Newly Released Products

I have been adding some paid products in my Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook Stores:

Pet Poems for Poetry Notebooks TPT & TN

I have been writing poetry for several years and now I am collecting them by topic into eBooks.  My students wear my poetry books out.  This way I can print out a new copy as needed.

Geometry Vocabulary Activities TPT & TN

This 22 page unit covers the vocabulary: line, line segment, angle, ray, polygon, congruent, parallel and perpendicular.  It includes a pre- and post- test and several activities where students learn and use these words.

Sports Poems for Poetry Notebooks TPT & TN

This eBook contains 27 original poems with a sports theme.  You can print them out or have students read them on any device that supports pdf.

Games to 300 -- TPT & TN

This 15 page product contains eight activities with suggestions for variations.  I use these activities as math stations in my room or as interventions as needed.  All you need to use these lessons are counters such as beans, buttons, or math cubes.

Freelance Writing and Store News

I have always been a writer from the scrap paper books I made in the kitchen while my mother cooked.  Recently my stepdaughter shared with me that Harper Lee was given money to stop working for a year and write anything she wanted to.  The result was To Kill a Mockingbird.

I look at my bank balance and sigh.  There is no way I can take a year off to write as much as I might want to.  I must be content with "writing in the margins."  Finding the time between a busy job and a busy family to scratch out blog posts and freelance curriculum.

The part of writing I hate the most is marketing.  I love creating and hope that someone out there will love what I have created enough to buy it, but I don't like anything resembling sales.   I know others will know what I'm talking about.

So it is with reluctance that I share my newest paid product: Math Spies Coded Messages.  This unit teaches students about factor tables and then they use it to solve coded messages.  My students love it.  The factor tables and puzzles increase in difficulty...and yes, I included an answer key. It's available in my Teachers Notebook store also.

Over the next few months I have plans to update much of what is in my Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook Stores.  I don't want to become one of those bloggers whose every post seems to be an advertisement.  If you're here for the freebies, I don't blame you.  Show up next Friday and see what I have planned.  It's a multiplication game my students have been playing to practice math facts.  Yes, it's free.

As always, I hope you enjoy using these activities with your students.

Teaching Genre Series

When I moved from teaching primary to upper intermediate grades in 2001, I entered a class with a generous classroom library, but no reading or writing curriculum.  After reviewing the standards, I decided to organize my lessons across different genres.

The first lessons I created were book reports which eventually became the product 25 Book Reports.  Over time, I added non-fiction topics as well as fiction.

Over the last several years, I have completed nine writing units also organized by genre.  To see this list in my TPT store look for the Writing Genre series.

If I were suddenly dropped into another classroom without curriculum I could teach reading and writing for a couple of years without repeating units.

From now until Sunday evening, you can buy the whole series for $20.  Look for the four featured items in my TPT store. 

Curriculum Updates

This year when I moved grade levels, it gave me an opportunity to review curriculum I had written in the past and update it.  If you previously purchased either of these products through Teachers pay Teachers, you can download the update.  Each of these titles are now available at Teachers Notebook also for $2.00 each.

 

 

 

Current Events: Using News Media to Enrich Classroom Resources -- Teachers pay Teachers

Current Events: Using News Media to Enrich Classroom Resources -- Teachers Notebook

 

 Six Steps to Creating a Better Class Presentation -- Teachers pay Teachers

Six Steps to Creating a Better Class Presentation -- Teachers Notebook

Astronomy Resources

If you are teaching astronomy this school year, I highly recommend Stardate.org. It is a part of the University of Texas McDonald Observatory. The pictures are amazing! I have had students choose to explore this site in their free time. I know I have barely touched the potential resources on this site.

Besides the pictures, the one part of the site I use every year is the Phases of the Moon Calendar. When I have had my students chart the phases of the moon, we often have cloudy skies here near Seattle, Washington. Stardate.org’s chart is my back up plan.

Here is a copy of my Moon Observation Chart.  Just click on this link to get this freebie.

I recently updated Sun and Shadows Observations in my TpT Store. This packet now contains three more activities.

 Students measure their shadows once in the morning, once in the middle of the day, and once in the afternoon. They will record their measurements and the direction of the shadow for each time. This activity can be repeated during each season. I have attached additional recording sheets with student directions should you wish to do this.

Teachers Pay Teachers Cyber Monday Sale

Next Monday and Tuesday, Teachers Pay Teachers is hosting a Cyber Monday (plus Tuesday) Sale.  Many sellers will discount their stores up to 20%.  If you use the Checkout Code CMT12, you will receive a total of 28% off.

My entire Teachers Pay Teachers store is 20% Monday and Tuesday.  This discount includes my brand new items:

Scenarios for Sequencing and



 









Scenarios for Making Inferences.

The 3AM Teacher is having a link up with other sellers who are participating.  You can visit her blog to participate in the link up.  Below are other sellers who are participating in the sale.

 

Teachers Pay Teachers Back to School Sale August 12-13

This Sunday and Monday August 12 and 13, Teachers Pay Teachers is having its Back to School Sale.  I am putting my entire store on sale for 20% off.  If you use the promo code BTS12 at check out, you will have a total of 28% off.

I would like to feature a tool I created over the last 12 years of teaching upper elementary students:

Twenty-five Book Reports was my reading program for a few years before my district made a literacy adoption.  I assigned a book report a month and made sure that my students were finishing books across genre. 

Now it is a task I have students work on while I pull small groups during reading workshop.  This past year, I assigned mainly the non-fiction book reports to support the science and social units we were studying.

Included in this product are 13 fiction and 12 non-fiction assignments with rubrics for quick grading.  It is normally priced $6.50 but with both my discount and TPT's promo code, it is priced Sunday and Monday at $4.68.

Thank you Christiana Bainbridge of Bunting, Books and Bainbridge for hosting this blog hop.

Signs that the publisher didn't work with real children

Back in December I complained in a post that the publisher of literacy materials must not have used them with real children.  Last week I had more evidence of this.

I am giving my students Running Records with a kit from the new materials.  The selections I am supposed to have them read come from the middle of chapters -- out of context from the whole.  One frustrated student asked, "Why can't we start at the beginning?  Are they trying to hide something from us?"  I laughed.

I want to see how my students behave as readers when I assess them.  When we give them a section of text disconnected from real reading, I don't think our results are accurate.  Just saying....

Random Acts of Kindness -- Free Printables

I plan to have my students focus on kindness during the month of February.

This activity is not original to me.  Two teachers at my school have had their classes do this beginning with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and ending with Valentine's Day.  I believe the idea started with Devon Hamner’s lesson plan.

I missed starting this in January because of a week of snow days, so I plan to do this in February.  It will fit into my plans for Valentine's Day and the one hundredth day of school. 

Click here to download the four page freebie from Teachers Pay Teachers.

Click here to download the four page freebie from Teacher's Notebook. 

Teacher 2 Teacher Linky Party

I am participating in Teacher 2 Teacher's Groundhog Day/Superbowl Linky Party.  If you are looking for activities on either topic, head on over.

20 Days Until Groundhog Day

Update:  Please check this post for updated Groundhog Predictions information. 

My class is excited about having other classes join us this year at GroundhogPredictions.blogspot.com. It's not too late to join us.

Free curriculum download at Mary Bauer's Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

Whoever Wrote This Didn't Teach Real Students

I am convinced that the people who wrote our vocabulary curriculum have not spent time in front of actual students. If they have, they certainly haven't read aloud the script they expect me to read in front of real children. They would instantly recognize their mistakes.

"Mandate" is a word that if said to a group of ten and eleven-year-olds will bring an end to any serious discussion of vocabulary.  If you don’t believe me, try it some time and see what happens.

Explaining to students what a schwa is, will bring out the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in all of us.  For several weeks this vowel sound was a part of the vocabulary lists and for several weeks I had students yelling out “schwa!” in high pitched warnings of attack.  Then I found out that I still had several students who didn’t know Ə was a vowel sound.

When I noticed “dic” was a word part to be sorted the next week, I abandoned fidelity to the program.  This is why I write my own curriculum.

Groundhog Predictions

Update:  Please check this post for updated Groundhog Predictions information. 

 

If you teach third, fourth, fifth or sixth grade, you are invited to join my class in Groundhog Predictions.  We will be tracking the weather from February 2- March 20.  I have taught this lesson for several years.  This year I want to have other classrooms in other states participate.

 

Groundhog Predictions is available at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Groundhog Predictions is also available at my Teacher's Notebook store.

I hope you enjoy this activity with your class.

  

 

Link Up Your Favorite Freebie From TPT

One of the blogs I follow RockinTeacherMaterials has posted the free teaching materials from the Winter Holidays Teachers Pay Teachers Book.  You can find her post below:

http://rockinteachermaterials.blogspot.com/2011/12/link-up-your-favorite-freebie-from-tpt.html

Mine is number 37.

Free Teachers Pay Teachers Winter Holidays Ebook

I had the opportunity to participate in this years Teachers Pay Teachers gift to the teaching community.
Download your Free Teachers Pay Teachers Winter Holidays Ebook.