Five for Friday... on Sunday ;) 9.25.16

Happy Weekend!

Happy Fall!

I am so excited to be back in action, and I'm hoping that this will be a more regular thing for me. A personal goal that I had this school year was to blog more. I'm really wanting to get connected again. So I'm starting out with an old favorite of mine: Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

It was a slow process, but this week we managed to rewrite, label and discuss our first mentor sentence. We didn't do much more than that, but it was a harder book to start with! I used this book to talk about September 11th, and since we had it already read we stuck with it!  

Really working on growth mindset for a school wide initiative. We took some time this week to discuss some of these quotes and how we can use them in our everyday 

It always amazing me each year how quickly our math picks up at the beginning of the school year for our third graders.  We are already working on 2s, 5s, and 10s for count-bys, and discussion things like commutative property!  These guys are rocking it, but it's been up-hill most days! 

Speaking of an up-hill battle some days, I've really gotten creative to get us up and moving in the morning!  We are loving these math centers from Ideas by Jivey! Check them out!

I've been working really hard on a classroom redesign. It's been a slow process, however I've started to put some things together and some furniture is slowly being delivered. I've done a lot of clearance shopping this past couple weeks after the back to college items have been discounted! I'm also lucky to have had some great support through our schools PTO!

Here's a sneak---

Makeover Madness: Week one TPT Challenge

Hi there! Happy weekend. I am excited

to be a part of the TPT Seller Challenge

hosted by 4 fabulous bloggers. 

See Below!

I have been absent from my TPT world lately.

Life has just gotten in the way. 

I have on my summer list to do some makeovers,

so this was the perfect way to get started.

One of my best sellers is a set of task cards

that I use at the beginning of the school year. 

I have three sets of them. One for addition with 

regrouping, one for subtraction with regrouping

and one for place value. I also have them linked together

in a bundle pack.

My goal is to revamp the whole entire bundle,

but for now I have the first set done. 

Here is what I started with----

In my defense, it wasn't a bad start.

I use them a lot with students,

especially when I'm trying to do some assessing

at the beginning of the year. 

I decided to change it up a bit and

I LOVE how it turned out. 

I would love for you to check it out!

Click Here!

It's going to be FREE for a flash and then 

discounted. I'd love some feedback too!

I'm super excited to get on the next product

for this bundle. :)

My Rockin' Classroom- Pioneers

Happy Weekend!

I'm pumped to be blogging today for a Rockin' Giveaway

with my friend Katie at Rock and Teach!  

We're all getting together to give you the chance at some great prizes

and to share some rockin' things that we do in our classrooms. 

For the past several years my team and I

have done a pioneer simulation to help teach

non-fiction in our reading blocks. To get some background,

check out this old blog post.  

Here is our trail map to the West!

This year we wanted to continue 

some of the great things that we've done

in the past, but also we wanted to take it to a new level

So.... we added a STEM element! 

A-Ma-Zing!  

Seriously.. Amazing!

I am so lucky to work with such great 

teammates.  We rocked this and I have them to thank for it!

Here were the pioneer essentials that had to be packed in the wagon!

Students worked in their 'wagon train' groups

to attempt the challenges that we've made.

The first one was to build a wagon that 

can hold a list of 'trail materials' without falling over. 

Step 1:  Students had the opportunity to look over items in the General Store and go back as a team to view prices and discuss ideas. 

Step 2: Planning Process- Until they had a plan, they weren't able to go to the store. They needed to bring their ideas together. 

Step 3: Buying Supplies- Students needed to track their spending on a budget sheet, and make change from their purchases. They could go to the store as many times as they needed, but there would also be times that it would close. 

Step 4: Build a wagon structure that could hold all of the pioneer essentials for travel. In order to have a completed wagon, you must fit everything in or on it and the wagon can't tip over. 

Step 5: Additional Challenge- Make your wagon roll 2 yards without tipping or falling. 

I had 3 out of 4 wagon trains successful with this challenge. 

 Surprisingly the one that didn't finish was a huge shock to me. 

It was amazing to see some students shine in this activity

 that struggle with more everyday school activities.  

I also love how 2 of the 3 put their water barrel (soda can)

on the outside of the wagon how it was on the real wagons!!!

We had a long discussion and reflection process after this activity was done. 

 Students wrote about their experience and documented their process with pictures. 

 We took the pictures and listed the steps and talked about what they would do differently next time.  I can't wait to share with you the next STEM challenge we did.

  Some groups really took what they learned 

in this wagon building activity to heart 

and tried very hard to fix their teamwork

 or communication the second time around. 

Thanks for stopping by and seeing my rockin' pioneer activity!

Please take time to visit Katie 

and the other fabulous bloggers taking part in this giveaway!

Enter Enter Enter to win some

fabulous prizes and also a $50 TpT Gift Card!

Have a fantastic Day!
Ana :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

I'm Still Here! Five For Friday {4.24.15}

Happy Friday Friends!!!  I know that I have been absent for a really long time.... I do apologize for that. I am thankful for the connections I have still been able to keep through twitter and instagram though!  I needed to take some time to focus on life and school. It sure has been a very hectic year with getting back to work after having a baby (who is one now!!!yikes!!) and selling our house.... moving in with my parents and have had almost everything go wrong in the last 5 months to move on to a new adventure.  I'm happy to say that school in winding down, after a fabulous year and a wonderful group of students. I have a lot to share from what we did and I have a lot of great news in terms of our future--- we're building a house! I'm linking up for one of my favorite linkys today.... Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs teaching to give you a little look into what I've been doing this week, and maybe a little from last week.... it's been so long since I've blogged I have so much I want to share!! Enjoy!

I've been plugging away on fractions with my kiddos. We're using math expressions, anyone else?  I missed this part of the year last year b/c of being on maternity leave so it's been a little scary for me!  However, I have to say that it's been going very well.  My team is amazing and I've also teamed up with our ESL teacher, math interventionist and another teammate to do some team teaching and small group work with fractions.  My kids are doing well, but let me tell you, it's hard!  I'd love to know some of your suggestions for resources for fractions. We've been doing a lot of hands on activities. I've found that to be best, but I'm always on the lookout for more!

We end the school year with a great project in 3rd grade. I talked about it last year here.  We do a pioneer simulation where students are assigned to an identity and a group and they 'travel the trail' west.  We have a heavy emphasis on non-fiction reading and learning for 4th quarter and this fits perfectly with it.  One of my favorite activities is this interactive word wall.  We've done a lot with words and parts of speech this year, so it was a great activity to familiarize students with some of the pioneer vocabulary.  I love using vocabulary boxes with them as well.  It really helps them understand the words.  

Speaking of pioneers, we have changed up our teaching of it this year and have added some STEM activities to go along with our learning. It's been wonderful.  I will do a longer post when I have time, but here is a look at what we had to do this last week. Students had a limited amount of time and resources to create a shelter for their pioneers to protect them from a coming storm. I was very impressed with their creativity and teamwork. 

We're doing a school wide writing project this year at school. It's been going amazing and also everything can't get enough of it. We're all making cardboard books or cartoneras and publishing them for a celebration at the end of the year.  The process has been amazing. I'll share more at a later post, but wanted to let you know in case you wanted to get involved. You can check out more from my co-worker's blog Books Del Sur here!

We did a twitter challenge at school this week. It was amazing. I got to step outside of my box and do some things like a twitter chat, selfie with my co-workers and share ideas to those that I don't know.  It got people on twitter that didn't know much about it and it also got us collaborating from across the halls.  We always do a great job with collaboration but this was a different way! It was so fun.  If you want to know more let me know.  My coworker Jennifer set it up for us! She blogs at Mrs. Laffin's Laughings and also be sure to follow her link to her writing blog! Are you on twitter? I'd love to connect with you. I can be found @MrsBentin3

Happy Friday!

Have a great weekend! :)