August is already almost half-way over! Whether you are getting ready for back to school or already in the classroom, I have good news for you! It is time for our weekly giveaway!
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
Prize: $25 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card
Giveaway Organized by:Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)
Are you a Teacher Blogger or Teachers pay Teachers seller who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your store and social media? Click here to find out how you can join our totally awesome group of bloggers!
Some of my favorite Teacher Authors have gotten together to help you out with some great giveaways for Back to School! This week we are giving away an Erin Condren gift card. Once you have entered, be sure to click on my Giveaway tab to enter all of the other giveaways this month!
Rules: Use the Rafflecopter form to enter. Giveaway ends 8/18/17 and is open worldwide. Are you a blogger who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your blog? Click here to find out how you can join a totally awesome group of bloggers! Erin Condren has so many amazing planners and accessories! Click on the link below to save $10 on your order! Save $10 on your Erin Condren order a Rafflecopter giveaway
Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter. Giveaway ends 8/14/17 and is open worldwide.
Are you a Teacher Blogger or Teachers pay Teachers seller who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your store and social media? Click here to find out how you can join our totally awesome group of bloggers!
August means that many of you are back in school, or at least getting ready for back to school. It is also time for our monthly giveaway! You have a chance to win a $75 Teachers pay Teachers gift every single month, and today is the day!
Once you have entered, be sure to click on my Giveaway tab to enter all of the other giveaways this month!
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
Prize: $75 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card
Giveaway Organized by:Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)
Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter. Giveaway ends 8/13/17 and is open worldwide.
Are you a Teacher Blogger or Teachers pay Teachers seller who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your store and social media? Click here to find out how you can join our totally awesome group of bloggers!
For most of us, August means Back to School Season! Some of my favorite Teacher Authors have gotten together to help you out with some great giveaways! This week starts off the month-long celebration with an Amazon gift card! Once you have entered, be sure to click on my Giveaway tab to enter all of the other giveaways this month!
Rules: Use the Rafflecopter form to enter. Giveaway ends 8/11/17 and is open worldwide. Are you a blogger who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your blog? Click here to find out how you can join a totally awesome group of bloggers! a Rafflecopter giveaway Amazon has some amazing deals on school supplies teachers need and love! Check out the link below to find them all!
Like most teachers, I have a serious addiction to laminating! Let's laminate ALL the things! I love that it makes my teaching tools last so much longer. So, when I was given the opportunity to try out the Swedex Smart Laminator of course I jumped at the chance! Disclosure: I was given a free laminator to facilitate my review, but all opinions are my own.
Isn't it beautiful?!?
Just in case you can't see from the first picture, there are several size options that you can use with this laminator. The machine takes 5 different thickness pouches in sizes varying from a small luggage tag to a 12 X 18 pouch. There are also pouches that have adhesive backing!
I was super excited to see that I could laminate larger things because I had an "incident" during the school year when I attempted to Jerry-Rig two laminating pouches to laminate signs for my Compassionate Confrontation Board. Luckily my hubby is good at fixing my mistakes and he was able to un-jam my little laminator, but my signs were not laminated.
I am going to absolutely LOVE having this in my own classroom, but I think it would make a great alternative for your employee work room - you might want to let your Principal know about this one!
Some info from the manufacturer:
* The machine comes with a 5 Year Warranty - so if it breaks, they simply swap it out - so essentially you will have this machine for life.
* They have 2 special promos going for An Apple for the Teacher reader: You can use the Promo Code: LOVE2TEACH to get a 30% discount on both the machine and pouches!
* They offer payment plans for those who need them, you can email info@arctec.us for more info about setting up a payment plan.
* They have a special deal right now where you can essentially get the laminator for free! You pay $50 per month for the laminator, but you also get $50 worth of pouches for free, so, you essentially only pay for the pouches and the laminator is FREE! Click here to find out more.
Do you ever do something in your classroom that works REALLY well, and then somehow forget about it completely? Well, that is something that happened to me with the Math Reasoning Inventory. I used it with my 7th grade math students and was highly successful, but never thought about using it with my elementary students until last year. This year I will be starting the year with the assessments right away, and I think you should too! This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase using one of my links, which helps to support the blog. All opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I have used myself and truly love.
What is the Math Reasoning Inventory? The Math Reasoning Inventory is a free on-line assessment tool that helps you learn about your students' numerical reasoning. It was developed by math expert Marilyn Burns. The site says that it is appropriate for grades 5 and up, but I have used it with my 4th graders, and I think you could successfully use the whole numbers inventory in 3rd grade.
Unfortunately, the inventory was removed from the website. But, if you email me, I will send you a pdf version. If you teach a lower grade, I would still give it a look, because I think you could implement a similar process that would be so powerful for understanding what your students are thinking in math.
There are three assessments: whole numbers, fractions, and decimals. Each section contains a 4 question written test and an individual face to face interview where students are asked to explain how they came up with the answer. I printed each of these from the website on card stock and laminated them for durability. I used colored card stock to print out the covers so I can find them easily. I placed the cards on a binder ring for storage and ease of use.
I have the students take the written assessment as a whole group assignment. I break down the interview process similarly to reading assessments with about 4 students per day.
Most of the questions are asked as mental math problems, but one or two have the students use pen and pencil (or in my case dry erase markers) to solve. The program has a section to keep track of what types of errors students make and a place to make notes about what you observe.
Once you have assessed your students, reports are generated for both individuals and whole group.
Aside from the data provided from the computer, I was able to observe things about my students' thinking that I might not have otherwise observed.
I saw some great results this Spring after using for just a few short months, I can't wait to see the results next Spring after using the assessments (and lessons developed from the results) from the beginning of the year.
If you decide to try out the math inventory, I would love to hear how it goes!Leave a comment below or tag me on Twitter or Instagram! And while you're here, enter to win one of our fabulous giveaways! I will also be sharing some other assessments I use in my classroom in the next few weeks, so make sure to check them out! If you like this post and don't want to miss out on future posts, please subscribe to my newsletter.
