Extending the Break

Last week something crazy happened in schools all around the country and if you are a teacher, I am sure you already know what I'm talking about. Schools have closed their doors for weeks, months, or even the rest of the year. But what does this mean for teachers, students, and families?

In my school, we have been told that after spring break, which is this week, we will be out for another week. I teach at a private school, but we follow the county that we are in. As of right now, they are taking two weeks, including spring break.

After a week of spring break, we are to make a plan for online work for the students for the remainder of the time we are out. We are figuring out what that looks like. There will be internet programs to use, of course. I have seen a lot of teachers posting freebies for teachers to print out for their students who will be out of school and I am joining the bandwagon.

In my master's degree program, I studied outdoor education, which to some may seem like glorified recess, but that's not it at all. In our culture, so many children do not connect with nature or go outside much at all. Children these days have what some are calling "nature deficit disorder." Many children are even scared of being in nature. My program is something that can help to combat this trend. It teaches students about nature across the curriculum. This is not just something for recess. You can teach science, reading, writing, social studies, and yes, even math using outdoor education strategies. I encourage you to learn more about it. You can even find the book about Nature Deficit Disorder on Amazon.

In light of COVID-19 and being out of school, I would like to offer a free resource for getting your child out into the sunshine, which by the way has been proven to kill bacteria and help reduce the time or even chances of being sick. This resource has two different nature journaling pages. One is designed for early elementary and includes a spot for drawing and prompts for writing about the nature a child sees outside. The other page is taken from one of my nature journaling resources. It is designed for older students to allow them a place for drawing their observations as well as a place for writing about them. I hope you enjoy using this resource. You can find it here.  

Partner Multiplication Game for Third and Fourth Grade: Race to the Moon

Partner multiplication games are such a fun way to get in extra practice of the dreaded process of learning those times tables. I love to create little games that make the learning fun. When I introduced this game, one of my fourth graders announced to me (in front of the whole class), "You always make the BEST games!" I'm not gonna lie, that made my teacher heart very happy. I want my students to LOVE learning and to have fun doing it. 

This partner multiplication game is called Race to the Moon. It is tested and tried by my very own class. They loved it (I'm sure the little spaceships have a lot to do with that fact). 

The reason why I love to use partner multiplication games vs. small group games is that:

1. It is so much quieter. Partners can sit close together and talk softly so I am not interrupted by noise while teaching another math group.

2. I also love that partner multiplication games are so quick and easy to play. Seriously, the directions are simple and the game does not take long at all. 

3. Another reason is that students get more practice than if they had to wait their turn for a whole group. 

If you'd like to try out a partner multiplication game like this one, check it out by clicking on the link right here.

Read Across America Journal

What are you doing for Read Across America Day? I think a reading marathon would be just the thing! Imagine engaging in reading and reading activities for one hundred minutes or more. Sound difficult? It's not. Check out this fun and free pirate themed journal that you can use to make this a reality. I've done many reading marathon's in the past and they are always great. You can literally use any book or books. You can read or have the students read on their own, the sky's the limit! Simply print the color or black and white version, staple, and go!

Click here if you want to snag this resource!

The History Behind Holiday Traditions: Thanksgiving

I love learning the history behind holiday traditions. I love sharing that passion for the history behind holiday traditions with my students even more. Once the craziness of Halloween is past, we enter the biggest holiday season of the year. First, there’s Thanksgiving and then comes Christmas and New Years back to back to back. With those holidays come so many fun and meaningful traditions. I. Love. Them.

We started off the season by exploring the book, Balloons Over Broadway, one of my all-time favorites for learning the history of holiday traditions. This book follows Tony Sarg from early childhood through the time in his life when he starts creating for Macy’s department store. First he was hired to create displays in windows. Then he began working on creating a parade to bring some of the traditions of the immigrants to New York City. It outlines his love for puppets and how his ideas for the Macy’s Parade came from his love of puppetry. It. Is. Perfect. There’s so much to discuss. Love the link to immigrants too and their traditions and how those traditions bring new and rich traditions to our world.

After reading the book, we had a ton of fun stretching out our learning to really dig into the history of the parade and the events that led up to it. One of the activities we did was to create these cute Macy’s Wondertown display booklets. On the front cover, students created their own design for a holiday window in Macy’s department store. Afterwards, they read about how Tony started with the windows and how that led him to creating other things for Macy, including the Macy’s Parade as we know it.

Last year, my family went to the Museum for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta and I was just so inspired by the puppets and the history there. I knew I wanted to find a way to bring puppets into my classroom. When I really sat down with the book, Balloons Over Broadway, I knew I had found the link. Tony also loved puppets and especially marionette puppets. I created a short page on the history of marionettes and then the students created their own little marionette-style puppet that was inspired by the book. They were so absolutely excited…and continue to be excited over them.

We also learned about the steps that Tony used to create the balloons for the Macy’s parade. We created our own designs for a Macy’s day balloon. My students loved all of these activities. It all came together so nicely.

Another book we read was called Thanksgiving in the Whitehouse. This book explored the tradition of pardoning turkeys. I also loved that this book had so much that could be used for exploring character. It was based on events of the lives of Abe Lincoln and his son Tad when they were living in the White House. The themes I picked out were compassion and perseverance, perfect for any classroom for sure. I also loved that it told about Tad and his determination to save the Thanksgiving turkey that he fell in love with and wanted to keep as a pet. In the end, Abe Lincoln decided to pardon Jack, the Thanksgiving turkey from Thanksgiving dinner.

We popped on to YouTube to see a video showing our current president granting a presidential pardon to a turkey and talked about how this is a fun Thanksgiving tradition that happens every year. After the video, I gave each child a preprinted turkey. They had to disguise their turkey for the Thanksgiving feast so that it could not be recognized as a turkey. We took it a step farther and had each student think about the reasons their turkeys should be “pardoned” from Thanksgiving dinner. They were suppose to really be creative and have powerful reasons as to why their turkeys should be saved.

Once the students were done with their reasons, they were told that they needed to turn those reasons into a persuasive essay that they would be reading in court before the judge. Their job was to persuade the judge (me dressed in my graduation gown) that their turkey deserved a pardon. The class really took this seriously. It was the right real-world link for this activity. The students were very nervous when it was time to take the stand before the judge and fight for their turkeys. It was priceless.

One of my highlights where when one of my students, who passionately spoke about why her turkey should be saved looked at me and said, “Besides, aren’t you a vegetarian?” Why yes, yes I am. It was perfect. I even had a student come back a day later to ask if we could do another type of persuasive writing that we could bring before the “judge”. If they are asking for more, I count that as a definite win, friends.

The last book we read about Thanksgiving traditions was called The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving. This was again a great book for teaching character….filled with drive and determination. It is the true story of author, Sarah Hale who wanted to try to save Thanksgiving. It was disappearing and was not even celebrated by the entire country. She wanted to create an official day for the holiday and wanted the entire country to come together one day to celebrate thankfulness. She literally took up her pen and wrote letter after letter…thousands of them to lawmakers and president after president. It took her 38 years to FINALLY have Thanksgiving proclaimed as a national holiday….but she did it. We now have both her and Abe Lincoln to thank for the holiday. And by the way, she is the author who also wrote none other than, Mary had a Little Lamb.

I decided to launch a new series on Teachers Pay Teachers to help me celebrate the holidays in a way that I love best, through the lens of learning the history behind the holiday traditions. All of the activities listed above and more are in my History Behind the Holiday packs. If you are interested, you can click on the pictures below to be taken to my TPT store. 

Classroom Transformation: Wild Kratts

I've been wanting to do this classroom transformation since September when educators around the world were challenged by the Rock Your School movement. It was extremely difficult to hold off on this for a few extra weeks, but personally I was unable to make it happen until today. (Long story of moving schools, selling and buying a house and having to be out of my house for showings and inspections and all the things that come with that....and also commuting between 45 minutes to an hour each way. But all that is about to end when we officially move within 15 minutes of work in a few weeks.) Anyway, It happened today and my students LOVED it! They stayed on task so well. 

I decided I wanted to do something different for my classroom transformation, but I just could not decide what. I thought about my science curriculum unit and it was animal adaptations. That's when an idea hit me. I wanted to create a Wild Kratts theme! I just love that show and so do my kids. It is perfect since it is all about animals. I decided to focus on five different animals that students could encounter any day in the area where we live.

Day one was all about worms.

Day two will be all about fireflies.

Day three will focus on bats.

Day four we will learn about opossums.

Day five will be about skunks.

Today we learned about the creature powers (adaptations) of worms. First, we learned how worms secrete a special fluid that is released through the skin. We learned how the fluid made it easier for worms to slide through tunnels and through dirt and gravel without getting hurt. After learning about this special adaptation, we made our own slime in groups, following a recipe. 

Afterwards, students were excited and ready to do some more. We moved on to a close reading activity. It was all about worms. Students were given six problems. Each problem listed two truths and one lie. Students had to read through their paper that told them all about worms. They had to highlight the truths to prove that those were not the lie. Once they found the two truths, they circled the lie and had to check it. There were flip check cards around the room for self-checking. After getting an answer right, students came to me to get one of the supplies for making dirt dessert, only they had no idea what the items were for, because I did not tell them. Most students were able to figure it out. I gave them these items in this order.

1. a cup

2. a spoon

3. an Oreo cookie in a ziplock (this is when most students figured it out)

4. a gummy worm

5. another gummy worm

6. a pudding cup

Once everyone in class was able to earn all their supplies, we worked through the steps to making dirt dessert. Students are going to use that knowledge to create a flip writing assignment that shows the steps to creating dirt dessert.

Of course we ran out of time to complete everything, but I'm totally O.K. with that. There's always tomorrow. I always overplan.

At the end of the day, my principal said she was wondering why my class was so noisy at the beginning of the day. But then my daughter, who is in her class, had told that I had done a Wild Kratts transformation. Love the excitement when kids realize it's going to be a great day.

Start the School Year: Classroom Setup

Tomorrow, I am heading off to my new classroom, although we do not report to work until August first, to get ready to start the school year by setting up my space. I changed schools for this year and will also be teaching a different grade level, so I really feel like I have a lot to do and not much time to do it. I figure I can knock out a few things on my to do list tomorrow and then enjoy some more summer days before I head back to school for real. This is what my new classroom looked like when I first walked through the door. 

There is a lot of potential for this space. I love that it is a much bigger size than my classroom last year. I also am pretty stinkin' excited about using tables instead of desks...so much easier to keep things neat and tidy. I like the windows on one side of the classroom too. I am so thankful for a sink and drinking fountain right in my classroom! A sink in the classroom is a real game changer! The bathrooms for my class are in the hallway right outside my room and I can see the doors from my classroom. 

I am a big overwhelmed with having to unpack and set up and sort and do all the things before school starts, so I am just going to get in there are do a few things to help it feel like home quickly. 

Tomorrow, I am planning to recover the bulletin boards with new paper and add borders later....my borders, although ordered on Prime, are taking longer than two days, so the boards will be borderless in the meantime. I am also planning to work on arranging my classroom. If I can get the arrangement of the furniture done, it will be easier to add the decorative touches. I will try to unpack my books and start to sort those into different bins or spaces. I am also interested to check out everything that is in the room and take an inventory of what I may still need to get the school year started.  I have several types of organizational bins to help out in getting things set up and organized, but will still need to pick up some in a shoe box size. These are my favorite ones and what I have had the past two years in my previous classrooms...yes, I have moved for the last three years. First I switched grade levels and classrooms within the same school. Then my school closed and opened in a different location. Now I am moving to a completely different school in a different town, although I taught at this school previously (nine years ago).

I have also had my eyes on these 12x12 boxes from Michaels and I was able to purchase several on sale and with gift cards, so barely any money came out of my pocket for these. I call that a win!

I searched around and finally found some of these little snack containers at Dollar Tree. They were just three for a dollar! Score! I love using these for individual sets of manipulatives. They are perfect. I had a bunch of these in my previous classroom, but they were not mine personally, so I needed to pick some up and now they are mine so they can go wherever I do.

I have high hopes that tomorrow I can be super productive. I need to get a lot done! I want my classroom to start looking like I envision it. I also have a lot of projects going for my classroom with a big addition that I am working on building with my husband...neither one of us really has any construction know-how or experience, so I hope it turns out to be as easy as the tutorial we saw. I will let you know about all that in another post once it is done...if it all turns out! 

Start the School Year: How do You Teach Respect

To start the school year, it is imperative that you create a family atmosphere of respect in your classroom. The students within your walls need to know that they have a place to belong. They need to know that other students are pulling for them and celebrating with them and looking out for them. 

One of the ways to do this is to make sure that everyone knows everyone else's name and can pronounce it at closely as possible (perfect pronunciations can be impossible because our brains are born with the ability to use every sound, in every language, in the world, but by a young age, if our language does not use that sound, we lose it). Do not allow students to call each other by other names. This will help alleviate name calling.

Teach students how to show respect in their conversations and discussions. It is OK not to agree with one another. It is NEVER OK to put someone down because of their beliefs. Students will not naturally know how to disagree appropriately. Show them how. Teach them that you can still like someone when you do not see eye to eye.

Check in with your students. Have them them celebrate the helpers in the class. Make this the culture of your room. Students want to be recognized. Let it be for something positive.

Hang posters with quotes to encourage respect on your walls. Students will have a constant reminder of the importance of respect and friendship. 

You can grab these posters for free in my tpt store by clicking the picture below. 

Respect your students. If your student does not want to talk about something that is bothering him/her, give some space until he/she is ready. Speak with respect, including your tone. Just as you would not want a student to disrespect you in the way they talk or what they say, return the favor. If you must reprimand a child, try to do so quietly or outside of the classroom if at all possible.

Respect is a two way street. It can be taught. Students can and should be held to a standard of high respect not just for you, but for their classmates as well.

If you are interested in the respectful discussion posters, you can find them by clicking the photo below.