Woohoo Templates!

Ok, quick post.

Hope everyone had a great Monday! I'm super jealous of those of you guys already out for the summer!

Retesting starts tomorrow and I really hope my little ones do well!

I have a new product at my store. I know it's been a while!  Things have just been so busy, my creative juices haven't really been flowing.

You guys know that I love lapbooks and foldables.  So a while back I thought it would be pretty nifty to create a file of templates to make it easier to create your own lapbooks for your classrooms! Then someone emailed me about it, and I knew I had to get with it!

The file includes a PDF with templates and instructions, as well as a folder of jpeg images.  It includes templates to create the following foldables:

1. Lapbook Cover

2. Accordion Fold

3. FlipBook

4. 2 Flap Brochure

5. Pyramid Fold

6. Four or Six Square Brochure

7. Pocket with Cards

8. 3, 4, 5, or 6 Flap Shutterfold

So, you can either print out the PDF and write on the page. OR you can use the images in Microsoft Word, Publisher, etc to create your own computer generated file with graphics and text! Pretty cool and easy huh?

Terms of Use– These templates are for PERSONAL USE only. Please do not use these templates to create a product for sale.

For the next two days, you can grab it at my TN Shop for $1.50! Yep, $1.50! After the sale,  it will be $2.50 at TPT and TN!

I will give it away to two people who comment and let me know what type of lapbook they would like to make with the templates!  Be sure to leave an email.  I'll choose 2 people with Random Generator on Thursday!

Area, Plants & Nutrition!

I think this has been the longest I've gone without posting! I hope you have missed me!

Not only have I neglected this little blog for the past week, but I haven't pinned, blog stalked, or even turned on my laptop since Thursday!  I was so busy all of last week, and I made sure that I enjoyed my long weekend!  I hope everyone else did the same thing.

Let me update you on our week at school. At least what I can remember of it.  (It was one of those weeks....)

1. Remediation.  That's all I'm saying about that.

2. Area & Perimeter

Since we are switching to Common Core next year, my little ones would go to fourth grade without learning area and perimeter.  I didn't want them to go on with a gap, so that's what we did in math this week. Seeing as I've never taught area and perimeter before, I went to Pinterest!  We used Cheez-its to learn about area and perimeter of rectangles and squares.  Area was easy because it is pretty much just an array, but we had some trouble with perimeter...

When they finished, they created their own figure on the back.

I couldn't find the original pin anymore. :(

The lovely Molly posted about Area Robots. I knew I had to make them! These were so fun!  

3. Plants 

We have been learning lots of fun things about the life, needs and uses of plants.  One of my favorite things to do is actually from one of our Science Kits.  We soak lima beans, take off the seed coat, open it up and examine the baby seedlings inside. 

The kiddos love seeing the baby plants!  It's so funny how much you learn as a teacher.  Before I taught third grade, I never ever thought about a baby plant being inside a seed.  (Wait, does that make me sounds like an idiot?)

4. MyPlate

We are also learning about Nutrition in Health and one of the biggest things about the new "MyPlate" over the Food Pyramid is emphasizing 1/2 of your plate should be fruits and veggies. So, since we are already learning all about plants, I decided to ask parents to send in different vegetables.  

Here was our veggie spread!  They predicted what part of the plant each veggie was from.  Then it was time to try the different veggies!  Some of their reactions were hilarious!  Kids are so funny.  A lot of them tried new vegetables and most of them actually found one they liked!

Here is the recording sheet we used, if your interested! 

 

Speaking of MyPlate, be sure to check out MyPlate.gov.  

You can download and order FREE resources including posters and activities! It said that mine would arrive in 4-6 weeks, but it came in 4 days!  I love FREE!

Well, 9 More Days. 9!  I can't believe it!  So much to do, so little time!  

Have a great Monday! 

Vote For Lowell!

Shameless Plug Time.

My school is competing in a local contest through the Charlotte Checkers (our minor league hockey team) to win $5,000 in Technology Upgrades.

All you have to do is:
Visit the Charlotte Checkers Facebook Page.
Like the Page
Vote for Lowell Elementary

It will only take like 30 seconds and I would love you forever and ever if you did! Well, I would still love you anyway!  Right now we only have 8 votes, it's kind of sad.  So please help us out!

I'm going to try to get some energy to grade some papers or work on some new task cards or work on a government lapbook.  Maybe I'll accomplish something! Have a great night! :)

Robots and Bubble Gum

Man, it's only Monday!  Remediation started today.  It um, went.

I did leave at 11:30 today though.  I was roped into volunteered to be a coach for our school's Robotic Team next year.  It is a new program that each elementary and middle school are able to participate in with the help of grant money.  I was awfully nervous about being a coach, but after taking our team to the training today, I feel much better! It's going to be a blast! We plan on replicating

Well not really, the robots are built out of Legos. Our team is so winning the competition next year! :)

On another note, bubble sheets are of the devil. Can I get an Amen?

I mainly hate them because I despise taking my little #2 pencil and erasing stray marks or making those faint pencil marks nice and dark.

Thank goodness Elisabeth told me of a nice little trick she used to bribe convince her kiddos to clean up their answer sheet in exchange for bubble gum!  I loved it!

My kiddos loved it too! I've never had such clean scan sheets.  You know, anything to make my life a little easier.

Well I planned on having the bubble gum for them on Friday. Well that didn't happen.  Did I have it today? Nope, forgot!

So I finally got around to grabbing some gum and made some cute little tags to go with it. You know, to make up for being 2 days late.

You can grab them from Google Docs for free.  I know everyone is probably done testing, but there is always next year. 

Donor's Choose Project & A Squeaky Clean Sweepstakes!

I have been reading so much about Donor's Choose, so I decided to check it out for myself!  Just like every school out there, my school is definitely lacking in funds! I've really wanted some book series for the boys in my class, so I thought it would be a perfect project!

It's called "Growing With Characters!"  Here is the description of the project

"My reading instruction relies heavily on students choosing books and applying reading skills to these books. I would love to have books that are geared toward boys. The majority of the boys I have taught are not naturally born readers, but I think these books will really encourage boys to fall in love with reading! I want them to find a character that they love! More importantly, a character that they can't wait to read more about!

I would like books from the following series: Marvin Redpost, Encyclopedia Brown, Ghostville Elementary, The Class from the Black Lagoon, Chet the Gecko and the Bailey School Kids.

Reading is such an important part of everyday life! I want to build up readers who LOVE reading! These chapter series books will really help the students in my class, especially the boys, find characters they can identify and grow with."

I'm really excited about it!

And if you feel led, to help me out just click on the picture! Ok, enough with the shameless plug.

Have you had a project funded?  I'd love to hear some of your stories!

I keep forgetting to share, but someone from Lysol contacted me and asked if I would share about an awesome sweepstakes they are hosting!

"On National Teacher Day (May 8), LYSOL® kicked off the Healthy Classroom sweepstakes, which will run through September 14 and offer 100 teachers across the country the chance to win a $500 gift card towards the purchase of classroom supplies for the 2012-13 school year. All teachers have to do is visit www.lysol.com/schools to sign up. Additionally, given the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) findings that children are a major source of flu transmission, LYSOL® will provide each winner with a case of disinfecting wipes and access to online curriculum to help teachers instill healthy habits in the classroom"

You should definitely check it out! I definitely plan on signing up! Wait, don't sign up. That lessens my chance in winning! Kidding! :) 

I think it is so great that Lysol is stepping up and helping out children, teachers and schools when we are so often forgotten!  Thanks to Lysol and any other company out there that supports education! You guys really do rock!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful week! :)

Winners and an Award!

Well scores came in yesterday. I was very pleased with Math. Very pleased! Reading, well.  Let's just say not so much.  Some of my little ones did not quite apply themselves.  In their defense though, it is a HARD Test.  It really is. I think I would get awfully bored reading 8 boring reading selections.

I had lots of comments about getting our scores back so soon.

On one hand, it's nice to know right away.

On the other hand,  since we get scores back right away we have to remediate for a week and then retest.  Because, if you didn't know if they didn't know it a week ago, they will certainly know it by the retest.

So next week will be all about remediating my little ones who didn't pass.  My little kiddos that did pass will get to do some sort of a version of literature circles while I'm reviewing with the other ones.  I'm working on a plan now. Hopefully I'll get it hammered out before Monday!

Ok, now to more exciting things! The winner to my Giveaway! I decided to not just have 1 winner, not 2 winners, but 3 Winners!!

So the winners are...
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congrats to Stephanie, Briawna and Julie!  I'll be emailing you soon!

Also, I have had lots of lovely ladies give me the One Lovely Blog Award over the past few weeks  month! I'm a slacker. Thanks ladies!

Thanks to

Heather at

Nicole at

The Teacher on the Go atTales From A Very Busy Teacher
Heather at 


Jessica at 
Mission Control atDestination: Knowledge
Diane at

All of you ladies made me smile! :)I was given this award a while back, so I guess I'm breaking rules about passing it along...
Have a great weekend!

I Survived

What a LONG week! Testing is over! My little kiddos worked soooo hard! I am exhausted, so it's going to be a quick one.

We find out the scores tomorrow. I'm really excited to see how our hard word has paid off this year.  So, it's time to Celebrate!  (I'm just going to ignore the fact that remediation starts next week and then retesting the week after)

So to celebrate...

Everything at my Teacher's Notebook is at 50% off until Midnight Friday!

Plus enter below to win a $10 Credit to my Shop!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I hope my NC friends had a great week of testing too!

Baby Got Books...

How did I survive without knowing about Scholastic Dollar Deals?  I saw someone blog about it earlier and I was very excited!  I bought 13 books.  My cart originally had 33 books, but I cut it down a little bit! Check out what I got!

    

  

   

I swear it's almost as bad as when there is a TPT Sale.  I am a Teaching Shopaholic. It's bad. 

Speaking of books, 2 lovely new bloggy friends are hosting their first linky parties! Since, I am hosting my first one too, I just had to link up!

Jessica from Mrs. Stanford's Class is hosting  a party all about the books we plan on reading over the summer.

Honestly, I don't read teaching books.  I would much rather read books written for high schoolers.
Like...


The New Morganville Vampire Book


or the New Sookie Stackhouse book.


Ok, I know this isn't for high schoolers, but I still am dying to read it.

I do plan on taking the time to realllly read the Lucy Calkin's Reading Workshop and Writing Workshop books.  I've read a lot of the Reading one, but I really want to understand it for next year.



 I had to link up with Miss Nelson at Run, Miss Nelson's Got the Camera too! She is having a linky party all about our all time favorite read alouds!



I don't read a ton of picture books with my third graders, other than holiday books. But, I LOVE reading aloud novels. Here are some of my faves!












Man, this is a long post, I'm glad it's mostly pictures!

Thanks for all of your well wishes to my kiddos today on their test!

Thanks to all my new friends I've made during my little linky party! It's been so much fun!