Confessions from the Desk of a Future Teacher

Quick Job Update

2011-07-30T08:54:00.000-07:00

Update:

So it only took HR 7 days to call the person they picked, but the end result was it wasn't me. It was a girl who was in my cohort in college who also long-term subbed at that school. While I'm happy for my friend and glad it went to someone who I feel is deserving of the job, I'm incredibly sad that I was not chosen. School starts in two weeks and I'm running out of time (and hope) and am having to face the reality that I might not have my own classroom this coming school year. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do should I not find a full time teaching job this fall, but I guess need to start weighing the various options now.

________________________________________________

Hi Friends! Just thought I would pop in and let you all know that I have a job interview this coming Wednesday (Aug. 3rd). It is for a 2nd grade position at the school where I long-term subbed this spring. While it may not be my ideal school, it is a for a grade I would love to teach and beggars can't be choosers. While I'm super excited about the prospect of teaching 2nd grade and just having a job in general, I'm also super nervous. I know I'm not the best at interviewing and I'm really hoping that I don't mess up my one chance at a full time job (I don't really expect that I'll get any more calls for full-time positions).

If you are the praying type, please keep me in your prayers on Wednesday. And if you have any advice or thoughts, I'd love to hear that too.

I will be headed out of town immediately after the interview but I'll do my best to post an update if/when I hear something.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer (and the last little bit of it for some of you). Here's so hopefully having my own classroom for the 2011-1012 school year!

6 Simple Ways to Practice Sight Words

2011-07-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

This summer (as I have the past 4 summers) I'm nannying. This year I have two kids, one who is going into 2nd grade and the other who is going into kindergarden. The 2nd grader has summer school every morning and the soon-to-be kindergardener cannot wait to start school. So we've been getting a head start and I've started teaching her some sight words (the teacher in me just can't help it).

Here are some of our favorite simple ways to practice (note: it helps if you already have all the words written on index cards). We say-spell-say all of the words everyday.

1. Mail Call

Stuff one sight word card into an empty envelope. Then announce a "mail call" and allow the lucky recipient to open each envelope and read the word inside.

2. Shaving Cream

When I do this at school, I have the kids do it directly on their desks or on a large piece of construction paper. We've been doing it on a cookie sheet at home. You could also use a plastic tray.

Just squirt a little shaving cream on the desk/tray and have the kiddo smear it around and then start writing. For a little extra touch you can add food coloring (2-3 drops for a cereal size bowl full, trust me, or you'll end up with dyed hands) or a little glitter.

3. Scrambled Eggs

If you can find some plastic eggs somewhere is your holiday decorations stash pull them out and fill them with letters that spell sight words (if you don't have enough/small enough letters, just type the words and then cut them apart). I put mine in empty egg cartons and have the kids crack them over an old frying pan.

This is a really great activity to keep on hand for those times when you have an extra few minutes or to use as an early finishers activity. The letters I use in my eggs I use specifically for the eggs so I pre-make my cartons and have them ready and waiting.

4. Pick-up Sticks

Write your sight words on small popsicle sticks and place them, word side down, in a large plastic cup. Then give each player a smaller cup. Players take turns drawing a stick and reading the word. If the player gets the word correct, she adds it to her cup. If she doesn't get it correct, it goes back in the cup. (Once the players are very familiar with the words in the cup, I play that the player has to return all sticks if a word is missed). Person with the most sticks at the end wins.

5. Ladder Climb

Grab some paint chips and tap them together (leave a little room so you can fold it up). Get your sight words and a marker (penny, toy car, action figure, whatever) and try to climb your ladder. Choose a few more sight words than spaces (so for a ladder with 12 spaces, I choose about 15-18 words). You move up a space for every word you get correct and back one for every word missed. (Once the player is very familiar with the words in the stack, a missed word moves you back to the bottom or I choose the same number of words as spaces so a missed word means the player won't make it to the top. It's surprisingly motivating). The goal is to make it to the top of the ladder before you run out of words.

I make lots of ladders with different amounts of spaces and in different colors so that students can self select which ladder they want to climb. You can also use the wider cards (like the Behr ones from Home Depot) and race to the top with multiple players.

6. I Spy a Sight Word

Write a sight words on sticky-notes and stick them around the room/house. Then give your little detective a note pad and pencil and tell them to spy for sight words and write down what they find. Detective type accessories like a magnifying glass are highly suggested. You could also write down clues on the pad and then have the detective fill in the correct word (such as: this word starts with the letter /t/ and ends in /y/; this words is a color; this word rhymes with _____).

Whats a simple way you like to practice sight words?

Alphabet Soup No More

2011-07-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

In an effort to get better organized, I finally ended my run of keeping all my little plastic letters in a large plastic baggie. Nothing like desperately needing the letter /n/ and having to dig through the whole alphabet to try and find it.

I've been wanting to get one of those plastic bead organizers for a while, but the only thing has been that I can't find one large enough to hold my whole alphabet and I'd prefer to have it all together and not in a few different bins.

I never thought my search would end during a trip to Home Depot with the boyfriend. While he was staring at tow cables I got bored and began to wander and stumbled upon this!

:insert angels singing:

Sure, the whole alphabet isn't in one container, but it is contained in one easy to transport container which is perfect for carrying around the room. It's super light and would be easy for kids to carry as well. It can even be wall mounted should you so desire.

I was hoping to fit both my uppercase and lowercase letters, but it wasn't quite big enough for that so I settled for just lowercase letters. I really only use the lowercase letters, so for now all my uppercase letters will stay in a bag.

I labeled the inside of each section so that kiddos could easily put back letters in the correct spot and I'll eventually label the outside of each container with the letters it contains but alas, I ran out of a tape in my labeler.

I didn't quite need all four containers, so I added some pencils/pens, highlighters and post-it notes to the last box (not pictured, so you can stop squinting at the above picture).

I really hope it works out and I'm really, really hoping I get to give it a test run this fall (still no word yet on a job). For those interested in buying it's by a brand called WorkForce (real original right?) and I found it near all the screws and nails with like storage products.

Anyone else organizing this summer?

*Please excuse the cat in the pictures. I was doing this at home and she was trying to be my assistant.

Woodland Critters Multiple Choice Pinch Cards

2011-07-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

This spring my school went through a major paper "crisis." The higher ups decided we were consuming way to much paper and decided to start rationing it. Of course what they failed to see was that it was partly because of demands they were putting on their teachers, but we won't go there.

Left virtually paperless, we were left to figure out ways to collect data using little to no paper. One of my favorites is pinch cards. They are super easy to create and use. They require almost no prep should you choose and kids love using them.

I created a set of multiple choice question pinch cards with a woodland critters theme that I now have for sale in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Please take a look and consider purchasing them. If you would like another theme, just let me know and I'll see what I can do!

Oh the mess I have made...

2011-06-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

... in my dining room!

Since I don't know where I'll be teaching next year when school was out, so was all my stuff. Because the room I was in wasn't officially mine, I only brought in bits and pieces of my stuff. However, I also inherited a lot of things too from one teacher who was retiring and some other teachers who were making major grade level changes.

When it came time to pack up I realized my stuff had somehow multiplied and I had a lot to bring home! It all landed in my dining room and I'm procrastinating now because my bins in the basement with all my teaching stuff are/were already a mess from me digging through them all year to find the random items I wanted to take to school. I really don't feel like organizing and putting this all away, only to dig it back out again. But alas... I probably should.

Go on a Fact Treasure Hunt!

2011-06-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but my kiddos love, love, love doing anything with non-fiction text! I found these adorable pirate graphic from Scrappin' Doodles and thought they would be perfect for creating some pirate themed non-fiction text graphic organizers. I'm working on putting a whole set together, but here is a freebie for you while you wait!

Click on the preview above to download from my new Teachers Pay Teachers store. I've decided to start uploading anything I make to that site as it will allow for more teachers to be able to find and access my items. Please leave feedback and subscribe, I will return the favor if you are a seller as well.

Sorting Pockets

2011-06-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

For all you lucky ducks who are out of school already (6 more days!!!) and are planning for next year, here is something super simple to make.

I made these for my class to use for sorting activities. They are generic and can be used for any type of sort you want to create.

Each folder contains a envelope on the back to store the cards for the sort and 3 library pockets inside. The pockets have velcro on them so that I can change the sort categories at any time. We were identifying strategies we could use to help us solve addition facts quickly on the day I took these pictures. To create the cards for the sort all I do is create a table in Word or Pages (depending on whether I'm at school or home) and plug in what I want them to sort. These are an excellent center activity or a "I'm done, now what?" activity. Despite their simplicity the kids love them!

Free Dictionary Skills Activity!

2011-05-24T18:35:00.000-07:00

I'm on the prowl for fun activities to use at the end of the year as we slowly finished up our curriculum. This activity from the new blog The Lesson Plan Diva is perfect for that kind of thing. It's a skill that is necessary but typically addressed in regular curriculum. Visit her blog to get your own copy!

Clear the Board

2011-05-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

As we start to wind down the year, we've been pulling out more and more math games to play with the kids. Honestly at this point, no one, including the kids feel like doing any real work, so games it is!

My absolute favorite game is Clear the Board which I've taught to most of first grade and about a dozen second graders so far. It's great for that fact practice and an added bonus is that there is a built in number line for any needed help.

I did notice that it tends to take a little encouragement to get the kids to use more than one operation to remove chips from their board. However, every time I taught a group of kids how to play, there was always someone who was upset because they were certain their partner was cheating. Why? Their partner had barely any chips on his or her side and they had a ton left. Nine time out of 10 this is because one player was using both addition and subtraction to remove chips, while the other was using only addition. I usually used this to make a point that this game required the use of both if you wish to win.

A few of my second graders are also starting to understand multiplication. I told them they are allowed to use multiplication to remove chips, but only if they are willing to help their partner use multiplication. All were willing and the result was new students beginning to gain an understanding of a new concept. Yahoo!

Click here to download the game board and click here to download the directions. You'll also need two 6-sided dice per partnership (I also heart double dice and so do my kiddos) and manipulatives of some sort. Standard size chips are actually too big and I keep meaning to bring in beans to use instead.

Happy gaming!

Practicing Sentence Structure

2011-05-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

A few of my special friends have some really issues with sentence structure. They can verbalize thoughts, but getting it on paper is next to impossible.

We read a story about a dog that was pretending he was under sea while he was taking a bath the other day. However this is what I got for sentences on our graphic organizer, even though they had just verbalized sentences to me.

"dog sea Bath"

"bathtub In sea dog the Pretending"

"dog a bath the sea"

Yeah.... we have some work to do.

One activity we've been doing is "jigsaw sentences." I got this idea from Peggy Kaye's Games for Reading book (must buy book, by the way!).

She gives examples of sentences in her book, and I just copied those because I didn't feel like coming up with my own. You can of course simply create your own if you desire.

I placed each sentence in an envelope and placed a dot sticker in the corner to indicate difficulty. Blue sentences are the easiest, then green, yellow, and red. The basket is just one of those narrow pencil baskets.

When they open an envelope they take out each piece and lay it out. I have them read the "sentence" then make their adjustments. Some are better at this than others. I've been trying to point out that sentences always start with a capital letter and end with punctuation, but not all of them remember this. Some will only move one word/phrase before reading again, while others will rearrange a few.

Eventually we land on a sentence that makes sense. If they are working with me then we just read the sentence till it makes sense, however if they are working independently, I have them record their completed sentences so I can see what they are doing.

One big benefit I have noticed is because we have to read the sentence over and over again, they've added some words to their sight word vocabulary. Yay for double-duty activities!

I also have strips with the beginning, middle, and end of sentences on them. Some put together might be silly, but will make sense, others will not. I can't seem to find the time time to cut them out of the lamination, however. Haha, one day.

Has sentence structure ever been difficult for your students(s)/child? What did you do?

The Great Dry-Erase Experiment

2011-05-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

Okay so it really wasn't all that "great," but it was interesting to discover the results.

In this post I mentioned I was trying out this new and revolutionary product called- dry-erase crayons.

*insert "oooohhh's" and "aaahhh's"*

I was hoping it would change my experience with dry-erase boards forever, and now the results are in.

I tested the crayons versus regular old Expo dry-erase markers and regular Crayola crayons since I had heard rumors that they worked as well. The white board was just any old classroom white board. I didn't clean it since I figured a dirty board is more realistic and would give more realistic results.

So here it is, left to right a blue Crayola crayon, a blue Crayola dry-erase crayon, and a blue Expo dry-erase marker. You can see that the marker is the darkest, although I thought the dry-erase crayon was plenty dark to be practical. The regular crayon is the lightest in color, but is still visible enough to be acceptable.

Here is what they look like erased. I didn't apply a lot of pressure and it might be hard to see but the marker cleared the cleanest. The crayons require a little more effort to erase.

My conclusion is sort of mixed. I like the crayons, however I found for the most part that primary students tend to press down way to hard when writing which makes the crayon hard to erase sometimes. When I used them, with a lighter and more appropriate pressure, erasing was no problem. You could however, turn it into a lesson on proper pressure when writing.

The regular crayons got really mixed results. The best results were with dark crayon colors, and all the crayons tested were the Crayola brand because well, they aren't lying when they say on the box they are preferred by teachers. I'd be interested to see the results with other brands. They do require that you press down harder when writing, but honestly my kiddos do that already so it wasn't an issue. However the color is still lighter and if you use it for "every pupil response" it might be hard to read those in the back.

One thing that I saw in the reviews were issues with using markers on a board after the dry-erase crayons had been used. Not once did I have an issue with this, so I'm not really sure whether this is actually an issue or not.

So there you have it. Yes, they work, but no, they are not perfect. I'm still debating what I will choose to use in the fall, but I have a feeling it will be a mix of both.

So after reading this, what do you think? Will you stick with your markers or give the crayons a shot?

Teaching money makes my head spin

2011-05-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

Guess what?! Despite the fact that we have 34 days of school left (yes, I just counted) we will finish our math curriculum on Wednesday.

And do you know what that means?

IT'S TIME TO PARTY!

Okay well sort of. We will party because we will have completed all the curriculum for the year, but we will also party because it's means we can now move on to practice what my firstie friends really need to practice and have a little fun too. (Can we say buh-bye workbooks?!)

Up first-ish is money. I swear, I love, love teaching my little friends, but when it comes to teaching money (and time), I just want to run screaming to 5th grade (of course there I'd have to teach positive and negative integers, so maybe I take that back).

I've learned my kiddos l-o-v-e using spinners (that is once I taught them how to hold two corners with one hand, while they spin with the other). I bought some clear plastic spinners from Nasco and we've been using them with Jessica Meacham's spin and write games, so I decided to carry over the love to math.

I created a basic coin spinner, which they will use with a variety of game sheets depending on their level of money understanding. Eventually (read: this summer) I'll load all of the spinner varieties and game sheets into one document it and upload it, but for now, here is one of the basic spinner templates and game sheets.

(Click picture to download)

I created this game because some of my special friends are still having difficulty recalling the names and values of the the four basic coins. Hopefully the constant repetition of this game will help drill those names and values in their cute little brains.

To play, the students take turns spinning the spinner and matching the coin spun to a coin value on their game sheet. First person to fill an entire column wins. Or to make it last longer you could say the whole board, or give a specific amount of money to be reached. It could even be played solo. Simple as that!

Now if only teaching money was that simple...

Have you finished your curriculum yet? What have you been doing/ what are you going to do when you do?

Dry-erase Board Erasers - Cheap!

2011-04-25T08:28:00.000-07:00

The math curriculum (Everyday Math) used in the county I teach in is heavy on "slate work." A.k.a. using dry-erase boards. I've seen a lot of the teachers buy those cute little mini erasers from places like Lakeshore, however that can add up quick, and end up relatively "expensive" when there is a cheaper alternative - felt.

(Off topic- do you love my bright, lime green counter tops or what?!)

I had my felt left over from a project I did back when I was first in teacher school, so my erasers where free, however, felt is fairly cheap, and if you buy it off the bolt with a coupon, it's even cheaper. Like a penny an eraser (according to my highly mathematical calculations). They work just as well as store bought erasers and it's no big deal when someone loses one.

My next dry-erase board experiment is dry erase crayons. I saw them on Amazon.com, and my box is due to arrive Tuesday and I'm excited to test them out. I've also heard regular crayons work too. I'll be doing some experimenting, because I'll be honest, I hate dry-erase markers. They are expensive, smelly, the kids are always losing the caps and then they dry out, or are pressing to hard and pushing the points in. I have my fingers crossed that the crayons work.

Have you ever tried dry erase crayons? Please, do tell!

Colorful Number Grids

2011-04-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

In the county I teach in we use Everyday Math, which I've found is a bit heavy on the use of number grids. This was sort of new to me since I can't really recall ever using one as an elementary student (I was a Saxon Math kid). Additionally many of my "special friends" are allowed the use of a number grid as one of their accommodations.

One issue many of them were having however was sweeping forwards or back along the grid when skip counting, adding or subtracting. Unfortunately many of them don't quite understand number patterns well enough yet to realize when they've skipped a decade, etc.

I decided to give them a colored visual to help them connect each end and hopefully reduce simple errors. So far it seems to be working. I never explained how to "match" the colors when sweeping, but most picked up on it, and have been making fewer errors.

It also helps them to correct a sweeping error, such as if they are sweeping back from 41, which is yellow, but land on 30, which is pink, they realize this can't be right. I'm hoping this will help some of them notice that patterns more as well.

I've also made a few which highlight skip counting patterns, as well as having the 0 and 1's columns colored. My next project is to do some 200's charts for my second grade friends who do fine going forward, but tend to get loss when needing to go backwards for subtraction problems.

If you are in need of a hundred's chart, mine came out of a Scholastic book, however most math curriculums have one ready to copy and you can find plenty by just googling.

Have you ever modified something for your students (special education or not) that has helped them better understand a concept or complete a task?

Home Literacy Kits

2011-04-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

The school I'm currently at serves a military base. Many of our students are very transient, coming from other states and even other countries. Some haven't ever had a full grade level in one school, and others, although U.S. citizens, are better versed in a language other than English.

In the 1st grade class I am in, this has proved to be a big problem. I have students with special needs and/or learning disabilities, but I also have students who never went to Pre-K or Kindergarden or who attended a Kindergarden that was more like a Pre-K in the state of Maryland. One of my students came from a state where 1st grade was more like our Pre-K, and thus when she came in November, she didn't even know her whole alphabet. Yikes!

One of my (hopefully) solutions was to create home literacy kits. Many studies show that students who receive support/practice at home excel more than those who do not. My hope is that if I provide the resources, then maybe some of my student's parents/guardians will start practicing with them at home.

Here is what I put in the kits.

The green paper is the letter which explained the point of the kit and the importance of home practice in increasing reading ability and fluency. I also explained each item in the kit, and if needed, how to use it. The yellow stock is a decoding strategies sheet. Unfortunately I got it from another teacher and I'm not sure where she got it from. However, I found some cute bookmarks here and this page has a couple options as well.

Next is the orange sheet, which is just a list of books good for first graders. I found this list by just doing a quick google search, and a lot of schools have ones that are available to use. Lastly, there is the blue stock, which is a list of activities that can be done to practice sight words/spelling words (click here to download). I actually had a more extensive list, however because many of my students are from households on very fixed and limited budgets, I chose to keep to activities that would require very minimal resources.

I also included various readers. I'm not completely sure how much age-appropriate children's literature my students have access to, so I provided it. Plus, I don't know what it is about paper mini-books, but my kids are obsessed with them. The books on the top left are from the wonderful Cherry Carl. My favorite thing about her mini books are the ease to make them. If I remember to tell the copier to sort, then it takes me about 10 minutes to staple and cut a class set of books. The book in the top right is from Scholastic's Word Family Tales Teaching Guide and the books on the bottom right are from Scholastic's Sight Word Readers Teaching Guide. I tried to include a mix of books based on sight words as well as books focusing on word families.

The last thing I included in my kit was the ring with the sight words on them. I used the cards I had created for my memory game and just tossed the instruction cards (click here to download pre-primer cards and here to download primer cards). I went ahead and made enough copies for each of my students to have both complete sets. At the end of the school year I'll just send anything left over home and cross some fingers that maybe they'll master them over the summer.

It took a little pre-planning to figure out the best way to efficiently manage these rings. First thing I did was cut out (over a thousand cards, with the help of my 16 year old brother), hole punch (with the help of my boyfriend), and "file" each word in an envelope.

Then I created each child's ring. For most of them I added words in consecutive, alphabetical order, such as words "a-jump". Some got more, some got less depending on their current level and needs. But for a couple of my "super special" friends, their rings were completely customized. To keep track of this, every child got a name label on the back of the "a" card, and I jotted down what I sent home on one of my data collection sheets (just a table with their names listed down the side). In my letter I instructed parents to send in their child's ring when more words needed to be added, so the labels keep me from mixing up whose ring is whose and my list let's me know where I left off for each kiddo.

Lastly, I bagged it up, and stuck another name label on the bag and they were ready to head home.

Phew! I know that seems like a lot, but it really wasn't that bad. Thanks to a very faithful parent volunteer, the help of my brother and boyfriend it probably only took me about 12 hours to get it all together (that includes the making of a few hundred additional books which are ready to be sent home when needed). Obviously you don't have to make everything in one fell swoop, however I like knowing that all I have to do is grab an envelope or pull out a stack of books from my crate to add to the kits. All the hard work is done.

Hopefully all this hard work will pay off, even if it's only for a few children. Only time will tell.

14 ways to build a classroom library without ever paying full price for a book

2011-04-21T06:06:00.000-07:00

How's that for a word-y, yet descriptive title?

I've been collecting books for about 2 years now, despite having only graduated in December. It was advice given to me by a teacher during my junior year of college and I'm glad I took it. Even though I have yet to get my own classroom, I have over 300 titles to add to it whenever that day comes. I plan on doing more shopping this summer, so that number will probably grow before the fall.

Setting up a classroom library is not cheap however, and I think most teachers these days find themselves funding their own libraries (which is why my teacher suggested "start now" to ease the financial pain). There are many ways to do it however, without spending an arm and a leg and getting more books for you buck. Here are some of the ways I've collected books (along with some I haven't used yet, but have known other teachers to have success with).

Ask for donations If you have family and friends with children, ask if they would be willing to donated books they no longer want to your classroom. Unless they are like my mother (who is hoarding all of our childhood books for the grandkids who are still years off), then this is a great way to gather up a bunch of childhood favorites for $0.
Look into local book banks If you live in a major city (I live in Baltimore), see if they have any sort of book bank. We have one in Baltimore that gives away free books to anyone who shows up at their door. I've found copies of books that have never been read, along with large collections (I have many of the Junie B. Jones books thanks to a girl named Eva who donated her collection) and paid nothing for them. In return however, I have donated my time to help organize and shelve incoming donations. It's a win-win because as I shelve I get to go through all the books and pick out what I want to keep.
Yard sales If you can't seem to get books for free, this is my #1 way to build up a library on the cheap. I use Craigslist to plot my route, looking for sales advertising children's items. I usually find a few more along the way. Church or neighborhood flea markets are a great way to hit a lot of people at once. Children's books aren't a top yard sale seller, so most people are happy to see them go. It also means that you don't need to be up at the crack of dawn, the closer you get to noon, when most people are getting ready to close up shop, the better deals you can get because people don't want to pack it back up. If you let people know you are a teacher, many are willing to let huge stacks go for under $5. I went out one day last summer with $40 and came back with 125 books, the majority like new.
Library Sales Some libraries hold sales a few times a year to help clear out any books that have been removed from their shelves. My local library system does not do this, but check and see if yours does.
Large Scale Used Book Sales If you have the patience to dig through piles of books, this is a good way to hunt through loads of books in once place. Many times these sales will benefit a cause, so it's sort of a two for one deal.
http://www.betterworldbooks.com/ I have yet to purchase anything from them, however, the prices seem great, you can't beat free shipping, and it's a good way to add specific titles to your library since it's not as hit and miss like yard sales and used books sales might be. This is how my library sells all their unwanted books and you can search by zip code so that your sales benefit locations near you.
Ebay.com Look for book lots, and start bidding. Watch out for shipping however, and remember to factor that into your costs. Many times I'll spot a good deal, only to see that the shipping costs no longer make it a good deal.
Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc. I haven't done too much book hunting at these locations, but I have seen books there, and just like at yardsales, they aren't something that moves fast. Only difference is you can't negotiate price.
Overstock.com I just looked and there currently are over 9,000 children's books for under $5, many which are popular titles. Shipping is always $2.95 (sometimes less), so you'll never spend an arm and a leg on shipping there.
Daedalusbooks.com Good deals on some popular books titles. Shipping is more than Overstocks, but still not enough to not make it a good deal. *** Note that the site contains adult media, so I would not recommend allowing children to browse it freely.***
Used book stores I tend to find that this is too pricey of a way to add a large volume of books, but it's still a good option to consider.
Scholastic Warehouse Sales I attended one last May and I would say it's worth the trip to add new and popular titles to your library. You can also sign up to volunteer (I bagged books at checkout) and you get reimbursed $10 of books an hour. I got $170 worth of books for $70, but had a $50 voucher from my volunteer hours, so I only paid $30. Can't beat that for over 30 brand new books. And it was a lot of fun to chat with both the fellow teacher volunteers, the teachers coming through checkout, as well as the many homeschool parents who showed up.
Discount Chain Stores Places like Marshalls, T.J.Maxx, and Ross will sometimes carry children's books. Next time your out shopping, check in the children's section and see what they have.
Amazon.com My family buys a ton from Amazon, and you can sometimes find good deals on popular (and not so popular) titles. You'll probably want to avoid buying a lot from private vendors, as shipping will add up quick, and ignore the penny books, as you'll still get charged $7+ for shipping on each book. We have an Amazon Prime membership, so I usually just stick to books that will ship for free that way.

There are a few things that I have learned to keep in mind while shopping for books:

Avoid buying really popular titles/series from anywhere but yard sales (think Magic Treehouse, Junie B. Jones, Bernstein Bears, etc.), as they are really easy to find there, and much cheaper than say buying at a used book store or on Amazon.com, etc.
No matter how good of a deal, avoid wasting your money on titles/series that may be outdated. You can find a healthy serving of Lizzie McGuire and Mary Kate and Ashley books at yard sales, however, most of your students will have never seen those shows and they won't have the same appeal they did even 5 years ago.
On the contrary, snag books that will be relevant to your kids today, if the price is right. I found a bunch of High School Musical and Hannah Montana books one time for a $1 each. I was working in a 3rd grade classroom one time and they couldn't wait to get their hands on them, even the reluctant readers.
Check copyright dates in nonfiction books. It's usually fairly obvious by the photos they contain how old they are, and for certain topics, the information is good forever, but for many topics, it's changing quickly, and a book that is 10 years old will contain a lot of outdated information.

How are you building your library? What's the best deal you've ever found?

I'm now a teacher... sort of!

2011-04-17T18:16:00.000-07:00

So after a 10 month hiatus, I'm pleased to announce that I'm back, and now a teacher! But, it's only sort of...

Thanks to this awesome job market and the fact that I'm a December graduate, I knew for a fact that I would not find a full time job. So my best shot was a long-term substitute position. And who knew even those were so competitive. Who knew the teaching market was so competitive in general.

After almost half a dozen interviews, all which turned up nothing, I sort of came to the conclusion that maybe I'm not so great of an interviewer. Not to brag, but I know I'm an awesome teacher. I got some of the highest "marks" that my supervisor had ever seen during my year of student teaching. However I seem to have issues conveying that, I guess.

Anyways, just as I was about to start looking into other non-teaching options, I got a call on a Thursday afternoon from an assistant principal who needed a sub for a 1st/2nd grade special education teacher. The kicker, she needed to me to start the next day. Needless to say, I mumbled something that came out "okay, I'll be there" in my state of shock and showed up the next morning. Originally, it was only for that Friday and the next week, however they suspected that it would be longer, so they wanted to get a certified teacher in as soon as they could. Sure enough, I've now been there over a month, and although supposedly my time will end at the beginning of May, everyone is fairly certain I will be there till the end of the year.

I've learned a ton during my time there, especially considering I'm only a general elementary teacher and not a special educator. The other (amazing and awesome) special education teachers have generously given me many mini crash courses in special eduction 101. I love the teachers I work with (and those that I don't), although I'll just be nice and just say the administration is less than stellar. Which is a bummer since I'm told about half of the staff have requested transfers and I know there is a strong chance that I'd be a first pick to fill one of those vacancies.

All my new little friends are awesome and I've quickly fallen in love with them, which will make it hard if I have to up and leave them in just a couple weeks. They've also really challenged me, and caused me to lose lots of sleep at night. Where some of them are academically (and emotionally and socially for a couple) is down right frightening and I worry so much about their future. It's also given me a sense of urgency and I am doing all I can right now to hopefully better them for their inevitable futures.

So I'm back now and I've got loads of stuff to share and thought it was due time that I get back to blogging here. Especially now that I'm a teacher... sort of.

Kill the Math Drill

2010-06-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

We've all done them, we've all probably given them, and I'm pretty sure we could all say that we hated them, and they never really worked. You know, those dreaded math drills, where you did flash cards, and sheets and sheets of fact problems. Can anyone say booorrrring!

I can't say I was all that surprised when my boyfriend's sister emailed me asking for suggestions on more fun ways to do math drills since her daughter gets that glazed over look after about a minute or two. Hm, sounds like someone else I know.... just ask my mother.

Truth is, math drills are not fun, and research has shown time and time again that they don't work. I can definitely say I'm living proof of that, and I'm sure a lot of you could say the same thing. So from now on, let's plan on killing the math drill and replacing it with something a lot more fun.

But replace it with what you ask? Well, games of course! What kid (or adult) doesn't like games? I certainly have yet to meet one. So plan on tossing those fact sheets in the recycling bin, but do hold onto those flash cards, because you will need them, but not for drilling!

To play most of these games, you'll need to following items. These all are good items to have around for any math skill, so if you do not already own them, I strongly recommend adding them to your resources.

Flash cards of all sorts (addition,subtraction,multiplication, and division) If you don't own any, you can easily make some with index cards. This time of year you can also find some at places like the Dollar Store and the Target Dollar Spot. (Don't go to a teacher store for these! You'll pay way to much.)
Manipulatives/Counters If you have a student new to addition/subtraction, etc. keep some manipulatives handy to they can work the problem and check their work until they are more comfortable with the facts. You'll also need some for some of the games. You don't necessarily need the expensive store bought manipulatives either, dry beans, flat glass marbles, and poker/bingo chips all work great and can be found at the dollar store or even in your own home. Pennies also work great if you have a lot lying around. You can even make some with paint chips.
Dominos Always good to have a set on hand.
Dice/Number Generators

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Clear the Board
This is by far my favorite game to practice facts. One, because it's really easy to disguise the fact practice with this game, and two because it requires both players to constantly be thinking, because you want to make sure your partner isn't cheating and adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing correctly. And in all honesty, this game is addicting, my fellow college classmates and I did not want to stop playing.

To play this game you'll need a game board (download here), game instructions (download here), 24 counters, and two number generators.

Follow the Leader
Grab a set of dominoes and the sorting board (download here). Lay all the dominoes face down on the table and then choose one to be the leader and place in the leader position on the board. Find the total number of pips (technical name for the little white dots) on the leader. (Note: Don't have the students write down the total, if they forget it, then it just means that's one more opportunity to practice a fact). Then flip over the remaining dominoes one at a time and sort according to their total in relationship to the leader.

Graphing
Kids love to graph and graphing totals is a great way to reinforce facts while doing a little work with data collecting and probability. There are many ways you can do it. You can use dominoes, a pair of number generators, and even flash cards if you want to. Have students add up the total, and record it on the graph (download here). Make the graphs reusable by using linking/Unifix cubes to record, or laminate or slip into a sheet protector and use white board markers. Be sure to discuss results when your finished!

Here and There
You can make the basic clear the board game more advanced by pulling out flash cards whose answer equals one through six and using those instead of a number generator. (Click here to download game board template and instructions).

Domino Train
Make a train with a set of numbers by requiring the next domino's total/difference to either be one less or one more than the one before. (You'll want to have at least 3 or 4 sets to get a really good train going).

Total of my first is 6, one less is 5, one more is 6, one more is 7, then I made a mistake
and did 2 less is 5, and then another mistake with 5 again (I lost my brain apparently),
one less is 4, and one less is 3. You get the point I hope.

Addition/Subtraction Bingo
Just like a regular game of bingo, only instead of calling out N56, you'll be adding or subtracting with flash cards. You'll need a set of flash cards, game board (download pre-made boards here, or blank boards here), and a bunch of manipulatives to mark those spots.

I Have/Who Has
This is a really fun game to play when you have 5-10 minutes to kill, but only after you've taught it and practiced it a few times. To play, distribute the deck of cards out to all the players (it's okay if some people have two). Choose a player to start and have them read their card (both the "I have" and the "Who has" parts), then the person with the "who has" answer, reads their card and so on and so forth until it makes it back to the person who started.

For example: "I have 6. Who has 2+3?" "I have 5. Who has 5+6?" I have 11. Who has 9+1?" .... "I have 2. Who has 3+3."

You can make your own game cards using index cards (I suggest writing out all the cards on paper first to check your accuracy). There are also some additional play ideas and some downloadable cards here. I've also seen card sets available for purchase at various teacher stores.

Fact Family Triangles
Fact Family triangles were something new to me this year, but I really liked how they allowed students to see the relationships between sets of numbers. One of my first graders favorite things to do was to quiz each other with these triangles. Our sets came out the curriculum (Everyday Mathematics), but you can easily create your own. The total is always at the top of the triangle and noted by a dot. Two numbers that make up the total are in the other two corners.

When quizzing each other, one student holds up a triangle, covering one corner of the triangle. The student then must find the covered up number by using the other two numbers to solve. If you want to practice addition, have students always cover the top number (the one with the dot), and for subtraction, choose one of the bottom numbers. Or if they need work with both, tell students to keep each other on their toes and switch it up.

Students always love a race, so I suggest pairing up students, giving each pair a set of triangles and setting a timer. Let each students have a turn quizzing the other, and then see who collected more right answers. Kids also love playing with the teacher, and I am always sure to truly play, even if that means I beat the student. Then I usually tell them it's because I've practiced my facts, and boy does that motivate them to keep practicing! They love it when they can eventually beat the teacher because they've practiced enough.

Top is covered, so you must add the two numbers.
6+4=10 which is the hidden number.

Top number is shown, so must subtract bottom number from top number.
10-4=6 which is the hidden number.

Near Doubles Hunt
This isn't really a game as much as it as mnemonic device of sorts to help students solve facts quickly. Students usually are taught their doubles facts early on and tend to remember them better than the rest. By having them note facts that are near doubles, they can use that knowledge to help them solve more facts.

Have students take a set of flash cards or dominoes and pull out all the doubles. Then have them hunt for the near doubles to match them with (You'll want to have at least 3 or 4 sets on hand for this.)

Near doubles for 5+5 with dominoes.

War
I'm sure you have played the card game of war at least once in your life. Throw a little twist in by using flash cards with the largest sum/difference, etc. being the winning card. To play split the deck between two players. Then both the players draw their top cards, find the sum/difference, etc. and then determine who's is larger. The person with the larger number gets to keep both cards. If both cards equal the same amount, set those two cards aside and then each player lays 3 cards face down in from of them and then flips over a fourth. The winning card gets all 10 cards. Play continues until someone get's all the cards in the deck or time is up and the person with most cards wins.

I found this card set at the Dollar Store I believe. It's by School Zone.

Online Games
There are tons of online math games that your kids can play. Try the Math Arcade at Funbrain and Math Learning Games for Kids to get you started. If you have other recommendations, let me know!

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And there you have it! Plenty of ideas to keep boring math drills at bay. If you have any more ideas, feel free to leave a comment or write a blog post and I'll add your link to the list!

Library Thing

2010-06-14T13:52:00.000-07:00

I've stumbled upon this really cool site called Library Thing. I wish I could credit someone for my discovery, however, I cannot recall where I found the link to it. I found it somewhere while searching for various ways to organize my classroom library. Although I don't actually have a classroom to place my 300+ books in just yet, I wanted to organize it in some way so I could see which areas I was lacking books (I'm on a book buying kick, and I'm trying to at least be semi-smart with my purchases.)

I had thought about making an Excel spread sheet for all my books, but the idea of entering alllllllll that information in manually completely freaked me out. In walks Library Thing.

My library has grown a lot since it's humble beginnings a year ago.
Back in the day, it all fit in a large tub, with various other items.

Library Thing is free for up to 200 books, or $10 a year, or $25 for a lifetime membership after that. It's so easy to use, and it took me, at the most, 3 hours to enter in all 300+ books. All you do is type in the books title, and it pulls up a variety of choices for you to choose from. When you find the one you want, you just click it, and viola!, it's been added to your library. You can also add tags to note various things about the book; I noted when I had more than one copy, for example. I also took the time to go in and change the covers to match the one I actually had. Some of the copies I own of very popular books (think Beverly Cleary) are old, so I had to change the cover back to one from the '90's or even the '80's in some cases. This makes it a lot easier to search and then go find the books, since I know I tend to skim for a cover that looks like what I saw.

The one thing I really, really love about Library Thing is that it's so searchable without me having to go through and make it that way. It adds all the info I could need for most all books (some books just aren't popular enough), including the author, illustrator, major themes and topics, and a lot more, which I can then search.

It can also be shared, and others can see what is in your library. Stop by and take a look and my library and share the link to yours!

Do you store any information on your books electronically? If so, how do you do it?

The Creative and Organized Teacher

2010-06-03T06:31:00.000-07:00

I've recently been on the lookout for great books to add to my resource library. Best way to do it, I've found is by checking things out from the library to "try before you buy."

Recently I've come across two books (part of the same series from the same authors) that I though where just amazing, and two that I think any teacher, but especially a new teacher (or possibly a teacher making a grade change), would want to keep around.

The first one is The Creative Teacher. This book is full of great ideas and a wealth of ready to go projects and reproducibles. This is the kind of book that would be especially great to have around this time of the year when you've burned through all your curriculum and still have a couple weeks to go. There are also a lot of projects that are very self contained and would be great for emergency substitute plans. The homeschooler would also have a lot of fun with this book, especially if your a homeschooler who prefers to make your own curriculum.

The Organized Teacher is also a great book, and is more of a teacher reference, with things like checklists, assessments, and other basic info. The veteran teacher may not find to much in this book that they already don't have, but a new teacher, like myself, would love this book. Probably the most helpful thing in there is all the checklists for things like the beginning of the year, back to school night, field trips, evaluations, parent conferences, etc. I can see them being a huge time saver, especially if your school doesn't provide you with some sort of checklist itself. The homeschooler probably wouldn't find this book as useful or worth buying, however, it would be worth it to see if your library had it, to see if there is anything that would be useful to you.

Although I just made copies galore out of these two books, I certainly wouldn't mind adding them to my resource library. If you know someone who is graduating and about to have a classroom of their own, both of these books would make wonderful gifts.

Do you have a favorite resource book you think I should check out? Let me know! I'd love your suggestions.

* Disclaimer: I was not paid to review either of these books. If you click on the links, and buy the books through those links, I will make a small commission through Amazon.com's affiliate program. I will be grateful if you choose to purchase that way.

20 things I learned about 1st graders

2010-05-27T16:35:00.000-07:00

Here are some things I learned about 1st graders this semester:

If tattling on each other was a sport, they would win, hands down.
The answer to 8+3 is now "he's touching me!" and no longer 11. Might want to note that change.
They can manage to destroy to points on pencils (and pencils themselves for that matter) without actually touching the pencils. It's an amazing skill, really, it is.
The words "hurry" and "quickly" have no meaning what so ever.
Justin Bieber is a hot topic among the girls.
Justin "Beaver" is a hot topic among the boys.
Keeping a secret is not possible for some, if not all.
In fact secrets only last about 10 minutes.
"Ms. G. we made you something for teacher appreciation week!" will be followed by a chorus of "Shhh.... you weren't suppose to tell her!"
Everyone will need to use the bathroom during math.
Some will need to use the bathroom twice during math.
Best friends change on a day to day basis.
A broken best friend relationship can just be the result of "I just didn't have time to spend with you today. We only get 20 minutes of recess and I wanted to see other people," said in all seriousness.
That's an acceptable excuse.
When you say "Clean out your seat pockets, please," you might as well say it in another language. They cannot comprehend the meaning.
In the afternoon, they interpret the words "Go to the carpet for a read aloud," as "Go to the carpet and let's roll around and accidentally kick each other in the face."
You can estimate you will tie approximately 46 pairs of shoelaces a day. You only have a class of 17.
If they had their choice of $1,000 dollars or help the teacher pass out papers, they would pick pass out papers.
They will ask you once a week if you have any pets. When you say, "Yes, one cat and one dogs." They go, "the cat's name is Esther and the dog's name is Holly," and move on.
I totally love first graders!

Hi Friends!

2010-05-25T16:34:00.000-07:00

Back again, back again!

I survive the semester and am quite pleased with how it all went. I could not have asked for a better mentor teacher and group of girls to get through the semester with either. I certainly learned a lot about teaching, and can't wait to head back this fall for my full time teaching.

So who else is done school? Almost done?

I always find it funny how they keep kids in school here until mid-June. No teacher really does anything productive those last 6 weeks or so. Most of them have the kids cleaning and organizing the last couple weeks. I guess you could chalk that up as life skills. Right?

I have tons of fun ideas, lessons, and other stuff to share with you all, so stay tuned!

I hit the books...

2010-03-01T18:54:00.000-08:00

... but the books hit back.

Hard.

Sorry for being so MIA around here lately. I'm hard at work trying to juggle teaching two full days a week and then having four additional classes on top of that with tons of work to do for each of those.

I wanted to pop in and give you a brief update though. I'm teaching 1st grade this semester and I absolutely love it. I'm thinking 1st grade might be the grade for me. I always sort of wanted to steer clear of 1st grade because I was scared of teaching reading, but it actually doesn't seem to be that bad.

I'm becoming a pro at cranking out the two page, single spaced, lesson plans were required to write. One of my biggest fears going into this semester was how in the world was I going to write all that times 10 each week, but I've gotten to be an old pro, and have learned how to copy and paste things together pretty quick.

These days I pretty much do nothing but write lesson plans and other homework. I write out a 3x5 index cards worth of school related items to do pretty much everyday. It's rather insane, but so far I haven't minded it. I think I psyched myself out beyond belief about this semester and now I'm thinking it's not so bad. Much better than last spring. But at the same time, I've also learned how to be more organized and stay on top of things.

I'm almost halfway done, which seems crazy to believe. Of course, all the snow we had did help, considering schools were out for 10 days. I'll try to pop in a couple more times and give an update and be back to regular posting once my classes are over. I have tons to share!

Until then...

Valentine's Card Round-up

2010-02-09T09:29:00.000-08:00

This is my first year being a teacher in a classroom when Valentine's Day rolls around.

We'll probably be celebrating on Monday, considering I don't think we'll make it into school all week with all this snow. (We have 3ft on the ground and 2 more ft coming today).

Now is not the time I wanted to venture out to grab some Valentines, so I decided to look around on the internet to see if I could find some free ones. Turns out, there are plenty!

I'm going to be giving out these from Secret Agent Josephine.

There are loads of others out there, so here are a few lists in case your in need of some last minute Valentine's too!

Living Locurto's List

The Long Thread's List

Fun Idea's from Design Mom

Treat Bags and Boxes

Happy Valentine's Day!

Overwhelmed but not

2010-02-01T13:19:00.000-08:00

I can now say I've completed one week of my 15 weeks "due" for this semester.

I always hate the first week of school. The week where you get a thick syllabus from a teacher times four or five, and sometimes six. It's so overwhelming when teachers start talking about all these projects, that will require you to give up on having a social life to complete, and that's only for one class.

This year I'm attempting not to have a repeat of last spring. Level one (junior fall technically) is the first semester in the actual education program. It's also the semester when they attempt to weed out those who are not serious about becoming a teacher. They do this by piling on so much that it is, literally, impossible to keep up. Only those serious enough about being a teacher, would actually put up with it. In order to move on to level two, you must complete all of level one, so this also means you can split it up or drop something. It's a do or die sort of deal.

They accept 100 students each semester for level one, divided into 5 cohorts of 20 each. By level two, they know they only need to plan for 4 cohorts because they will have lost at least 20 students. And for level three, there are a total of 56 of us survivors left. That probably tells you how well their methods work.

They almost lost me last spring.

It was so overwhelming, so difficult, and so stressful, that I really second guessed whether I wanted to be a teacher this badly. But every time I thought about quitting, I remembered how much I enjoyed my internship and working with the kids. Obviously I just needed to suck it up and push onward. Which is what I did.

Level two is a breeze because we get shipped out of the education department to the math and science departments, where the professors are cooler, I mean, assign less work.

So that leads me to level three. The joyous year of two days worth of student teaching and 3 classes, plus the "class" that goes along with your teaching (a.k.a just more work). This year I am determined not to have a repeat of last spring.

Although I was feeling overwhelmed all through the week, I sat down this weekend, with all those syllabi, and planned, planned, planned. Instead of just writing down when things were due, I backtracked and gave myself tasks to do each day so that I was working slowly to the final result, instead of flipping the page, seeing it's due in 3 days, and panicking.

So far it's working, because I don't feel overwhelmed anymore. I have my tasks to accomplish each day, and I am forcing myself to do it. And so far I've knocked off everything due today, and tomorrow for myself. Which is why I have time to write this post.

It feels good to actually be ahead for once in my life. Being ADHD, I tend to need direction, or nothing gets accomplished. Which is why giving myself tasks each day seems like it will work. By knowing my direction for the day, and spreading it all out, no one day is worse than another, I think it will keep me on task and from buring out.

At least I hope it will.

But ask me during the spring break that I don't actually get (thanks to student teaching) and see what I say.

Down to the Wire

2010-01-18T18:03:00.000-08:00

This is it, my last week of freedom.

Or semi-freedom at least.

It hasn't felt very much like freedom with all the things I've been trying to get done.

Only difference is that I don't get downgraded a letter grade each day I'm late.

I had big plans to put a lot of new stuff up on this blog, but as you can see, that didn't happen.

I seem to have a hard time keeping up with two blogs.

And to think I'm thinking of starting a full-fledged photography business, launching in late spring.

Which will include, of course, another blog.

If your getting bored, you can always visit my other blog, which I tend to do a little bit better at keeping up with.

Right now, I'm just trying to get my life in order before it get's taken over with school again.

Okay scratch that. I'm always trying to get my life in order.

And I'm down to the wire.

The Amazing Bead Manipulative

2010-01-11T07:47:00.000-08:00

My math professor is a genus.

I sometimes wonder is she invented math itself.

She showed us how to make this amazing bead manipulative at our last math ed. club meeting.

She came up with this idea as a cheap alternative to traditional counters, which we all know can get lost and dropped and can even be loud and annoying. The students make them and then keep them in their desks for when they are needed.

It's nylon string (so the ends can be melted), with 20 bead, 10 in two colors.

There are about a million ways to use this thing.

You can use it to add. Here we have 2+2 = 4.

Reverse the steps to subtract. Push all you need to one side, then take from that group.

Check numbers to see if they are even or odd. Alternate pushing beads to the center, then fold and check to see if each bead has a partner.

Here I did 5. So I pushed to the center a yellow, then green, yellow, green, yellow. Then split the colors in half and folded over my finger. Looks like I have an extra yellow with no partner, so 5 must be an odd number.

Add another green to make 6, and check. Looks like 6 is an even number.

You can find different ways to make numbers (part-part-whole). Here I made 7 using 2 and 5.

And here I made 7 using 4 and 3.

Here is multiplication. I'm multiplying 2 x 7, so I made 7 groups of 2, or 2, 7 times

Push them all together and I get 14. The trick is however, the students should know that there are 10 of one color, and thus, should not be counting all the yellow beads. Instead they should count on, starting with the first green (11,12,13,14), or should just know that 10 plus 4 more is 14.

The possibilities are endless, and this cost change to make, especially if you buy in bulk and either save it for the next years students, or split the supplies with other teachers.
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To Make:

3 yards of nylon string, ends melted (use a match/lighter to burn the ends)
20 beads, 10 each in 2 colors

Fold the string in half and knot the top so that there is a little loop above the knot.

String the beads on using a basic macrame stitch, illustrated in my bad diagram below. Basically both strings cross each other inside the bead.

String on all 20 beads, and then knot and melt together the ends.

And you're done!

Math in a File Folder

2010-01-06T01:31:00.000-08:00

This is such a fast and simple idea, but yet it can yield loads of math fun.

All it is is file folders with the foamy stickers in them. That's it.

Then you either ask questions to your students from these folders content, or let them come up with their own questions. It's a good small group activity, or something to give to that early finisher and ask them to write their own problems.

Let me demonstrate:

This first folder was a bit of a fail. I did two different colors, but I should have also varied the sizes to give it another dimension.

But I could ask questions like:

What part of the whole are the green/blue flowers? (part-part-whole concept).
How many total petals are there? (multiplication).

Here we have a lot of ways we could go:

-How many total sheep/cows? (counting)
-How many are purple animals out of the whole? (part-part-whole)
-What fraction of the purple animals are sheep? (fractions)
-How many more purple cows are there than yellow sheep? (comparative subtraction)

When the animals (or object) are all the same in the folder, you can do multiplication problems.

-How many total legs?
-How many total spots on their backs?

And if they are different colors you can do part-part-whole/fraction problems.

-What part/fraction are red?

Get the idea?

The possibilities are endless!

Last Minute Bingo Chips

2010-01-04T13:18:00.000-08:00

I needed bingo chips.

Fast.

I had a stack of paint chips and a 1/2" hole punch on my desk.

The light bulb went off.

Aren't they fun and colorful?!

My 5th graders loved them for our game of geology bingo.

If I made some again, I'd probably use a 3/4" or 1" hole punch instead, just to make them a little larger and easier to pick up.

I wouldn't recommend using these with little guys, because they aren't 3-D, they can be tricky to pick off the table. If you need cheap bingo chips, use beans instead.

But, if you feel like you need to practice fine motor skills with your little guys, these are great as counters, and you can use them to make patterns, or practice color sorting.

I'm still alive!

2009-12-31T12:40:00.001-08:00

Do not fear everyone, I am still alive!

Once finals were over, I kicked into overdrive trying to get everything ready for Christmas, and now that it is over, I am trying to get my act together as we head into the new year.

The end of the semester went well, and I finally achieved my goal of getting straight As. I have always had that one class where it was a borderline A or B and it has always ended up being a B. I am really hoping to graduate with Latin honors, but I have to make the top 10% of my graduating class, which will be probably close to 2,000. We will see.

Anyways, I have been busy making lists of future post topics and organizing my schedule, so hopefully starting next week, you will see some new stuff! I have loads of stuff to share, just need to find the time to write it all up.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has Happy New Year!

See you in the new year!

P.S. You can visit me at my other blog, also!

You Say Goodbye...

2009-12-12T12:59:00.001-08:00

This week I said goodbye to my kids at both of my internships.

On Tuesday I said bye to my 2nd graders...

(Pictured with my teaching partner, Katie)

And then on Wednesday, I said goodbye to my 5th graders (minus one who was sick).

And now I'm saying hello to finals week.

I always have mixed feelings about finals week. Part of me loves it, because I know I'm almost done another semester. The other part of me hates it because I've used up all my motivation by this point and struggle to make myself study.

Either way, next week at this time, I'll know my placement school for my student teaching, and I'll be able to cross one more semester off my list!

Homeschooling Through High School

2009-12-01T14:26:00.000-08:00

One of my blog followers ask me in an email one day if I had any tips for homeschooling through high school. Although I haven't actually homeschooled someone through high school, I was a homeschooled high schooler myself, so I offered some advice on the matter. I thought you all might like to hear it also, and I've thought about it some more and have more to add, so here it goes.

The first thing to remember is that it is not rocket science. Dear people, do not let anyone tell you that you cannot homeschool a high schooler. It's possible. Completely. I know a couple people who have homeschooled their children though high school without even having a high school diploma themselves. Their children have gone on to rock the college world without a problem. So remember, you can do it!

I was blessed to be homeschooled (and still live in) a state with great homeschooling resources and networks. Not all of you may be as lucky, but these should hopefully be some ideas that will help jump start your research and make your journey of homeschooling though high school a little less daunting.

We are blessed to live in a state with a huge statewide Christian homeschooling network. This network provided sports teams, field trip opportunities, and things such as prom and graduations. If you happen to live in a state with a homeschool network, this can be an awesome connecting point for your teen, especially if there are not to many other homeschooling families that you teen interacts with on a regular basis.

Under our network was a series of co-ops that were independently run and varied in what they offered. Ours was extremely academic and by middle school we went two half-days a week. The co-op offered a range of math, science, English, literature, foreign language, and history classes, many taught by paid, certified teachers. Some were taught by moms who just happened to have a degree in one area.

Honestly, our family would not have continued to homeschool if it wasn't for this co-op. This was a life saver for us, and allowed me to learn and interact with other homeschoolers in a school like setting, without the school like schedule. I still was responsible for much of my own education though, even with these classes.

If you happened to be blessed with something like this, I strongly recommend looking into it as one of your options. If you are currently part of a co-op that doesn't offer this, maybe talk with the members to see about making it an option. That's how the strong high school curriculum came to be for our co-op. Many parents were approaching high school with their first child and were looking for more options. Some also knew teachers who were looking for part-time work and/or tutored their own children and wanted to offer them to the group as a whole.

Some Christian schools, and even public schools will also allow students to come in and take specific classes with their students. If the co-op route just isn't working, this could be another option.

If you don't wish to participate in something so large scale or don't have that available to you, consider a small co-op with just another family or two. My boyfriend's family (currently on their 18th year) does not have a strong co-op in their area, so for years they have work with one to three other families trading off teaching certain subjects to each others kids. His mom often teaches English and literature while another mom might handle science or a foreign language. This can greatly help lighten your load, especially if your homeschooling many at once.

Also check into your community colleges to see what they offer. Many community colleges love homeschoolers and offer various programs specifically designed for homeschoolers right on their campuses. Our community college offers what they call a "Parallel Enrollment Program" designed for 11th and 12th graders who want to take college courses and earn double credits at the same time. It was open to all high schoolers, but I found it's mostly homeschoolers who take advantage of it.

This is great for those of you who might have a budding genus on your hands and just aren't sure how you are going to cover calculus 3 and advanced physics. But it's also nice to be able to knock out the basics such as English, college algebra, sociology, biology, psychology, etc., all those classes that your student will have to take no matter where they decide to go to college. My boyfriend was able to know out his freshman year and a bit of his sophomore, while still in high school; I wasn't as ambitious on the other hand.

Another plus, many offer a substantial discount to those still in high school, on top of their already reasonable cost per credit. Your looking at a really cheap college education, folks, which is quite hard to come by these days. Some community colleges also offer programs for upper elementary and middle school homeschoolers in the basics such as math, English, and science, as well as extracurriculars, such as music, art, dance, and sports clinics.

Back in the day, most textbooks that homeschoolers used were actually designed to be used in a classroom setting. This can make it particularly difficult, especially in the science and math departments. Sometimes a math formula isn't explained in plain English, and you just don't have all the chemicals on hand for a science experiment. Now days, with the number of homeschoolers rapidly increasing, more and more authors and publishers are paying attention and providing easy to use curriculum designed just for the homeschool family. Many also provide things like live online assistance and/or lessons on DVD, which can allows for more independence and can lighten your load. I'm not to familiar with homeschooling designed curriculum, but I know I wouldn't have gotten through chemistry without the help of the wonderful people at Apologia, and my boyfriend's family are huge fans of Teaching Textbooks. When deciding to homeschool through high school, carefully consider your curriculum options and look for those that offer you the most free support and resources.

Lastly, remember you don't have to do it all. It's unrealistic to assume you can to do math, science, history, geography, literature, writing, grammar, music, art, health, logic, and a foreign language, all in one day. If you can, I'm impressed. But mostly I've seen people attempt it, and then freak out when they can't seem to do it all. It's okay to take things semester by semester. If you want to accomplish all of the above, run math and science all year, then split the rest between the fall and spring. Same workload accomplish, less stress. Your not superman, and you don't have to be.

And remember, I you feel God is calling you to homeschool through high school, he'll help you get through it. He never gives us more than we can handle, we just have to remember to rely on him for strength.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me using the button at the top of the sidebar, or leave a comment.

Did you know?

2009-11-29T06:21:00.000-08:00

Last Monday we had our November math education club meeting. This one was on how to set up and use Smart Boards. Particularly in this case Promethean boards. Promethean boards are like smart boards but are not the actual "Smart Board."

Difference? There is a key difference in the two and personally I think it's a huge one. So if your thinking of pushing your principal to get you one, listen up. If not, just move on. The key difference is that in smart boards, the actual board is the electromagnetic surface. Meaning that if it gets scratched or dented, that's it, you buy a whole new one. But in Promethean boards, it's the pen, not the board. Meaning that you can abuse your board to your hearts content and never worry. A lot of principals when looking to purchase smart boards will go for an actual Smart Board because they run about a $1,000 a piece. Promethean boards run about $3,000 a piece on the other hand. Obviously, if you did not know the difference, you would go for a Smart Board, but most principals report that they have to replace the board so many times that it would have been better to buy a Promethean in the first place.

So anyways, hope your enlightened on that topic, I know I've always been curious about the difference. There are some other differences, but that wasn't really the topic of this post, so I'll move along.

Okay, so the real "did you know?" part now.

Did you know that you have access to all the cool Promethean technology and features without even owning a board!?!

You so do and it's completely free! If you head on over to Promethean Planet, you can download the software used to make the flip charts, and even pre-made flip charts (a.k.a. a interactive PowerPoint). Talk about a resource! There are tons of awesome full lessons on every topic, morning routine charts, quizzes, and much more.

Now I will warn you, the full software is a bit hefty is size, so you might want to consider your memory space before downloading. But, if memory is an issue for you, you can download the viewer, which will allow you to use the pre-made flip charts, you just won't be able to make changes or make your own. It also has a bit of a learning curve to it, so you may want to start with the viewer if you think learning the software might be more than you have time for now.

If you have a LCD projector in your room that all you do is run it like a PowerPoint. The kids won't be able to interact on the board/screen, but they can use the laptop it is running through. Or you can stick some flip-charts on a computer for students to do while in centers.

Homeschoolers are in even more luck because you only have one or two students, most likely, who would be working on the same flip-chart, and they can work right from the family computer.

If you are dying for a board, but your principal won't "buy it"(pun completely intended), start using flip charts everyday. Your kids will love them, and if your principal sees this, chances are, he or she will be more likely to buy you one when they see you are already using the technology that goes with it. This is how the presenter got hers. She used the flip charts with her LCD projector for a year, and when her pricipal saw this and how much the kids loved it, she bought her one for the next school year.

Now I'm not an expert on using this software just yet, I myself need to clean my memory out to make room for the software, but I thought you all might enjoy knowing that this technology exists out there for your use. The things it can do will blow your mind, and your students.

Sight Word Memory Game Cards

2009-11-25T07:56:00.000-08:00

Now for something a little different. I've been giving you a lot of math stuff lately, so how about venturing into the language arts realm a bit.

I made two sets of sight word cards using the Dolch word list. These are made to be used to play memory games, but you can also using them to create simple sentences, practice writing/tracing, or whatever else you decide.

I only have made a pre-primer and primer set thus far, but let me know if you would like me to make a set using another list!

PrePrimer Sight Memory

Primer Sight Memory

Shoe Box Math - Book Review

2009-11-25T07:10:00.000-08:00

One of my new favorite books is Shoe Box Math Learning Centers by Jacqueline Clarke. This book is full of awesome ideas, for quick, easy, and inexpensive learning centers that can be used from Pre-K to 3rd grade.

The book states that it is for grades 1-3, but many of the activities can be used in the lower grades and can even be used with struggling 4th and 5th graders. The activities are also very easy to modify to meet your needs or your students needs.

There are 40 activities in the book and each gives you the instructions as well as any black line masters that you need. In most cases, all you are providing the shoe box (or ziploc back as I prefer) to put the activity in, and a few other things that you most likely have on hand already, such as dice, crayons, scissors, etc.

A few activity examples are forming numbers with play dough using black line masters (provided), great for a pre-schooler learning numbers. Race to 100 game where players roll dice and race to fill in their hundreds board, counting all the way, creating a house on grid paper using specific measurements, and graphing the number of times certain numbers are rolled on a dice. Even a clock game played like Old Maid, where you can customize the times for your students needs. There are many, many more activities, all meeting NCTM Standards.

And homeschoolers, this is a perfect addition to your resource library, especially for those using workboxes. Most, if not all of these games can be played individually, and will fit perfectly into your boxes.

Want to get it? You can also win it! I'm giving away this book next month, and all comments from now until December 18th give you a chance to win! Click here for more information.

For the price, this book certainly can't be beat. I know I'll be refering to this book often during the rest of my student teaching, and when I start teaching on my own.

Disclamer: I was not paid in any way, shape, or form, I purchacased and decided to review this book on my own.

Note: Please consider purchasing using the link above. I earn a little commission from the sales purchased through the links and would be greatly apprechiative of your support.

I'm listening!

2009-11-18T13:43:00.000-08:00

I'm listening, but not hearing any voices! Being a teacher, this is a very strange occurrence for me, and it's kind of freaking me out a bit. So all you regular visitors (and non-regular visitors), please speak up and leave a comment! I want to know what you think of what I'm posting. What do you want more of? Less of? Questions you have?

I have tons of stuff to post, but sometimes I'm not sure what to post. Tell me what you want! When no one ever comments, it's hard to tell my audience. Do you have questions for me? I get a lot of in person questions about my views on homeschooling, being a homeschooler, and now a future teacher, do you all have the same questions? I had someone ask me in an email if I had homeschooling through high school suggestions or ideas, is that something you all want too? Do you like the printable stuff, or would you prefer methods ideas. Should I blab more about my college experiences and teaching experiences?

Tell me will you!

I feel kind of weird bribing you all, but I really want to get to know my readers. So we're going to call this your motivation.

Starting today, and ending on Friday, December 18th, I'll be giving away a "prize" to one commenter*. All you have to do is comment to be entered, and the more times you comment, the more times you will be entered.

Here is a run down of how you can enter and a couple rules and regulations:

Only one comment per post, and the comment must contain substance, or it will not count. Examples: "Great post!" Bad comment! "Great post, I really liked the ideas you gave on teaching long division. Those will be very helpful." Good comment! Got it?
If you are a follower, or become one, you may leave ONE comment on any post telling me so.
Leaving a comment on a post as far as two months back counts, so if you would like to earn an extra entry or two, this is a good way to do so. But again, needs to have some substance to count.
Ask a question or suggest something you would like me to address, and get two entries for that one comment.
Comments on this post only count if you tell me something about yourself pertaining to education (i.e. I teach 5th grade, I homeschool ages 4, 7, 10, etc.). Something that helps me know who my audience is and what you want as readers.

Does that sound good?

*The prize has now been determined and will a copy of the resource book Shoe Box Math Learning Centers, sent directly from Amazon to your doorstep! This is a must have resource book for anyone who works with the primary grades, I believe!

So leave one will ya! But please, use your indoor voices!

How Long? How Wide? How Many?

2009-11-16T17:30:00.000-08:00

Since I just did a post on multiplication, here is a fun way to have your students practice their facts. In this game, students roll dice to make boxes on a grid, trying to dominate the board by covering the most box and blocking their opponent from filling in boxes.

This game is called How Long? How Wide? How Many? And the play is pretty simple. You will need to provide your students with two dice (you can do just one, and two rolls), two different colored color pencils (these work best), and a game board (provided below).

To play, a student rolled the dice. Let's say he or she rolls a 3 and a 4. The student now needs to make a box that is 3 squares by 4 square. The player can put their box anywhere they wish on the board. Then the student outlines their box in his or her colored pencil, then writes the multiplication problem in the box, as in 3x4=12, and circles the total.

Once most of the squares have been filled, or each player has rolled 3 times without being able to place a box (or whatever you determine), the game is over and it's time to total. This is where the totals from all the boxes come in handy, and this is where students see how handy multiplication is. Because, instead of having to count each little square, they can just add each total.

The other nice thing about this game is that students don't actually need to know their multiplication tables by heart in order to play, which means this can be very multi-level (homeschoolers, wink, wink!). Students can count the number of squares in their boxes, and over time, if played often, they will start learning facts that haven't yet been covered.

Below are links to download two different game boards. One is a mini, half page version, which is perfect for quick play, such as when you have 5 minutes to burn. The second is a full page version, which is perfect as part of a lesson, or as a center.

How Long How Wide Mini

How Long How Wide Full

Teaching Multiplication Facts for Mastery

2009-11-12T15:58:00.000-08:00

Ever had the thought cross your mind of, "I wish I could teach my students the multiplication facts once, and they would always remember them."

Well guess what! You can! It's all about the method in how you teach it. And a couple rules too!

It starts by remembering this first rule: DON'T RUSH IT!!!!!

As recommended by NCTM, students should learn the multiplication facts, 0-12, over the course of 3rd and 4th grade. That's two grades folks. Not one grade. Not one quarter. Not one month. Not one week. TWO GRADES!

See what I mean by don't rush it?

Think about it. If you really want to remember something, say 10 lines for a play, how long do you practice? A long time if you really want to remember it. You take maybe 1-2 lines, and practice those until you know them by heart, then you add another, and keep going until you've committed it all to memory. Hopefully you would know better than to start practicing the day, or even the week before the play, and then expect to get up on stage and recite all 10 lines perfectly.

That's probably not the best analogy, but that's all I could think of at this moment, so just play along, will ya?

Second thing to remember, never, ever, ever, point out or "teach" the patterns. You'll see what I'm talking about in a minute, but just remember that. If your kids figure out the pattern on their own, they will remember it. If you tell it to them, take a stab at how many times you'll be asked to remind them of that pattern over the course of the next month.

Okay, so remembering to go slow, and not spoiling the surprise of patterns, let's get started.

(Do note: your students (or children) should already have some background knowledge with multiplication and how it works. This is not teaching multiplication. This is teaching the basic, standard facts.)

Start with the ones and the tens facts. Make a chart with two columns, one labeled "Ones Facts" the other "Tens Facts." Start asking your kids to list all the ones facts (1x1, 1x2, 1x3, etc.). Again, do not spoil the element of surprise and tell them that anything times one equals itself. Because guess what, pretty quickly, they are going to notice that it does indeed equal its self. And ta da! They now got it.

Let that process in their little brains for a couple days, and let them practice and experiment with it. Ask questions like, "Does any number times one always equal itself?" I darn bet you, they will want to know. So let them play around with manipulatives and calculators, etc. Pretty soon, they are going to realize, that no matter how big the number, it will always equal it self when multiplied by one.

Now it's time to move on to the second column on your chart, the tens column. Start listing the facts with your class's assistance by letting them punch the facts into a calculator. And oh my gosh, pretty so someone is going to realize, that when muliplying by ten, all it does to the number is add a zero, and that the tens facts, is also like counting by tens, something your students are already so familiar with and know the pattern of.
Now your kids have the tens facts figured out. Again let them think about it, experiement, play games with them, and so on and so forth.

When they have fully mastered, and I mean fully, meaning every kid being able to spit the facts out with no hesitation, it's time to move on the the fives. Again, make a chart, but this time, only make one column. Again, give your students calculators, and start listing. Guess what pattern they are going to see this time? Yup, all it is is counting by fives, again, something they know oh so well by now. They should also see that it is half of the tens.

After that comes the twos facts. This time make a three columned chart. Again, with your students' assistance, list the facts. Does anyone notice that it's just counting by twos? And it's also numbers doubled (i.e. 6x2 is the same as saying 6+6). Again, pattern noticed, facts mastered.

After the twos are mastered, let's move on the fours. Why? Because the fours are all double of the twos. Woah, baby! Bet you had no idea that there were so many patterns. I know I didn't! Anyone want to take a stab at what comes next? That's right, the eights, because they are the doubles of the fours.

By now, it's probably late in 3rd grade, and your students should be very well versed in the facts. And if they understand the commuitive property (that 2x5 is the same as 5x2), they already have master a large portion of the facts, even if you have yet to focus on certain fact families yet.

So now it's time to move on to the threes, sixes, and twelves. Again, using the three columned chart like with the twos, fours, and sixes. Anybody want to guess the pattern here? Go try it. I mean it!

What do you see? Hey.... doubles again!

Guess what, by now, it's 4th grade, and the only facts your students have left to learn are 7x7, 7x9, and 9x9, thanks to the communitive property. The elevens are quite simple, like the ones and the tens, and can be thrown in when you would like. The nines, because of their neat patterns, can also be thrown in wherever you like.

The key is, that because your students see and understand the innerelationship and patterns between the facts, they are more likely to remember then, and also use other facts to quickly and accuratly figure out facts they don't know or can't remember. If they cannot remember 3x6, but remember that 3x3 is 9, and know that the sixes are the threes doubled, they know that 3x6 must be 18.

Do you see what a powerful tool you have just given them? And why you will never have to teach your students the muliplication facts again?

Even if you have older students, take the time, maybe over the period of a month, to help them discover all the patterns. Obviously, you aren't going to take it as slow, and nor are you going to want to, but if you find them still struggling, consider taking the time to give them this tool. They will thank you!

Happy Muliplying!

Where have I been?

2009-11-11T16:33:00.000-08:00

Anyone notice I've been a bit absent lately? Well I have.

I feel like I've been a hamster stuck on a wheel lately. I keep thinking that I'll be able to get off soon, but it doesn't appear so. Lately it's been a choice of whether I do homework, or write a blog post. Obviously I've been choosing homework, as I probably should.

About the most exciting thing that has been going on lately has been the drama involving our science internship supervisor. She actually, finally (terrible to say I know) resigned today, after being absent and unreachable by us (her students) for about a month. She totally left us hanging out on our own.

Luckily, my cohort is fairly resilient, and we have awesome classroom mentor teachers to help fill in gaps as best they could. But still, it was a bit frustrating to be left hanging with no lesson plans, no guidance, or feedback, or anything at all really. The only not good thing about it is that she didn't require a lot of the extra, and what I really consider busy work, that many of the other supervisors require.

We had a temporary substitute today, and they said they are attempting to find us another one that can be permanent, but that is still is in the works, so we will see.

Let's see what else.

Tuesday I taught with my teaching partner our second and final big lesson for the course. It did not quite go as planned, as we were not informed, nor did our mentor teacher know, there was a school wide assembly. The kind of threw us for a loop because we ended up with only half of the time the lesson was designed for. But it was a lesson in being flexible and being able to think on your feet and make really, really, last minute modifications to your lesson.

In biology we had our second major test today. I think I did alright. And in earth and space science we grew crystals instantly on Tuesday.

In math methods I am learning tons of awesome ideas and seriously wish I had more time to share them. We also did family math night at our math internship school on Monday. Also and interesting experience.

And that's about all I have time to write folks. I really, really hope to back with more regular postings soon, so stay tuned!

Got Halloween Candy?

2009-11-05T20:15:00.000-08:00

Halloween may be over, but there are lots of fun things you can do with all that leftover candy, other than eat it like I have.

If you want to talk about graphs and graphing, candy is your friend! Talk about motivation! Every kid in your class will work their little behinds off if you tell them they get to eat it after they are done if their behavior is appropriate and they follow directions.

I noticed that when I broke into my bag of mini Tootsie Pops, the colors were in layers, so I wondered if there was the same amount of each color.

Haven't you ever wanted to know if they give you an equal amount of every variation in a bag. Is there the same amount of colors in each little fun pack of Skittles? What about the whole entire package? Are there more Milky Way bars that Snickers bars in a package of chocolate candy? Do they give you the same amount of Milk Duds in each little box?

Are you seeing where I'm going with this? I bet your kids are pretty curious too!

M&Ms and Skittles are good for small individual graphs. They come in those small "fun size" packages (why are they called fun size anyways?) and can easily be put directly on a graph or colored in.

But it also might be fun to get down and dirty. I'm talking buy a bunch of those huge bags of mixed candies, create a graph with tape on your floor, and dump and sort! A few of my fellow colleagues did this with their classes this week, and the kids all announced it was the most fun they had ever had done at school.

You're probably thinking of creating more bar-like graphs, but if you have 4th grade or older, challenge them to come up with a proportionally correct pie-graph. It could be done individually with small candies, but it, again, would be a lot more fun if the class made a huge one on the floor. Don't give them too many pointers, let them think about it, but be sure to have lots of string and masking tape on hand. I'm not going to tell you the answer, so go try it out yourselves and see what you come up with!

Creating a graph can teach about a million different things. Okay fine, maybe not a million, but a lot.

Here are a few ideas:
-Sorting
-Counting
-Make addition problems (green skittles + purple skittles)
-Subtraction (I had 5 purple skittles and I ate 2, how many left?)
-Comparison subtraction (how many more green skittles than purple skittles)
-Fractions (what fraction of the skittles are green?)
-Percetages (what percent of the skittles are green?)
-And I bet you can think of lots more!

See, candy might not be good for your health, but it sure can be useful in brain development! Okay fine, I'm pushing it, I know!

Homeschoolers Hack
If your kids collected candy, then there is no point in going out and buying more. Try having them sort it. Don't tell them how (other than not by each type of candy, mixed groups is a must), just let them come up with their own system, but require justification for each grouping. You could graph by brand also. Look on the back of the wrappers, where the copyright symbol is and see what brand it is (i.e. Mars, Hershey's, etc.). Or do some research and see what company makes what. Then see which brand of candy seems to be the most popular for people to give out. (And do share your results please!)

*Photo by respres' on Flickr.

Insect Alphabet

2009-11-02T18:44:00.000-08:00

So I've finally figured out how to share documents with everyone, so now I can share some of the stuff I've been creating for my classes. I hate knowing that I probably won't ever use some of this stuff, so I hope some of you can take advantage of it.

First up is one of my latest creations, insect alphabet cards. It has each letter of the alphabet, in both uppercase and lowercase, and an a picture of an insect that starts with that letter. You can have your students practice matching the upper and lower case letters, or play a game of memory or go fish with them.

Insect Alphabet Cards

*Folks, I have no idea how to make the link above nice and neat and not so large, so you're going to have to deal for now until someone decides to rescue me from my blogging stupidity. And yes, I'm fully aware that the cards run backwards, but you're going to cut them out anyways so deal!

Annual MCTM Conference

2009-10-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

First, I must apologize for my absence all last week. I didn't have any posts ready to go and there was some sort of homework explosion I missed the memo about, resulting in my hardly getting online to do much more than check for important emails and get information I needed. The storm seems to have settled, for now at least.

On Friday I attended my first "teacher's conference," the Maryland Council of Teachers of Mathematics's annual conference. I had a lot of fun, despite having to roll out of bed at 5am and drive in the pouring rain for a total of four hours, two and a half of those in bumper to bumper traffic on the way home. The food was also amazing. They provided an amazing breakfast spread, the best box lunches ever, and there was ice cream everywhere! What more could you ask for?!

The morning started with a panel discussion to clarify the implications of the Common Core Standards Initiative. I left more confused then when I came in, so that's all I have to say about that.

Then I went on to a session about using centers as a way to differentiate and help students practice the skills they need. This session was definitely the best of the day and I got a ton of great ideas for centers, some which I will try and share with you all! The best was learning a fun way for students to practice addition with regrouping and subtraction with renaming, in a way that allows them to create their own problems. My 2nd graders are really struggling with these two skills, but love making their own problems, so I was thrilled when I saw that idea in our packet.

The next session was my free session, so I popped into the session done by two of my fellow Towson students (only students to ever get their proposal accepted) on incorporating math and social studies. They did their dress rehearsal for the math ed. club and it was AMAZING! I was so thrilled to see their packed out room, and whipped out my camera to take some pictures for their portfolios.

I then went and checkout all the exhibitors. Wow! So much cool stuff out there. I picked up lots of free CDs and packets from the various publishing companies with lesson plans, worksheets, videos, etc. on/in them. I think because I was pre-service, a lot of them wanted to give me stuff in hopes I would remember their name later. I just want the free stuff!

The last two sessions I went to were nothing to write home about. One was about opening routines, but ended up being done by my math professors colleague, so it was all stuff I already knew about. And the last was suppose to be about assessment and how to know what kids actually know, but again, all I really left with was a large packet of worksheets and confusion.

All in all, it was a really fun day and I can't wait to go again next year! I'm definitely beginning to think I like teaching math better than reading, which is quite a shock to me considering my history with math.

Flip my lid

2009-10-09T05:01:00.000-07:00

I have a new collection. This collection is growing at a rapid pace. Special thanks to my mother's strong efforts. And our kitchen renovation.

And yes, as the title suggests, this collection is a collection of lids. Yup, lids. As in those things that you use to seal and cover containers.

My collection has more than doubled since I took this picture about a week ago, but you get the idea.

Now what in the world can you do with lids you ask? Well, lots of things! Here is a list for you:

-Sort them by their properties (students decide these properties).
-Observe their differences, and then similarities.
-Use numbers to count them.
-Group and discuss groupings using vocabulary such as more than, less than, quantity of, etc.
-See how many, counting bears, chips, etc. the various lids hold compared to others (volume).
-Use to hold and distribute things.
-Group by small, medium, large.
-Fun to build with.
-Color matching activities.
-Used as counters.
-Practice tracing.
-And many, many more (leave a comment if you got one!).

See, very useful those lids are. So start your collection today!

P.S. I discovered I have a fellow lid collector, Amy @ Teach Mama. See her posts here, and here.

What was in the box? Part 2

2009-10-07T16:21:00.000-07:00

Time to share some more items from my Educators Outlet order. If you missed part one, click here.

Anyone hungry? I got a fraction sandwich (item # 107977) for you! For $2.50, this a super cute item to have out for your kids to play with, even if you have little ones. Because everything is color coded, it's easy to put together, whether you understand fractions or not. Great way for kids to play with and manipulate fractions, and see how they relate with each other! You could even pose questions like can you swap a 1/2 piece with some 1/6 pieces?, etc.
My only complaint is that it's a bit hard to keep together, as in, when you pick it up, all the small pieces fall out, like what happened in the picture below. It also annoys me a little that the "bread" isn't actually brown, like sandwich bread usually is. Plus, I would have like it to have been labeled "whole," but I can always do that myself. But in the end, I would say this is definitely worth buying.

Below we have a strawberry pie (item # 107641), if that fraction sandwich didn't fill you up. (What's with food and fractions?) This in units of 1/8th but there are other variations you will see on the site. Great visual when learning fractions!

Then there are fraction work cards (item # 107701-2). These were designed to go with a set of manipulatives (which they don't currently carry), but they also work separately. These would still be easy to use, or at least give you some ideas on things you can have the kids do with fractions.

And lastly, ending our fraction run, is a Numbers Up, 3 pad flip book (item # 10361) I'm wishing I had gotten the 6 pad book, but, oh well, this is still a great buy! It has numbers 0-9, as well as various symbols often used with numbers (decimal, dollar sign, etc.).

Is anyone being tempted to make an order to them yet? ;)

Disclaimer: Just so everyone is clear, I have no relation to, and am not being paid by Educators Outlet. I purchased all of these items out of my own measly budget and thought others might be interested in seeing the items I bought and what I thought of them.

Oh the irony

2009-10-07T08:02:00.000-07:00

I had a major turning point in my life last night.

It occurred at the beginning of the math education club meeting last night.

The fact that I was at the math education club meeting should be enough of a shock.

But I am now also the vice president of the club.

Yes, me, the math hater, is the vice president of a math club.

I'm wondering when I fell and hit my head. I must have been a hard fall, because I don't remember it.

Okay, really the only reason I volunteered for the position is because no one else was, and I don't really have to do anything, other than fill in for the president should she happen to be absent.

Plus, I figured it would look good in my portfolio.

Plus, my amazing methods in math professor is sort of changing my mind about math. She actually makes math fun, and cool. So cool you will want to do it all day!

Me, wanting to do math all day.

Something is really, really wrong with me!

What was in the box? Part 1

2009-10-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

My box from Educators Outlet arrived on Friday, late in the day. I of course abandoned the all important homework to greet the FedEx man at the door and then proceed to rip it open and play with everything inside.

In order to best tell you about everything in the box, I'll be sharing only an item or two at a time. Because I don't have a classroom of my own just yet, it's hard for me to actually test these items out, but I'll do by best to give you an idea of how durable/useful/etc. they are.

First item up is the sorting trays (item # 10318). I got four of them and I'm pretty pleased. They are a really nice size, and I can see them coming in handy for not only sorting activities, but also for organizing centers and distributing supplies. Although plastic, and a bit "thinner" than I thought, these still seem as if they will hold up quite well even if heavily used and abused.

Next are my wooden base ten blocks. Silly me thought I had all four components (ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands blocks) but alas, I realized I had forgotten to order tens. Oh well, I'll just keep my eye out for some. These were actually made by three different companies, but they are all very nice. I think about half of the weight of my box was in those two thousands blocks. Those things are heavy! (Item # ones 10625, hundreds 10627, thousands 10628).

All of these items are still available at Educators Outlet currently, but in some cases, there are less than 100 in stock, so if you are interested in purchasing them, I would move quickly!

There is lots more to come, so stay tuned!

Envelopes Anyone?

2009-10-02T07:46:00.000-07:00

Did you know there is a little resource that you probably haven't tapped yet? It's called your local card shop. Yup, your card shop.

I used to work at a little boutique that sold cards, stationary, gifts and did custom printing. One interesting thing that I learned was that after a card season is over, you send back all the cards you don't sell, but you do not send back the envelopes. So that leaves the store with sometimes hundreds of random envelopes.

Which can become, that's right, your free envelopes! Yours for the taking!

Kids love envelopes. Seriously, nothing is more fun then opening one, or tucking something special inside. It's a great motivational tool.

I've been giving my 5th graders their post assessments for science in an envelope. They actually can't wait to open them to see what task they need to accomplish and then "send" it back to me. Really, kids actually wanting to take post assessments. It's a miracle!

They also come in handy when making those various holiday cards to "send" home to family. Kids will be so proud when they can present their homemade card in an "real card" envelope.

So call up your local card shop. I would call independently owned shops first, before chain stores like Hallmark or Papyrus, you'll probably have better luck at those. Tell them you're a teacher (or homeschool mom), ask them if they save their extra envelopes, and would they be willing to give you some. Some shops may not save them, but ask them if they would be willing to save some for you to come pick up. Call right before major card selling holidays (i.e. Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, etc.) and you will probably have a few hundred envelopes you can pick up within a few days.

Be sure to thank them by frequenting their shop and sending business their way!

Dice flingers no more!

2009-09-28T18:41:00.000-07:00

Do you have over zealous dice rollers in your classroom or home?

You know the kind that feel it necessary to fling said die across the room, then race over to check it's number.

And then fling it back.

Yeah, those kind.

I know a few.

Which is why I think this invention is about the best thing ever invented.

It keeps those dice contained.

From suspiciously running off desks.

Repeatedly.

It's called a little, plastic, container.

Pure genus, people.

Pure. Genus.

If only I could have said I thought of it first.

But apparently, I haven't achieved that kind of level of thinking yet.

One day, maybe.

First Blog Award

2009-09-28T06:59:00.001-07:00

I'd like to thank my new blogging friend KT @ Sneaker Teacher for giving me my first blog award! She has an awesome blog, and I love reading about her adventures teaching internationally for the first time this year.

The rules for accepting the "Over the Top" award are to copy and change the answers to suit you and pass it on. Answers can only be one word! Pass the award to 6 of your favorite bloggers and alert them they have been awarded.

1. Where is your cell phone? Desk

2.Your hair? Dirty

3. Your mother? Amazing

4. Your father? Awesome

5. Your favorite food? Pizza

6. Your dream last night? None

7. Your favorite drink? Water

8. Your dream/goal? Teach

9. What room are you in? Bedroom

10. Your hobby? Photography

11. Your fear? Spiders

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Teaching

13. Where were you last night? Bed

14. Something you aren't? Loud

15. Muffins? Blueberry

16. Wish list item? Camera

17. Where did you grow up? Everywhere

18. Last thing you did? Eat

19. What are you wearing? Pink

20. Your TV? Broken

21. Your pets? Cat

22. Your friends? Love'em

23. Your life? Busy

24. Your mood? Sleepy

25. Missing someone? Yes

26. Vehicle? Works

27. Something you're not wearing? Bra (hehe, is that TMI?)

28. Your favorite store? Sale

29. Your favorite color? Pink

30. When was the last time you laughed? Yesterday

31. Last time you cried? Unknown

32. Your best friend? Crazy

33. One place that I go over and over? Home

34. One person who emails me regularly? School

35. Favorite place to eat? Chopsticks

Okay, so those are hard to answer in one word. Good luck figuring out what I mean on some.

I'm going to pass on this award to these lovely ladies:

Jolanthe @ Homeschool Creations
Kimberly @ Raising Olives
Kris @ Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers
The Snails @ The Snail's Trail
Maureen @ Spell Outloud
Angela @ Satori Smiles
And I'm going to break the rules because I have just one more blogger I want to give this award to.
Heather @ Blog, She Wrote

All these ladies are awesome homeschoolers who I find very inspiring and always full of great, new ideas. Thanks for sharing what you all do with the world!

Teaching time, money, and place value everyday

2009-09-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

When you read that title, you probably thought I was crazy, but I assure you, I am not. It seems like it would be silly to teach these skills everyday, but the idea is, with just 10 minutes or less each day on all three, you may find you don't need to teach them at all.

I'll back up and explain for you. I am working with 2nd graders this semester in my math practicum. I had noticed how everyday the students had a series of quick activities they do as a sort of warm up before they began their actual math lesson. Practicing telling time, and working with place value and money, among other things, were some of the things they did every day. The teacher explained that she hates teaching place value, time, and money, because it's something that you either get, or you don't, and many students seem to struggle with those topics a lot before finally "getting" them. Her solution, practice them, just a little, everyday. Personally I think it's a genius idea, and she said that once she started doing it, when she hit the units on time, money, and place value, her students flew through them with ease.

So let's start with time. It's pretty easy. She uses a smart board, so every day when she hits that slide, she just sets it to a random time and the kids figure out the time. Yeah, easy as that. Of course I knew not everyone has a smart board, but teaching clocks, or even a real clock will work just the same. The 2nd graders are just telling the time to the nearest "5" as in 7:35 and 3:10, but it will eventually progress to the exact minute. This is also a good time to practice counting by 5s as well as doing some quick addition and subtraction by asking questions like "If it is 7:35, how many minutes will it take to get to 8:00?" or "If it is 7:35, how many minutes ago was 7:30?"

Moving on to place value. This is a fun way to keep track of how many days your students have been in school, all while practicing a somewhat tricky skill. The teacher I am working with uses a pocket chart like this one, but for those of you who are handy, you could probably make your own if you wanted to. Each day you add a straw to the ones pocket, until you get ten. Then you bundle that group of ten, and move it to the tens spot, until you have 10 groups of tens, and move then to the hundreds. So if you have been in school 43 days, you would have no hundreds, four bundles of 10 straws in your tens pocket, and three single straws in your ones pocket. You want to use something 3-D (not something like strips of paper) so your students can really visualize what is going on. Again, take this moment to practice addition and subtraction by asking the students questions like, "If we have 7 straws in the ones pocket, how many days until we will have another bundle of 10?" You may also occasionally want to remove the hundreds, tens, and ones, labels and ask your student to help you put them back, or remove all your straws and have your students tell you how many straws/bundles should go in each pocket using the numbers above the pocket.

Lastly, we get to money. For money practice, you also use the number of days in school. So if you have been in school for 43 days, you are going to have your students make 43 cents. The great things about this activity is that there are lots of possible answers, which allows for lots of participation and really helps your students understand how there are so many ways to make up just one number. When you get to a number of days over 100, you will make say $1.28 for 128 days in school. The teacher I work with again uses her smart board, but you could easily use money made for an overhead or magnetic money.

Once your students get the hang of these activities, they will go pretty quickly. The class usually can get through these three activities in 10 minutes or less. There is nothing complicated about these activities, but it's the daily practice that will make the difference when you get to teaching these units and your students take your state's assessments.

Homeschoolers Hack
All of these activities can be easily be done in your daily homeschool routine, even with multi-level students. These activities could even be placed in a workbox as a quick warm up before the math lesson for the day.

Educators Outlet

2009-09-22T14:08:00.000-07:00

If your looking for awesome supplies for your school, classroom, or homeschool, at cheap prices, do I have the place for you!

My math teacher/supervisor shared a site called Educators Outlet with us, and well, let's just say, I have a rather large box coming my way.

I shopped mostly in their clearance blowout section, but even when not in the clearance section, their prices were the best I've ever seen. I saved $250 versus if I had bought those items at their full retail value. Talk about a good deal!

And for homeschoolers, who don't need a whole classroom's worth of an item, they seem to sell many of their popular items individually so you can buy just what you need.

They are also running a back to school promotion, until September 30th, where you get 10% off your total. I'm pointing this out to you, due to the fact that I did not notice it until after I placed my order. Major bummer, but oh well. So look on the front page for the coupon code to enter at checkout.

I'll let you know what I think of everything when it gets here, hopefully sometime next week. I'm so excited! It's like waiting for Christmas morning!

Scientific Research

2009-09-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

...is currently being conducted. I guess that's how you would refer to it. Maybe data collection? Not sure, but I'm teaching elementary age kids, it can't be that big of deal, can it?

For biology, my teacher has us running some basic science experiments that I'm sure many of you have done before. The first is growing bush beans. We can grow them however we wish, so I'll tell you what I'm doing with mine. The second is growing mold. This isn't a hard one for me, it happens often in our fridge.

First up the beans. We were given 5 beans to plant however we please. So I put 3 in soil from my mom's nutrient rich garden soil (cool-whip container), and then 2 in soil that I just dug up from under the mulch in front of our house (paper bowl). I think we can all be certain that the ones in the rich soil will do better, but I want to see how much better they will do. They are sitting in the same spot, so they should get the same amount of sunlight, and I'll do my best to be sure they get about the same amount of water.

Next up is the mold growing. Our variable here is light and how much it makes a difference in mold growth. My thoughts are that while both pieces of bread will grow mold, the one left in the light will grow more mold.

I set this up by first letting the bread sit out on the counter for about 30 min - 1 hour in order to collect an adequate amount of mold spore. Oh, tip if you want to do this yourself, pick bread that doesn't have preservatives! That will help a lot!

Next up I got the bread damp with a spray bottle of water and then put them in the baggies and sealed them up. Then I put one in a Wheatables box. That will be the piece that will stay in the dark, other than when I open the box to check on it.

Both pieces are sitting next to each other on our kitchen counter to ensure that there is no difference in temperature, since we aren't testing how temperature affects mold growth. That's another good one to try though!

I'll keep you updated on my progress and your welcome to follow along with me! Be sure to let me know if you do! I'd love to see what kind of results others get!

Don't forget to post a little sign stating that your conducting scientific research!

Back into the swing

2009-09-10T17:05:00.000-07:00

I still don't totally feel I'm back into the swing of school. But I'm getting there. Slowly.

Things are going fairly well. I like my biology class a lot, but that doesn't surprise me. I love biology! We are discussing the basic concepts such as cells, botany, life cycles, etc. but are learning how to teach these concepts to young children in ways that allow them to explore and find answers on their own. We will also take a visit to the zoo and since my teacher is a Project Learning Tree facilitator, so she will certify us all and give us their curriculum for our keeping. We will also get a certificate to put in our portfolios! I'm all about stuff that looks good in my portfolio!

Earth and Space science... um, don't have too much say about that class. It's rather boring and I'm not totally sure where we are going with it. That's about it.

Math stuff is going well also. A bit overwhelming, since the methods we are being taught to use totally contradict how I was taught. I was taught (and probably many of you too) with the teacher (book or mom) giving the example problems, showing me how to work them, then practicing together, and then practicing alone. Now I'm being taught how to teach from a problem-solving point of view, where children are encouraged to find answers on their own, using their own methods and ideas. This is too help them understand what they are doing and that math is not just some rote activity.

This was slightly eye opening to me as I feel like I can do basic math, but ask me why something works, and I haven't got a clue. I can see how a problem-solving, student-based approach is so much better, because kids get to understand the why and how behind math. I'm excited to "re-learn" some things and hopefully come out feeling better about math.

I'm excited about my math internship too. I am at a city school, but the atmosphere is so different than my last school, much better that is. My teacher is wonderful and very nice. I'm excited to get to know the kids, who are in second grade. We started on Tuesday, and will observe once more next week, before we have to get into the swing and start teaching.

In addition to the math class and internship, I've also joined the math education club and I'm looking forward to the meetings, they sound fun and interesting. And I'm also attending the MCTM conference next month, which I am totally psyched about! My math teacher/supervisor is on their board, and I get to go for free! Even better! Certificates will come with both of those things for my portfolio! Woohoo!

Last but not least is my science internship. I'll be teaching 5th grade geology. Geology is not my favorite topic, but I'll try my best to make it interesting. I figure we don't always get to teach what we like. This internship is slightly chaotic though. My supervisor was asked to fill the roll a week before class started, and has never taught anything like this before. So she is still trying to figure things out herself, which makes things more than unorganized and crazy for all of us. What makes it even better is the county decided to revamp their geology unit right before school started, so no one has really seen the new curriculum yet. I, in fact, won't see it until 12:30 on Wednesday, and I start teaching at 2:00. Good thing I'm fairly good at winging things.

I think that's about all the excitement for now. I will continue to be sharing what I have been learning, as well as giving updates, throughout the semester.

Finally someone takes a stand against them!

2009-09-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

It's about time, darn it!

My mom forwarded this to me yesterday, and it's the best thing I've heard all day! Here is the background info.

Finally, the perfect solution to what should be the obvious problem (although you'll seldom hear it discussed, usually it's only about funding) faced by schools and their staff.

This is the message that the Maroochydore High School, Queensland, Australia staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine. This is the actual answering machine message for the school.

This came about because they implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children's absences and missing homework. The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children's failing grades changed to passing grades - even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough school work to pass their classes.

Click here to listen.

Their no-nonsense approach totally makes my day. If you like to make excuses for your child, pray that they never end up in my class, because I don't take excuses. I'm rather known for that. As a camp counselor, kids loved to complain to their parents about swim lessons and how they didn't want to do it. So parents would send in notes saying to excuse them. I was rather known for looking parents in the eye and replying, "I'm sorry but that is a required activity here whether they like it or not. If you would not like them to participate in swim lessons you may take them home and they need not return," and then handing back their note. Parents would then throw a temper tantrum just like the child and make more excuses. And I would just turn and walk away. I hate complainers.

You Know...

2009-09-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

...you must be destined to be an elementary school teacher when...

...Your math teacher gives your class Nasco Math catalogs, and you and your fellow classmates begin to flip through with glee and excitement, like you are 7 years old and the Toys R' Us Christmas catalog just came.

... Then you all begin to shout and and show each other the various items that are "wow this is so cool!," and "I must get this!"

... Then you go home, spend two hours looking at the catalog, all while highlighting the various "need to get this!," items and tabbing the various pages.

... Then when you catalog looks like this...

... you know you must be destined to be an elementary school teacher!

The Magic Number

2009-09-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

This is a quick and easy way to get kids working with numbers and operations each day.

The idea is that you have a number each day, and that number is the day's magic number. You may choose to write down each number on a slip of paper, starting with one and ending with the number of school days you have, and draw one each day, or you can use something like the calender day, or ask you students to choose one.

Once you have your number selected, ask your students to write down a equation using that number. The possibilities are endless with this and you will need to vary this according to the ages and abilities of your students. It can be anything from make it the solution to your equation, to include as a number in your equations. You may also choose to specify the type of operation to be used, as well as how many they need to use.

Once your students have turned in their slips of paper (nameless), select a few slips to read aloud to the class and let your class have a few seconds to mill over the answer in their heads and then answer "yes or no" to whether or not the equation worked or to determine the answer.

The idea isn't to test your students to their abilities to write and solve equations using specified numbers and operations, but instead to allow for mental math practice in a quick and easy way.

This activity could be something that is implemented into the daily routine or just simply done as a special activity or a filler. The idea is, once you students understand how it works, it should not take up more than 10-15 minutes of your day.

The Homeschooler's Hack - Don't have a class of 31 excited second graders? Instead do you have a 4th grader, 1st grader, and a preschooler? You can still make this work! Have your preschooler practice counting to the number, and then count out that many number chips. Have your 1st grader work with addition, which your 4th grader works with multiplication. Have your 4th grader write problems for your 1st grader to solve. Write some problems your self, making some wrong, and let your child correct you (they love that!). The possibilities are endless! The idea is it's a quick activity, and everyone is working with the same number, even if it's different ways.

Let the countdown begin

2009-08-30T16:47:00.000-07:00

I now have 12 hours of summer vacation left. That means 12 hours from now, I'll be sitting in my first class. What is that class. Um, not sure... let me look.

It's Biology.

Okay, I feel better now. I love biology!

But I'm still in denial. All I've done is print my schedule. And I did that about 10 minutes ago.

But I am excited to have more to share here once I am back in school. More thoughts and ideas. More how-to's and lessons. More creative teaching ideas and reviews. Just plain, more, more, MORE! Yay! More is always better, you know!

Thanks for those who stuck around during my hiatus. I was working on some new content for my blog, but also I was plain just trying to get my life in order before the business of the school year returns.

Good-bye sweet summer, and hello '09-'10 school year!

We Have a Winner!

2009-08-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Christy who was commenter number four!

Christy left this comment:

1. I've been homeschooling for 6 years--ever since my oldest was born! Officially, just one year--K5 last year. 2. What would I love the most? Wow, it's hard to choose. Probably the dry-erase boards because they would be so versatile. My kids could use them for every subject almost!
Thanks for your generosity!

Christy, I sent you an email and look forward to hearing from you!

Now questions you had to answer in your comment in order to win were purely for my own entertainment! I loved reading them! Such variety out there! Thanks everyone who left one! I hope to do another giveaway here soon!

I also was to thank all my new followers! Thanks for hopping aboard y'all and I hope you enjoy what's to come! Livkit, Nichola, Jenn, Momma Snail, Hanz, Ticia, Tristan, Jenny, Shawntele, and Rana, all have their own blogs, so go check them out!

_______________________________________________________________

And on another note, I'm leaving on vacation tomorrow and was hoping to have a few auto posts ready to go, but my internet was not working yesterday, meaning I couldn't get them ready. So unforuntatly, it will be very quite here for a bit longer. But when I come back, I have some fun things to share, plus school will be starting back soon, so I'll have even more new stuff to share.

Vintage Curriculum

2009-08-11T13:08:00.001-07:00

Ten points to anyone who knows what program these books are from!

I'm not sure if they are actually vintage yet, but they sure look like it. These are the books from the first edition of Sing, Spell, Read, and Write, purchased back in the early 90's.

If you were homeschooled in the 90's you probably either learned to read with this curriculum, or know someone who did. It was the curriculum for reading back then. Although it still seems popular now days, there are a lot more programs out there now then there were back then.

We don't have any of the rest of the curriculum anymore, but I wanted to keep the readers. They are still good, basic, phonics readers. Plus, they are the books I learned to read with.

Glancing back through the books, they look so familiar. I know I probably read each one a hundred times over.

This is about the only major piece of curriculum we have left in our house. All the old, 90's, Abeka and Bob Jones stuff is gone. Although when I was at a homeschool curriculum fair back in April, it looked like a lot of it hadn't changed much.

Curriculum Clean-Out Giveaway

2009-08-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

This giveaway is over now! Sorry you missed it! Be sure to become a follower though, so you don't miss out on another one, and any new ideas and thoughts!

_____________________________________________________________________

Original Post

So I don't really have any curriculum to give away, but I though you all may like some goodies to go along with your curriculum. So I dug through my collection of plastic bins to find some items that you all will love.

What you'll get:

2 Pocket Charts, one red, one blue (as seen here)
2 double sided (solid/lined) dry-erase white boards
A set of uppercase alphabet stamps with a red and blue ink pads
A set of uppercase magnet letters and a set of magnetic numbers
A set of word strips (green, purple, and orange)
Set of "Parts of Speech" stickers
Set of cursive handwriting stickers
Set of play money
180 "Motivation Stickers" on a roll
Disney workbooks, one each of Phonics and Reading (Pre-K -1st), Time and Money (1st-2nd), and Addition and Subtraction (1st-2nd)
12 Sets of Flash Cards, one each of, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Sight Words, Phonics, Rhyming, United States, U.S. Presidents, Landmarks, Insects, and Animals.

Excited yet?

Here are some details as well as how to enter this giveaway!

Entries will accepted from August 2nd until August 13th 9pm EST.
You must live in the continental U.S. to enter.
To enter, leave a comment below, answering the following questions: 1. How long have you been homeschooling and why did you decide to homeschool? 2. What item do you love the most, and how would you use it should you win?
Want extra entries? Become a follower and let me know in a separate comment, or tweet about this giveaway and leave the link in a separate comment below.
No more than 3 entries per person.
I'll announce the winner either late Thursday night or early Friday morning. Be sure to check back to see if you won! I won't be coming after you!
If you have any questions, please email me (don't leave a comment) at morgan.gaking[at]gmail.com

I think that's it! Good luck all!

Sight Words

2009-07-24T17:16:00.000-07:00

In about a week, I'll be participating in the Curriculum Clean-Out over at Homeschool Creations. But I'm not actually giving away curriculum. I don't own much of any curriculum yet, and the little I do is state curriculum which personally, I despise. And well, sadly, our homeschooling era has come to an end in my house, and all that's left curriculum wise is stuff I know I want to keep for myself. Sorry to be selfish like that.

So instead, I thought I would try a little something different. I've been collecting lots of goodies for my future classroom. Because I'll have about 25-30 kids, when I see something I gotta have, I buy a lot of it. So I did a little plastic-storage-box diving and came up with an awesome goodie box/bag/basket of items that every homeschool family is going to love!

So to get you all pumped about this giveaway, I'm going to showcase some of the items that you can win and how you can use them. Featured below are sight word cards, pocket chart, magnetic letter set, and alphabet stamps.

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What are sight words? Sight words can also be referred to as high-frequency or instant words. These are words that appear rather frequently in text and/or cannot be decoded phonetically. Because of this, these are words that early readers need to memorize, or know by sight. Knowing these words is critical, because if a reader does not know them, reading any text may become very frustrating.

Seeing and practicing these words frequently is critical for their memorization. But there is no need to make practice boring. Here are some activities that you can do with a simple pack of sight words I got out of the dollar section at Target.

(Can't wait that long? Here are some ready to print and cut (and I strongly suggest lamination!) List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5 Also, here is a list of the words, decending by frequency. This might be helpful when choosing what to practice).

Have students sort the cards by their various features, such as letter they start with or end with, or by the number of letters in the word. This is a good activity for students who may not be able to read many of the words. This gets them familier with the words and helps them spot different feature in the words.

Have students use alphabet stamps to stamp out each word. This is a good activity to have students do with words they are somewhat familier with. Before they stamp the word, have them say the word, spell the word as they stamp it, then say it again when done.

Have students use magnetic letters to spell the words. An extra bonus here is that if your child has a younger sibling who likes to do everything that older sibling does, this is an easy letter recognition activity. They don't actually need to read the word to find the letters in it. Plus, like in the picture I have below, the words are written in lowercase letters, but the magnets are all uppercase. This is also good practice of the recognition of both upper and lowercase letters.

Make a word train. Match the first and last letters of the words and string them together.

Sort and group the words that rhyme together. Let's say your child struggles with the word house, but knows the word mouse. If they realize the words rhyme, it might help them next time they come along the word mouse.

Have fun practicing! And be sure to check back starting August 2nd!

Writing Journals

2009-07-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

Writing journals are something that I would like my future students to keep during the school year. I intend to use them informally, simply as a way to get some writing in each day.

Practice makes perfect, and that's especially true with writing. The more practice kids get, the better writers they will become.

Although a grade would never be put on the journal writings, they would be a good way to spot individual writing problems, such as capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure problems.

You could use a writing journal entry as a way to teach revision, or as a spring board for a long-term writing project.

Personally, I like to think of writing journal time, just like your would think of a D.E.A.R. (drop everything and read) time. A time for students to just chill out, relax, and spend some quiet time doing something productive. It could also be used as a literacy station.

It doesn't need to be long, I think 10-15 minutes for elementary age kids is going to be about tops. Some kids are going to be slower writers than others, so I think it's important not to push a page amount in the time. As long as everyone is writing (or thinking), then you're good.

Some days you might just want to let your kids just write whatever is on their mind, but most the time, your going to need prompts. Sometimes you might want to use a theme for a bit, or use single words, a set of words, sentence starters, or have kids write about a topic they have discussed in class.

Let's say the presidential elections are coming up. For the weeks leading up to the election you might want to use the election as your theme. Then come up with some prompts that go with that theme. Examples:

Write a poem about the word Freedom and what it means to you.
If you were running for president, why would people vote for you?
When you think of the elections, what color do you think of? Why?
Write a story using the words, government, president, voting.
Make a list of 15 things you would do if you were president.

The possibilities are endless and if your having difficultly coming up with some, the internet and your students are full of ideas.

I saw some awesome booklets of themed writing prompts in a teacher store some months ago. Each booklet contained 50 prompts, ready to tear out and laminate and use. That is, if your willing to drop $16 for each one. Personally I felt that was a bit much to pay for something I could so easily create myself.

There are tons if ideas online that you can simply type into a Word document, print on some heavy cardstock (use different colors if you want to be cool like that), and laminate if you want them to last for more than one school year. I plan to make at least 2 or 3 copies of each page so that I can organize them in various ways, such as by theme, type of prompt (list, poem, story, etc.), as well as offer a set to the kids to use at a literacy center.

Here are a few places online that I have found with prompts to get your started. This site has some good ones, but some aren't kid friendly, or might need to be revised a bit to make them kids friendly. Lots here too, but again, your going to need to use some discretion. Tons of kids friendly ones can be found here. And also some interactive writing prompts can be found here.

Pictures also make great propmts that can be as open or closed ended as your would like them to be. Give kids a picture and ask them to discribe it, write a poem about it, use it as their story setting, etc. A good source for pictures, other than Google Images, would probably be Flickr, and their creative commons area.

I plan to have my students make their own journals out of scrap paper (if you can get your hands on some colored and decorative paper (like what people use for Christmas newsletters), even better) and cardboard. I haven't come across any tutorials that I really like just yet, so I plan to do a little experimenting and make my own. But if you want one now, just google it.

Personally I think I rather write in something I made, and I think kids would agree. Also, I would keep the journals small, to allow students to fill them faster. There is nothing like the feeling of completing a notebook or journal and then getting to start over with a new one.

Give them something fun to write with too. Various colored ink pens, colored pencils, markers, crayons, feather pen(cils), and gel pens are way more interesting than plain old pencils. Rotate them frequently and you'll find your kids getting excited about writing, just because they get to write with a purple pen.

If your students need a little more encouragement, inspiration, or motivation, put some of the books from the Amelia's Notebook series and Max's Logbook, both by Marissa Moss, in your classroom library. I loved the Amelia's Notebook series as a girl, and often tried (and failed) to keep a journal just like Amelia.

Also keep a journal yourself. Write responses to the same prompts you give your students and share your writing with them. Seeing you write will show them that writing is something important and worth while. Show them that even as an adult, writing is something that needs to be practiced.

Lastly, just remember that this should be something fun for your students. Your goal is to get them writing regularly, as well as stop and think deeply about a given subject. Give constructive feedback, and even more encouragement and praise, and you'll create writers for life.

Happy Writing!

P.S. Got non-writers? I love the idea of a color journal. Or have them draw a picture, or narrate something for your to write down. Just because you can't spell your own name yet, doesn't mean you don't have something to write.

10 Things I Learned This Year

2009-06-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

1. Teachers are big tree killers. As much as you might want to be a tree hugger, it is impossible if you are also a teacher. Just a one page worksheet for your class equals 30 pieces of paper used.

2. Coffee no longer becomes a every day pleasure. It becomes a every day necessity!

3. Kids always behave if there is a pack of "official people" observing. When they walk in, a hush falls over the class, and as soon as the last one leaves, the room explodes with noise.

4. Electric pencil sharpeners must be one of today's coolest pieces of technology, and kids just can't stay away. At least that's what one can assume after observing how frequently some kids visit it.

5. We need to improve hearing tests. At the rate I repeat myself, I'm beginning to wonder how accurate they are.

6. It is possible to send your entire class to detention.

7. You feel like you're running circles around yourself when writing lesson plans.

8. Everyone knows the answer. That is until you call on them. Then suddenly their brain just stops working. It's a very mysterious condition, which no one seems to be able to explain.

9. Kids are also great story tellers. Until of course it's actually time to do some writing. Again, the brain freeze condition many children seem to be facing needs to really be looked into.

10. Nothing beats 30 kids lined up in front of you... waiting to give you a hug goodbye.

Interview at WUHS

2009-06-09T08:10:00.000-07:00

Today, Kris at Weird, Unsociolized Homeschoolers posted an interview she did with my relating to homeschooling and my views on public schools versus homeschooling. Go check it out and be sure to socialize a little too while your there. She has some totally awesome stuff on her blog!

I have some posts I've been trying to finish and post, but right now I can't seem to work through the backlog of photos I need to edit and post, and get to people. Hopefully you will see part 1 of my post on literacy centers by the end of the week.

Awesome Ideas Round-Up

2009-06-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting a lot, but I have been reading! Here are some things I've rounded up in the past months, weeks, even days! Some are more geared for teachers, some for homeschoolers, some are project ideas, or online resources. Enjoy!

Awesome post, all about the alphabet!

Or send your big kids on an adventure!

Basketweaving looks fun!

Boredom busters always come in handy!

Color journals, what a creative idea!

Great list of craft supplies to always keep in stock.

Color without the paper waste. Or print some here!

Fun feathered pencils for some fancy writing!

Laughter is always good medicine!

I love literacy centers!

Love these Math Manipulatives! And they don't make a mess either!

Number jars, a very novel idea!

I've always been a fan of puzzles!

Reading aloud is a really great idea!

Super science ideas that are sure to please!

If you want to be a super speller, start here!

Word family game that will knock your socks off!

I'm also really digging the workbox system ideas that are here, here, and here.

Phew, I think that's enough for now...

It's over...

2009-05-26T11:21:00.000-07:00

Well the semester is now over for me! Phew I can't believe I made it. I'm excited to have more time now to work on some cool posts for this blog (and my others.)

Here are some pictures from the classroom where I interned this semester. It was quite an experience to say the least. The kids were challenging, and I'm fairly certain that I'm not cut out for city schools, if public schools at all. But the loved the camera. I don't think they have their picture taken too often and were in complete awe of my camera.

Don't Forget Your Etiquette!

2009-04-23T17:58:00.000-07:00

And in case you have, do I have the book for you! It's Don't Forget Your Etiquette: The Essential Guide to Misbehavior. The old books of etiquette are out, and the new are in, in the form of poems by Miss Information, otherwise know as the author David Greenburg.

I'm not going to lie, I laughed myself to tears with this one. So if your going to read this to your students or children, I suggest reading it a few times on your own to get the giggles out. Although I'm sure when they start howling in laughter, you will too.

This book covers all the basics, like how to eat soup, with the suggestion that it is proper to eat it with a fork, and test it's temperature with your feet. Oh and if you have a cake, do like all the icing off before you cut it, it will make it easier to cut. Saying hello when you answer the phone is so boring, so why not lick it, or talk baby talk, or stick it in your sink and turn on the disposal, or better yet, just answer with goodbye. And the list goes on.

These etiquette rules are so outlandish your kids will surely notice what is going on (and hopefully never try out themselves). And the illustrations just add to the poems, making them even more hilarious by adding the literal translations of the verses. So if your tired of telling kids how to behave properly, maybe this reverse psychology thing will work. The author also include at the top of every poem, a quote from a "real" etiquette book, which will give you some true etiquette advice to give your kids.

Oh and please don't thank me for sharing the information about this wonderful book with you... that would just simply be very, very, rude!

Food for thought

2009-04-21T18:10:00.000-07:00

Wow, here is some food for thought if there ever was any (be sure to read all 5 parts). It also proved to me that I need to do some more reading and research if I want to argue the school system more. Which is why my list of books to read and topics to research is every growing. And why I'm more and more convinced that out school system is not something that I support.

The author has a lot of really, really good points and very much sums up much of what I've been trying to tell people ( in real life, haven't gotten to it here, just wait). It also makes me just hate our school system even more and leaves me more and more convinced I will not be working for it. I honestly don't want to have any part in dragging our nation down.

It also makes me very angry to think that there are people who actually have the audacity to attempt to refute that. I'll have to do some more research, but last time I researched the pros and cons of homeschooling and it's effects on children, I couldn't find any cons. Gosh I wonder why?

If you would like to argue with me, please at least do your research too. Nothing beats my college sociology professor. While talking about the institution of education, she decided to bring up homeschooling. I had gotten the sense that she was anti-homeschooling just from some things she had mentioned in the previous weeks. She was a very nice woman and overall I enjoyed her class and respect her, but the woman attempted to bring down homeschooling without doing her research. I of course, do not mind speaking in front of people, and if you are going to threaten views on homeschooling, I most certainly have no problem bringing you down. Now this was not something that I would have done with any professor, but this was late in the semester and I knew she would not threaten my grade for arguing with her (I got an A+).

She starts bringing up all of these reasons why homeschoolers do not benefit from the institution of education because they are homeschooled and do not receive the benefits of the educational system (are these postitive or negative benefits, might I ask?). She brought up every topic under the sun, from socialization, to schoolwork monitoring, the fact that parents are qualified, and on and on. I shot her down on every, single, one. Now I couldn't quote text from studies, but I could at least say "research shows the opposite." HA! Imagine that, a lowly homeschooler shoots down a professor with a Ph. D. Obviously someone had failed to do their research. She eventually just ran out of things to say, or got tired of me, or something, because she eventually just completly moved on to a new subject, very wounded. (Please note, I was not disrespecful in any way, I was brought up to respect those above me. I argured back just as you would if you were properly debating someone).

Some people also really question why I'm going into teaching if I'm not for having others teach my currently non-exsistent kids. It's a good question, and honestly I'm still not sure what I was thinking. I love kids and and I love teaching others, and learning. Maybe I'm just hoping that I'll be able to help just a few kids. I'm not sure. It does seem a bit silly to work for something you are against. I guess at this point I'm really not up to a change of majors considering next year is my senior year, not to consider I'm not sure I would change it to anyways. There is a very good chance that I may never spend a day in the classroom. But I would love to do something with homeschoolers. Tutoring, co-op type classes, maybe?

However, the more time I spend in college learning how to educate and the more time I spend in schools, the more and more I'm conviced this is all just a joke. Most of my three years of college has been a waste of time and money. Much of what I've had to learn isn't needed. Which hopefully will make the homeschool parent feel better about themselves and their ability to teach. Trust me, you do not need a degree to teach your children. I think in the end, there will be less than 10 courses that will have truely had any meaning to me and my teaching. And you could probably just learn that information out of a book.

So homeschool parents, rest assured, you are giving your child the greatest gift they could ever recieve (other than salvation through Jesus Christ, of course). Never doubt your abilities to teach; rest assured that your children are missing nothing. If anything, they are gaining more. Every day I spend in the public schools, I thank my mother even more for being willing to sacrifice 12 years of her life for me.

Book buying!

2009-04-20T15:07:00.001-07:00

Okay, okay, I know I've been a bit MIA for the past 10 days. Life is getting extremely crazy for me. I have lots of big things to finish up in the last 3 weeks of school. I can't believe I'm now down to less than a month. I still have some big papers to write and various other things to do. I'm honestly not totally sure how it's all going to work out.

I went to the homeschool curriculm fair out in Frederick this past Friday (yes, that's what all the cool kids do!). I had lots of fun looking and got some good ideas as well as picking up some good buys. I got lots of Dr. Seuss books, in brand new condition for just a $1, as well as some other classic titles for just a $1. I also picked up a book with ideas and worksheets for various types of stations. We only made it through one building and there were 4. I know I will definatly be going back next year!

Then Saturday was our neighborhood's yard sale. Our neighbors nextdoor did it also. They have daughters in 3rd and 2nd grade and they were selling a bunch of their books. I ended up scooping up 30 books for 35 cents a piece. Many hadn't even been opened! I was quite thrilled!

I think from now on I'll be sticking with hitting up yard sales and such for books. Seems to be better than the used bookstore I had been going to once in a while.

My personal library is now up to 75 books, and I've also out grown the tub I had been keeping everything in. See!

Happy Good Friday!

2009-04-10T08:26:00.000-07:00

Well you'll probably notice that there seems to be some construction going on around my site. I somehow stubbed upon the site "The Cutest Blog on the Block," which has free, totally cute, blog layouts. They also provide lots of help with HTML coding for specific things. Like how to change your blog from two to three columns, which I did. The layout which I have now is somewhat temporary. They provide some great instructions for how to make your own layouts, which I'm having some problems figuring out. So I'll probably just hand it over to the pro, Tommy's sister Michelle.

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On another note, I hope everyone takes some time to ponder on what Jesus did for us on the cross on this day 2,000 years ago. I heard this radio broadcast this morning and thought it was quite powerful, so check it out.

Luke 24:46-47 ESV
(46) and (Jesus) said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, (47) and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Have a blessed Easter, everyone!

Decisions, Decisions (Updated!)

2009-04-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

Update!

I'm officially in cohort 2 now. After talking it over with my mom, we kinda decided that 2 would probably be best. When I logged onto the website cohort 1 and 3 still had a couple spots, and cohort 2 had a lot. I then watched both cohort 1 and 3 disappear, so I kinda ended up going with cohort 2 by default. But realistically, it's probably best.
It was so nerve racking at the end though, I put cohort 2 in my shopping cart but as I kept refreshing the number of seats was rapidly going down. I swear it was worse than a suspenseful movie. I watched as my clock turned from 4:29 to 4:30 and hit enroll right then. Phew, it went through. Ten minutes later there are only a couple spots left.

Fall 09 Cohort # 2, here I come!

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Ugh, signing up for classes is one of my least favorite things to do. Especially now with the whole cohort thing. When I used to sign up for classes it was pretty much just sign up for the ones that worked together. Rarely was it by how good the professor was rated on ratemyprofessors.com.
Maybe I shouldn't have looked up the professor ratings... because now I thought I had made up my mind, but I'm not so sure. Two cohorts only have 3 seats left though so my mind may get made up for me by the time my enrollment appointment comes at 4:30 this afternoon.

Here's the breakdown:
Cohort 1: Long days on Monday, one unknown professor, one un-reviewed professor and two highly rated professors.
Cohort 2: One unknown professor, but it's just the internship overseer, one un-reviewed professor, two highly rated professors, good overall schedule.
Cohort 3: Biology class is at the zoo, decent schedule, two highly rated professors, one unknown (again just internship overseer), and one professor who every review claimed her as the devil reincarnated (yikes)!
Cohort 4: Terrible schedule, not considering.

I'm really not sure what to do now. I really wanted cohort 3 because of the zoo biology class, but do I really want the devil for math? Ugh I hate these decisions. I will most certainly be registering with the disabilities office if I do cohort 3, someone did say that they asked to be removed from her class because of the sheer difficulty she was giving then and they let them switch. But again, if I can't get moved, I may be screwed. Thankfully we won't be under the education department for level II, so I'm thinking a switch may be a bit easier than if we were with the education department.

I do think 2 and then 1 are going to be my backups, I just need to decide if 3 is going to be my first choice or not.

Online Finds of the Day - Handwriting

2009-04-02T08:09:00.000-07:00

So handwriting isn't something that is really taught in schools anymore, although I think it's rather critical. It doesn't help that kids do so much work on computers today. But there are still times where you need to be able to write, and people need to be able to interpret what you are saying. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to figure out someone's handwriting.

Here are some sites that offer free pre-made sheets, or make your own sheets that you can print off your computer.
Worksheets for Pre-K - K
Handwriting for Kids
Worksheet Maker
Printable Practice Paper
Writing Wizard

Happy handwriting!

Resource Notebook

2009-04-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

My children's literature teacher is having us keep resource notebooks, which is good idea of course and something I meant to be doing all along, but haven't. So good motivation.

Oh course I never realized how much stuff I had! I have a 2" binder almost full just from that class alone. I plan on expanding that from just literature type resources to contain all my reading type stuff, since a lot of it is pretty much the same.

I went online a downloaded a lot of supplemental stuff also. I found lots of story maps, reading comprehension charts, reading logs, etc. So I added all those too. I need to go through and keep completing all my subjects like that. There is soooo much free stuff out there online, so especially homeschoolers, always look there first. Just googling will bring up tons of free stuff.

Of course, I just kept thinking to myself as I compiled all this stuff, and thought of all the other stuff I could compile, that I very well may not need to every purchase curriculum when I homeschool.

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The yesterday while working in the lab on some group projects during class, one of my fellow classmate came across this teacher's classroom site. Wow! Talk about amazing. First off, she has an awesome and totally HUGE classroom, but also, she does some totally cool stuff with the kids, like the classroom economy. I would totally love to come hang out with this woman for a few weeks. She also has lots of resources posted on her site, so look around and check it out!

Level II Meeting

2009-03-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

So our level II meeting was yesterday. Loads of fun! It was kinda funny to see each cohort grouping together even though there were over 100 of us there. I also realized that we have the only 3 boys in our level in our cohort. Haha I feel bad for them sometimes, but I totally love them and I'm glad their with us!

So I, along with the rest of my cohort #3-mates have been planning on trying to get into cohort #3 again for level II. Yeah, so is everyone else we found out yesterday. There is room for 16 per cohort, and I'm gonna guess that over 50 people probably want that one.

There are a few reasons why that one is probably the pick of them all:

It's the only cohort that has listed the days and times of both the interships, so you go in already knowing and not being surprised right before school starts.
The days and times are the best out of all of the cohorts
The biology class in cohort #3 takes place at the zoo

I'm on the third day of enrollment appointments, but the last time of the day. So that means that 7 waves of people will go before me. I think I still have a chance, but it's slim.

I'm really going to bummed if I don't make it in though. I love the idea of the bio class being at the zoo. Especially since I was unable to go on the Costa Rica trip for that class this summer.

Ugh... so be prepared for either complete excitement or complete disappointment on April 9th, sometime after 4:30.

Book Review - Beware of the Storybook Wolves

2009-03-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon this book in a local book store that sell lots of unique and used books, Ukazoo. I didn't read through it while I was there, I just grabbed it because I thought it looked cute. Plus it was only $5.

This story is adorable. It's about a little boy, Herb, who is afraid that the wolves in his favorite storybooks will come alive at night and want to eat him. When his mom leaves one of his books in his room one night, his worse nightmare comes true, and the wolves come to get him. So Herb has to use his head, as well as his other storybooks, in order to get rid of the wolves and not get eaten.

This is defiantly a good read-aloud book. The only thing I don't like about it is the creative use of font. While it looks really cool and defiantly adds to the book, some are a bit tricky to read.

Grade Level: Pre-K - 3rd

Meeting Today!

2009-03-27T06:52:00.000-07:00

We have a level II meeting today. I'm a bit curious to see what in the world they are going to talk about with us for an hour. Other than going over how to sign up for classes, which is pretty much a 20 step process (no joke). It's rather ridiculous and I'm not totally sure why it's completely necessary, but who knows. It's probably just something they decided to make up to make things more complicated.

I'm pretty sure most of my cohort (#3) is going to sign up for cohort #3 again. Haha, we all really don't want to separate. It is kind of nice how they do the cohort thing. Although a bit annoying because it means you don't choose your schedule, you are with the same people all the time. Which could be a bad thing if you don't like them all, but I love my cohort. We all get along (for the most part) which is good since there is about a million group projects you have to do. We all admit we feel like family.

So hopefully spring 09 cohort #3 will become fall 09 cohort #3!

Borderline Burnout

2009-03-26T08:33:00.001-07:00

I am so done with school! That's really an understatement. I swear the whole idea of the program at school is just to see if you actually have the endurance level to make it through the program. Yesterday, we found out that one of our fellow cohort-mate had to withdraw from all his classes. He didn't totally say why, but my guess is he just got overwhelmed it it all. I also do know that he was sick and missed an internship day, which means automatic removal from your internship (yes, miss one day because your sick, and it's bye-bye to you), which means that you can't go onto the next level and spend your next semester just doing the one internship class. Being together all the time in a cohort does make you really close and we almost consider each other family, so we call took it kind of hard.
Personally, I'm not sure I would really recommend the program at TU to anyone, and I know a lot of my cohort-mates feel the same. There isn't a lot of compassion and empathy among the program directors and professors. They pretty much has this whole, "tough-luck" attitude and it's a major turn-off. I think it's their claim to fame, as one of the best and biggest schools of education in the nation that makes them feel like they can do whatever they want.
They run you pretty hard, and really don't care if your struggling. The directors as well as the professors truly believe that if you can't keep up, your never going to make it as a teacher, and they want nothing to do with you. Which is why they kick people out for missing one internship, even if they are legitimately sick. They also offer no sympathy or support when your struggling, all of my professors have told us that if we can't keep up on our own, go find another major, because they don't want us (no, I'm not joking).
Personally I think this is a really bad attitude to have. I mean when educating students, you can't just tell them tough luck, do it yourself. No you have to help them, encourage them, until they can do it on their own. You can't just expect them all to know what they are doing and be able to do it right away. Or overwhelm them with so much stuff, just to see if they can survive and push through.
Everyone claims it get's easier, and I do believe them. I think one reason they make level 1 so hard is to use the scare tactic to weed out those they don't really want. People also say you get used to the load level, and better because this will be the rest of your life. Which sometimes makes me wonder what I was thinking when I decided to do this. Don't get me wrong, I totally love kids, and I truly do look forward to teaching, but I'm not sure I really want this work load to be part of my life forever.

They just released the new cohort schedule, which doesn't look to lovely and is basically going to keep me from being able to work at all next year. We are at school Monday, Tuseday, Wednesdays all day, and then Thursday afternoons. Right now I go Monday, Tuseday and Wednesday and have Thursdays and Fridays off, which having two full days off is barely keeping me afloat. So I know there is no way I can give up a Thursday morning or all day Friday for work. I feel really bad as the family I'm currently nannying for would like me back and I would love, love, love to go back to them, but I know I need to focus on school. The whole money factor does have me worried, but I just need to relax and not worry, for God will provide. He's been faithful before, and I know he will continue to be faithful. Forever and always...

Book Review - The Ordinary Princess

2009-03-25T19:43:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading the book, The Ordinary Princess, last night. This book, written and illustrated by M.M. Kaye, is about a princess named Amy, who at her christening is given the gift of being ordinary by the fairy Crustacea. This leaves the 7th princess of the royal family of Phantasmorania, rather plain and boring, and the royal family unable to marry her off.

This book is so sweet and charming. I read it in elementary school, but most certainly enjoyed it more as an adult (as I have found with most children's literature). At only 112 pages long, it certainly isn't a daunting read. Although there are some crazy names in this book that some readers (including my dyslexic self) may find frustrating to try and read. Boys also may not like this book too much, as the main focus is on a princess and their isn't too much action in it.

Grade Recommendation: 2nd-5th

And the point is...

2009-03-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

So lately I've been wanting to share more of my thoughts on education and my future career as a teacher (that is if I make it). I have strong feelings on education and while this might be a bad thing, I also think that it is a good thing and while help me to strive to be the best teacher I can possibly be. Many probably don't agree with all my views, but I'm sure there are also many out there who do (at least I hope).

One thing I have certainly discovered about teaching is that is nothing like what my professors, the movies, books, and anyone really, makes it out to be. Having been homeschooled I wasn't really familiar with a elementary classroom and what a teacher might be like. Now please don't tell me that because I was homeschooled I missed out on things. Being in the classroom has only proved to me that I missed out on only the negative things. Things like having to vie for time with the teacher, a non-individulized education, sitting in the same place for hours, distractions, being exposed to inappropriate things and talk, mandated high stakes testing, and the list goes on. And no, I'm sorry, these are not character builders either.

Some find it slightly ironic that a former homeschooler, who is completly pro-homeschooling, would want to be a teacher. I really don't know, I frequently wonder, "What was I thinking?"

Contact me

2009-02-24T19:55:00.000-08:00

Got something to share? Ask? Feel free to drop me a line. I'll do my best to get back to you as soon as possible. PR welcome.

About Me

2009-02-24T19:11:00.000-08:00

My name is Morgan.
I recently graduated with a degree in Elementary Education.
I'm currently long term substitute for a 1st/2nd grade special educator.
No, I don't have a degree in special education.
I'm ADHD and dyslexic.
I am a K-12 homeschool graduate and plan to become a second generation homeschooler.
I run a "tight ship." Kids only dream about misbehaving and getting away with it in my class.
I have fairly "old school" values when it comes to respecting others and adults.
My classroom is organized. My bedroom and desk at home... not so much.
I like to be creative and hands on in my teaching, because that's how I learn best myself.
I love learning with my kids and always let them know that!
Sarcasm could be my middle name sometimes. Especially when it comes to the topic of school politics.
Actually, don't bring up school politics with my unless you want to hear my endless rant.
I heart teaching big time and am so glad I listened to my friends and family who pushed me into it my freshman year of college.