Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter. Giveaway ends 2/27/17 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!
In honor of Valentine's Day, some of my blogging buddies and I have gotten together to give away teaching supplies that we LOVE! Check out all of our favorites and scroll down to enter to win ALL of them!
Mr. Sketch Markers are my absolute favorite for making anchor charts! I love the bright colors - and the fact that they smell good doesn't hurt either. My students also love when I use them to grade their papers! I buy them on Amazon using Subscribe and Save to save money!
Flair pens are another favorite of mine for grading purposes. I let students use them to revise their writing as well, because they love writing with them, so they always want to add details!
I do not know how I would live without my laminators. Yes, that is plural! I have one at home and one at school and it is so convenient!
Even though I love my laminators, there are times when I need something quick and easy. I love these dry erase pockets for being able to quickly re-use worksheets. My students get extra practice, and I save time at the copier.
And speaking of dry erase, these are the absolute best dry erase markers out there! My school buys a cheaper version, so I always stock up on my own, because they last so much longer! Again, I buy these on Amazon using Subscribe and Save.
Something about color makes everything better! From boring worksheets to letters home, Astrobrights paper makes everything a little more fun!
Just like I don't like to compromise on my dry erase markers, I also don't like to compromise on the pencils we use in class. Ticonderoga pencils are by far the best. They sharpen so much easier than any of the others and they hold a point longer.
And last but not least, no teacher favorites list would be complete without Teachers pay Teachers! If you win this giveaway, you will also receive a $50 TpT gift card to spend however you like! So, onto the giveaway...
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
Prize: Things We LOVE prize pack including: Mr. Sketch Markers, Flair Markers, Personal Laminator, Dry Erase Pockets, Dry Erase Markers, Astrobrights Paper, Ticonderoga Pencils, and a $50 Teachers pay Teachers gift card.
Giveaway Organized by:Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)
Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter. Giveaway ends 2/21/17 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!
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.
I wanted to do a little something special for my class this Valentine's Day, so when one of my friends posted this Valentine Heart Attack post from Skip to My Lou on Facebook, I knew I wanted to adapt it for the classroom. I wanted to share with my students all of the Reasons Why I Love My Class!
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.
I made a sign that said Reasons Why I Love My Class. Then I printed a heart template on several pieces of card stock and cut them out. I wrote various reasons why I love my class including:
My students were racing to the door to read what the new heart said. I printed out all of my hearts ahead of time on colored card stock and will be hanging up a new one each day until Valentine's Day as a sort of countdown. Here are a few of the other hearts:
I have made a freebie for you just in case you wanted to try this project out with your own students. You can download it here.
You can start a few days late and add hearts as you go, or put up the whole display on Valentine's Day instead. If you decide to do this project, I would love to see pictures! Please email me at kellys3ps@sbcglobal.net or tag me on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter! Here are a few pictures from other readers:
I have very active students in my class, so when I was presented with the opportunity to try out Bouncy Bands I took it!
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.
Bouncy Bands were invented by an Elementary School Counselor, Scott Ertl, who created them to help students at his school who needed a way to move while sitting at their desk.
As soon as I read the directions in the box, I could tell that someone who knew a lot about student needs had developed this product!
Not only were complete instructions included, but there were also tips for having your students try them out. Scott suggested giving each student a chance to try them out for one hour, and then give their opinion. I am not going to lie, they were a bit difficult for me to install on my own, but with a little help from the hubby, they were good to go!
Even though Luke is no longer in my class this year, he jumped at the opportunity to be the first person to test them out! After our initial testing, I had my students use them for the week. To say that they loved them is an understatement! They didn't want to leave their seat! (Please excuse my messy science supplies in the background)!
Here are the survey results:
Some of their comments:
"We need 23 more!"
"It was good because it helped me concentrate."
"It was good because I need to kick my feet."
"I love the bouncy chair because it relaxes my feet."
I loved that they were so quiet! Once the students were using them, I really forgot they were even there except for the fact that my students really seemed to stay focused longer. You can see how quiet they are in the video below:
My students struggle with vocabulary! Research has shown that my students are not alone. By the end of second grade, the average student has acquired approximately 6,000 root-word meanings, but the lowest 25% have acquired only 4,000! (Biemiller, 2006). I noticed a big problem with my own students (4th graders) when they struggled to understand the word brave used as a character trait! We ask them to be able to: Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character's thoughts, words, or actions. CCSS.RL.4.3 How can they possibly do this if they don't have the basic vocabulary to define character traits? Here is one of the lessons we used to help develop their vocabulary. This post may contain 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.
We chose some common character traits that were connected to characters we had been reading about in class. We then searched for pictures that would match those words. You can just type the word in Google and then choose an image search.
We printed out the pictures we found, and wrote the words and definitions on index cards. We passed the pictures and words out to the students and asked them to find their match.
Once the students found their match, we asked them to present the word, the definition, and the picture to the class to see if everyone agreed. Most of the students made a successful match, and for the ones who didn't we were able to have a productive discussion about why their choice was not quite the best one.
We put the matching cards on an anchor chart for the students to refer to.
We used this activity as a whole group, but you could easily modify it to use in a small group, or have students work in partners to match up all of the words and pictures. If you use this activity, I would love to hear how it goes! Before you leave, be sure to head over to enter our current giveaway!
Many of my students were "book shopping" more often than they needed to be during Reader's Workshop.
I had tried all of the traditional methods suggested such as setting up specific days for book shopping, mini-lessons on picking good-fit books, etc., but nothing was working! Every time I looked up, the same few students were in the library instead of reading their books!
I happened to stumble across this post from Teaching ELA with Joy. It was all about having a successful Book Pass in your classroom. I decided to try it out. The idea of a Book Pass is for the teacher to provide students with a variety of compelling books. The students read each book's blurb and the first few pages, then rate the book according to their interest.
I made a few changes to the Book Pass described in Joy's post because I have a diverse level of readers in my classroom (from a level 12 DRA to a level 60 DRA). Instead of doing the activity whole class, I placed my students in table groups according to their book level. I placed good fit books at each table so that no one would be frustrated by reading a book that was too difficult for them.
Here's the process of the Book Pass:
Student chooses one of the books in the pile on their table.
Student records the title and author of the book on their Book Pass Sheet.
Student silently reads the "blurb" on the back of the book.
Student opens the book to the first page and begins reading silently for 2 minutes.
Teacher calls time at the end of the 2 minutes. Student records interest level, then passes the book to the next person at the table.
Student receives the next book and the process is repeated until all students have finished previewing each book at their table.
I had my students put their completed Book Pass Sheets in their binders so that they will have a list of books to read next. This has saved so much time with the book shopping process! Students are able to grab the next book they need.
