500 Follower Giveaway Day 1

I hope your 4th of July went off with a bang!  And speaking of going off with a bang - I am celebrating 500 followers with 5 days of giveaways!  I am over 500 followers on Teachers Pay Teachers and a little over 450 on Bloglovin'!  Woo hoo!

In honor of this milestone I will be having 5 days of contests.  Each day features 1 big prize along with Teachers Pay Teachers products donated by 14-15 amazing sellers.  I will also have 5 items each day on sale for 50% off and the rest of my store is on sale for 20% off for the whole 5 days!  Each day one item will be set as a flash freebie for one day only.  So, really, everyone is a winner!  I really do appreciate all of my followers so much!

My freebie for today is my Officer Buckle & Gloria Activity Pack.

My 5 items on sale for 50% off are:

3rd Grade Math Journal

4th Grade Math Journal

2nd Grade Math Journal

Capitalization Packet

Persuasive Writing Unit Third Grade

Kicking off Day 1 of the giveaways is your chance to win a $25 TpT gift card along with a $10 Shopping Spree in my TpT store! 

You also get a product of your choice from the following stores:

Enter below.  Be sure to come back all week to see the new prizes each day!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Learning About Your Students - Reading Interest Surveys Worksheet Wednesday #5

A new year means a new group of students!  Students that you don't know yet.  How do you learn as much about them as you can in a short amount of time?  One way I get to know my new students better is to use a reading interest survey to let me know what things they like and are interested in.

 I have created a Favorites List.  I got the idea as I was reading 100 Minutes by Lisa Donohue for our book study earlier this summer.  Donohue suggested grouping students by interest levels.  This idea intrigued me, so I created a form to capture my new students' interests at the beginning of the year.

I had said in that previous post:

I looked on-line but couldn't find exactly what I wanted, so I created:

My Favorites List  (You can download it free here)

Knowledge of students' major areas of interest helps a teacher to select appropriate instructional exercises. Research has shown that students read interesting material more easily and with higher comprehension. By understanding what students' interests are "we can guide students to select books from the classroom library that will allow them to become engaged readers." (Moss & Young, 2010, p. 56)

  As we all know, if a child is interested in the material, he or she will be more willing to complete the lesson. I can't wait to find out what my new students' interests are next month!  I have had the same class for two years in a row, so it is going to be an adjustment to learn about new students.

I am also going to have them complete this Activity Rating Scale from Laura Candler (pgs. 3-4).  The first two pages are an alternate reading interest survey you could use as well. 

How do you learn about your new students at the beginning of the year?

Before you go, head on over to our giveaway page to enter our current giveaway!  Every week one lucky winner gets a $25 Teachers pay Teachers gift card! 

References:
Moss, B. & Young, T.A. (2010) Creating Lifelong Learners Through Independent Reading. Newark, DE. International Reading Association

Currently July 2014 and Two for Tuesday

Can you believe it is July already??? Where is my summer going?  Time to link up with Farley for Currently!

It is also time to link up with The Teaching Tribune for Two For Tuesday! This week for my two deals, I decided to ask my followers on Facebook for suggestions for the two items they wanted me to discount to 50% off today only.  

So there you have it... My two deals of the day are:

Divisible Me

and

Kicking It Math Multiplication and Division Fact Fluency Program

Monday Made It June 30th

Summer is here, but that doesn't mean all of us teachers aren't working!  I think many of us work harder in the summer getting things ready for the upcoming year.  I know this because Monday Made It is always full of evidence of it!

Here are a few of the things I have made this week:

Ok, I have jumped on the spray painting band wagon! I have these containers where I keep all of my supplies, but the covers were getting a little dingy from all the little hands touching them. 

They may have even been a little extra loved on and decorated.  Gotta love 4th grade humor right??? 

Anyway... I had thought about bringing them home to scrub with some Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, but then I saw everyone in bloggy world spray painting the heck out of everything they could get their hands on, so I decided, why not?

Before

After.

Luke also decided to join the spray painting party.  He had us spray paint his pegs for his bike (they were silver) so that it matches.  He may have gotten the matching OCD thing from me..

I also managed to make my new Whole Brain Teaching 5 Rules posters to match my room.  The matching OCD thing..  I still need to cut around the laminate and hang them up, but they are made!

And.. I managed to give my TpT store a little love with 2 new products! 

Homophones Bingo

and 

Prefixes & Suffixes Bingo

Both of these products were flash freebies this weekend, and I let my Facebook fans know about it.  If you aren't already following me on Facebook, make sure you do to find out about flash freebies like this one!

And speaking of following, make sure you are following me on Bloglovin' as well.  I have a big 500 follower giveaway coming up that you don't want to miss!  I am already a bit over 500 followers on TpT and I am getting close on Bloglovin' I would love to be at 500 on both by July 5th (hint, hint).  

Make sure you link up to 4th Grade Frolics and show us what you've made!  If you don't know how to link up, check out the tutorial on linking up to linky parties I wrote yesterday.

How to Link to a Linky Party

I have had this blog for almost two years, prior to that I had another blog for three years or so.  So.. I've been blogging a bit and I sometimes take for granted all of the things there is to know about blogging.  Now I am by no means an expert, but when I got an email from a sweet reader asking me what the deal with linky parties was (how do you find them, how do you link up, etc), I just had to help.  I wrote her back and gave her a pretty basic starter guide, but it got me thinking that maybe other people are struggling with this as well. So, without further ado... here is a quick tutorial on how to link to a linky party.

A linky party is when the author of a blog invites other blog writers to link up their blog posts on the same topic.  For example, a blog might host a book study, or an organization idea linky party.  Some popular linky parties in the teaching blog world include:

5 for Friday  from Doodle Bugs Teaching  This linky party involves posting 5 random things from your week.

Made it Monday from 4th Grade Frolics  is the place to show off the things you have made.

Saturday Snapshots from Run! Miss Nelson's got the camera! is a place to show off your pics.

Tried it Tuesday with Fourth Grade Flipper is the place to share things that you have tried.

  

Farley's Currently at Oh boy Fourth Grade is the place to share what you are Currently up to.   As you can see above, she provides a template for you to complete.  The completed one above is from her blog.  Currently happens on the first of every month and there are a few of us stalkers fans who hit refresh a million times until the new one comes up. 

I know what your next question is - How do you fill in the blanks?  So glad you asked:

1. Right click her template and copy it or save as JPEG or PNG.

2. Open up PowerPoint and paste the image or insert the image if you saved it.

3. Insert text-boxes over the open areas and type in your answers.

4. Copy this new picture and paste it into paint and save as a JPEG (you can also save as a JPEGin PowerPoint)

5. Upload your image to your blog.

If I didn't mention your linky party above, it isn't because I don't love you, I just put a few.  Feel free to leave a link in the comments section if you have a linky party we should join!

* As a blogger, joining a linky party increases your readership and helps other bloggers and blog readers to find you.

* As a blog reader, linky parties help you find more information about a topic you are interested in.

* Hello? Writer's Block maybe?  Linky parties are a great way to think of ideas to blog about when you just can't think of anything to write about.

Step 1: Write your post.  If the linky party has a "button" (a fancy word for the picture they use) copy and paste it into your blog.  They may have a grab button with a code for you to copy and paste into the html section of your blog. I have a grab button to the right on my blog. 

You would just copy and paste the info they have in the box (their info, not mine :D  )

Step 2: When you have hit publish on your blog post copy the url for THAT page (not your home page).

Correct: http://applefortheteach.blogspot.com/2014/06/five-for-friday-june-27-2014.html

Not Correct: http://applefortheteach.blogspot.com

Step 3: Visit the page where the linky party is at and click on the button that says: Add your link.

Then choose your picture from the pictures displayed.

Now that you have linked up, be sure to leave a comment for the host.  Also, visit several of the other blogs who have linked up and comment as well.  Farley advocates the rule of 3 on her Currently post.  That is, you comment on the 2 posts before you and 1 post after you.  I think this is a good practice and super easy to do.  If you have time, visit more!  It is also nice to respond to the people who visit your blog as well.

STEM At the Beach

Yesterday I wrote a little bit about our day trip to the beautiful Donner Lake.

What I didn't mention was the impromptu STEM lesson that happened while we were there.  I guess you can't really turn the teaching brain off even when you are relaxing!

While we were there, a group of boys started digging something.  Then they would grab a bucket of water and run down the line with it splashing it out as they went.  My boys curiosity was peaked!

"What are they doing?"

"What are they making?'

Finally one of them figured it out.  

"They are trying to make a river or stream to the lake."

Then they become doubtful.

"It's not going to work the way they are doing it."

That's when teacher mom arrived on the scene.

"What would you do differently to make it work better?"

"What structural changes would you suggest they make."

The ideas poured out like crazy!

"Maybe they need to make it higher than the lake."

"Maybe they should pour the water in one spot at a time so it has less time to evaporate."

Then I suggested, "Why don't you help them engineer it?"

That has a much better ring to it than "Why don't you go ask them if you can play?"

Have you and your kids been learning this summer?