March Madness

A good day for me is when I only feel about three steps behind where I'd like to be.  It is the nature of special education and I love the constant activity.  I wouldn't change it for the world.  Every day is different and I always have new things jumping on my to do list.  In my opinion, this is truly the best time to be a teacher because of the unlimited resources we have available to us at our fingertips.  

I have recently taken on three different math intervention groups (first, second, and third grade).  What this means is that I need to very quickly whip up programs materials that my instructional aides and I can follow.  Lucky for me, Teachers Pay Teachers has a million wonderful games and units to choose from.  I did some browsing and found some winners that have gone over well with my groups and I thought I would pass them along.  

To start, Second Story Window, has these spectacular homework add-on packs.  These are common core aligned, which is always a plus for me.  I ended up printing these out and making them into packets for my aide to work on in a small group.  There is just enough content in each page to cover my 30 minutes with them and there are a lot of learning opportunities embedded in the content.  

For my third grade group, I went over to In The Math Lab and I found this seasonal packet of math activities for the month of March.  They have several different packets for each month of the year so take your pick!  These are meant to be daily activities, but with my group meeting only once a week I can stretch them out a little longer.  

With conferences, report cards, progress reports, and evaluations looming it feels great to have these tasks checked off my to-do list!

What Do We Do With Our Free Time?

My school is on break this week so that means I have so much free time to myself, right?  As a teacher, there are certain things that people often say to us in conversation.

"I could never do your job!"
"You must be so patient."
"You get so much time off, you're so lucky!"

Don't get me wrong, we do get a good amount of time off.  We need it, our students need it, it's necessary.  That being said, the majority of teachers end up going in to work during these long breaks to get stuff done.  It's near impossible for me to get one thing done in a single sitting due to the volume of activities going on around me.  I usually start several projects in the 5-20 minute breaks I get between students and then little by little, my classroom begins to look like a giant junk drawer.  During these breaks I like to take my time getting organized and regrouping.  

Before I left for the break I noticed that my students' desks were getting a little out of control.  I give them a lot of tools to keep at their desks throughout the day.  Sticky notes, highlighter, reading window, dry-erase marker...just to name a few.  They use each and every one of these tools so it's important that they have them handy without having a distracting mess on their desk.  

My good friend, The Dollar Store, came through again and I was able to find some good bins with attached lids for their desks.  I thought they needed a little something to jazz them up though, so I made some cute labels (3x5)to add a personalized touch.  I love them so much I'm going to put them up for free on my TPT store, because every kid needs some pizzazz in their life...it just makes the day better!    

As a sidenote: I originally did the tags with just the chevron background but after I printed them out I decided they needed some red to help them pop.  In my TPT file the red background is already included.  I printed them on card stock and used velcro dots to attach them to the bins.  The good thing about using velcro is that if you need to repurpose the bins down the road you can just put a new label on them without worrying about peeling crusty tape off.

The file on TPT is a PDF, see mini-tutorial below to for help on how to add text to your PDF. 

   

Step 1: Select the "Show Edit Toolbar" button.

2. Select the "Text" button.

3. Click and drag your cursor where you want your text, you can move it around later if you need to.

4. Type your text.

5. Highlight your text and select the "Tools" tab at the top of the screen.

5. Select "Show Fonts"

6. Choose your font and adjust your color.

8. Enjoy!!!

Valentine's Surprise

I am so excited for Valentine's day tomorrow!  My students get so amped up for every little holiday and I love seeing the joy on their faces when they get to celebrate at school.  It's one of the parts of my job that I just feel so lucky about.  I always like to get my students a few little goodies for each holiday and I've discovered a wonderful secret weapon.  I have fallen in love with...the dollar store!  Costs can add up quick when you have a classroom full of students to shop for, so when the holidays rolled around I thought I would check out some options.  I went to the dollar store to see if they had some small holiday decor items, I thought for sure they would have to have some gift bags of some sort.  To my surprise, they had everything!  I'm talking EVERYTHING!!!  I was able to get gift bags, pencils, erasers, and some small little candies for under ten dollars!  I was  a little nervous that the students would not be excited about them, but when they came bouncing in my room on the last day before break they were squealing with happiness.  It was confirmed after we got back from break when a student who had been absent when I gave out the treats came back to find hers waiting on her desk.  One of the other kiddos quickly told her, "You're going to love it, it's the coolest thing!"

At that moment I decided the dollar store would be my go first stop for large volume purchases.  As Valentine's Day approached I was hoping to myself that they would have just as good of a selection as they did during the holidays.  Lucky me, they sure did!  I was able to find some cute valentines, pencils, stickers, suckers, and some cute bags to package them up.  I can't wait until the morning when I get to see their grins when they walk in to find them waiting on their desks.  

Here is a little preview of the loot and the packaging.  My go-to dollar store is Dollar Tree.  There is another dollar store close by but I haven't had much luck there.  My advice is to scope out the different dollar stores around you and don't give up if one is not promising. 

Happy Valentine's Day!!! 

P.S. They also have an amazing selection of plastic bins...you can NEVER have enough plastic bins!