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Monday, April 29, 2013

Help Needed A.S.A.P.!


One of my sweetest teacher blogging buddies, Abby from Third Grade Bookworm,  has a VERY IMPORTANT fundraiser going on right now.   Recently she lost a very special student named Ruby to cancer! Yes, cancer sux!  Ruby's parents can't afford to buy her a headstone for her grave due to the extravagant medical bills they have on top of every day bills.

If you donate  $20 (or more) you will get a plethora of resources from a variety of FABULOUS Teachers.  Click here to donate and see all the FAB materials you will get. 

Please, I am begging, go donate now.  Abby is only $400 away from raising enough money!  Skip Starbucks a couple of times this week and use that money for Ruby!  Represent the generous Fabulous Froggies I know you are!   

I would love for Abby to email me and say, "Thanks to froggy fans Ruby will have a peaceful resting place with a beautiful headstone".   I'm going to donate right now, join me!

THANK YOU in advance for your generous donations!

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Randomness and Teacher Feature


It's Sunday night and like usual I left everything that NEEDED to be done for the last minute. However, before I get to the "to do" list I thought I would blog real quick.  Just a short time ago I was looking at Teacher Pay Teachers to see if my favorite sellers have anything new that I must have.  Well low and behold I put 5 things in my cart before I could blink... OK, I'm exaggerating a bit but it was real quick.
Here is what I have in my shopping cart right now....   I am super duper excited about the Morphology Dictionary: A Student Reference Book of Prefixes, Suffixes, and Roots by Ladybug's Teacher Files.  I think that Kristen should have called it "Lorraine's new spelling program" because that is exactly what it is going to be!  I will be sure to blog about this in its own blog post once I print, read, and decide exactly how I am going to use it next year. 

We are finished with state testing.... Thank goodness!  Last Monday (we tested on Tue & Wed) we had a spirit rally.  Some how I was forced volunteered to dance while to 2 of our 4th graders mimic some my dance moves (the students are the one in the pink that is taller then me and the one in the white.  I don't know why I am sharing this because I look totally REDONKULOUS but here's a video clip of us..... I am the short chunky (but adorable) one in the turquoise shirt.  Enjoy!



And now to the Teacher Feature...  Meet my friend and fellow blogger Teresa!

Hi!  I'm Teresa from Confessions of a Teaching Junkie.  I am honored to be a part of this new "Teacher Feature!"  Thanks to my buddy Lorraine for featuring me on her blog!  We have been cyber buddies for many years!  

I have been teaching for 29 years and have taught everything except first and eighth grades.  My heart and passion lie in third and fourth grades, where I have spent most of those years.  I cannot remember ever not wanting to be a teacher.  I grew up loving and playing "School" with my friends and dolls.  My grandmother and aunt were teachers, and that is what I wanted to be too.  I have always wanted to make a difference with kids.  I started out my career teaching in a very low income inner-city school as a bilingual teacher.  I have since moved on to two other districts in Arizona, and continue to do what I love.  I am currently teaching fourth grade and it looks like i will be starting a third/fourth loop next year (hopefully.)

I love learning and am embracing the new Common Core Standards and I'm learning so much about it.  I have been chosen to work on a curriculum writing committee this summer, and I am really looking forward to it.

We are currently working on Time and Data Analysis in my class, so I thought I would share a couple of things I have made for this unit.  The first is my High Flying Time activities.  Each set includes projectable whole group practice, individual independent practice, and a self checking Memory game.  There are three different versions of the file, Time to the Hour and Half Hour (1st Grade,) Time to the Nearest 5 Minutes (2nd Grade,) and Time to the Nearest Minute (3rd-4th Grade.)  You can also get the bundle that includes all three!

     


In keeping with the Springtime Kite Theme,
Here is a Writing FREEBIE for you!


Thanks for getting to know me.
Head on over to my blog to see what fun things my class has been up to lately.


You can also find me on 
and

Thanks again to Lorraine for the feature!

Now to get to my to do list.  Good night my frogilicious friends! Have a super great week!

Monday, April 22, 2013

Rocks, Fish, & Earth Day Giveaway


Have you read the book Only One You? I bought it back in July and never used it in my classroom... until this past week that is.  This book caused such great discussion with my 4th graders.  There is "only one you" in the entire humongous world!
After reading the book and having an awesome discussion about how we are all unique and special we painted rocks.  We painted our own "rockfish" just like the pictures found in the book. 
I gave the rocks a coat or two of shellac and after they dried the students placed them around the perimeter of our garden.  The students absolutely LOVED doing this activity! 

And now for the giveaway.....
If you haven't checked out the Fabulous new website Educents, now is the time!  
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Educents & Conscious Box have teamed up to offer you a chance to win a free Conscious Box – delivered right to your door!
Conscious Box offers a monthly subscription service that delivers the purest, most natural products on the planet, right to your doorstep! You’ll be introduced to the purest, most ethical companies on the planet, every month!  So what are you waiting for,sign up below for your chance to win and teach your kids about being eco-friendly!
As you wait to find out if you’ve won the box, we encourage you to:
  • Like Conscious Box (Facebook.com/ConsciousBox) and EduCents (Facebook.com/Educents) on Facebook!
  • Leave a comment and tell us why you want the box!
  • Share the giveaway with your friends! 
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PLUS, if you aren’t the grand prize winner, you can still get a 3-month subscription to Conscious Box for less than $12/month by heading over to Educents.com. For one week only, Educents will be offering the Conscious Box for 40% off!  In addition, ALL profits from the sale of this box will be donated to The One Fund, which will provide funds to help those families most affected by the tragic events that unfolded during Monday’s Boston Marathon. So enter to win, and then head on over to buy the Conscious Box for yourself or a friend to celebrate earth day and support our fellow Americans in Boston!
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This giveaway is sponsored by Educents.com. Conscious Box only ships within the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. They can also ship overseas to APO addresses, as well as US territories.
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Educents, a flash-deal website, is an easy way to get huge discounts on the educational products you know and love (and maybe even some you’ve never heard of!)
In a world where education is becoming increasingly expensive, Educents is a company with a mission: to provide every family access to affordable educational materials. They focus exclusively on handpicked, unique educational materials including online curriculum, learning tools, educational toys, software, e-books, and more. With new deals added every day, Educents is quickly gaining popularity amongst parents, teachers, homeschoolers and learners of all ages.
 Come check out Educents.com to find your favorite brands at up to 90% off retail prices!

Just click on  the Rafflecopter  link below to enter! Good Luck my froggy friends!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Wordless Wednesday







Saturday, April 13, 2013

Five for Friday on a Saturday!


It is Saturday afternoon and I am just now able to sit and link up Five for Friday...... this explains a lot about my week, heck it explains a lot about my life!!!! LOL!

Our tomatoes are growing!  The fourth grade garden is doing great.  Our students take such pride in watering and weeding the garden.  However, we have a little critter munching on our strawberries. :)


This week we started our 4th Grade STAAR Olympics.  The fourth grade team came up with this fun STAAR review last year and made it even better this year!  We still have some things to tweak out for next year but the students love it! Above you see a picture of  part of our huge display.  We have 20 events to complete in 10 days.  Each day we have one Reading event and one Math event.  The teachers created a review for each topic and a ten question quiz.  The reviews we made were mostly flipcharts (ActivInspire) or Powerpoints and the quizzes were mostly paper and pencil quizzes.   The topics we covered were our some of the standards the students will be tested on like main idea, inferring, fractions & decimals, etc.   Students can earn gold, silver or bronze medals (made from paper and put on the display) and then the classes with the highest percents correct can win 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.  

How cute am I in cartoon form? The fabulous Crystal Fox from the blog, The Library Fox made a mini me!  

This week I discovered Lola, our class dwarf hamster, LOVES pretzels!  I am not sure pretzels are good for her to eat but she ate it in seconds!!!!!!!!!

I ended the week by paying off a bet! Yup, I lost and had to go to school dressed like a clown.  The bet was that if this particular student made all A's on his most recent report card I would dress up like a clown for the day.  He WAS a B but I knew he had the potential to make A's so for motivation we made that deal and he followed through on his part so I had to do the same.  Anything for my student's success!


Watch for a new post (about mid week) about a fun activity we recently did! 

Have a great weekend my froggy friends.