So I have about a handful or two of students who always completes their work before everyone else and it's hard to have them work ahead. I was thinking about making a display with different compartments, that holds different assignments and activities for those students who always finish first. I haven't had the time to make it yet, but my supervising teacher had a container with center work that we're going to use.

It's not all that fancy, I know, but it is practical. I have a few folders with skills students are learning, like parts of speech, idioms, etc. This is just temporary until I can buy a display board and make it all pretty! But if you put a few folders on the white board and inform the students that when they are finished with their work, they can do an activity from one of the folders in the front of the room, it will eliminate the "I'm done, what do I do know?" question. 

Well, Halloween is officially over and all the decorations are down :(. I'm sad to say goodbye to October. I can't believe it's November now! Before we know it, it's going to be December, then 2013. Where does the time go?! Before I truly say goodbye to October, I wanted to post the crashing witches my students made!

Ok, now I can make my peace and say goobye. Now, time to make Thanksgiving decorations! :)

Also, because the elections are nearing, I wanted to post a link that explains what the amendments are about in easy to read lingo!

Know what you're voting on! Click the picture to take you to the link.

Happy voting and teaching!

Red Ribbon Week Door!

Our Motto: We'd Rather Eat Bugs Than Do Drugs!

The kids loved making the spiders for the door. I went out to Wal-Mart the night before and bought a pack of fake roaches. During the day I was placing them in various spots and on students. It was HILARIOUS watching them freak out, the entire class loved the prank.

However, we did not win the contest :(

Words Fourth Graders Should Know How to Spell

My fourth grade team and I created a list of words that fourth graders have a hard time spelling. We also included a list of words that are commonly mixed up. Feel free to customize the list to your liking :)

you can get this free at my TPT store :)
Words Fourth Graders Should Know How to Spell

I love Halloween!

Halloween is near! I love, love, LOVE Halloween! I love dressing up, I love the candy, and I love the decorations. I want my students to get involved with the holiday, but I also want them to do it constructively, so I try to incorporate as much academic work as I can with student decoration. Here is a picture of pumpkins my students decorated that I hung up around the classroom

The writing activity on the back of the pumpkin is a short prompt to help students develop expository writing skills (something my students are struggling with big time!). Once students completed the short prompt, they were given a pumpkin cut out to decorate. They loved it.

If you would like a copy of the writing prompt I made up, you can get it here Pumpkin Prompt

Happy Writing!

First item on TPT!

YAY! I posted my first free item on TPT! Check it out!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Mad-Minute-Tracking-Sheet

4th Grade

So, I'm back in fourth grade and I love it! I think I want to teach intermediate grades instead of primary. I love the class I am in, but I am learning that having a job while interning is very stressful. I have to admit though, it is by the grace of God, that He has given me strength to keep going.

Aah!

School starts on Monday?! The summer flew by way too fast, but in the same respect, the sooner school starts the sooner I get to graduate! I met up with my supervising teacher and she is awesome. I have a feeling November is going to come and go way too soon. I wont lie, I am nervous about completing my senior internship. By week 8, I will have 100% teaching responsibility. YIKES. Although I have few assignments, they are lengthy. I think my biggest problem right now is getting used to waking up at the crack of dawn. This morning I woke up at 5:58 AM and I didn't allow myself to fall back asleep. I figured if I wake up that early today and tomorrow, Monday morning won't be so hard. Another issue I run across is the ratio of water I drink to the amount of times I get to use the restroom. I drink a lot of water, like A LOT, and I am in a portable all the way in Ireland. See the problem? Yea, I may want to invest in depends :). Wish me luck on my first day of fourth grade!!

Who doesn't love the dollar section at Target? *raises hand* I know I do. I can't ever walk into  the enticing little section without dropping at least $20.00 on random classroom goodies. Today's trip was brought to you by Starbucks's free drink promo. Naturally, since I was already at Target, I figured browsing wouldn't hurt. Here are my findings:

There were so many Dr. Seuss products to choose from! I was able to snag 2 bulletin board boarders, 2 packs of pencils, 2 packs of book marks, 2 packs of paper cut outs, a white board, a pack of erasers, and 2 packs of certificates!

I thought this sign was pretty awesome, the picture is front and back. I saw a really cute idea on Pintrest of different arrow signs pointing in different directions. The sign was $1.00!

The Adventures of Library Girl

I got this lesson plan book for $1.00!

I also got these books from the dollar section! I love when Target has the classics for just a buck. 

I decided to browse around Michael's today to see if there was anything worth spending money on. I noticed they have a shelf for teachers, welcome banners, behavior charts, etc. I thought it was cute. They didn't really have much, but I did see some cute clearance items.

The flowers were $.50 for a pack of 4 and the owl desk name strips were $1.00. Not sure what I'm going to do with the flowers, but hey for fifty cents a package, I'm sure I'll find something creative to do!

Wheat-free Chocolate Chip Cookies!

So I found out a few months ago that I am allergic to: milk, wheat, and... dust mites. Dust mites? Is that even possible? Yes. But back to milk and wheat. I assumed my life would officially suck. I mean EVERYTHING has either milk or wheat in it. Was I supposed to become one of those people who only eat veggies and meat?! I don't know if you've realized, but I like carbs, like a lot. Surprisingly, on my quest for finding substitutes for milk and wheat, I have found a lot of substitutes and recipes to make all my favorites (like chocolate chip cookies) which taste virtually the same *dances happily*.

And these are my prized wheat-free/dairy-free chocolate chip cookies. The recipe is extremely easy and doesn't take too long to make. Here's the link to the recipe: Rice Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you're anything like me and have to eat wheat/dairy free, here are some other recipes that you might enjoy. 

Wheat and Dairy Free Recipes

On my daily pintrest browsing/teacher blog browsing, I came across this website that offers free downloadables for planning. Its a "Week At Glance" which is perfect for weekly planning!

Click the link below to download the planning sheet!

Week At Glance

You can get other free downloadable printables from this website!

Mommy Tracked

Pintrest DIY Craft Idea Finally Accomplished!

I have had these toilet paper rolls sitting on my window sill for the longest time because I saw an idea on Pintrest that uses them.

Funny thing is, my uncle asked me one day if I was into voodoo because of the way the tops of the toilet paper rolls are folded. The ears make the rolls look like little devil dolls lol. I explained that once painted and drawn on, they would look like this:

I only have 16 more to draw (insert tired face here) but they look so cute! This is my first official Pintrest activity I have completed, besides pinning all the things I want to do! It is super easy and I can't wait to use these bad boys in my future classroom!

Blogging and the work that goes into web designing.

I won't even lie, trying to design my blog page is a lot of work. I have no idea what I'm doing, what I'm designing, or where I'm uploading things, but I'm sure I will get the hang of this. I notice a lot of blogs have links and things, maybe one day I will be that cool! As for now, I guess this will have to do because I'm tired and I don't feel like staring at the computer screen anymore. Hope everyone has a great night.

My first official post!

This is my first summer off, since being in the Education Program and I am spending all my free time web surfing teaching materials and resources. Come August, I will be a senior intern, spending countless hours (Monday-Friday 7AM-3PM) in the classroom. My father think's its funny that I am paying to be a teacher. I think it's funny too. Either way, I can't deny that I'm not excited. I have already been hitting up all sorts of thrift stores and garage sales for children's books. I want an awesome classroom library for my students. With all of the books I have collected (1000+) I realized I needed to start categorizing the grade levels of each book. This website was extremely helpful in identifying what grade level most of my books belonged too!

Scholastic Book Level Search

Just enter the title of the book in the search bar and the book will appear with the grade level information! I dedicated my entire Wednesday afternoon to labeling books and boxing them up. Hope this link is helpful to you as it was to me.

I went garage sale-ing with my parents today (mind you, I have a new found appreciation for sleeping in) and got a few goodies!

The grand total for all of this was....$5.00! Most of the books I've purchased are from thrift stores, where you fill a bag up for a dollar. Some books are like brand new, salvageable, and some look like they were used as life rafts and food for mice. I usually walk out of these stores with 3 reusable bags full.  

Hope everyone has a great weekend!