  In this case, it turned out to be a perfect snowy day activity for school and home.  Here's a look at the fun we had!

Paul Klee Inspired Geometry

It all started when I found this little pin on Pinterest:

I was captured by it immediately!  

Of course, I clicked and it brought be to a very cool blog called arteascuola.

There I learned the steps I needed to take to make this very cool project.  I immediately thought of how I could use this in my geometry unit.  The students were learning about plane shapes, so this fit PERFECTLY!  Please visit arteascuola to see the original "how to"...I'm sure they would appreciate the comments!

Before beginning my project, I got myself acquainted with the very talented Paul Klee:

Here is how I adapted this project for my classroom:

Somebody Call A Doctor...I Need an Operation!

Math Surgeons as a Visual Aid for Key Words in Problem Solving

     I, like many of you, are focusing on a lot of Common Core problem solving for math.  Just getting students used to the wording of the problems is a very important step.  My students are getting pretty good with setting up bar models, but they are still learning about the language of word problems.  Recently, I was telling my second graders, "It's important to look for clues to determine which operation to use."  

     One of my adorables responded, "It's like we are math doctors!" (Kids come up with the GREATEST IDEAS!)

     That, of course opened up a whole discussion about how important it is for surgeons to know what kind of operation they need to do! You can imagine the many scenarios my students came up with, for example..."You wouldn't want to go in for foot surgery and end up with eye surgery."  Needless to say, of course they got carried away with this sort of conversation until I reeled them back into math world!

     I decided that math doctors would be a great visual for my students and promptly told them that the next day we would be creating our own "Math Surgeons" in class.  Sometimes I love going off the plan!!  Simple, fun and meaningful!

     The kids LOVED making the math surgeons.  They really had a chance to focus in on those important key words for problem solving.  You can get a good look at them in the pictures above.  I'd trust one of those surgeons with a math problem any day! :)

   

Monthly Reading Logs

Happy Monday after Superbowl, everyone...ugh- why in the world don't they have that game on a Saturday?  My digestive system always needs a full day to recover from my parents' annual Super Bowl Bash!

Are you feeling the same way?  Perhaps a freebie will pep you up a bit!  This is a big one, too.  A packet of monthly reading logs for you to use in your classroom or for your students to take home.  I use these logs to help my students become more independent with their reading routines.  Over the past few years, I have experimented with a few different reading logs (daily, weekly)....these seem to be working out the best.  They are a little less maintenance than weekly or daily logs and the parents seem to really like this format.

Available for you at two of my favorite places!  Teachers Notebook:

 

and Teachers Pay Teachers:

Have a great Monday everyone!  If you have a chance, stop by Classroom Freebies - it's Manic Monday.  Of course you will find me there as well as many, many others who are sharing freebies with you today!

I'm here too...it's Freebie Friday at TBA!