Football Math!

Every Sunday, Monday, and Thursday, football is all I hear in my house, and not necessarily by choice. :) My students are also obsessed and it is all the boys talk about! I've finally come to the point where I've embraced it and it has now become a way to connect with my students and make math fun! I've created games and task cards, common core aligned, and all centered around FOOTBALL! I've uploaded my games and task cards which include…

• 3 concentration/matching games, one page each (one for each CA team: 49ers, Chargers, and Raiders). For a challenge, students can mix all three for a larger game or you can use these questions as additional task cards for more questions.
• 12 task cards-I use these during math centers and occasionally as a fun warm up placed under my document camera!
• A create your own football word problem sheet for students. After solving the task cards and playing the games, my students were so excited to create their own problems!

All of these can be used as task cards or any other game of your choice! My students just love seeing anything football related!

This packet is of course for California teams (since I live here), however, it is very easy for me to edit so if you'd like to request a pack for another state's teams, just send me a message and I'd be happy to upload it for any of my wonderful blog followers! I've posted the pack to both of my stores for $3.50. Click below to check it out!  

Happy Monday Night Football! 

Freebie Friday!

I'm linking up with Teaching Blog Addict for Freebie Friday!

Over the summer I attempted the near impossible task of organizing my files. It took a lot of patience and tons of coffee but I was able to do it! I used to organize many of my files and units in simple file folders which started off fine and ended up looking like this sloppy mess...

It made it impossible to find what I was looking for and just really started to bother the OCD teacher in me! So, I created a separate binder for each of my writing units, added dividers, and now my teaching partners make fun of my ridiculously organized units. But it was so worth it! 

After...

In case the picture is hard to see, I made tabs for mentor texts, work samples, rubrics, student handouts, and writing celebration ideas.

Now for the freebie….

I made binder covers for each of the writing units I organized. Click on the picture below to head to the freebie! I'm sure most of you are already this organized, but if you are just attempting this task like I did over the summer, I hope this can be useful!

Boo'd

So I've been Boo'd by two wonderful bloggers…Marcia from Learning in Bliss and Nicki from Mrs. Thigpen's Kindergarten! I'm finally in the Halloween mood and ready to "Boo" back! I've seen a couple versions of this fun game but here's one…

The rules are: Choose a fellow blogger that has MORE followers, another that has about the SAME number of followers, and last, someone that has LESS followers.

Highlight their blogs with links to encourage others to check them out.  Don't forget to let your fellow bloggers know that you shared about them.

A blogger with more followers is Jessica from Glitzy in First Grade.

She's a dual language teacher with some great resources!

A blogger with about the about the same (ok more)  followers is Mrs. Cockrell from Teach On. Check out her blog!

And finally, check out Kandi's blog at The Fit Teacher Reads!

I don't have any Halloween items in my store to share, however I'll share a little about some of the Halloween activities I do with my class! I LOVE making caramel apples with my class! I have parent volunteers sign up to donate apples, caramel, toppings, basically the works! It is a hit every year and apples are healthy, right? 

Another activity the kids love is making a skeleton (on construction paper) out of pasta! They choose the hard pieces of pasta that resemble each bone of the skeleton. 

Another Halloween "center" is my estimating jar of candy corn. Of course, the winner gets the jar! 

Cookie decorating is also fun! I love getting round sugar cookies, icing, red decorating gel, and Hershey kisses to make eyeballs! 

Tons of fun! I can't wait! I'd love to hear some of your favorite activities! 

Fiction Writing

We are finally finishing up our Personal Narrative unit! I'm so impressed with the work my fourth graders have done! Our school started using the writer's workshop model about four years ago so this is the first group of students I've had who have consistently been taught using this approach every year. WOW, does it make a difference!

Another unit that I work on during the year is my Fiction Writing Unit. I'll share a little bit of how this unit looks in my class….

Again, we do all of our work in our writer's notebooks but of course, this unit can be done directly on any of the student worksheets in my packet. My students absolutely LOVE the process of creating their own character and brainstorming problems and solutions. It is also really eye opening for the teachers once the students share problems that occur at their own school, and give the same problem to their character.

Here's one of my student planning sheets to get them started on developing their character.

This is also a great unit to teach dialogue, descriptive details, and figurative language! There is really so much you can do with this unit and it works for grades 3-5 just by adapting your mini-lessons to fit their needs. I've bundled all of my files into a unit packet, and added them to both of my stores if you'd like to check it out! I hope this can be useful for some of you just starting this unit!

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

October Currently

It's finally October and time to link up with Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade! Hopefully this weather starts to feel like fall soon! I have some some scarves and cute boots that I'm dying to wear but this heat is out of control!

Listening: I just can't get enough of The Soup! Does anyone else watch this show? I feel like it saves me from watching hours of TV! All of the most ridiculous reality TV clips in just 30 minutes!

Loving: I know most of you are thinking that of course I love my class, it's only October! Let's just say that I've NEVER felt this way about a class in October! I have the sweetest, most mature group! All 35! Thank goodness!

Thinking: I know I've only been engaged for a little over a month but I feel behind already? There's just not enough time to plan a wedding and teach? I can barely plan lessons and grade all these papers! Counting down to my Thanksgiving break!

Wanting: What is up with all of these spiders? I guess it's fitting for October but for someone with arachnophobia this is just not okay. Outside, sure! Inside, near my bed before I go to sleep? No thank you!

Needing: Yes, I'll admit it, I have a problem. I really need to kick the Pinkberry addiction before wedding time! 

I hope everyone has a happy spider-free October!