Hello Again Friends..

So summer is the time when my blogging is usually the most active, but this summer it seems I have yet to have a break! I have been quite busy, and on my days off it seems like I have no problem running errands allll day.

First, there were lots of meetings to get ready for next year. I am so excited and feel so much more prepared going into this next year. Now that I have the hang of common core, I am so excited to get more students more deeply engaged with the curriculum! I can't wait to post some of my new projects that are currently in the works-- including my Standards Based Yearly Math Homework, which I have been working on for almost a year now! I have been also revamping some of my products from the early days.

The original for this baby was in WORD, so I couldn't save hardly any of it, but I am loving the new, brighter final product!

Then, I got to meet Daisy the Reading Pig! I mean I DID go to the library as the ONLY adult without a child. But I'm a teacher so its not creepy, right?! Also, I found out some interesting about Daisy, the most shocking is that Daisy is actually a boy! And Daisy sleeps with the farmer and his wife. I am sure to some people a huge EW comes in right now, but this may be my dream!

Also, I have been busy planning and executing an amazing shower (if I do say so myself) for my cousin Katie with her other bridesmaids. When I tell you these girls are so great at planning and getting everything together, I am not just blowing smoke! We had such an awesome time and everything looked amazing. Now, if only the Louisiana heat would have subsided slightly we may not have had to have so much white sangria. 

Then there has been so much shopping! Mostly window shopping, but man I am loving Target and Home Goods being right next door to each other! This has cost me hours on summer days when what else do I have to do?!

I am also getting so excited for the Louisiana Teacher Blogger meet up next Saturday. I can't wait to meet some other Louisiana Bloggers and network within the Baton Rouge Area! I even got some new business cards to celebrate. Hopefully this will make up for the fact that I won't be going to Vegas this year :(

I hope you are all enjoying your summer! 

Just Imagine How Much Cooler I'll be In Summer

So this is officially my fourth day of summer and I have yet to do any relaxing. What is wrong with me?! I am sure I will get into total veg mode when it comes closer to August but right now I am feeling totally ready to prep for next year!

With some of my Barnes and Noble Gift Cards from my babies (tear!) I got to buying some new books for next year! 

I will be using The Exceptionally Extraordinary Ordinary First Day of School to teach how setting can affect the plot. It also has some really awesome facts and vocabulary in the margins. I also love 11 Experiments that Failed, which I just received today, I will use this to introduce question, hypothesis, and developing procedures to test experiments. It is so cute and very funny! 

I have also been working on some new TpT products. First, a freebie! I know many of you are already out of school but I developed these gift tags for our end of school gifts. You can get them at My TpT Store!

  

I have also uploaded some of my new research products. These worked so well in my class. Though they were time consuming, my students got to be very good at research. It also provided students with so much choice. All of the final products in my class were wonderful! 

Well, I am going to do some summer things. Netflix marathon, anyone? 

You May Hit the Jackpot!!

Sorry for double posting..but I NEED to include some exciting news! This week my Vegas BESTIES and I are hosting a giveaway! You could win these great resources from these AMAZING teachers!! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Best of Luck!!

Ms. Winter

Wow! Has it really been two months already?

Wow so much has happened since my last post! I will try to sum up the last two months more in pictures than in words.

First, there was Mardi Gras! I had a great time in New Orleans with some friends. 

Then, there was Mrs. Poole's Baby Shower! I can't wait for Cullen to get here! 

Then was one of my favorite days of all in Baton Rouge- the St. Patty's Day Parade. Then after a series of awesome weeks, as they say, when it rains it pours. I had one of the worst weeks I had in a while. One car accident, a rough week at school, and then finding out I totaled my car made for one heck of a headache. Luckily the tide turned quickly when I got a special delivery at school. 

It definitely brightened my day, but it also got my students asking a lot of questions. As most of you know, Disney makes kids have some crazy expectations about dating/marriage/etc., so when I received these flowers I has students crying because they thought I was leaving to get married. After reassuring them that I was not, I have ever since been receiving some cute/crazy cards that both my boyfriend and I have gotten a kick out of. Has this ever happened to you?

Then there was the new car. 

And last but certainly not least… 

 the LEAP test is finally over and now my students and I can finally have some fun-- that is after all the Benchmark Assessments we must finish because they held them so the students would not be too burnt out before testing. So one more week of testing, SPRING BREAK, and then some end of the school year- nomoremultiplechoice- fun! We will still be learning of course but I can't wait to get my class up and moving again!!

I thought this was too funny. Before you become a teacher, you think of all the things you will be able to teach to your students. If I made a list of all the important things my kids should have learned this year and the majority of them will not show up on any sort of assessment. Learning to be critical thinkers will certainly HELP them on the test, but it will not be tested. Oh well, fingers crossed til the results come in!

This week I finally finished my 3rd grade Easter math centers. I am still in the crunch for reading and fourth grade ELA/math. 

I am loving this Clipart from Creative Clips!!! 

I can statements for these centers (each listed on the center):  

I can identify equivalent fractions. (3.NF.A.3)

I can use the distributive property to break up large multiplication facts. (3.OA.B.5)

I can solve multistep word problems. (3.OA.D.8)

I can identify arithmetic patterns. (3..OA.D.9)

I can solve algebraic expressions. (3. OA. A.4)

I can fluently add and subtract numbers. (3.NBT.A.2)

I can solve multi-step word problems. (3.OA.D.8)

I can create a scaled graph. (3.MD.B.3) 

I hope you all have a happy and say Easter Holiday!

Happy Teaching!! 

Ms. Winter

Winter Wonderland!

I am finally living in a winter wonderland- or at least my version of it. It is once again 70 degrees and I could not be happier to turn off the heater, ditch the hot cocoa, and watch a little Winter Olympics on TV. Yes, it is certainly not winter weather, but it is my idea of perfect! I am currently obsessed with Meryl Davis and Charlie White. I think she is so gorgeous and their story is just precious! I hope to see them capture another gold tonight :)

Speaking of the Winter Olympics, I am loving using Ashleigh @ Ashleigh's Education Journey's Winter Olympic Pack. 

This pack is awesome -- it contains tons of leveled texts with the lexile levels marked. The best part is it is set up so the kids can read different texts, but still answer the same questions, which makes for seamless differentiation.

 And this week I am also eating good! We recently got a Trader Joe's in Baton Rouge and I now spend more nights a week picking up something from Trader Joe's then I ever did at Walmart. I have found some awesome things and the prices are really great as well. This week I tried something a little different and got some Fig Butter.

I toasted a wheat tortilla, added a little Fig Butter, and topped it with some goat's cheese and tomatoes and boy was it delicious! It was a quick easy way to have an amazing dinner. Just looking at it makes me hungry! 

 Oh and happy Valentine's Day to all! I had a wonderful day with some really sweet surprises. I got some of the best notes. Its these kind of days that make me love being a teacher. No matter how much work I put in, it is great to see how appreciated I actually am.

And that night I got an even better treat. I got to see my younger brother start a game in Tiger Stadium. His team did not win, but they did an amazing job against such a great ball team. I am partial-- but he looked great as well!

It was a great weekend of family, baseball, and finally some springtime weather. Hopefully I will make it through this week without too much sleep lost. If not….

There's always PJs Granita!

Happy Teaching, 

Ms. Winter

Baby It's Cold Outside.. Or it was!

Well after three days of being stuck at home because of Winter Storm Leon, I am actually itching to get back to work! "Snow day" is surely not a term we hear often in the South, unless we are reading a story about someone in another part of the country. I am glad we got to experience one, oh wait no-- four, but now that all my laundry is done, my house is {somewhat} straightened, and I am {slightly} ahead with my schoolwork, I can't wait to get back! I have had enough hot cocoa for a long while and I even go to try out all those cute mugs my students and teacher friends have given me!

The term "snow day" is actually very deceiving for what happened here in Louisiana, because I never actually saw any snow. I did see however, lots and lots of ice. Today, while driving around running errands, I even saw this beautiful ice garden! Apparently someone didn't turn off their sprinklers!!

In honor of our snow cation, I have created this freebie with an informational text on Winter Storm Leon and its effects on the Southern United States, which we will do tomorrow morning!

Well, time to hit the gym and get ready for my one day week! Hope you all have a wonderful Friday :). 

Happy Teaching!!!

Ms. Winter

Well once again it has been a while!! Once school picks up I get so caught up in creating things for my own class that I rarely make it TpT ready and get it up and going. But, finally I have finished my Candy Centers Pack. I am using these centers in conjunction with the reading of The Chocolate Touch, but they do not correspond to the text, just the common core skills.

There are 4 ELA centers and 4 Math centers and they cover the following "I can" Statements, which have proven themselves to be tricky for my students. 

I can choose words and phrases to convey ideas precisely. (L 4.3a) 

I can identify how a text is structured and answer questions about the text. (RI 4.4)
I can identify how a word is used in a sentence. (4.L.1) 
I can identify figurative language in a text. (RL 4.4)
I can solve word problems using elapsed time. (4.MD.2)
I can identify equivalent fractions by multiplying a fraction by n/n. (4.NF.1)
I can identify which operation to use. (4.OA.3)
I can find the factors of a number. (4.OA.2, 4.OA.4)

 I want to give a kudos to an AMAZING teacher I found while searching the web! I literally do not know how she does it.. her products are so comprehensive and have made my life so much easier!

Her assessment pack for ELA and Math are both awesome!! I even had to gush to my students about my new teacher idol! Who is yours?! 

In other exciting news, my school's chess team recently went to our first tournament. We played in The Chess Mates Classic at Scottlandville Middle Magnet in Baton Rouge. The kids had an awesome time and our team came in second place!! Not too shabby considering their coach just learned to play this summer!

And last, but not least, we have been having some CRAZY weather. We even had a snow day last Friday and its expected to snow again on Tuesday. For those of you up North, stop looking now, because when you see our snow you will surely laugh but for Louisiana, this is a BIG deal. 

But can you blame us? Look at all this snow! Haha!

In honor of the Winter Snow Storm 2014. I have a Snowman themed freebie!!

Enjoy your winter week!

As Always, Happy Teaching, 

Ms. Winter

How Many Blogs Can A Teacher Blogger Blog?

Hard to believe, I know, but I am back again this week! With another *Completed* project to add to 3 Teacher Chick's Tackle it Tuesday! This one, I must admit, comes with a little help from my friends. My friends being my last year students. They actually helped create this center and I will add to it as the years go on!

Using context clues (CCSS RF 3.4c) was a difficult skill for my kids to master when it came to testing. I knew they were using context clues as they read but somehow they would not get the answers correct when we did Benchmark testing (my district's Unit test). So.. after reading the book Frindle, I had my students make their own "frindles" for other people to use clues to find in this Frindle Context Clue Center. 

For those of you that don't know, a frindle is a pen and Nick communicates this to his teacher by using context clues so it fits in well. Your kids can definitely do this if they have not read the book! This pack also includes an awesome dictionary/ Vocabulary activity as well as the rubrics needed for the center and activity!

You can get this activity by clicking any of the pictures or the activity name! It definitely helped my students this year and I hope it helps yours too! 

Oh and while you're linking up, don't forget to enter the giveaway on 3 Teacher Chick's Blog! I really like her 3rd Grade Word Study Unit and if I don't win, I will surely be buying it :) 

Happy Summer!

Ms. Winter

Made It Monday Round 2!

Hello All!

I am proud to say I have had a productive few days! First, I have finished the rest of the third grade standards for my I Can wall and I finally posted them to TpT today-- Made it Monday is really keeping me in check!

 

With so many standards, I wanted to break each of them up into measurable objectives so that I can help my students master each one! If you have already downloaded my Freebie, you know what this whole product is all about! You can get it at my TpT Store!

I have also been looking for some cute chess clipart to finish another product I am working on! Has anyone seen any chess clipart on Etsy or another site? Please let me know if you have! :) 

Since I have the summer "off", I am spending this week in New Orleans with my family. One of the best things about being from New Orleans is the food. I have been blessed to have two parents who can cook-- and I don't mean just throw together a recipe, I mean COOK! But this week I actually chipped in. Thanks to Pinterest, I can pretend to cook! I made these yummy Weight Watchers Twice- Baked Potatoes!

Paired with some deer sausage and my mom's rendition of an Olive Garden Salad it was a delicious meal for everyone! 

Another great part of coming home is getting to spend time with this little cutie! Don't be fooled though, this girl may look tired but that is after a weekend at City Park, the Lakefront, and the dog park. Seven month old labs have endless energy! 

And my last bit of exciting news, my little (meaning age, certainly not height) brother's baseball team introduced a new head coach. Ron Maestri will once again lead the Privateers, to what we hope will be a successful season! What an exciting time to be #UNOProud! 

Hope you all are having a great summer!

Happy Teaching! 

Ms. Winter