Prefix Flip Book Freebie!

Hey Y'all! I just finished getting ready for a half day sub for tomorrow. I really don't like having a sub but I am going to a training on autism in the classroom and I am really looking forward to that. I feel like it is so much more work to be out than in? Right? Anyway, we just started learning about prefixes so I came up with a simple making-word-type activity and a flip book for recording. We are starting with just prefixes un, re, dis and pre. Here is a link to the flip book if you want to grab it for free at my TPT store:

I'm going on very little sleep! We are closing on a new house...yay!!! But my 4 month old all of a sudden decided he wants to wake up at 3:45 hungry and then wants to play instead of going back to sleep....fun! I should count myself lucky that he was sleeping through the night at 7 weeks but now he is getting me back! :) Have a fabulous Wednesday!

Water Cycle, Holiday Elf Craftivity and December Memory Book Page Freebies!

Hey Y'all! I have not been able to post in 15 days, but who's counting? It's exhausting working all day and having a 12 week old baby! I looooove my job and I LOVE my son more than life itself, so any free second I have in the evenings has gone to one of the two above. The house, hubby and dog have been neglected...as well as my blog! But no use crying over spilled milk...here I go!

I thought since I'd been MIA so long I'd offer up some freebies that you can pick and choose from. In science this week we are learning about the water cycle. We did an experiment where we left a cup of water in a ziploc bag and taped it to the window. We observed what happened in the cup when it was left in the sun and recorded in our science notebooks. I created a water cycle wheel from some super cute Melon Headz illustrating graphics. You can get the water cycle wheel here. (I know the words "water cycle" are kind of cut out, but I couldn't get it to fit perfectly.) We used a brad to fasten it to the page so the kids could spin it.

 

 

We also created water cycle bracelets. I got this idea from a training in my district but I changed the color of beads based on the beads I had in my closet. :) It worked though! For this activity, I gave the kiddos black pipe cleaners and one bead at a time as we went through the water cycle. Yellow is for the sun, white is for the clouds, purple is for precipitation, green is for the plants, black is for soil and blue is for rivers, lakes and oceans. I don't have a pic of the bracelets, I left the iTouch I took pics with at school. But you can get the recording page here. (I added the arrows after the fact, I am going to have my kids draw them in tomorrow to emphasize the "cycle" part of the water cycle.)

Last week we reviewed parts of speech with a fun elf craftivity I created. The kids had to use adjectives to describe their elf as well as nouns (common and proper) and verbs to create a story about their elves. You can check it out at my TPT store here. I am also attaching a freebie writing page you can use. Grab it here.

And last but not least, we will work on a memory book page for December. I keep a writing sample from each month and compile them into books at the end of the year. I change them up each year so I don't have a whole year's ready, it really depends on what we are doing in class at the time. Here's one we are doing this week, grab it here. 

 

Ok, baby is getting fussy with daddy, mommy duty! Night y'all!

Class Dojo

Well my first week back in the classroom was AMAZING! Monday was very tough I will admit. Leaving my baby for the first time brought me to tears but luckily he was home with Daddy so it wasn't as tough as daycare. This coming up week he will be with Grandma and I feel really great about that. :)

This week back I started Class Dojo with my kids. OMG I LOOOOOVE IT! If you haven't heard of class dojo you need to check it out: www.classdojo.com. It's a behavior management system all online. You can add your students and award positive points for positive behaviors and take away points for negative behaviors. When you give points, the computer makes a sound. There is a different sound for positive and negative behaviors. Our computers are hooked up to speakers in our ceilings so the whole class can hear when points are awarded. So without me saying anything, students know when their on task or off task behaviors are noticed.

About midday I show the students their's DOJO percentage for the day. This way they know if they are making oto many negative choices that they have time to get back on task before the end of the day. If they have 70% or more at the end of the day, that's considered a good day. I created a chart for their take home binders that says 80%-100% is green, 70%-79% is yellow and below 70% is red and a conduct mark.

One of the coolest things about DOJO is that you can print out a report that shows the percentage of behaviors targeted throughout the day. I print out reports for students who struggled with a percentage lower than 70%. This is a GREAT tool for parents to see where their child is struggling in class. As you can see below, Hugh Jackman had a very bad day!

 

On Friday I printed out their weekly average. Every child looked at their scores and set a behavior goal for the following week in their data binders. For students who had 100% all week, they earned a special treat from me and got kudos from everyone. I looooove love loveeee this program! Oh and I don't want to forget to mention that students can login at home, change their avatars and see their reports from the week.

 

You've got to check it out! Also, I'm teaming up with Melissa at Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late for her 100 follower give-a-way! I"m donating my Rudolph Creative Writing Unit. Check it out!

 

 

 

 

Data Binders and Free Fonts!

Hey Y'all! I've created a few pages for my data binders. I played with different fonts for the cover. I'm not going to go crazy with the pages in the binder yet, I'm really going to let my kids lead the way for these binders. I do have some basic pieces that I know I want in there for sure. 

When we get back from Thanksgiving break, it will be my first day back from maternity leave. I think it's a perfect time to reestablish rules, expectations and procedures. A great time to introduce data binders! Yay!

I'm going to start slow. We will work on our mission statement first. If you aren't familiar with The Leader in Me, one of the basic principles is beginning with the end in mind. As a class, we created a mission statement that reminds us of who we are and where we are going.    
I'm going to have my students create a mission statement for themselves. Who are they, why are they coming to school, what do they hope to do when they are here? (I wrote our classroom mission statement on one of the pages in Google Docs.) 

That first week back I also want my students to apply for a leadership role in the classroom. They all have had experience with the leadership roles and now they will pick one that they want to keep for a 9 weeks. Of course, they can't all get the same role so I'm having them list other choices. 

In addition, my kids will set home goals and school goals. (One for each.) Once we have some school goals, I'll be creating graphs for record keeping and they can place those graphs in their binders. Some students may have behavioral goals and some will have academic. I'm pretty excited about getting them together and I'll make sure to post pics and pages as we get them going. If you do these in your room please comment! I would love to hear different ideas!

Also, I found some super cute free fonts at Rowdy in Room 300. Really, really cute!! :)

First day back in my room and The Leader in Me stuff

Hey Y'all! Today I went by my school and took my baby boy for all the teachers to meet. He's about 8 weeks now and just SO precious. My husband came to pick up baby Jackson so I could go to my classroom and see my kiddos. They were very excited to see me and very excited I will be back after Thanksgiving break. I was super happy to see them too but after they all left and I met with my long term sub...I have to admit, I'm freaking out!!!

You know how it feels when you've been gone one day...imagine 7 weeks! Eek! I also have the inclusion class which means I have to document, modify, accommodate and teach a little bit harder. So I have my work cut out for me when I get back. I'm trying to remind myself baby steps, baby steps, breathe, breathe! :)

So my room was pretty messy, not going to lie. Things were not in places they should be but I am going to have to just let that go until I can get things back the way I want. I don't know if you are familiar with The Leader in Me but we started that at our school this year. Here's a pick of our leader board:

Now I know it seems like it's just a job board, which it kind of is. But we take the approach that this is each child's leadership role in the classroom. We talk a lot about being proactive and showing leadership throughout the day. The children have had experience with each job at this point in the year. When we get back from Thanksgiving I'm going to start "data binders" for each individual student. I'm going to start SLOWLY with this. I don't want to overhwhelm myself or my students.

In the data binders I plan on having my students set goals and record their progress as they go. As I create pages for the data binders I'll post them here so y'all can check them out. If anyone else out there does these, I'd love some pointers!

Also before I go, found out about an awesome website with a super cool behavior management system. It's called Class Dojo. A 3rd grade teacher on my team implemented it last week and I am going to start when we get back from Thanksgiving. I'm super excited you should check it out! :)

Happy Friday!