Teachers are Heroes Sale!

What's your super power??? TPT tomorrow is holding a jumbo sale to celebrate teachers and their daily acts of heroism! Everything at my store will be 20% off, and if you type in the promo code HEROES, save 28%. If there is anything on your wish list, tomorrow is the day to go for it!

Click on the picture below to go to TPT!

My Animal Research Project

Sometimes as a teacher, it can be overwhelming to plan a research-based writing project. We know that gathering research, taking notes, and then organizing those notes in categories are skills that need to be explicitly taught to our students on top of the writing process, but how??? Well, I am soooo excited to show you THE RESEARCH NOTEBOOK! You are going to LOVE it! This little pocket notebook will teach your students how to gather research in an organized way! When I used the research notebook to teach an animal research-based writing project to my third graders, it became my favorite writing unit that I taught all year!  I was astounded at the high-level writing my students produced at the end. Check out the research notebook in use in the picture below!

So here's how it works! Basically, you create pockets out of paper that fit the size of an index card perfectly, and each pocket has a specific topic that students should focus on as they delve into their research. For my animal research project, I broke the research notebook into 6 different categories: Habitat, Food & Diet, Physical Features, Life Cycle, Fun Facts, and Sources. These categories seemed to give a "lens" each day for students to view their informational text through, and this focus allowed them to read with a purpose of locating specific information. 

I finally was able to take some time to put this research notebook as well as many other resources together in an informative writing unit for others to use.

In this writing unit, there are detailed day to day lesson plans, student printables, anchor papers for you to use as the teacher, and rubrics. Here is how the unit is broken down:

FIRST, you follow the lesson plans for the research portion of the project and print out those necessary materials.

SECOND, you choose beforehand whether you will have your students write a multi-paragraph research paper OR a nonfiction book. You then use the corresponding lesson plans and print out those necessary materials based on your selection.

THIRD, you can grade your students writing project using the rubrics provided. There are also generic rubrics included so that you can use this pack to teach research-based writing and create a paper or book on ANY TOPIC you desire in the future!

This versatility is found in the research notebook and nonfiction book template as well. You can use the template to build a nonfiction book about any subject!!

This is what the nonfiction book looks like when it is finished!

Here is a look at all 12 pages included.

To access this product at my TPT store, click on the picture below!

Vintage Jewelry DIY Magnets

Happy 2015! How did you ring in the new year? Recently, I have been spending my days doing things I love outside of teaching like reading, crafting, cooking, and spending lots of time with the fam while on my winter break from school. Which leads me to my post today. While this is not strictly a "teaching" blog post, I would argue that it is in fact very educational. :) Like my fellow teachers, I do indeed have a whole life outside of my four classroom walls, so I thought it only appropriate that while on break from school, I blog about what I have been up to.

An avid antique collector, I just love that whole vintage feel. Ever since I stalked repeatedly visited a tutorial on Pinterest, I have been wanting to make magnets out of old jewelry. With a little hot glue and creativity, check out my refrigerator's new digs.

If you are interested in making your own, it's super simple! Follow these four easy steps.

1) Gather vintage jewelry and supplies listed below:

• Vintage jewelry (bought or found)--broken parts and pieces are perfect!
• A pair of wire cutters or needle-nosed pliers
• Hot glue gun & glue
• Magnets

Since you are turning this vintage jewelry into magnets, you probably don't want to use anything too expensive or of sentimental importance/value. I actually went to a large warehouse and bought antique jewelry anywhere from 50 cents for a mixed batch to a few bucks per piece. And get excited, BROKEN JEWELRY works the best! Often times at antique booths, you can buy baggies of it on the cheap. Clip-on earrings, focals (such as pendants off of necklaces), pins, lockets, really any piece or part will do.

Once you have your supplies, you are ready for step #2.

2) Prepare vintage jewelry for becoming a magnet. This is where you can get crazy crafty or keep it real simple depending on your desire to be artsy. On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being, "I would rather scour the bathroom floor at the mere mention of glitter," and a 10 being, "I could bedazzle each and every wall of Buckingham Palace ALL DAY!" I was at a solid 7 this particular afternoon. But no worries, I have given multiple examples at varying level of difficulty for you to follow that will hopefully give you some relief OR inspiration for wherever you fall on "The Official Scale of Desire to Do Arts and Crafts."

If you want to keep it easy-peasy, find a piece of jewelry that requires absolutely no prep. Then, all you have to do is hot glue a magnet to the back. For example, check out this beautiful broken mini mosiac pin I found. The pin was already broken off of the back, so it was inexpensive and needed no preparation. Some hot glue and a magnet later, and voila! Now this beauty decorates my fridge.

Clip-on vintage earrings are another simple magnet to assemble. Usually, you need to just pry the clip-on backing off of it and glue a magnet in its place. Here is a cool pair I found at the warehouse. I used wire cutters to clip off the dangling pieces, remove the backing, and then glued those clipped-off pieces in the center to fill it out a bit more.

Combining bits and pieces can get really fun. Here is a broken pin, bracelet, and pendant I reorganized. I turned the pin upside-down and used its back as the front. Then, I cut the flowers off of the bracelet to glue on the pin's points and put the broken pendant in the center. Now, it's a work of art!

Here's another example of some parts and pieces that I glued together to make finished pieces. The image on the left is a turquoise pendant that has a broken jewelry part glued to its center. The middle image is a broken earring (the green circular piece) with a clump of pearls (I don't know from what piece of original jewelry this came from) stuck in the middle. The right image is a heart locket glued inside of a picture frame locket. See what I mean about broken jewelry being amazing?!

Lastly, when it comes to preparing your vintage jewelry to become magnets, think outside of the box! Here is an old medal that came in a bag of jewelry I bought. I didn't even know what it was at first. Then, I read the inscription. "2nd Place Calculus Team 1990." Who says 2nd place isn't great? I glued a vintage button to the medal's flat side, cut the loop off of its top, and now so it sits on my fridge as pictured on the right.

The preparation of the jewelry is the time-consuming part. Once you have all of your creations planned, steps 3 and 4 are quick.

3) Use a hot glue gun to adhere magnets to the back of your jewelry. I recommend buying individual ceramic magnets vs. the flexible roll that you cut your own from. You need a firm magnet that is strong. I bought varying sizes at a Michael's craft store.

4) Place your magnets on a magnetic surface, and enjoy! I am personally benefiting from step 4 right now as I FINALLY hung up my stack of Christmas cards that had been sitting in a sloppy pile.

The Christmas cards now look great and so do the magnets!

CYBER Monday Sale!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and spent time with loved ones! We are getting our Christmas tree today and officially putting up decorations--I love this time of year!

Tomorrow, December 1st, is back to school for me and Cyber Monday across the nation. So if you have any items you have had on your wish list for while, tomorrow (or Tuesday too) is the day to buy them and get the biggest savings possible. Use any computer or mobile device to log onto TPT and save 28% by checking out with the code TPTCYBER. Click on the picture below to be taken to TPT.

 

Magic Tree House Books #1-10 Study Guides MEGA Value Pack

It's official--I have read all of Mary Pope Osborne's Magic Tree House Books #1-10 and completed the accompanying study guides! I can see why students of all ages can't put these books down!

Each study guide sells for $2.50 in my TPT store, but today, I bundled them all together as one giant pack for 35% off. To purchase this MEGA value pack, click on the picture below.

Happy reading!

Incentive Charts

Well, I am officially in my new role as academic specialist, and so far, I am loving it! Initially, I must confess that I felt a tad melancholy when I packed up my entire second grade classroom into neatly labeled boxes this past June (my husband empathized as I stored said boxes in half just a teeny-tiny corner of our basement). But now that I am in my new position, I am loving it! While I was not able to decorate my home away from home this fall with cute bulletin board paper & boarders or label student desks, cubbies, & book bins, I did get to discover some of the rewards of my new position. 1) My new team rocks! I seriously cannot stress enough the quality of educators I am working with. And, they are just a fun group of people to work with to boot. 2) I get to work directly with teachers and students across MANY grade levels. So cool to spread that impact out across a school! 3) I am growing as I step out of my comfort zone--always a good thing!

One of my responsibilities as academic specialist this year will be to work with students of all ages in reading and math, so I needed some new materials to help with behavior management. I will pull small groups of students in all different grades starting next week, so I created a generic incentive chart that will work beautifully for all of my student groups despite their varying ages. Once I made it in one color, I just couldn't stop. Now, my students will have 16 color choices.

These generic incentive charts each have a 20-box grid perfect for filling with stickers, stars, or checks that students earn as they work towards a reward. Featured in 16 colors, these charts are an ideal tool to aid in whole class, small group, or individual behavior management as students track their success. If you want these incentive charts, click on the picture below to be taken to this FREEBIE product at my TPT store.

Simply print, cut, and enjoy!

Reading Foldables

Who remembers making cootie-catchers as a young student with varying colors, numbers, and fortunes on the inside? Spelling out green, then counting to 5, then to 3, only to read the silly or perhaps outrageous fortune on the inside (aka, YES, your secret crush did return your sentiments!!) and drumroll please for a group of friends shrieking in delight. I was obsessed with these growing up. So I decided to take this tactile activity as my muse and use it as a way to engage students in learning--specifically reading. And hence, my reading foldables project was born.

In this pack, there are 21 foldables around 10 different topics, all shown in detail below. These foldables are for both fictional literature as well as informational text and connect to various reading, language, and anchor Common Core State Standards. Since CCSS are all about close reading, text analysis, and evidence-based thinking, many of the foldables in this pack require students to prove their thinking with textual evidence, including citing the page numbers. Check out all the foldables included in this pack in detail as follows:

Main idea and details (1 foldable)

Asking and Answering Questions (2 foldables)

Fictional Story Elements (2 foldables)

Cause and Effect (3 foldables)

Character Traits (1 foldable)

Summarizing (3 foldables)

Evidence Based Responses (1 foldable)

Vocabulary Development (4 foldables)

Making Predictions (2 foldables)

Making Connections (2 foldables)

To launch this product, I am offering a sale for a limited time only--over this holiday weekend! You can save 20% on my Reading Foldables Pack through Monday, September 1st! Click the Table of Contents below to be taken to this product at my store on TPT!