He Who Must Not Be Named....

"Today you are You,

that is truer than true.

There is no one alive

who is Youer than You."

-Dr. Seuss, Happy Birthday to You!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! 

I'm probably not allowed to say that but I don't really give a rats....WHAT!?!

It's absolutely pathetic that teachers are afraid to share the wonderful things that they do with their classes to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday because they are afraid of cease and desist letters and lawsuits.  Despite my disdain for the bullies who are trying to turn Dr. Seuss into Voldemort I am going to share a few things I LOVE about Seuss with you!

So many of Seuss's books contain incredible lessons, messages, and commentary on the world we live in.  For example, as I was reading I Had Trouble in getting to Solla Sollew with my class earlier this week the central message resonated with me even as an adult.

"But I've bought a big bat.

I'm all ready, you see.

Now my troubles are going

To have troubles with me!"

-Dr. Seuss I Had Trouble in getting to Solla Sollew

The story is about a little creature who runs into trouble and decides to run away from his troubles.  On his journey to Solla Sollew he runs into more troubles and upon his arrival he learns he can't get into Solla Sollew (thanks to a Key-Slapping Slippard) and he's faced with a decision.  He can continue his search for a trouble-free life in Boola Boo Ball or he can return home and face his problems.  

Of course, I emphasized that you don't need a bat to face your problems but there are two main points that are wonderful to pull out with young students!  Is it possible to have a problem free life?  When you have a problem should you run away from it or be brave and face it?

I just adore Who Was Dr. Seuss? by Janet Pascal.  I got this little chapter book from a Scholastic Book Fair Warehouse sale last year and just finished reading it with my class.  When we finished a chapter in the biography we read a book that was referenced in that chapter.  It was really interesting and exciting to read the story with background information from the biography!  

For example, we learned in the biography that after Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat using 225 different words, his friend and publisher Bennett Cerf bet him $50 that he couldn't write a book using only 50 different words.  Dr. Seuss won the bet and $50 when he completed Green Eggs and Ham!  A few of my students wanted to know what 50 words he used so this week I created a recording page and they dug into their research.  I forgot to take pictures but I will post two of the "research projects" my students participated in this week. 

If you are interested in using either one of these recording pages with your class please download them HERE for free!

MTSS Monday: Organization

Do you thrive on classroom chaos and find order in disorder?

Do you believe there is a place for everything and everything belongs in it's place?

I lean toward the "place for everything" mentality, especially at work.  During our last planning day, I spent 4 hours in my classroom closet getting organized (it was a disaster, I'd like to blame it on my students but they don't go in there).  I do this every 2 years or so.  Stuff piles up and I need to change the way I store it so that I can find it/get rid of things I don't use anymore (I hate clutter!).

Since I've found, created, and bought (thanks Pinterest and TPT!) multiple reading and math activities for almost every skill I teach, it made sense to put them all in Ziploc bags and group them into magazine holders.  I've been collecting the wonderful array of magazine holders in each picture from the Tar-jay dollar spot :).

Reading activities

Math activities

As you can see I labeled the front of each box and grouped my games and activities according to the labels.

This has made MTSS (formerly RTI) a lot simpler for me.  Games and activities are easy to find and already bagged and prepared to go into each groups bucket.  It literally cut my planning/prep time in half.

Tier 1-enrichment, Tier 1-practice, and Tier 2-remediation buckets containing MTSS activities.

Beyond MTSS, it's made literacy and math centers a breeze as well.  I might be married to this plan for more than 2 years (I hope)!  It took me a while to find, print, laminate, cut out, and prepare all of these activities but it was time well spent.

My go-to places to find new games and activities are:

Pinterest

Teachers Pay Teachers

Blog Hoppin'

Freebie-licious

My questions for you are:

*How do you stay organized?

*Where do you find your games and activities?

100th Day!

Today was our 100th day of school!  Unbelievable!

I've been down and out for the last 5 days due to fire ants invading my throat and stealing my voice so today was a last minute scramble to pull together activities.  I found some oldies and added a few, new pinspired goodies.

Check out a few of the 100th day projects my students created!

Projects on display in the hallway!

My students created a fair amount of UNIQUE projects this year.  I'm so impressed!

This afternoon we did a 5 center rotation.

Build a structure using 100 cups!

Writing: When I'm 100 years old....

"I will yell at people to stop all that racket!"

Roll to 100!

Writing: If I had $100....

Decorating 100 Day crowns!

This morning I got a sweet gift!  It's full of all kinds of wonderful things, the cough drops came in handy this afternoon!  The chatter teeth with the monster feet are my favorite!

Finally, I wanted to share a few of the worksheets we used today.  These worksheets are pretty common but I couldn't find them this morning when I needed them so I just threw these together.  Follow this link to grab them for free if you like them!

Super Sunday Sale

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!  

Who are you pulling for?

I'm more of a college basketball fan (GO HOOSIERS) than anything else but I was born in Maryland and have family up there so I'm rooting for the Ravens tonight!

If football isn't your thing, maybe shopping is?!?!  

TODAY ONLY I'm throwing a huge sale in my TpT store!  Use the promo code: SUPER to get 28% off everything in my store!

Here are a few products I'm currently using!

Time for Fishing: Games and Worksheets 

In this 55 page packet you will find 5 games and activities for time to the hour, the half hour, and every 5 minutes.  There are also 6 colorful posters and a build your own clock activity!

Beginning, Middle, & Ending Sound Activities

I have been using these activities to remediate several students during MTSS (formerly RTI).  They LOVE the hole punch pages :).  In this packet you will also find 5 different activities to use when teaching/remediating beginning, middle, and ending sounds.  

Happy shopping!

Literacy Week and MLK

Last week we celebrated Literacy week!

On Monday we chose The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss as our class book.  We also happened to be checking out different types of communication such as signs, invitations, announcements, and reading maps.  During our work time students created announcements about our class book!

The announcement I modeled for the class.

NH's announcement, so colorful!

Our book of the month happens to be Martin's Big Words.  As we were reading and discussing The Sneetches I noticed my students making incredible connections between both stories.

"It don't matter what skin color you are." 

"At the end of both stories the sneetches and the people both learned that it doesn't matter how you look, what matters is you are nice."

I loved that they were pulling the main idea out of The Sneetches and connecting it to the non-fiction events in Martin's Big Words.  They dug really deep this week and I'm one proud teacher.

Click here to get the Sneetches and MLK responding sheet for free!

Finally, at the beginning of the month I used Peace and Dreams {A Martin Luther King Jr. Literacy Unit} created by Gladys over at Teaching in High Heels to introduce Martin's Big Words!  Her writing activities were really helpful in kicking off report writing!  I love it!

"Time" for Fishing: Games and Worksheets

Finished just in the nick of time!

I started this unit last summer and was only able to find the motivation to finish it when I actually needed some fresh activities to help my students grasp telling time.

Click here to check out "Time" for Fishing: Games and Worksheets in my TpT store!

All games and worksheets are black line masters and there are 6 colorful posters to display to help students with measures of time vocabulary.  In this pack you will find:

-3 Fishing games
-3 "I have, Who has?" games
-3 Time bingo games
-1 Make your own clock printable
-1 Can you find the time game
-6 Worksheets
-6 Colorful time posters

All activities and games include separate sets for time to the hour, half-hour, and every 5 minutes.

As always, magnetic fishing poles are available in my Etsy Shop!

In the "Download Preview" you will find these 2 FREEBIES:

It's "time" for fishing so check it out today!

MTSS (RTI) Monday

It's been a minute since I've posted about MTSS (formerly RTI) Monday because of the holiday break. I hope you all had a wonderful one!  We went back to school last Wednesday so my students have started a new round of activities for MTSS (Multi-Tier System of Supports).

Tonight I've got a few pictures that I hope will convey how I set up my MTSS activities.  Essentially, I run them as tiered centers.  For almost all activities in my classroom I prefer to have mixed skill levels working together.  MTSS is a great opportunity for my students to work on activities with other students who are operating on similar skill levels.

This is the chart I use to communicate with students what activities they will be working on for the day/week (students names are blurred).  I like to use index cards because I try to keep the groups very fluid and every week or two I'm moving someone to a different group to work on a different skill.  The stars match the bucket they will be using.  I could make it cuter but what-ev!

This is an example of an activity card I use to help them understand what they will be doing.

Below the MTSS chart is this book shelf where the tiered activities are stored.  In the folders there are fluency lists, sight word songs, and books for early finishers to read.

In my first MTSS Monday post I explained that I have 3 groups at this time.  A Tier 2 (REMEDIATION) group, an (ON TARGET) Tier 1 group, and another Tier 1 (ENRICHMENT) group for students working above grade level.  For some reason it's easier for me to think of them as a remediation, on target, and enrichment group instead of which tier they are working on.

I've also got a few pictures and a GREAT resource to share with you tonight that I like to use with my enrichment group.

The first 2 pictures are of the enrichment activity that my students are currently working on.  They chose a story, read it, then draw the characters, setting, problem, and solution.  This isn't a very high order activity but I was trying to ease them into their independent work after two and a half weeks off.  I try to be nice....sometimes :).

I usually prepare a lot of activities at once, paper clip them and then store them in ziplock bags with all of my other activities.

Here are a few activities I have prepared.  I'm looking forward to breaking out the book report and forming questions activities with them over the next month or so!

I got all of these wonderful activities from The Teacher Wife's Reading Comprehension pack!  It's A-MAZING!  There are several games and she provides opportunities for students to predict, summarize, compare, write about the plot and other story elements.  Check it out!