Are YOU Ready?!

Are you ready for the big day tomorrow? No, it's not anyone's birthday... it's just the best day of the year on TPT! It's the Cyber sale!! My store will be 20% off and then you will get an additional savings using the promo code that will be plastered all over that webpage! I've been busy this Thanksgiving break-trying to get a few projects done so you can grab them at a discounted price.

Here are a few of the 3rd grade goodies that I've uploaded for you (plus a few more of peoples favorites)!

Click on any of the covers to check them out!

I'll be back tomorrow with this weeks visual plans!

Then, here are my first grade goodies I created last year!!

Click on any of the covers again to check them out!

Have fun shopping!! Grab lots of goodies for this winter months!!

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Our Two Day Week is AWESOME!

So, if you know me... you know my brain never ever stops turning when it comes to the 'fun stuff!' Even though I am out of first grade, I still want to make the Holidays special and an awesome learning experience for my students. It is hard to 'theme' things up in third but-the perfect book was brought to my attention and I went wild!

I began thinking of all of the fun things we can do with the book while still practicing our ever so important literary skills... "Thank You, Sarah" Literacy Resources were born! Although, I am upset that I can't get to them all... I am excited that next year-I will have an amazing book and resource to grab!

I found this book to late to be able to purchase it so I will be using the youtube version for my instruction. Thank goodness for youtube... I tell ya! Next year... we'll have the real deal!

Here are just a few of the activities included in the, "Thank You, Sarah Literacy Resources" packet that I created!

Before we begin reading we will begin with synthesizing. We will review and fill out our first box with all of our thoughts. Then, about half way through I'll pause and we will fill out the second. At the end we will fill in our last box and discuss how our thinking has changed.

This week we will also be going over Characterization once again and really digging in with this simple craftivity you see below!

 We are going to work on providing evidence to support our character traits.

We will first answer questions based on Sarah and then go even further with our craft.

We will also be working on deep thinking comprehension questions with our foldable that you see below.

 Then, we will see what else we can fit in... for the first time ever... I wish I didn't have 3 more days off school this week... I just love this stuff & I want to use it all!

If you are interested in this unit you can grab it here or enter the giveaway below!!
Rachel from The Tattooed Teacher & I are joining each other for a quick little giveaway! You can win her new Thank You, Sarah product along with mine! Just enter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I've also typed up my plans for this week so you can see what else we are up to!

We are finishing up our elapsed time unit with a journal activity, interactive math activities and a menu board from Diary of a Wimpy Teacher (this girl is amazing)!

Yep... ROCKS!! I can't wait! I purchased Hope King's unit and I am also using Tanja's awesome rock unit as well!

I'll be back tomorrow with a fun debate activity that we did last week!! It's oh so fun!

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Friday Funday!!

This week we've been 'elapsed timing' our lives away and we've got it! (the majority of us) You know how that works! At the beginning of the week we completed elapsed time activities together and focused on telling time to the nearest minute and today... well... we were rockin' word problems and solving elapsed time task cards outside of the hour!! I've got a room full of hard little workers!

So, here is what we did today for our Friday Funday!

I set up four stations, each with a different task. Students grabbed a friend to work with and off they went. I did allow students to choose the order they completed the tasks and I just facilitated and helped where it was needed. The kids had fun and there was tons of math talk!

Our four stations were: word problems in our interactive math journal, elapsed time task cards, elapsed time monster cards & adapted mind on ipads.

At this station I allowed students to make their own recording forms. They were so creative and loved it! This little gal made a 'turkey' recording form! :)

Students also worked with the monster task cards to determine elapsed time when given a start and an end time.

*Pardon the fact that I didn't take any other pictures* 

After the students finished their stations they got to make a turkey and attach a recording form of their choice! Today was seriously all about review, fun and choice! Oh, elapsed time & turkeys too!

Have a happy weekend! I'll be back soon to share more fun with you!!

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4 Day Math Workshop Lesson Plans

I'm home sick again and of course-thinking about school. I have my big evaluation this week and I'm using my new telling time unit. I've typed up detailed lesson plans for the week to make sure I stay right on track since my students are at so many levels with this concept. (I should probably always do this-but anyway...)

If you are something that is wondering how to teach guided math and how to differentiate your math block then these lesson plans should help you see how to do just that. My students rotate through four rotations on our math workshop days. (we only do math workshop 3-4 days a week).

This is nothing too fancy-just my plans-but, it gives you the general idea and could maybe help you out in your own math block!

Click HERE to download the PDF! Print this off to help you when planning out your guided math lessons!

This page tells you what I do with my guided math groups. 

When they leave me, they complete an independent activity. That is a station called, "On My Own."

Links are only clickable when you download this link.

I hope this post helps you with your math block!

Let me know if you have any questions! I'd be glad to do more math posts!

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My 100th Product! Telling Time & Elapsed Time!

It's a quick post - it's my 100th product and I'm so elated right now!

I have literally never worked so hard on a product in my life!!! This unit is so thorough and comprehensive! Telling time to the nearest minute and elapsed time is something that I know will be hard for some of my students to master. I wanted to make a unit where I could differentiate and challenge my students so they fully grasped this concept! I just posted it to TPT and I am so excited! I feel like it's the best product I've ever created and it just happens to by my 100th product! I remember when I was at 12 products! I've put in so many hours, have 'met' so many lovely bloggers and tpt-ers who have motivated me and inspired me through this journey!

Please share/check out this unit!!

Click above or click any of the pictures to head to my TPT store for more information!

I'll be posting photos later since I'll be using this in my own classroom this week!! ;)

 Have a fabulous rest of your weekend!

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Multi-step Word Problems

Well, here I am on a Friday sitting at home sick. :( I'm so mad because we are in the peek of a lot of learning fun and I wanted to be at school so bad!! But, with a super sore throat and other not fun things-I decided it would be best to contain myself today and rest. So, I rested until noon time and now I'm still feeling icky... but, bored. What do I do to relax? I blog! :)

I've been meaning to share the progress we made with multi-step word problems! I've got loads of pictures and I'm excited to share!

When I first started thinking about teaching multi-step word problems I was stuck to be quite honest with you. I was like... um... how exactly do you teach this? I researched and wrote down everything I could find. I looked for outside resources to help teach me how to teach this topic and through all of that I embarked on my new unit, "Multi-step Word Problems." I am also going to be totally honest with you... I started this file in the summer!! Yes, this file has 3 months of ideas in it! I'm glad I took my good ol' time on this unit because it really benefited my students.

Before I taught students about multi-step word problems I made sure they all had a good foundation for addition and subtraction using the regrouping and decomposing strategy using double and triple numbers.

When I first introduced multi-step word problems I did not just hand some word problems to students and say go! We worked on a variety of strategies and word problems together. Then, we worked on single step word problems to get used to using our strategies. I got those here.

After my students had a firm grasp on those we then solved a multi-step word problem together and had a LOT of discussion and even began noting addition and subtraction key words. We wrote those down on a poster so students can refer to them later.  Afterwards, I let the students practice solving multi-step word problems independently.

As students finished I walked around and went through their word problems with them (quickly).

The other students worked on their assigned math station for that day until it was their turn.

It was great, immediate feedback for them!

The next day, students were introduced to three types of word problems that they'll encounter. We practiced solving those types and then broke out into math groups. Each group was given a set of word problems to work on together. I LOVE to let students explore and problem solving. It takes a long time... but the pay off is so worth it.

Each type of word problem (there are 9) has their own poster with an explanation of the word problem and an example.

Each group got a huge poster, word problem cards and recording forms. 

The worked together to solve their word problems. Tons of discussion was happening!

Here is an example of one groups poster!

Each after this I introduced new types of word problems and we worked together in the math workshop format so I could provide more support to those that needed it. 

Here are a few snapshots of our teacher time! :)

We worked for about 3-4 days on our word problems before I felt that they had a pretty good grasp on the concept. We've got to keep rollin'!

We 'ended' this unit with an assessment and a word strip craft!

It is great to see them put their strategies to use!

There you have it...very quickly and simply! Multi-step Word Problems!

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