Five for Friday -- Just Before It Ends!

Just a quick 5 to share my past week.  Linking with Doodle Bugs.  

I have been "Rebranded!!"  

We drove out Sunday afternoon and began our CAMT experience in downtown Ft. Worth!  I had a blast!!  I have to admit...my strength is Reading & Writing but Math is where I feel like I have to put loads of effort and try, try, try.  This is the 1st year that I am so excited to approach Math.  I have learned so much from this conference.

I tried to take a selfie with the banner.  Not so good -- so a friend helped me out.

Since I'm in a Mathematical frame of mind...

What questions pop into your head when you see this amazing display from the Ft. Worth convention center?  I bet it has something to do with math, right?  Well, that is one of the most fun things I learned from one of the presenters, Dan Meyer.  Math is really all around us.  We have a natural, innate curiosity that can be mathematical driven.  What a great way to make Math relevant and let kiddos see it in the world around them!!!

(BTW -- I don't know how many hats that is, but I'm sure there is a mathematical way to solve it)

It must be Back To School time because there are giveaways galore!!  A good bloggy friend of mine has hit 200 followers and is having an awesome giveaway.

Look at that prize!!  I need that one!!  And on top of the $$ there are some great products for some other buddies including one of my latest products.  Take a look.

Stop by A Grace Filled Classroom and enter for a chance to win.

Along my path throughout the convention center, I met & made lots of new friends.  Here are a couple of my favorites. 

 A fellow first-timer, named Miles.

 It's Miss Math Dork!  And guess what?  She gave me two of her cute earring sets for teachers to put into a giveaway.  Be on the lookout for that opportunity in the future.  I have to put some great products together to go along with it.  

It was so much fun meeting so many people and just getting back in the school mode.

 Then it was back to graduate school mode.  As soon as I was home I had a day to get my display board ready for our end of class, Literacy Symposium.  I think it came out great!  But, now I need a nap.

And that's my 5 for this week.  Now that we are getting into August, I'm sure I'll have more of a variety soon!

Tips & Tools 4 Back 2 School - Week 6

It's Sunday!!  er...no...wait no it's Monday.  You guys know how it goes in the summer.  I usually don't know what the date is let alone the what day of the week it is.  Jeez!  Does anybody else have that same problem?  

But Which ever day it is, I simply can't let you go without this AWESOME Tip & Tool!!

This one is brought to you from another amazing friend, Marisa at Inspired Owls Corner.

I am super duper excited about what she's sharing with us this week!  What an awesome idea!!!  I can hardly wait to plan for this with my new class this upcoming year.  Stop by and check it out!

  What a fantastic freebie!!  Go to her blog by clicking HERE and read about this idea.  Then grab it and have fun!

And hopefully next week I can get this to you on Sunday as opposed to Monday!  Let's see who will be providing some more great tips and tools next week.

Five for Friday -- I'm back!!

I know, I know.  I have not done a Five 4 Friday with Doodle Bugs in a while.

Let's see what I can come up with....

I've finally been able to finish some "works in progress" that have been sitting on my desktop for a while.  Stop by and take a look HERE.

Each packet has journal covers that can be used on whole class journals or as task cards in a writing center.  

My family of 6 have decided to spend some great family time this summer volunteering at a ranch camp for special needs kids.  It has been an amazing experience!  The kids are amazing and the volunteers that are working with us are some of the most awesome people I have met.  We have all had the most fun.  & to top it all off, I have fallen in love.  His name is Chief-Roast Beef.  He's the horse I lead on trail with some of the campers.  He is one of the older guys but is the sweetest thing I have ever met!!

We took a selfie!

And in between all that was mentioned above, I've been working on graduate school work.  I passed my first class with a 95%!!  Woohoo!  Not bad for someone that hasn't been in school since 2001.  I'm finishing up my lecture class over the next 3 weeks.  It's been fun beginning this adventure over summer break...I'm a bit worried about when school is back in.  How in the world will I find time to complete all this writing?  Help!!  Any suggestions from you guys with experience?

 I hit a TPT milestone!!
100 Followers!!!
So I hosted a sale.  It ends tonight at midnight.  Stop by and get 20% off before it ends!!

And finally, the scavenger hunt hosted by Blog Hoppin'!  I love, love, love the idea but am not the best in keeping up with Instagram.  I think I'm going to need to spend a full day hunting some of these things down.  It is so much fun to see what others have already posted and a little discouraging too.  So many of ya'll are so far ahead of me.  I need to get a move on.

You "Oughta" Know About...Finger Management!

I am so excited to participate in a fun blog hop called "You Oughta Know" with Jasmine from Buzzing with  Mrs. McClain. 

Don't you absolutely love the title??  I think it is so catchy!  Especially when you find out what it is about...

Have you ever sat in a colleagues classroom and something catches your eye?  When you inquire about it, they tell you and you think ---- Wow!  How have I never done that?

This is just like that --- but virtually and through blogging.  What a brilliant idea.  I can hardly wait to read about all the a-ha's my fellow teacher bloggers have to share.  I'm pretty sure I will find some great new ideas I haven't used and so will you!!

So what is Finger Management, you ask?  I'm sure some of you already have something like it in place.  This little system is one I have used for years now.  This is my 14th year teaching and I have to admit, it is one of the most used classroom management systems I have and I can't imagine life without it.

In the beginning I used ASL signs for students to signal if they wanted to go to the restroom.  I loved it but I needed some other quick signals for daily questions.  You know: 

"Can I get a drink of water?"

"Can I sharpen my pencil?"

"Can I get a tissue?"

"Can I?"

"Can I?"

"Can I?"

etc...

And this is what I probably look like when all those questions begin to come at me all at once.

The amount of questions found in a classroom from day to day can be great in quantity.  Having a system in place that eliminates the need to vocally ask those questions that EVERYONE has, is a wonderful thing.  It really eliminates so many taps on the shoulder/waist (or other?!), anonymous voices from across the room & interruptions during read-aloud time, small group work, or whole class instruction.  So I came across this idea (I'm pretty sure from a MAILBOX magazine because that's what we did before Pinterest & TPT).  It suggested to assign those common questions to a number of fingers held up.

  

For example: Holding up 1 finger = restroom

2 = tissue

3 = pencil

4 = drink of water

5 = another question

I simply included this management system into my procedures and it worked like a charm!  It not only eliminated the crazy teacher syndrome but created a classroom atmosphere with less chaos than normal.  Who wouldn't want that??

So then, TPT comes out and WAHOOZA!!  Jodi from Clutter Free Classrom has these cute little signs that fit with the idea. It was probably one of my first purchases ever!

You can find it in Clutter-Free Classroom's TPT store HERE.

You can also visit her blog and she even has a video about it.  Click the picture below and take a look.

So that is is my first "You Oughta Know" post!  I hope it finds some of you in a state of "now why haven't I done that?"  Be sure to follow the hop and learn some other great a-ha's!

An InLinkz Link-up

I Know It's Been A While...but How About A Five 4 Friday??

Time to link up for my favorite linky: Five 4 Friday with Doodle Bugs.

I guess I have been on a small blogging hiatus.  I have no excuses.  But I'm back!!  Since it has been a few weeks, I will have to take some steps back and choose 5 things from the weeks I went MIA. So here we go.

What is this you ask?  Well, my friends, this is how TX does summer professional development.  This teacher's conference is from CAMT (Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching).  And guess who's been invited to go this summer?  THIS GIRL, that's who!!  Last week, our K-2 Curriculum Specialist popped her head in my room and asked me to join her this summer for a 3 day conference held up in Ft. Worth.  She said the district allowed her to pick someone to join her and she thought of little ole' me!!  I am so excited and can't wait to learn some great Math stuff to share with my team and probably my district.   Yikes!  Me in front of a group of adults does not work the same way me in front of 7 year olds.  Check out the video to find out why I'm so excited.

Hmmm...what are we about to do??

 Last week, Mrs. Newton & I planned another fun activity that took us out into the beautiful TX Spring weather.  We were working on telling time to the minute and the kiddos seemed to be struggling so this was just what some of them needed to create that episodic lesson.

We made a human clock!!  It was such a blast watching them really think about how to count the minutes.

Beautiful sunshine, Spring weather, outdoor activities.  What do these mean for our yearly favorite classroom visitors?  They are here!!

These 5 beauties were delivered on Wednesday.  Just in time to focus our Science lessons on the life cycle of an insect.  Now take a look at what has happened in just 1 week:

This week the yearly visitor we do NOT look forward to made it's appearance: STAAR test.  That would be the "great and powerful" way TX tests it's students.  This year, I had the wonderful opportunity to administer this beast to a very special friend that had a few modifications.  Oh-em-gee!!  I did not know how broken my heart would be when I walked out of the building that day.  I posted on FB that I would like to challenge any government official assigned to state testing to sit in that "cracker box" of a room like I did and repeat over and over and over these words: "I cannot help you with that answer, just do your best" to a screaming child that was just asking for an explanation of an unfamiliar term.  He cried and screamed and I could not do a thing!! Ugh.  Some day our schools will get away from that ugly monster.  At least I hope and dream of that day.

And finally ---- I saved the best for last!   I was asked to be the Team Leader for my grade level in the upcoming year!!  I love, love, love the ladies I work with and our current team leader is a wonderful role model.  I am so honored to have been asked to try and fill her shoes.  I have been in this position in my previous schools and am excited to work with a new team of inspirational teachers.  We are going to be so awesome!!

Unfortunately, this change means a move to another classroom so I guess I'll be spending some extra time during the summer setting up a new room.  It's still so exciting!!

Well -- that should catch ya up a little bit.  Be sure to head on over to link up and read some other great blogs.