What Does the Turkey Say?

It's been about a year since the iconic What Does the Fox Say?  song came out.  Although we were living in Spain during this time, we still heard the song everywhere we went.  Ohh silly Spaniards.


So, feeling inspired, I decided to create a silly activity {you can also read about it >>here<<} that would be perfect for this time of year.  I need super engaging activities to keep my 4th graders focused.  Not just anything will do.

SO, enter James.  James is a nice turkey struggling to make his way home for Thanksgiving Break.  He accidentally crash lands in the Carnivora's front yard during a horrible blizzard.  The Carnivoras offer to take James in until the storm clears up, but as the weather worsens and nobody can leave their homes, it looks like James may be tonight's dinner!  What should everyone do?  This fun mini unit includes newspaper articles for your class to read and respond to, a ~WORKING E-MAIL~ address for them to send their opinions to, a turkey craftivity, and MORE!

 Grab this silly, fun, and engaging activity in my TpT Store for just $2.50!!  

And for the next three days it will be 20% off!  

Go!  Now!  Why wait?!

Cheers!  TGI{almost}F!

Monday Meet Up & Beating the Summer Slide GIVEAWAY!

I am very excited to share two fun things with you today!  1)  I'm linking up with The Teaching Tribune today for their Monday Meet Up to share one of my BBB, Martina from Mrs. Cahill's Class.  You can find her blog over at The Hungry Teacher! and 2)  I'm hosting a quick giveaway with the fab Martina!  Learn more below :)

 

How do you beat the Summer Slide?  I love sending books home with students and even some math games.  A few years ago I pulled together some games that reviewed the toughest math concepts for 4th graders.  I sent them home with my sweet learners for the summer, praying and hoping that they would use them.  Some did and some didn't. When they came back to me in 5th grade (I looped up with them!) it was obvious to me who had been practicing (you know how it is...).  Basic skills and concepts came so much quicker and easier if practiced over the Summer months.  Fractions and decimals are SO tricky... what better way to review the most important skills than a few fun math games!?  My Summer Math Games Packets has gotten a MAJOR uplift this past weekend.  If you own it, please be sure to re-download everything to get a NEW math game and updated pages.  If you don't own it, be sure to enter our GIVEAWAY for a chance to win it, any product from my store, Almost Summer Math Centers from Mrs. Cahill's TpT Store!!

Enter below!!  The giveaway ends tonight at midnight though, so be sure to jump on it!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

March Mania

Did you know that Spain doesn't do their time change the same time as the States?  So we are still on "normal" time... which is nice for a few reasons- but mainly it makes me only FIVE hours (time difference) away from my momma, meaning I can call her earlier, and worry less about waking her up :)  We will be jumping forward at the end of March though... so I'll have plenty of time to whine about my lost hour then. 

Otherwise, this is my BIRTHDAY week!  My birthday is on Thursday and so to celebrate, I am having a sale in my TpT store AND a giveaway!  All products in my store will be 20% off on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and this weekend I will be hosting a giveaway (I'm one of those people who have a birthday "week" instead of just one day.  Ridiculous, I know.  But if you would like to participate and offer up a product of your own for the giveaway- please leave your e-mail in the comment section below)!!  Make sure you stop by Wednesday to join in on the fun!  I'm a huge birthday nerd and loooove to celebrate my birthday, friend's birthdays, random birthdays, ALL birthdays!  They're just the best :) 

This past month I've finished two products that I'm pretty excited about.  Both are mini math units with a fun activity to do in your classroom.  The first one is a fraction product relating to art.  Students get to cut out and piece together fractions to create a lovely piece of art.  Afterwards, they add their fraction pieces together to find out how many whole pieces they have in their artwork!  Directions, worksheets, and fraction pieces are included (and differentiated!!).

The next product I've been working on is a planting/math activity I did a few years ago with my fourth graders!  I DO NOT have a green thumb- but it went pretty smoothly, so non-green-thumb people will be okay :)  It can super easily incorporate Earth Day and Mother's Day activities!  You plant flowers and track their growth over a 6 week period. A student booklet, directions, tips, graphs, and anything you could possibly need is included.  Perfect to begin a few weeks before Earth Day (Earth Day is April 22nd) and end in time to send the flowers home to Mom for Mother's Day (May 11th)!  Students will measure their plants every week, collect data, and then find and analyze the mean, median, mode, and range.  They will create multiple graphs and discuss their plants as well as the data.  This is a perfect activity for really exploring data!

Thanks for stopping by!  And please let me know if you would like to participate in my birthday giveaway by leaving your e-mail below :)

All You Need is Love!

Happy Sunday day, friends!  I hope you're all having a great weekend and staying warm!  I'm here to share a little video and an updated product :)

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need

Now I'm going to have the Beatles stuck in my head for the next three or four days- BUT, I am super excited to share that I have updated my 4th Grade Valentine's Day Math Unit!!

It is packed full of all sorts of fun math games perfect for your 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade classroom!  The standards meet the 4th grade CCSS Standards but are also great for challenging your 3rd graders or providing support to your 5th graders who need a refresher.  Check out my quick video below to get an overview of what's in the unit!  And then head over to my {store} at TpT to check it out!  All We Need is Love will be 20% off until midnight tomorrow night!!

 

5th Grade Writing Unit!

It's Friday!  Happy Friday!!

In celebration of the weekend, I am super excited to share with you my new product- a 5th grade writing unit!  I absolute LOVE writer's workshop and supporting writers in the classroom.  It's so often that I have little ones who despise writing.  Which just breaks-my-heart.  Seriously.  Writing should be all about having FUN!  It's such an important skill for our little guys to learn and I just loooove writer's workshop so much, I decided to put together a writing unit for the year just for 5th grade teachers!  I have only completed Unit 1 so far, but am working on Units 2-7.  Check out Unit 1 HERE! 

When they are all complete, they will take you through an entire school year in Writer's Workshop.  All Lesson Plans, Unit Plans, Management Forms, and Rubrics are included with every unit, which makes your job a breeze (ha!)!  Ever wonder how you were going to conference with every student?  No problem!  I've got that all figured out for you! 

Hopefully you have wonderful, beautiful, August weather and are enjoying some time outside and not too much time in your classroom!

Oh, and be on the lookout for a special new series my lady, Mrs. Cahill, and I will be doing on co-teaching!  Coming this weekend!

Thanks!!

About, Above, Across & Amid {Prepositions}

Okay, I can't lie.  I set out to teach prepositions this week and had NO IDEA how to do it.  I didn't do anyyyything, and I mean anything, last year to teach them.  All I could remember about them is memorizing them in 7th grade.  And literally, that's all I could remember.  I still have the capability to recite the first 30 or so off the top of my head.  But I couldn't tell you anymore.  And that's when I decided I needed to do them some justice for my own fourth graders.  How could I teach them without making them memorize a list? 

Well, I did some googling, some thinking, and some creating, and came up with this Preposition Mini Lesson!  I broke it into two lessons this week and love how it turned out.  I will finish it off with at least one more lesson this week, but it could easily be up to 4 quick (30 minute-ish) lessons.  It made my class think about the purpose of prepositions and have a little fun at the same time (especially during Preposition Charades!).  This lesson is designed with 4th grade in mind, but could easily be differentiated for any grade level.

In other news, we are in full TCAP (Colorado's state test) mode.  When it comes to tests like this, it is hard for me not to stress.  There is so much riding on it these days, and while I know that my students have learned all they can and will only do as best as they can, I still can't help but try and hype them up with some positives!  One way I'm doing that this year, is sending home a letter to parents asking them to write a note of encouragement to their child.  Pick up your own copy of the letter by clicking on the picture below and support your students.  (Just a note, make sure you have back-up letters just in case a parent is unable to return you a letter in time!).

Hope this helps! 
- Kelly Anne

Martin Luther King Day Activity Packet

I don't know about you, but it sure is good to be back into a routine.  After super L-O-O-N-G break, it was crazy necessary to review expectations and I have to admit, after reviewing a little bit, we were able to have a great day.  My kiddos this year are absolutely fantastic.  It would have taken two weeks to review expectations with my class from last year.  But I loooooove this group. 

With Martin Luther King Day coming up next Monday, our school is having a school-wide writing prompt to talk about Martin Luther King Jr and our own hopes and dreams.  The top writing from each class will be displayed throughout the school.  In order to front load on this topic, I put together a little packet of activities, vocabulary words and of course, the fabulous writing prompt.  Pick it up (for FREE :)) here at Teachers Pay Teachers.  It's even differentiated to meet the needs of grade levels K-5!

I am looking forward to sharing some of my lessons and learning from some of the best in the blog world!  Be sure to stop back by somtime soon to see more lessons and things going on in our classroom! 

Happy Monday everyone :)
~ Kelly Anne