Easter Freebie: Bookmarks and Homework Passes

Second post of the day - I doubt you will mind though - it's a FREEBIE!

With my day at home, I am quickly trying to make sure everything is prepped for the end of this week, and finally go on our spring break!!!  The laminator is humming and I'm prepping these bookmarks for my school kiddos' Easter baskets.  Click on the image above to go and download. 

 What?  Easter baskets?  Yes, my school kiddos make up Easter baskets on the day before vacation.  It's a quick little art project, but they love it and I enjoy a place for them to store all their goodies.  By goodies I mean their Easter egg that has their name on it (they find their specific one during the Easter egg hunt), the cute bookmark, a Homework Pass, a brand new pencil, and some other odds and ends.   

How do they make up their Easter basket?  With just a plain paper bag.  That's it.  I then let them put a quarter piece of tissue paper inside to help fill it out a bit.  Then they decorate it.  This year I splurged on the foam egg stickers - usually they just color or trace a bunny on it.

Here are some pictures of how to create it, in case you are interested.

Step 1: Take a plain paper bag and cut an inch strip from the top going vertically down about halfway.

Step 2: Open up the bag and fold the outside parts down, leaving only the middle inch strip sticking up

Step 3: Staple (or tape) the strip together - creating a handle.

Step 4: Decorate! (My 6 year old did this project - can you tell?  He's a helper!)

Have a great day!

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I Adopted a Sea Turtle

I've done some crazy things for a free unit and this morning was no different.  You see, I'm home with my grouchy little boy who happens to be ill.  I think it's the same thing that I had a couple of days ago.  Well, since I'm home I am catching up on my Blogger feed...
I also caught up on all the sales sent to my "spam" email account - like the $5 cute Old Navy toddler shirts... and the 50% off Osh Gosh... but that's not the real point to my posting.
I adopted a Sea Turtle this morning.

He's a little hatchling and my own boys were like proud papas since I adopted him literally 5 minutes before we ran out the door to take my older boys to school.  We named him Sebastian.  
  The Science Penguin mentioned she had adopted a Sea Turtle named Fred in her post this morning.  I thought it was a great idea - a class pet that I don't have to remember to feed, bring home on the weekends, or change a cage.  Then she mentioned that she will send her Sea Turtle Unit to anyone that adopts.  Her idea (and one that I'm also going to do) is use the pack to help celebrate Earth Day.  
Here are her pictures of the pack.  Doesn't it look fun?Interested in adopting a Sea Turtle too?  Head on over to Sea Turtle Inc. to sign up!Have a great day!

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Noun Game & Linky

I'm finally linking up with Flying into First Grade to play the noun game.
Person
Since it was just my anniversary, I'll choose my husband as my favorite person - though all my boys are my favorite.  :)  I love my husband for so many reasons.  He knows those reasons too since I made up one of those Pinterest inspired frames a while back as well as used a deck of cards to make "52 reasons I love you" for last year's Valentine's gift... of course I keep forgetting to change up the reason on the frame lately - it's been stuck on "Because you take care of me" for quite a while now.

Here is a picture of us on our honeymoon 11 years ago - we were standing on the top of a crater in the clouds of Hawaii.  
Place

My favorite place in the entire world would have to be Pismo Beach.  I wrote about it a bit ago with my Spring Break Bucket Linky.  Countdown to visit in 1 week!!!
ThingIf I could do anything in the entire world, I would probably grab my Kindle and settle down for a nice long read.  LOVE IT!!  I also am thankful for Pixel of Ink and Inspired Reads with their long list of freebies to download.  
Animal

I love my puppy.  Her name is Minnie and she's part Kelpie, part Shepherd.  We picked her up from the pound when she was 5 months old, Minnie was her name and we didn't change it... Why, you ask?  My now 3 year old loves Mickey Mouse and well Mickey needs a Minnie...  Her anniversary of coming to live with us is on April 13th, we should probably have a party to celebrate... my family likes to celebrate everything!  What a year it is has been having her in our family!
So - that's me in a nutshell!  

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Sunday Store Update

Here's what's new since last Sunday:

You know how I love to make memory books with my kiddos.  I decided to make them official looking this year instead of having my kids just write on pieces of paper...  I'm even going to use the binding machine at school. :)

  My kids somehow have "seemed" to forget what order they solve multistep problems.  I don't know why I didn't think of making these earlier in the year (probably because I wasn't creating things back when I taught this lesson), but they will be completing these task cards tomorrow.  It's all about review.   

I was going through my computer files and realized that I never shared the research questions my students use to look up information about their specific tribes.  I also created a narrative that goes along with it since my kiddos love writing narratives.  It's all about making it personal for them in order to draw connections.  

If you are interested in learning more about any of these products, just click the images above.  
I hope you have a great day!  

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Almost 400...

Just a quick post for today.  It is my anniversary, and I do have to go and change out of my sweats into something decent to wear out on my fancy date with my honey.  I have no clue where we are going, and it may not be fancy, but anything will be a step up from the leaky diapers and kid puke of this morning.  11 years... we have been through a lot!
Anyway, I know the blog is getting close to 400 followers - which totally is a crazy thought in itself.  Didn't we just celebrate 300?  200?  100??  I love giveaways though and wondered if any of you bloggers/shop owners would want to help me out with a big bash to celebrate?  
Please comment below or email me at ilovemyclassroom@ymail.com
Hope your day is fabulous!

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Five for Friday!

What a week it has been!  Ever have that feeling like you probably are sick, but are in denial?  That's me... the past 3 days a stomach bug has been making me feel gross but the week was so busy there wasn't time to make sub plans.  

Anywho!!

Linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to once again share 5 random moments of my week.

1. Simplified Fractions - Nacho Style

I found this freebie and decided to print it out for groups to cut, sort, and glue. It took about 30 minutes. Then I corrected it and called the groups over. The kids had to explain why the chip wasn't in the right spot (simplified vs needs to be simplified.) Great review!

2. District Writing Test

3 days this week we were writing basically all day to complete our test. It was a response to literature. The kids did a great job with identifying the lessons the author wanted them to learn.  I am officially done with writing lessons - not that we will stop writing - but now it's onto the test prep crunch!

3. Congruent, Slides, Flips, and Turns

My students have finally reached the end of chapter 21. Usually by this time of the year we are done with the book and already in full review mode. Not this year though. I did an art project with the lessons. (Yes, I squished them together.) They folded a piece of paper, traced their hand, cut it out, and then glued it to another paper. That side of the paper they wrote that their hands were congruent, and decided how many degrees to turn it before gluing. The other side of the paper they did it again and decided whether to slide or flip. They got it and today we moved onto symmetry.  They chose what side they wanted the class to see on our bulletin board.

4.  Whales vs. Elephants

This week we began our Communication unit in OCR.  The story talks about infrasonic communication - specifically with elephants and whales.  I went to an old favorite website - LearningPage.com and printed off fact sheets about 2 different types of whales and an elephant, and in groups they created a triple venn diagram.  My little kids felt like even bigger kids with having to compare 3 animals at the same time.  We sat/laid outside in the sunshine to create these diagrams.  

5. Easter Egg Symmetry

Today was Symmetry DAY!  I know I probably could have just glossed over this lesson since they totally already knew how to do it, but I really wanted to do something fun since it is Friday... so I found these whole page Easter Eggs and let the kids color for a change.  My only requirement was that the completed egg had to show symmetry.  I didn't want something with a lot of graphics on it to start since they are in 4th grade and these kids especially love to draw.  I love spring art!

Other news... my mom is out of the hospital!  Yay her!!  They figured it out to be a reaction to one of the medications that she was prescribed due to her pinched nerve.  Thanks for praying!!  

Other other news... I am finding it way too easy lately to spend money on TPT.  In the past I have limited myself to sales, but now with state testing so close and all the review that needs to happen and the need to try to make it fun, I have been filling and emptying my cart way too often.  Just last night I had 2 separate shopping sprees... Look what I bought!

Hope you had a great week!  Tomorrow is our anniversary - 11 years!  

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Workshop Wednesday - Graphic Organizers

I'm linking up with Jivey today to tell about Reading Graphic Organizers in my classroom.  I've shared these posters way back last summer after I made them for a Monday Made It...  They hang over my whiteboard.  The kids write it out on a piece of binder or copy paper, and then stick them into their binders.  Copy budgets are an issue, so it was important they could create it themselves since we use them every week.  

We preview the story on Mondays after we define our weekly vocabulary.  The kiddos just draw a simple 4 square on the back of their vocabulary words in their composition books and make connections as we go through it quickly.  

On Tuesdays, they take a piece of copy paper and draw the basic outline of the Story Map.  This works well for a fiction story... not too great for a nonfiction one though.  This version is free in my TPT store.  I gave each student one copy of this at the beginning of the school year, they keep it in a plastic sheet protector in their binders for easy reference when creating their own.  
I was thinking about the Story Map lately - wanting to change it up to work on more skills each week - more than just summarizing, so just last week I created this.

  It includes Making Connections, Predict, Asking Questions and then figuring out how to Clarify the issues.  It also has the basic Story Map that they enjoy drawing and a place to Visualize the story on the back of their paper.  Just something I'm thinking about for next year to add in more of the skills each week. I'm sure there is room for improvement though - any suggestions?  I just uploaded it to Google Docs at this point, since I'm sure there is something that I will want to add...  
Maybe it will help someone else though.  Enjoy!
Hope you had a great day!  Newest news with my mom is she is feeling a lot better and her sodium levels have gone up a point. She just needs to gain one more point until she is able to go home.  Thanks for praying!    

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