Sharing Sunday Link-up: Dr. Seuss's Birthday and Morning Work Rubric

It has been awhile since I have done an update.  Needless to say, things have been crazy busy at school for me since Christmas Break!  I am excited to be back on the blog and get back to my goal of posting at least once a month.  Feel free to hold me to this!!

For my first post in 2016, I am linking up with The Primary Peach for Sharing Sunday!  I have a couple things that I want to share.

My FIRST Sunday Share is about National Reading Month and Dr. Seuss's birthday.  Every year, the first week of March, my school has a Dr. Seuss hallway decorating contest(fire code prohibits us from decorating our classroom doors).  Throughout the week, teachers take their students around the school and our students vote on the hallway decorations of one classroom per grade.  The winners receive a small prize and bragging rights!  Every year, I look on pinterest and brainstorm some ideas of how I can decorate the hallway(I probably spend way to much time doing this).  Every year, I think I have a better idea than the last year, BUT this year I REALLY think my hallway decorating is the best that it has ever been.  Look below to see what I did last year.  Sadly, I did not take pictures the first year that I taught at this school.

My students wrote places that they like to read for the Dr. Seuss hat and then created themselves as a "Thing".  I took a picture of each student and they glued it on the "Thing" they created of themselves. For confidentiality reasons, I had to cover up the faces of my students.

DRUM ROLL PLEASE!!!  Here is my masterpiece this year that I believe will be a BIG competitor and even a winner this year!

 What do you think?  Do you think this Dr. Seuss hallway decoration is a winner this year??

Here are just a couple samples of the Dr. Seuss Writing that my students did.  You can purchase this Dr. Seuss Writing Activity for only a $1 at my TPT store here!  

SECOND, I want to share my new morning work.  I noticed that my students needed additional practice with doing writing responses from what they had read.  I am ALWAYS looking for more ways to integrate writing in my classroom!  Therefore, I decided to create weekly reading passages with writing responses.  Look at the samples below:

Each of my reading passages include 2 writing responses, a multiple choice comprehension page and a short answer comprehension page.  Each passage is just $2 here.

I have my students work on these reading passages with writing responses every morning as they are coming in for about 20 minutes.  I created a rubric to grade my students weekly on this writing response.  The rubric includes areas that I want my students to focus on when during their writing.  The rubric is below:

This rubric can be purchased here for only $1 at my store!  I will be creating editing and revising checklists to go along with this rubric.  Follow my store to see these checklists when they are complete!

Well, that is it for now! I hope one of these was helpful for you.  Wish me luck at the hallway decoration contest this week :)

Merry and Bright Link Up

I am linking up with a bunch of great teachers to share some things I did in my classroom the this last week of school to bring some holiday cheer into my classroom.  The last week of school is a busy and sometimes hectic week, but I feel that it is important to show my students that they are cared for and celebrate the holidays with them!  Here are some ideas that I used in my classroom this year to bring in the holidays.

I look for small ways to incorporate the holidays into our every day learning.  Right now my students are learning long division and getting ready for a test towards the end of the week.  Yes, I know giving a test the last week before Christmas may seem cruel, but I think giving a test the first week back from Christmas would be much worse! Anyways, I have created long division QR code task cards that are winter and holiday themed to help my students practice their division.  My students are enjoying working with these tasks and using the different strategies they have learned to solve these word problems.  My school has decided we are now going to start having our holiday parties the 2nd to last day of school.  Therefore, this year, I am going to start a  reading marathon tradition with my students for the last day of school before Christmas break.    You can purchase these multiplication and division task cards individually in my store or in a discounted bundle.

 We started our last morning before Christmas break by having a book exchange.  For my book exchange, I have students bring in wrapped new or gently used books from home.  The past couple of years, I have used "The Right Family" story to exchange the books.  At the end, every student has a new to them book that they can keep and enjoy over Christmas break.

This year, after the book exchange, we are going to have a mini reading marathon for part of the day.  My students are going to get to dig into their new books, decorate bookmarks and enjoy some hot chocolate.  I used a crockpot hot chocolate recipe and it turned out great!

I am excited to start this new tradition in my classroom! I am hoping this gives my students a good start with their new books and encourages them to finish their book over Christmas break!  Does anyone else do a reading marathon the last day of school before Christmas break?

For my 3rd Merry and Bright idea, I am sharing the Christmas gifts that I have created for my students this year.  Every year, I try to give my students a Christmas gift that they can enjoy and some kind of gift that encourages reading.  This year, I have created ornaments with peppermint hot chocolate ingredients inside.  I encourage my students to find a time over Christmas break to curl up with their hot chocolate and a good book!  This year, I am going to encourage my students to take a picture of themselves enjoying their hot chocolate with a book and we are going to hang them in our classroom after Christmas break.  I know my students love having their pictures hung up in the classroom!

These ornaments were very simple to make too.  All you need is clear plastic ornaments, hot chocolate mix, mini marshmallows, crushed up candy cane, cute string or ribbon and a note to attach.  I have created these notes.  Grab them  at my store for only a dollar!!

Long Overdue Post and October Monday Made It

It has been quite awhile since I last posted on here!  I have been very busy getting this new school year started, adding products to my TPT store and getting ready to move into a new apartment!  I am going to try to begin updating more regularly again.  I thought for my first post back, I would share some pictures about my classroom and a couple new products that I have added to my TPT store.  Also, I wanted to make a shoutout to another blogger and link up with Tara's October Monday Made it.

To start, here are a couple new products that I've recently posted on my TPT store: 

First, this is my reading logs and monthly reading calendar.  I wanted a way to track my students reading in the classroom and at home.  That's why I created both of these products.  I use the reading logs in the classroom and the reading calendar for my students to use for their reading at home, but you could use both products either way! 

 BlankReading Logs(There are 12 assorted borders/colors)

                                        
  Monthly Reading Log Calendar- This file comes with already done calendars and calendars                     where you can customize them by adding in your own directions.

Next, is my Problem Solving Powerpoint and my Problem Solving Poster.  I was inspired to create this Problem Solving PowerPoint after reading Christy Howe's blog post about her Problem Solving Mats and Problem Solving Rubric.  You can purchase Christy's Problem Solving Mats and Rubrics here.  I have purchased them and it is have been a great product for my student's in Math!  Make sure you check out her AWESOME blog while you're at :)

I wanted a way to introduce her Problem Solving Mats and show my students the importance of showing their work.  So, I created this PowerPoint.  I showed it to my students for the first time a couple weeks ago and It was even more powerful than I hoped for.  My students really saw the importance of showing their work and then when we jumped into using Christy's Problem Solving Mat's they were ready to complete them on their own.  I was blown away with how well they did with these mats and I am seeing so much growth with my student's problem solving already!

 Here are a couple slides to give you a sample of what the Problem Solving PowerPoint is:

Also, I created this poster as a reminder to my students of the steps that they should use to Problem Solve.  This poster is going to be FREE in my TPT store for the next week. Of                                            course, it has a Chevron background :)

Lastly, I have attached a photo of one of my favorite classroom crafts that I have done this year.  This stool was so easy to make and some comfortable! I use it way more than I even thought I would. These aren't the best pictures but you get the idea!

I'm going to end this post with some pictures from my classroom this year.  I love the set up of my classroom this year.  I have stuck with a bright chevron theme with some accents of polka dots and stripes for the past couple of years.  Enjoy these pictures!  

Here are some pictures of my classroom library.  I love how open and inviting my library is this year.  My students love to read in the library on the rug, on a bench or in our bowl chair (not pictured).

I am so excited about my new bulletin board.  I am going to use it to capture my students being voracious readers through pictures, reading responses and reading activities.  You can see already that there are a couple sticky notes from when we did a reading response activity.  

These Anchor Chart Bulletin boards that I have created my be one of my favorite parts of my classroom.  I will never go back to just throwing anchor charts up on the wall.  They look much more organized this way and my students know exactly where to look for anchor charts as references plus it fills up some space on this big blank wall.  The green one is for reading anchor charts and the red one is for math anchor charts.  

I am lucky enough to have 2 whiteboards in my classroom.  I use one to do work on and the other for my essential questions, anchor charts for the week and weekly vocabulary.  

 Here is a picture of my other bulletin board with frequently asked classroom questions above it and my class rules that I created over the summer above the projection screen.  This is also our rig area that we do our morning meeting on and read on often.  

On one side of my classroom, I have a wall of ugly blue cabinets.  I use them in many ways.  One way, I use them is to keep track of my students multiplication facts with their ice cream multiplication.  Read my blog post about motivating students about learning their multiplication facts if you would like to find out more about how I use this in my classroom.

These cute chevron pockets are going to be used for my students to recommend books to one another.  I am excited to get these started in the next couple of weeks! 

  This post ended up being a bit longer than I wanted, but I guess this happens when I haven't updated for a couple months.  Thank you if you made it all the way through this blog post!  Check back next week for an October math activity that I am working on :)

Monday Made it #3

Here I am with my 3rd Monday Made it!!  I have loved being able to link up with Tara a couple times this summer.  I just wish I would have started this earlier and gotten even more done for my classroom!

It is hard to believe that in 2 more weeks I will have 20-something new kids walking into my classroom!  Therefore, my mind is running with decorating, organizing and new classroom ideas.  Here are a couple new Monday Made Its.  Enjoy :)

So, I absolutely LOVE binder clips and use them for so many things in my classroom, especially for keeping papers to be graded together!  A couple years ago, I put stickers on some of my binder clips to make them cuter.  This year, I decided to use Scotch Washi tape to make my binder clips a little cuter.  I got 2 different roles of tape for $2 each and had binder clips at school that I used.  I LOVE my new binder clips and can't wait to use them in my classroom.

 Here are the materials that I used to make this binder clips.

Finished results!! So easy to make but much better than those boring black binder clips!

Here are a couple FREEBIES on my TPT site!!  Each year, I work hard with my students on learning their multiplication and division facts.  To help motivate my students we do an ice cream multiplication party and a division popcorn party.  If you want to know more about this, check out on of my latest blog post about how to motivate your students to learn their multiplication and division facts.  Below is a poster about my multiplication ice cream rewards and a note home for the party.  Check them out in my TPT store :)

I have been MIA the past couple Monday Made Its because of a family member that was in a bad car accident, but I am back and I hope that you enjoyed these Monday Made It's!