Teacher Appreciation Blog Hop

Happy Teacher's Appreciation Week!  The Classroom Clique is joining together with a blog hop full of tips, tricks, freebies, and giveaways to show our appreciation for all of our fellow teachers!

Here are a few of my tips and tricks for surviving those last few weeks of school:

1. Start Cleaning, Organizing and Packing Up

I try to purge out anything that I have not used this school year, because I likely won't use it the next year as well, and with limited storage space, I can't be too sentimental with things.  I also enlist the help of my current students to organize supplies and the library.

2. Prep For Next Year

I make copies of all the things I know I will need in the next year including my first few weeks of spiral math review, math journals, and homework.  I also prep my math facts program (Kicking It).

3. Make Learning Fun For Your Students

You are not the only one who is ready for a break, your students are too!  Take this time to play games and have fun with them.  I try to incorporate extra games to go along with content such as Pie Face, Head Bandz, and Minute To Win It games.

4. Don't Forget To Have Fun As Well

Take time to laugh a little with your co-workers!  Remember, this is the final stretch!  You can do it!

As a special thank you, I have made one of my products a freebie for this week only!  To get this special freebie, head over to my TpT store here.

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week we are giving away three awesome prizes:

* a $15 Starbucks Gift Card

* a $30 Target Gift Card

* a $50 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card

To win these great prizes, all you have to do is follow our blog hop and collect the words to make a secret phrase.  PLUS - you'll also be getting some great freebies along the way, so really EVERYONE is a winner!

Hop through all of the blogs to gather the words for the secret phrase, and then enter that phrase into the Rafflecopter giveaway below.  You can find the next blog at the bottom of this post.

My word for the secret phrase is:

This is the 6th word in the phrase and there are a total of 9 words.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to follow along with our hop to collect all 9 words in the phrase!

Using Songs To Increase Learning

Have you ever used music in your classroom to help cement a concept or an idea?  Music has been found to stimulate parts of the brain, and studies have demonstrated that music can enhance memory. Using music and songs in the classroom is a great way to help your students retain information and increase their learning.

My students were having a rough time remembering the difference between area and perimeter and how to find each of them.  I saw a video on Miss 5th's Instagram feed and I knew I wanted to try it with my students!  If you are not following her on Instagram or Facebook, you need to because she has a ton of great ideas just like this Bucket Filler idea I shared a few weeks ago.

She had a song that she had made up using the pop song "My House" by Flo-Rida.  Here are my students singing and dancing to the song.

The lyrics are:

Welcome to my house

We can find the area

Multiply the length times width

We don't have to go out

Welcome to my house 

We can find the perimeter

Take a walk outside

and add up all the sides

For the music I searched up My House instrumental version and found this one by JBFlex.

itunes Version

Google Play Version

I play it at the :31 seconds section and they sing right after the siren sound as you can see in the video above.

My students were so excited about this song that they started writing versions of their own to all sorts of songs for all types of concepts.  Every day they are coming up with a new song to sing to me!

And... yes, they ALL know how to calculate area and perimeter now!

Have you used songs to increase learning?  I would love to hear your ideas.  If you try this one, I would love to hear how it goes!

Upside-Down Calculator Word Riddles Task Cards

How many of you remember doing this with a calculator?

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. 

When I was young, I loved typing in numbers into the calculator to flip them over and see the "words" that they spelled when held upside down.  It entertained my brother and I for hours of our childhood!

I started thinking, wouldn't it be fun to have my students practice math problems and then check them with the calculator and see if their word was correct?  I made sets of calculator word riddle task cards and tried them out - the verdict?  The kids loved this activity as much as I had!  They thought their teacher was magic!

My students worked in pairs to solve their problems first.  Then they checked them with the calculators.

I LOVED the grins when they got the answer correct!

I made task cards for both whole numbers and decimal numbers to differentiate for my students' needs.

Watch some of my students trying out the activity:

You can easily recreate this activity for your students by playing around with the calculator and seeing what words you can make, or googling calculator words.

Or.... you can grab a copy of my cards already done for you using the link below! Your students will love these upside-down calculator word worksheets and task cards!

Calculator Word Fun

If you do decide to try this activity with your students I would love to hear about it and see pictures!  Please email me at kellys3ps@sbcglobal.net or tag me on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter!

Want to remember this idea?  Pin it!

And... before you go, make sure to visit my Giveaways page to enter our weekly giveaway to win a $25 Teachers pay Teachers gift card!

Help Your Students to Be Bucket Fillers - FREEBIE

Have you heard of Bucket Fillers?  Have you ever used any of the activities in your classroom?

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.

When I first saw this post from Miss5th's Facebook Page I instantly knew that I wanted to implement this with my own students.

This time of year, my students are starting to get a bit stir crazy with testing stress and end of year expectations.  After a long school year, they start taking each other for granted and start treating each other not as kindly as they might otherwise.  I wanted to find a way to encourage them to be nicer to each other.

I showed them this video first:



The next day, when they came to class, they saw this in the front of the room:

  You can find the anchor your learning banner here

A closer view:

I had each child's name (as well as my own) listed on a bucket.  I asked each student to pick one person to "fill their bucket".  Here are a few examples of the sweet, sincere compliments they gave each other:

I let each student take their "bucket" home at the end of the day, and you should have seen the way they held on to them, smiling as they read them over and over again.  It was an activity definitely worth doing!  I might make it a monthly thing!

If you would like to do this activity in your classroom as well, I created a freebie for you with your choice of 3 different templates to choose from.  You can download it at my TpT store here.

I chose the two per page size and printed them on colored paper.

If you do this activity with your students, I would love to hear how it goes!!

 Be sure to check out the Bucket Filler site as well, they have tons of free resources.

Monthly $75 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card Giveaway - April 2016

It is time again for my monthly giveaway to win a $75 TpT gift card!  Thanks to all of my blogging friends who have contributed to this month's giveaway!

Don't miss out on this giveaway or any others!

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Teaching Cursive

I believe that cursive writing is an extremely important skill for students to learn.  Not only is it a way for students to write in an elegant manner, but their is brain research that shows that it can actually make students smarter!  According to this article, scientists have discovered that learning cursive is an important tool for cognitive development, particularly in the area of training the brain to learn "functional specialization" - the capacity for optimal efficiency.  As a student learns cursive writing, their brain develops functional specialization, integrating sensation, movement control, and thinking.

When I  taught 3rd grade, our school ordered handwriting books, but, because I looped with my students, we had already used those books.  I was searching for something different to help my students maintain their practice and further develop their cursive writing skills.

When Zaner Bloser asked me to review their newest handwriting program, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, and I wondered how it would be different from other handwriting programs that are available.

The handwriting program comes with both a teacher's edition and student editions.  I especially liked the fact that there was a teacher's edition included which gave lots of helpful hints and tips for teaching my students how to properly form their letters.  In addition, there are ways to tie the handwriting into other subject areas as you can see below.  This example ties into both writing and technology.

I love that I am able to effectively teach cursive without taking too much time up during the day - we average less than 15 minutes a day for each lesson.  I love that my students really enjoy the program, and more importantly - love cursive writing!

In addition to the books, the program also includes a Handwriting Tutor in which students scan QR codes in the book in order to access animated letter models and how-to videos.There is also a Handwriting app that allows students to play a game while learning to write.

The Zaner-Bloser Handwriting curriculum offers programs from PreK to 6th grade.

 

You can request a sample for your grade level here.

Curious, do you teach cursive?  Comment below and let me know!