Earth Day fun

Today was day two of the writing SOL for 5th grade at our school, and I was helping monitor the bathrooms since we can only have one boy or girl in the bathroom at a time during testing. At least I had a laptop to work on today (or browse blogs, Pinterest, and TPT - hey, it's professional development) because this was the long part! I don't know how writing tests go in other states, but Virginia has a multiple choice section (we did that yesterday) and then a writing prompt. This year, it's ALL online, so they had to type their prompt, which didn't take quite as long as I thought it would. By lunch at 12:15, the two classes that I was monitoring were mostly done. I had a chance to start my Earth Day mystery, and I was able to finish it during planning before I got my one afternoon group. All the others were cancelled today because of testing.

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I used graphics from Krista's store, Creative Clips. Her Earth day pack (and others for that matter) are so cute and colorful. She's become one of my new favorites!

Only two more days before Spring Break is here. I cannot wait!! This girl is ready to sleep in and relax some (although I'll still be doing Insanity for another 40-something days, unless I decide to be a quitter at 30. I'm on day 19 right now, and this waking up at 4:30 to do intense workout is killing me).

Case of the Missing Easter Eggs

I know I'm posting again, but the last one was mainly just to say that my sale is up until the end of the day. But I had to post about this new item that is also on sale today.

I made another one! These have been so much fun to create (I've always been a fan of mysteries anyway), and I've realized how desperately my students need help with their critical thinking skills. I mean, I've always known it, but we did the Case for the Missing Pot O' Gold last week in a 5th grade class, and I was a bit scared. It did provide for teachable moments about what constitutes as a fact and what you CANNOT use to prove guilt (I even threw out the term "circumstantial evidence"). For this one, I used some well known characters as the suspects to add a fun little twist. Hope you enjoy it!

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Lucky Seven AND another mystery packet!

I mentioned yesterday that I was working on a craftivity that was inspired by my newest linky party, and I was able to put the finishing touches on it this morning! I had to change the hair for the girl option so it would work with the leprechaun hat. Then I was having some trouble with sizing, so I had to keep printing and putting it together to make sure it fit and looked right.

Then I had my helping otter put one together as an example for my students. I need to run out and get some construction paper for them to do it, though, because I have learned that I have some slow and/or lazy colorers. Have you found this to be true in your class? When they did my Valentine craft, I actually had some 1st graders walk by and say, "Those are really ugly! They can't color." That's pretty bad. I teach the oldest kids, and 1st graders think their work looks bad. It did, though. I was a little embarrassed to hang it up, and I only left it up there for a few days. So I think I'm going to make it easier for them to complete this time. I'll take pictures (if they turn out right), but here's my helping otter's example (isn't it cute?):

I posted the craftivity on TN and TPT. Please feel free to pin away! I love finding my items on Pinterest!

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Don't forget to go link up if you haven't already!

Then I decided to make another drawing conclusions mystery after reading a request for more like my Case of the Secret Admirer. This one is a St. Patrick's Day theme as well, and I changed it up a little. This one includes a map of Ireland, and students have to use directional sense to help them solve the crime.

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I bought my clipart to start working on spring literacy centers soon, but those usually take a few days to finish, so I won't have them up until sometime next week. Tomorrow's going to be a busy day, so I think I'm going to head on to bed. I haven't had a full work day since Monday with my meetings and a delay this morning!

Brain Teaser Puzzles and books

Okay, I have been looking for a book of brain teaser puzzles like I remember doing in elementary school. You may remember them as well. You had a group of people, a list of foods (or something like that), and another list of items (maybe a color). They gave you a small set of clues, and you had to use the process of elimination to match each person with the correct food and color. They gave you a chart to put X's and check marks as you solved the brain teaser. They were my FAVORITES! To this day, I have yet to find one. So last week I decided to try my hand at making some myself.

So far, I've only made 3. However, my plan is to make them throughout the year. I put the packet on TpT this morning for $1.50. If you buy it now, you can have all of the brain teasers as I create them for one low price. I will update the price as I continue to add.

Today and tomorrow are teacher workdays here (and the weather is BEAUTIFUL - I may have to eat outside), so I'm hoping to get another product or two completed. I want to do a unit on John, Paul, George, and Ben, one of my favorite picture books.

I would also like to create something for President's Day and something for Dr. Seuss since that's coming up. For Dr. Seuss, I'm leaning toward an activity with his very first book, And To Think That I Saw That on Mulberry Street. Did you know I had not actually read that book until last year? It's so great!

While I'm on the topic of books, have any of you ever read either of these?

         

The first one was all over Teaching in Room 6's Facebook page yesterday, and I had to check it out. Everyone thought it would be this year's Newbery Award winner. It lost to The One and Only Ivan. I went on my library's page and reserved a copy of Wonder to pick up today. Then I'll find the other. I need to catch up on these two books because I've never heard of them. Trust me, I'll give a review of them as I finish each. Wonder sounds fantastic!

Alright, time to get to work now!

Making inferences (or drawing conclusions?)

Okay, I mentioned earlier in the week that my 4th and 5th graders are working on drawing conclusions/making inferences. I feel like as a reading specialist I should know the difference, or IS there a difference? I feel like I was taught there was, but I was looking it up to see and couldn't find anything. Can anybody help me out?

Anyway, I created my Case of the Secret Admirer earlier in the week and completed it with a group of 4th graders yesterday. They loved it, and I was so proud that I at least kind of tripped them up (they had it narrowed down to two and were split on which was the right person). I'm always worried that I'll make something too hard or too easy, but this seemed to be just right!

Today I decided to make a "scoot". One of my co-workers in fourth grade last year introduced me to these, and I LOVE them! If you're not familiar with the idea, you place cards on each student's desk and number them. Then students go from desk to desk answering each card on a sheet of paper. It's great because they're doing a lot of work, but they enjoy it because they're constantly moving and it feels more like a game. I took a lot of them for grades when I taught 4th grade.

This one gives a short paragraph with clues, and then it asks a question. Students have to use the clues to determine the answer and write a short response on the final sheet.

I used this today with my 5th grade class that I push in to on Fridays, and they had a lot of fun! Some of the cards are pretty easy, and then others tend to stump them more. We talked about how some of the cards were harder because they lacked the background knowledge, which helped pull in the fact that you draw conclusions/make inferences based on what you read AND what you already know (there's the schema word again! I swear my kids are going to start calling me "schema" with how much I bring it up.). For one of the cards, I encouraged them to use a map to help them build schema and figure out what the question was talking about.

In other news, I'm SO glad it's Friday! I love my kids, but this first FULL week back after the break is always tough. I will feel much more prepared next week. Oh, and I already have my post scheduled for tomorrow. Keep your eyes open for Jessica Stanford's product swap. There's always a ton of great items to learn about!

Drawing conclusions, advice, and another giveaway

I have a new product in preparation for Valentine's Day! We have been working on drawing conclusions in 4th and 5th grade, and I found a cute little "Case of the Missing Santa" here for free. I liked it, but I decided there was more to it that I wanted to see. For one thing, it wasn't obvious enough for my kids to be able to figure out who kidnapped Santa once they narrowed it down to two. So my plan was to have my 5th graders help me put another mystery together. Epic. Fail. They were WAY too hyper to do it, and the fact that it was based around a love letter made it worse. So I ended up doing it on my own and keeping a few of their ideas to flesh it out. 

The packet includes background info on the boy and his 5 female suspects. Then it also includes a letter and a graphic organizer for students to fill out if each suspect is the admirer and why or why not. I already started it with my 4th graders, and they loved it! It takes longer than 30 minutes though, so we'll have to finish it tomorrow.

On to my advice (or need for it): So this quarter was AMAZING for me on my TpT store. I made just shy of $300, which is WAY more than the previous two quarters combined. I still am a basic seller right now because honestly we can't afford much of anything nice this year (hence the reason I wasn't thrilled that we had to replace my car that was already paid off). Steven took a teaching job next door to me teaching Criminal Justice at a Career and Tech Center, which is awesome, but this year he's only part time. We know he'll get a full time salary next year because he'll continue with his current class of juniors for year 2 of the program AND add a new class of juniors, but money is tight right now.

I feel like moving up to a Premium seller would be worth it, especially since I can pay for it with the money I earned last quarter (once that money comes through), but I want to know if it's really worth it. How many of you are premium sellers? About how much more money do you make for each item sold?

In other news, Holly at Fourth Grade Flipper is having her 300 follower giveaway, and there are some GREAT prizes! 

I am offering my Winter Literacy Pack and winner's choice of any other item in my store.