HUGE SALE!!!

Over at TPT we are celebrating the holiday season with some great deals on thousands upon thousands of amazing resources created by the most amazing people - teachers!!!

Save on EVERYTHING on Dec 1 & 2!

Use promo code TPTCYBER for 28% off everything in my store - Grade  7 Heaven !! Plus keep an eye out for special deals hidden in the seasonal resources!

Fill your cart! Sale is ON Monday Dec 1, 12:01 a.m. ET through Tuesday Dec 2, 11:59 p.m. ET

You must enter promo code: TPTCYBER  when you check out to save!  Been checking something out for awhile and hesitant to commit - now is the time!!!

I cannot wait to fill my cart after work today!  Happy Shopping!

Long time no see, er read. and VOLLEYBALL is almost over.

For a brief period of time from October to the end of November my life becomes a blur of tournaments, practices and games.  I coach Grade8 girls volleyball.  Throw in five kids, a full time job, my TPT, and the occasional few hours of sleep and you get..one lousy blogger!

As I pointed out in earlier posts I live in Winnipeg, MB Canada.  People affectionately (or not so affectionately as it were) refer to it as Winterpeg. In Winnipeg we already have that "festive dusting" of snow that we carry 8 months a year, 9 if Mother Nature prolongs her return like last year and there is still snow in June. To celebrate my return to the cyber world I am offering 3 seasonal markdowns for early years and a great deal for middle years teachers.

My Gingerbread Literacy Mega Pack is on sale for $3.00 from $5.75.  This Gingerbread Literacy Mega Pack is chalked full of great activities that can be used with many of the different Gingerbread books (gingerbread Man, gingerbread baby, gingerbread girl, gingerbread friends, gingerbread cowboy etc.). This package is beautifully full color and full of gingerbread book related goodies.

It includes:
• Alphabetical word sort with gingerbread cookie cards
• Venn diagram comparing two different gingerbread stories
• If I were a gingerbread baby writing prompt and lined paper
• Another ending to the story writing prompt and lined paper
• 5 senses Gingerbread Cookie exploration
• Describing Words graphic organizer
• My favorite gingerbread story writing prompt and lined paper
• Beginning, middle, and end story sequencing worksheet
• Story re-tell
• Story elements
• Punctuation practice sheets
• Full page themed and colorful Punctuation Posters as well as a Write a Good Sentence poster
• Three personally written gingerbread themed poems
• Fill in the missing vowel practice sheet
• Inference, text to self, text to text, and evaluation questioning cards
• Gingerbread baking sequencing cut and paste
• Gingerbread recipe cards
My Gingerbread Punctuation is 50% off at only $1.75.  Gingerbread punctuation  is set of whole class lessons or centers. It is chalked full of colorful, fun, yet AWESOME learning activities.

Included are:
• Roll Your punctuation: punctuation dice and recording sheet (can be used as assessment)
• Write your own sentence using punctuation prompts (laminate and use dry erase markers as a center tub)
• Center cards to guide students or punctuation mini posters
• Comma Practice assessment sheet
• Punctuation Practice assessment sheet
• Gingerbread Punctuation Pal Craftivity
• Center work: punctuation mix and match game: 10 center cards and a sheet of punctuation pieces and recording sheet



and last but not least for a limited time only my Gingerbread Math Activities is only $1.00.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

This pack includes:
• Gingerbread Man themed number sequence to 30 – one with benchmarks and one without to allow for adaptations.
• Roll a gingerbread, a following directions activity.
• One or Two More than or Less than gingerbread man activity
• Pictorial expression activity with writing number sentence practice.
• Gingerbread measuring activity with printable rulers

 

This was one of my Grade Ones favorite activities!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now for the MIDDLE YEARS teachers... I have just started my new unit this week - The Earth's Crust. It is 50% off this week only for $3.00. Being a geology major this is half of my favorite unit I get to teach.   The 34 page student use pack covers the composition of the earth, its layers, rock and mineral properties, classifications, and uses, the rock cycle, mining, mineral deposits, soil formation and profiles, as well as a 2 possible extending learning projects.

The student use pack includes:

• Brainstorming sheet
• Worksheets and links for two Bill Nye Videos
• Vocabulary Group Project
• Hands on activities like Rock Cycle Fudge, Properties of
Minerals Stations, and Mining Chocolate Chips
• Diagrams, worksheets, information pages
• Rock cycle sentence strip and poster project
• Property Word Search
• Crossword Puzzle Assignment
• Extension Assignments and Activities like design your
own cookie mining invention, create your own cross
word, etc.

As well as a 37 page teacher resource pack with answer keys, teaching suggestions and important links, images, instructions, scripture verses for biblical integration, vocab sheets, as well as a quiz, adapted quiz and answer keys.

Works well with Hands on Science or Nelson Science and Technology 7. However, relevant information is provided in the booklets so they are not necessary. Resources are referred to as "extending learning" activities should you wish to include them.

 

Over the next few weeks I will be sharing some of my favorite classroom activities that tie into the Earth Sciences.  I am stoked!!

Halloween Bash Blog Hop!

  Taking part on a fun Halloween Bash Blog Hop put together by the amazing girls at The Teaching 2 Step. I love this season sooooo why not share it AND throw in some great resources and an amazing giveaway!

I really enjoy everything about fall (well, lets be honest, everything but the fact that it welcomes in winter).  With fall comes leaves, pumpkin spice everything, plaid and Halloween. I have enjoyed dressing my kids up every year and have learned that some costumes are great (like the home made cat outfit that was ADORABLE) and others were not so great (the mummy costume that unravelled all night until Chey had no costume left).

Here are some of my Halloween favorites for you :o)

Lets start with my Monday Markdown item (top left corner shows it in action) and a limited time freebie. My favorite Halloween season activities were done back when I taught grade one.  I used my Pumpkin Themed Literacy and Word Work stations to reinforce  -it, -en, and long e word families. 

This includes:
•A themed poster for each word family that you can laminate and use an anchor chart or print off and place in each student’s spelling/ELA folder.
•A Fall Rainbow Words set which includes the words to print and place in a jar, a printable dice template, as well as the recording sheet with basic instructions.
•A word match cut and paste activity using the three word families.
•A word sorting station, the students are to place the right pumpkins in each word family pumpkin patch and a recording sheet
•A crossword puzzle using the three word families and an answer key
•A themed I have Who has game including 24 word family cards
•An easy reader that you can print out and read with your students or print in black and white and get them to color and read.

This resource is half price for this week only. 

 
 
 

The freebie is my Pumpkin Themed Math Booklet.  This 6 page workbook includes (show in action on the top right:
•Number recognition re: tally, money, subitizing, visual blocking
•Cut and paste for motor skill development
•Pattern recognition and generation
•Number recall/sequencing
I laminated the sheets and created centers for math stations. 

I LOVED the pumpkin craftivity pictured in the top center.  Each student got a mini pumpkin and we did sink or float predictions and tests. Inside the craftivity pumpkins we put together as a class we wrote descriptive paragraphs about our pumpkins.  It was one of our first looks as chocolate words. We also tasted pumpkin cookies, made pumpkin seeds after doing an estimating activity, and used similes to describe the inside of our large class pumpkin.
We topped this off by reading Pumpkin Town and doing a poster board sequencing activity.  It was a great Pumpkin Week in 1B :o).

Now for a great RECIPE...

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Monday Markdown and whats up!

The last two weeks has been CRAZY!!  Volleyball season started and I coach the Grade 8 team - Chey is my assistant coach and another parent also comes to help out.  We  have had a clinic and two practices a week.  We also already have our first tournament and first game under our belts.  We lost the tournament - we came in 3rd.  BUT we won the game. 

My girls are beginning to understand the rotations and PMS (power, middle, setter). 

On top of these activities I have Freedom travelling to Memphis this year on her spiritual emphasis retreat - they study freedom in the physical and spiritual sense.  Also Cheyenne is graduating this year.  So we had a Memphis meeting and a grad meeting on top of Friday and Sunday volunteering.  I love being busy but my blog pays the ultimate price (and so does our meal times LOL!). 

However, this weekend I caught up on marking (more or less), clean the kids rooms (I even washed the walls), watched the season premier of Walking Dead and Supernatural.  I bought all five kids and myself
jackets, boots, mitts, hats, scarves, and other necessities (that was a fast thousand dollars) and I am proud of myself - did not buy one book (although I wanted to very badly).  I even managed to cook a rather interesting Thanksgiving dinner with the help of my in-laws and their BBQ.

Finished the weekend by playing a prank on my kids.  Me and my husband found this creepy butler animated ornament that wobbles and moans.  We snuck it into the kids rooms while they were sleeping and turned it on.  The reactions were all over the place.  The best was Freedom who is a zombie junky like myself - she cried, curled up in a ball, and told it to go away.  Obviously, I need a new zombie apocalypse partner....

Second off - here are my Monday Markdown items this week, as usual one for middle and one for early years.

My early years product is festive :o)  My Pumpkin Themed Literacy and Word Work Stations is half price.  Here is the deets: My Pumpkin themed literacy and word work station unit focused on teaching the –it, -en, and long e word families.

In this package you will find the following over 24 pages:
•A themed poster for each word family that you can laminate and use an anchor chart or print off and place in each student’s spelling/ELA folder.
•A Fall Rainbow Words set which includes the words to print and place in a jar, a printable dice template, as well as the recording sheet with basic instructions.
•A word match cut and paste activity using the three word families.
•A word sorting station, the students are to place the right pumpkins in each word family pumpkin patch and a recording sheet
•A crossword puzzle using the three word families and an answer key
•A themed I have Who has game including 24 word family cards
•An easy reader that you can print out and read with your students or print in black and white and get them to color and read.

I loved teaching this in grade one!

My Middle Years product is my chevron Ecosystem Vocabulary cards. They are hard to see but they are up there on the black board with my underwater ecosystem display.  This is a set of 39 Chevron themed Ecosystem vocabulary cards. Great as review material, game pieces, as part of a word wall, or classroom display.

There are also 3 blank vocabulary cards.

This resource is part of my Interactions Within Ecosystems unit which you can check out here --> http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Interactions-in-Ecosystem-Full-Unit-1403059

Vocabulary is a great way to not only introduce main themes but to make sure that the content is being understood - especially for the not so avid readers who do not always take context clues or have other strategies to help them decode and comprehend the text.

I also just wanted that there is a great Milestone Giveaway happening over at School House Treasures.   I was more than pleased to be able to donate a WINNERS CHOICE to the giveaway and help her celebrate her momentous event.  Check it out!

A great weekend and planning ahead as a Mom... {Monday Markdown a little early!}

Friday was our class field trip to the Fort Whyte Center.  We do navigation, GPS, and ecological surveys.  We usually go in the spring but this year we chose to go in the fall.  It was beautiful there! And my group - for the most part - was awesome and camera hungry LOL! I had a lot of fun taking scenery shots - with no filters it was so amazing. My group did a jump shot with the colored leaves, they were pretty stinkin' creative.

On another note, I live in Winnipeg.  It looks like this:

9 months of the year.  So when my husband suggested that we go camping one more time to take advantage of the great weather I jumped on board without asking where or when.  Literally. My kids were asking questions like "Where are we going?" and "When are we going to be back?" when I told them and I had zero answers for them until I went back to ask for the details.

I volunteer with NURV on Friday nights (my churches amazing youth program) so after I was done at 10:45p.m. we started the over three hour drive to Fairford River. My oldest daughters words; "YES!  Road trip buddies!" She drove for les than an hour when we had to stop for a pee break.  The Northern Lights were AMAZING and we were both very sad that you cannot take a picture of them.
Anyways, back to my story... she hops in the passenger seat and proceeds to go to sleep.  ABANDONER!!  I drove the next 2 hours and 45 minutes by myself.  At least I had headphones and  some great music - I played my YouTube acoustic playlist which includes The 1975, Black Veil Brides, Robert Pattinson, Jamie Campbell Bower, Passenger - and a bunch of other acoustic covers.  It was a great road trip buddy.

We spent the next day and half fishing, sun bathing, camp firing, and taking more scenery shots.

We caught 12 fish - one carp, one cat fish and the rest were pickerel and tasted pretty darn good. Today it was SO COLD and raining so we headed home.  Thank you Gramma and Grandpa for an amazing time.

Looking ahead ay my week: 3 volley ball practices, 3 staff meetings, some professional development, a lot of assessment completions on basic skills in math, organizing science packs for labs until Christmas, a few grade level meetings, and two new products to finish up.

My Monday Markdown items this week are my Ah-Mazing Guided Reading Tubs or Centers - reg $5.50 on sale for $2.25 this week only.  It was one of my favorite activities to use in my grade one literacy block.

Dr. Alphabetical Order: put the words into alphabetical order and record your work on the recording sheet. This works not only on alphabetical order but also on fluency as they read through the words and record them.

Sentence Superhero: there are 36 sentences that all need the help of a sentence superhero! Correct the sentences by adding capitals and punctuation and recording your work on the recording sheet. This helps reinforce the idea between an asking sentence, a questioning sentences, and an exciting sentence.

Ch-ch-chunking Champion: Use a variety of word maps and alpha tiles to create as many words as you can to be the chunking champion. Beyond working on creating words through stretching and chunking this activity helps reinforce proper letter formation of letters with “tails” and “necks” on recording sheets with practice lines.

Blend/Digraph Memory Monster: Match a “blend/digraph” card to a picture that has a word that starts with that blend or digraph. Can be one large game or three smaller games to shorten game play for 15 minute rotations.

Sentence Chef: Our little sentence chefs will be using three ingredients {provided on three color coded spinners} to cook up some good sentences – nouns, adjectives and verbs. Recording sheets are also color coded to affirm independence of students who are still not completely confident with the parts of speech. There is also a “draw me” box that allows them to illustrate their silly sentence to confirm comprehension.

What’s Next Ninja: Our little ninjas will sequence the events of a story by arranging story strips in the right order. There are five different stories they can practice on and each story uses a different form of understanding; ordinal numbers {first, second etc.}, before and after, large, medium and smaller etc., in a variety of real life experiences such as making a bed, making a sandwich, making a snowman, sequence of a day and so on. Recording sheets allow students to draw a comic strip to show their understanding.
For my fellow Middle Years teachers may be interested in my Dynamic Earth Unit.
It is regular price $6.00 on sale this week for $3.00. A unit on the forces that build and shape the earth: from Faults and Plates to Mountains, Volcanoes, and Earthquakes

28 PAGE TEACHER RESOURCE INCLUDES:
 All applicable answer keys
 All links included for videos
 Links to images, resources, websites that will support your Lessons inserted where you will need them for convenience.
Posters for Sandwich squish lab
 Handouts for group activities – types of volcanoes, types of folds and faults
 Teaching suggestions for lessons
 Lab instructions including dialogue

 22 PAGE STUDENT BOOKLET INCLUDES:
 Rubric page
 Questions for Plate tectonic video on YouTube
 Plate tectonic activity page
 Types of faults info and room for diagrams
 Earthquake handouts and information on body and surface waves
 Mountain information handout and cut and paste
 Mapping Mountains Activity (requires an atlas) along with map
 Mountain review questions and extension activity
 Crossword to complete with Pacific Ring of Fire video from YouTube
 Volcano information handout
 Parts of a volcano definitions and hand drawn diagram to label
 Types of volcanoes group activity and worksheet
 Volcanic Eruptions Lab handout
 Sandwich squish lab pages and rubrics

 Unit project – Volcano Research Journal (including mapping activity, diagram, creative elements and a rubric to follow).  Includes Scientific Process and extension activities using Nelson Science and Technology Grade 7 text. The extension work is just that – an extension. It is not required to use the booklet or teacher resources.  Also included are the unit test, adapted test and a key for both.

Looking ahead as Mom I am excited about a new product that came out today.  My son is in Grade 1 and we need to work n his reading fluency and comprehension.  I bought these FLUENCY STRIPS SET ONE  by the Moffat Girls and LOVED them for my daughter.  Now SET 2 is up!!  Check them out here - they should be in every Early Years teacher arsenal and every parents "help at home" kit!!  No kidding!

The little things....

I am teaching a great group of Grade 7's this year.  While we were talking about "job descriptions" in my Ecosystem unit we used the janitor as our starting point of what a job description looks like.   While brain storming they realized that without the janitor a lot of things would be unfixed, undone, or unusable.  One of my students said we should buy him a gift to show him how much we appreciate him.

Yesterday I bought him his favorite kind of chocolate and we made a card and all signed it. 

I realize that it is only a very small token and that it in no way reflects how much we appreciate our amazing janitors hard work, but I think that it speak volumes about the kids that it was their idea and that they realize that recognizing his hard work with a gesture would be a nice thing to.

We all know that without the receptionists and janitors teachers would be lost!

Monday Markdown and addicted to reading.

I have totally enjoyed teaching my Interactions in the Ecosystem Unit to my new Grade 7's  Although they claim to love all of the work we do their favorite part is learning about Mount St. Helens.  I LOVE using Mount St. Helens as a backdrop for learning about Ecosystems.  Not only does it touch on every topic we need to cover, offer a great look at succession and recovery, provide a great segway to our next unit which is the Dynamic Earth - it also is a platform for talking about Creationism.  As a Christian teacher I think that having that spiritual "tie in" is a great place for my students to see that God is not only present in Bible class - His handiwork can be see all around us!

We just got to the Producer, Consumer, and Decomposer portion of the unit at the end of last week.
We looked at some job descriptions as a warm up activity and then we wrote one of our own for the janitor. {Forgive the messy writing the marker I was using was terrible)

 When we were done and talked about expectations they wrote job descriptions for one of the three types of organisms.  Some of them I got were great. 

I am proud of how much inferencing many of the students were able to do.  This week we will be looking at Micro-organisms.  So far the mould lab is one of the activities that my previous classes got right into.

That being said my Interactions in Ecosystems unit is on sale right now for half price.  It is regularly $9.99.  If you grab it up today it is only $5.00.  You can check it out HERE --> http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Interactions-in-Ecosystem-Full-Unit-1403059 .

I spent some of my weekend rereading the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare.  It is a very well written series.  I will openly admit that many of my favorite reads fall into the YA novel category.  I say that without any shame.  They rock.

I am pretty sure I am addicted to reading and buying books in a way that might be unhealthy.  I now have no room left for books on any of my shelves.  They are double rowed.  The top of my fireplace is stacked 15 books high in 8 columns.  I may need a another house for my books soon.  Lord help me!!

Made it Monday

One of my favorite "new" things is my chalkboard table.  My classes both love it; they leave me message throughout the day or draw me pictures.  The best thing it has done has give those kids who just have to have something to do with their hands a way to complete math that is a little more interesting than scrap paper. Even my most unwilling students can be bribed!

It was an old desk in the basement that a neighbour had given us a few years ago when they moved.  I took it apart and spray painted the legs and poles with heavy duty acrylic spray paint. 

 

I got some chalkboard paint from Canadian tire for $23 and slapped about 6 layers down on the top of the table.

May oldest daughter Cheyenne spent a whole spare driving back and forth from the house to the school with the pieces and even put it together for me.  She is the bomb.

Have I mentioned that I LOVE it.

 

If you have ever thought about making one of these - I say DO IT!!

 

 My made it number two is for the classroom.   It is super simple, but it saves me time and trouble all year long. I made marking sheets last year and was so glad that I did.  I clip them to the front of marking with a binder slip, and this lets me record lates as well as marks. They print two per page and you can grab them here.

 

I made a few minor changes and uploaded my coffee labels that I use for my "While you were late" board.  Unfortunately my printer is a little under the weather so I had to print them at school in black and white.

 

But coffee makes everything better even in black and white.  You can grab them here.

 

Made it Monday

Five For Friday

 

So this was my schools first week back at school.  Well, first few days anyways.  I got two amazing new group of Grade 7's and we are already into the swing of things.  To reflect on my week I am linking up to Doodle Bugs Teaching and her Five for Friday Link up.

 

 

 

Totally un-school related but too cute not to share.  I have five kids, and have had every one of them climb into my bed at night.  However, it usually happened one at a time and they snuggled up by my side and fell back to sleep.  These two often end up in my bed at the same time.  They are totally adorable, but....they hog the bed and my son is a hitter.  He swings wildly in his sleep and I swear he acquires inhuman strength as his little body recharges over night.  It hurts.  So, why do I left them rob of my well earned sleep??  Because they grow up so fast and someday there will be no little feet scampering down the hall and trying to climb over me without stirring me from sleep.  Enjoy the little things, even the little things that do not always seem enjoyable :D

You may be able to take the teacher out of the elementary school but you cannot ever really take the elementary out of the teacher.  I have the only decorated room at school, and that is okay with me.  Its like me...unique :D.  It is far from being truly *finished* and I have a TON of projects on the horizon, but for now it makes me happy.  Especially the Grumpy Cat poster a student bought me last year. And yes, I even put a scalloped border around my map.

 

Rain.  Rain.  And more rain.  It has rained so much the last few weeks that I was surprised to see the sun for a few hours this afternoon.  I actually like the sound of rain, the smell of rain, thunder, lightning, howling wind, big puffy, ominous clouds.... I just don't like mud.  Especially when you live with a bunch of kids and work with a bunch of kids.  It is messy.  But, on the bright side..it is not snow!! 

 

My class is two lessons into our Interactions within Ecosystems unit.  Today we did a yarn toss activity that is meant to illustrate the interconnectedness of the biotic and abiotic environment.  It was perhaps a little more chatty than I would have liked, BUT the ones who got it really got it.  I am excite to keep working through the unit with them.  Last year y class LOVED learning about Mount St. Helens and I have found that this is a great way to look at real life examples of almost all of the topics covered in this unit.

 

Last, but in no way least - is Tim's Pumpkin Spice Tea. I basically could live off this tea.  One cream, one sugar and one happy ME!!