One More Day of the $ale!

My $ale goe$ on until tomorrow. $o check it out before the clock strikes "CLO$ED!"

This is my newest entry and it should really help your kiddos work better with Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives!

Click on the picture of the collage to go to my store. It's only $2.40 while on sale. What a bargain!

5 days until spring break. . . yes, I'm ready!

Patty

What to do on a weekend? Go $HOPPING!

What else do you have to do this weekend, but SHOP! I know I'm pretty excited that many people have thrown together this impromptu sale and boy did it spread like wild fire!

Thanks to Zip-a-dee-doo-da for making these cute signs!

Join many of us for a big sale this weekend. Clean out that wish list, look for some new things, and spend those credits that you've been saving! (Did you know you get credits for leaving comments after buying something?)

Georgia Homegrown Kiddos has a linky that you can follow to see many other stores that are on sale.

Beth Ann made this lovely banner showcasing many of us who are in this sale. I'm sure you can find ME!

Fifth row, sixth one over!

Here are some of my latest things you might want to check out!

And my all time best seller is this:

It comes in color AND black & white.

And one piece of news that is not a sale but a great idea! 

This is how we had our kids keep track of books and minutes on RAZ Kids during March. For each 10 minutes of RAZ kids they got one sprinkle. For each 100% on AR they got a sprinkle. For each ten books read they got a sprinkle. Our little school of 150 sure sprinkled the heck out of this giant sundae in our gym!

Thanks for stopping by. . .I hope you have fun shopping!

Patty

Report Cards, Text Features, and Weather OH MY!

Whew! I finally finished those wonderful report cards. How do you feel about them? I know they are important and I know parents love to see how their child is doing. The amount of time it takes to do a full class set of cards is so time consuming. I have 28 kids in my class. We use a standards based report card, so I have about 25-30 boxes to fill in for each child. I believe the comments on the back are so important and sometimes easier for parents to understand, so I always try to put more info in that area. 

Now that they are finished I feel a ton of relief off my shoulders. I suspect that all of us have that feeling. We are currently on trimesters and we have to do these report cards 3 times a year. (Along with all the assessments that are required to see what they know!) Next year we are going to semesters and will only have to do these report cards twice a year, but will have a mid term report that will be easier to fill out in between each semester. How often do you have to do report cards?

I have just finished using Deanna Kahlenberg's (from Primary Punch) text features activities. They are so thorough and they truly helped my kids learn all about them. I took pictures, but of course, I left my camera at school. So instead let me show you some of her pictures.

Just click on the picture above to go to her Scavenger Hunt. 

You can pick up a free set of your own by clicking HERE. And then if you like those, go back and grab some of her other activities to use with these. 

In lower Michigan it is finally beginning to look like spring and I can see a lot of grass in my yard. However, since this is Michigan, we are expecting another 2-3 inches of snow tonight! uggghhh!
 Enough teasing Mother Nature!

Thanks for stopping by to visit today. I hope you'll check out Deanna's Blog and her store. She is one of my many favorites!

Patty

If you'd like to know more about DJ Inkers fonts and clip art, click the picture below.

A Whole Lot of Winnings For YOU!

I'm not one to know too much about pinterest . . . I know. .  I know. . . slap me please! 

Maybe this is just the push that I needed. 

I'm helping Tabitha at FlapJack Educational Resources. She is hosting a giveaway because she now has 10,000 pinterest friends. . . I don't even think I can count that high!

It's a pretty easy rafflecopter to follow. . . .All you have to do is to follow our TPT Stores. 

That's not hard to do at all. You can be one of  7 winners to win from 84 different friends. 

That's a lot of fun stuff coming your way.

( If for some reason you don't see the rafflecopters here, click on the red Flap Jack link above.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway 

An InLinkz Link-up

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

I hope you enter and I hope you win.
Click away and maybe on March 20th you'll get a
 wonderful email saying that you are the WINNER!

Patty

If You Blog About It, They Will Come

This is just a quick post because believe it or not, I do have a school bag full of tests that need to be corrected, put into a spread sheet and eventually put into our report cards. . . blah . . . blah. . . blah. . . you all know what I'm talking about. And I'm willing to bet that some of you who are reading this should be doing the very same thing that I am doing! HA! I caught you! So read quick then go do your school work.

Or you can be like my kids. . . they've been groaning like crazy when ever I say the four letter word that they hate. . . . T. E. S.T!

Today I explained to them that I should be the one doing the groaning. I told them that they only had to do these 3 sheets of paper for some tests. But that I had to check 28 x 3 papers tonight. I told them that on most nights I'm working on school stuff until 10:00. I think they finally got it. I didn't hear anymore groans today.

I think many students struggle with story problems because of several reasons. They can't read well, they can't tell if they should add, subtract or both, they aren't sure how to set up their equation (number model), and they aren't sure what  numbers to use.

TPT is full of wonderful story problem activities and I have bought several. But I felt something was still missing that seemed basic to me, but not to my students. 

I made What's the Equation? to help them with finding the correct equation. They will see 3 choices of equations with each story problem. They need to look carefully at the numbers and the symbol and then decide which one correctly connects and works with that story problem. 

I would love to give it away tomorrow night. Let's keep this simple. 

Stop in to see the Crazy Schoolteacher. Read about her fundraiser she's having. Leave her some words of encouragement, then come back to my blog. Leave your email in my comments. I'll check back tomorrow night and I'll pick 3 winners. Thanks for filling her bucket and mine!

Patty

Visually Watching Their Progress

We know that we want our students to make improvements. How to you encourage them to do better? How do you let them know where they are and where they should be?

I want to share with you a couple of the ways we do it in our building.

We use the Accelerated Reader program to enhance our reading. We reward them with books and a few other prizes at the 10 point intervals. I like to make a graph of their progress and display it in our room.

This one shows the number of points they have earned so far. In our building we ask them to keep an 80% average. On this chart if the student is in the high 70's their bar is colored yellow. If they are below that their color is red. This encourages them to read more carefully and take their time with their tests.

After they take their test, they are allowed to sign the charts to show their scores. I think it's great to get 100%, but I also think it's great to get an 80 or 90% too. Once these pages are filled up, then we get a new one. . . That's it! We don't do anything else special with them. And that is just fine with my kids. They just want to be recognized for doing their best.

For March is Reading Month, we have set up another way for them to watch their progress just for this month.

Each student has this sign on their locker. We also use RAZ Kids from Reading A to Z. We want to encourage our kids to use this program in school and at home. So for this month we are charting the number of minutes they are on it. Each Friday we will get  a print out of the number of minutes they've accumulated for the week. We will also get a print out of the number of Accelerated Reader points they've earned (not counting their prior points before last week). The teachers will update the thermometers each week.Our students love to watch theirs grow and see how their friends are doing. 

With our Kinders, we are only tracking their minutes on RAZ Kids.

For March is Reading Month, each teacher has decorated their door with a character from a book who has good character!

I love Arthur, so it made sense for me to use him to showcase all of his good characteristics.

Each bulletin board in our school has a class set of kids reading books they enjoy. My kids decorated their covers so they look as much like the real book as they could. Then we took their picture and made them look like they were reading a book. So when posted on the bulletin board it might appear that they were really reading this paper back in front of them. I think they turned out pretty good! Plus they are 3D and that makes them POP!

If you're looking for an Easter activity to help your students learn more about plural nouns and verbs, then this just might be for you.

It's called Ir-EGG-ular Plural Nouns and Verbs. 

I have to give my sister credit for coming up with the Egg part of the name. 

Thanks Jackie!

Click on this picture above to go to it.

There is a free version right now, but it doesn't have as much as this one does. But you're welcome to grab the free one to see if you'd like it and then if you want more, come on back and grab the entire package.

Patty

Reach Out and Help a Family

My friend Whitney from The Crazy Schoolteacher is trying to reach out and help a family in her school. This family is dealing with some life threatening issues and she would like to grant them a wish of a lifetime before it's too late.

For $18.00 you'll get 36 packs of fun for your classrooms. Plus you'll know that 100% of your money will go to this family. You may click on this picture to go right to the store to help this family or you can click on her link above to go to her blog post to read more about them. 

Thank you for reading about this and if you can't buy it, we would appreciate your prayers.