The Not-So-Amazing-Race/Website FREEBIES Galore!

What up bloggy friends! Long time no post….. But, we’re back! And we’re living it up BIG in Grand Rapids this week! We’re here for the MACUL Conference and Lisa’s sticking around for MRA! Big time PD hours hereJ.

It was quite a road trip! Three cars left our school district at the same time…. Except, we stayed back to socialize for 40 minutes… Surprise, surprise! Well, once we finally hit the road, we needed gas – and in true GPS fashion we found a gas station in the deepest corner of the roughest neighborhood… BUT! Gas was cheap! So, win? We also met a sweet lady who was having a great day! She shared her saucy story with us and the gas station attendant—since this classy establishment only took cash! 

WELL, we were finally on the road! It took us 2 hours to go 40 miles… TRAFFIC, accidents and TRAFFIC! At 7:30 we gave up on driving and decided it was dinner time. Unfortunately all of Novi decided it was also dinner time and headed to the same restaurant. After an hour and 15 minutes our meal was served (our waitress informed us our soup was holding our order up – really?!). 

As we walked out of dinner, the other two cars arrived in Grand Rapids…. We, however, were only 40 miles deep in a roughly 300 mile road trip. Worst. Amazing. Race. Team. EVER! BUT, probably the most entertaining! 

We’re here though and made it through our first day of MACUL! We attended a great session featuring resources for Interactive Whiteboards! This session was hosted by the fabulous Pirate Truger. She has compiled 45 fun websites for your classroom’s interactive board! All websites are free! Her site can be found here:

http://iwbtreasure.wikispaces.com/Interactive+Whiteboard+Resource+Treasure+Chest

We’ve been playing at ABCya.com since we got back!! This is website designed for ages K-5 and allows you to access content by grade level. We found activities that were supportive across the curriculum!

This is a picture of sight word Bingo (I can’t wait to share with my crew!). 

On the left panel, she has broken additional resources into Promethean options and SmartBoard options! There really are many resources to take advantage of!

We'll be back more frequently! Enjoy your Friday and have fun playing on these sites!! We are!!

"Egg"citing Contractions {FREEBIE} :)

WOW!  Have I missed you guys :)  Remember that plague I mentioned last week, well it turned into pneuemonia and quickly put a damper on all of my big plans for last week...yikes!  That on top of all the craziness going on at school, and I was one wiped teacher!  But, I'm sooo glad to be back!  I have truly missed talking to all of my fave bloggy buddies :)

I made you a super cute "Egg"citing Contractions Memory Match Game that you can download {HERE} or by clicking the pic below :)  Hopefully you find it helpful, my kiddos have really struggled with contractions this year so we're just gonna keep on working on them.  I can't wait to share all of the super cool stuff that we have going on this week, so stay tuned and see you tomorrow my FAB friends!!! :)

We're Still Alive!

Hey bloggy friends!

Just popping in to share a little secret....

You may have noticed an unusual absence from our Made in The Shade Duo --  YUP! It’s been kind of sporadic lately. And, it’s a little undeniable.

Lisa and I have been SWAMPED with PD and the race to complete Data Walls. (We’re at different schools…. So this is serious! Data Wall War). 

Lisa will have had a sub 4.5 days this week. I had a sub 2.5 days + I've been staying late making graphs that will make Lisa’s look like crayon drawings (Just kidding! Or am I?).

As you can tell, this week is kicking my tail!

BUT!  We have not stopped thinking of you and here is a sneak peek of a super AWESOME and probably the best piece of work we’ve done to date…… Seriously, this thing is going to be MASSIVE, SUPER cute, and a Reading Night Program!! GET EXCITED.

Hmmmm.... What are we up to!?

Alright, I’m off to complete my super long to do list (which is scribbled across my hand…. and wraps around to my palm!) How did I let things get so CRAZY?!

Lisa and I will be back shortly! {Hopefully not sporadically!}

{FREE} Animal ABC Order Activity

Hi kids!  I'm gonna keep this short and sweet today because after having the whole week off, I now feel like I've contracted the plague right before we head back tomorrow...YUCK!  I'm going to get some much needed rest, but I found the cutest clip art this week and had to make something cute for you guys :)  We'll be using these Animal ABC Order cards this week during Daily Five.  Click the pics below to get your free cards and recording sheet :)

Have a great week bloggy buddies!!!

"Array" of Sunshine {FREEBIES} :)

Happy Friday!  Today is the last day of mid winter break for us so it's time to get ready for March next week!  We'll be doing a lot in math, especially working on arrays and multiplication...and I can't wait!  {I puffy heart arrays!}  We made these FAB "array" of sunshine (I LOVE a good play on words) projects last year and this whole class display for the hallway.

Each student made their own "array" of sunshine rainbow with sunshine and clouds.  I gave each student a sheet of grid paper, two cotton balls, a sheet of blue construction paper, and a sunshine template to trace on yellow or gold construction paper.  I let each student draw out their arrays with any equation they want so all of the projects were differentiated by ability level.  Above grade level students could draw more complex arrays while other students could work on more basic arrays.  Each student then labeled the backs of their arrays with a pencil before gluing them down.

The end result...a super cute rainbow spring craftivity display that matches up to the common core!  Gotta love that right?!?! 

Click the pic below for some other fabulous array activities to work on with your kiddos and enjoy your weekend friends :)

Core Democratic Values: Booklet Freebie!!

It’s Thursday..... Which means I have a few more hours before I have to get my head back in the teaching game. So, until then I figured I'd hit you with some oldies but goodies for today!

Our social studies curriculum calls for us to be teaching the “Core Democratic Values.” Luckily for me, the state of Michigan breaks these down HERE.

I always start with The Pursuit of Happiness. I love it because kids can easily connect with this idea, it helps us jump into classroom rules AND most importantly it connects well to my favorite children’s book…. FANCY NANCY! 

While we discuss the Pursuit of Happiness we keep oodles of Anchor Charts (that of course I tossed into recycling…..) and we record our thinking in these books….

It’s only one piece of paper and has the fancy dotted handwriting lines… Think September.

We also jam out to this little diddy compliments of School House Rock!

I also put together a list of books we read to help us uncover The Pursuit of Happiness. They’re some of my favorites! 

Alright! I am off to finish this break off strong! I'm sure you're off to finish this week off strong! Good luck!!

How To Organize All Your Reading Workshop Goodies {and FREEBIES!}

Last summer as I was going through all of my amazing resources that I have collected over the past six years I came to a bit of a revelation...I am a hoarder of teaching items!  {GASP!}  I strive to be the uber organized Jodi from Clutter-Free Classroom, but I am not.  So undertaking all of my reading resources and organizing them into one spot was going to be quite a summer project for me.  It all started with a 3" binder that I could take everywhere with me...

 
First of all, our district put together this wonderful pacing guide (that I would love to share - but is still in draft form with the district) to align all of our reading comprehension strategies, phonics lessons, and all things speaking and listening into one common core friendly document.  {I heart it!}  After we were given this document, I went through and typed all of my mini-lessons (57 pages worth) and then broke them into sub-categories by comprehension strategy.  A lot of my mini-lesson ideas came from The Learning Pad and I edited them to make them work in my own classroom, so because the ideas aren't originally mine I won't share this crazy document with you.  But, {HERE} is the original website if you would like to check out her amazing reading workshop mini lessons!

I then went through and gave an individual tab to each comprehension strategy for graphic organizers (ex. schema and all activities schema related - all in one place).  We also developed these graphic organizers that you can download here for {FREE} or by clicking the pic below!  There are 50 different graphic organizers that help review making connections, visualizing, schema, summarizing, retelling, and predicting/inferring.

After that, I spoke to our AUH-MAZING Interventionist, Louann, who was able to provide me with a book list that the district created that matches up to all the strategies.  Awesome, right?!?!  Click the pic below to download five pages of books and the strategies they match up to :)

Sadly, there was still organizing all my amazing finds from Beth Newingham, Michelle Oakes, Lesson Plan SOS, and Amanda Nickerson!  All of these ideas about Reader's Notebooks, Non-fiction Text Features, fairy tale units, etc. all received their own tab for resources in the 3" binder too!  But, my FAV part of this fab binder...you flip it over and {BAZINGA!} all of my writer's workshop resources too! 

But, that's a tale for another day :)