Back to School!

Back to School!

Depending on where you live, it might be time to start thinking about Back to School, classroom themes, improving routines and best practices for this school year.

I've decided to make a post spotlighting some Back to School goodies in my TPT store for both Classroom and Media Center. These are honestly, my "best sellers" because they help the function of your classroom for the entire school year. 

First off, Lunch Choice Cards! 

These are editable and help EVERY SINGLE DAY in your classroom. I set mine up on a magnetic whiteboard and then I have each student assigned a number. I make little magnetic numbers (usually from calendar sized numbers, I hope that makes since), then you can buy a pack of magnets with adhesive backs from amazon.

Anyways, you post the pictures of lunch choices on the white board each day and then students use their magnetic number to make their lunch choice, by placing under the picture they choose. I did this with kindergarten and first grade. If you taught older students, you could have them write their name under the choice, if you don't want to make the magnetic numbers. 

Secondly, Posters with Real Photographs!

I love these Alphabet Posters. I used them as a classroom teacher and it really brightened up my classroom, but gave students real examples of letter sounds, etc. I still use these in the media center also. I will often read books and then have students write in response to the books and the alphabet posters are a great resource for students. 

You can see in the picture below that I have it hanging above the whiteboard. 

I actually have a bundle of posters that go along with the alphabet posters, if you are looking for colors words, numbers, and shapes. 

Lastly, Picture of the Day slides. 

These are perfect for Morning Meeting or even morning work. Project a slide on the board and have students write in a journal each morning about that they see, feel, think about when they see the picture. Increase student vocabulary and the feeling of community as students share their own thoughts and feelings. These are aligned to Science of Reading and help build background knowledge as well as the ability to make inferences based on pictures. 

For the media center, I always use this tried and true lesson about taking care of library books with each and every class during media center orientation. It includes real photographs of how NOT to treat books and why. This is an editable lesson. Sometimes, after a holiday/break I will even bring this same lesson up for us again to review or with a specific class. #iykyk

This past school year, my school's focus was on vocabulary. I worked on this a little each week this past year, but I now have a set of Media Center Vocabulary Posters. I use these at the beginning of my lessons each week. I pick one to focus on each week. At the end of the week, I add them to the Word Wall of vocabulary words that I can focus back on during the school year to reinforce previously taught words. I even use these with kindergarten and it helps so much. The set includes 60 vocabulary words. 

 

Word Wall 

A Year of Book Responses

Lastly, for the media center, I mentioned before how I like to read stories in the media center and then give students a written response sheet related to the book to complete. This then allows me to call students or groups of students to go check out library books while the others in the class have something to work on, but it is also super fun to see their responses. If you have time in your lesson, they love standing and sharing their work with the class. 

    

I hope you found some of these resources/ideas useful to start your school year and they make your improve your entire year. 

Parathyroid Surgery

This is not a teacher related post, but more of a life post. 

I found out I needed parathyroid surgery this summer and searched the internet for information and experiences. I figured, I should share my own experience. 

I found out in January that I had too much calcium in my bloodwork and after lots of tests, scans, etc. I met with a surgeon in May to find out that my parathyroid scan came back abnormal and I needed to have surgery to remove one of my parathyroids. (Yes, you like me are probably now googling parathyroid to figure out what it is). I had surgery June 25th, and have been recovering since then. It has not been as "easy" as they originally made it seem, but I am getting better each day. I am 2 1/2 weeks post op and can do most normal things. During the post op appointment they did say that I needed to continue to take it easy and not lift things for another week or two, but did give me permission to walk and remove the surgical glue/tape that is over the wound to let it heal more. My main complaint at the point is having trouble sleeping. I still find it hard to get comfortable enough to sleep. There is a lump under the incision from sutures and I'm told the sutures will be there for another 3-6 months and I just find it hard to get comfortable to sleep with those. I am sure that if you sleep on your back, this would be much easier, but I naturally sleep on my stomach or side and find it hard to sleep on my back. 

My scar is looking better each day though. I am using aquaphor on it. I bought mederna silicone scar gel, but prefer the aquaphor so far.  

Virtual Number Talks

Virtual Number Talks
Many teachers have asked how to conduct Number Talks virtually. I have a few suggestions that can help. Number Talks is as a very basic description, having conversations and discussions with students each day for about 10-15 minutes to build number sense. 
When I taught Kindergarten I made videos that were shared at professional development sessions about using rekenreks and subitizing dot cards to build numbers sense. 
Each day I would bring students to the carpet and pass out rekenreks for them to use during number talks. 

I have a couple of suggestions for if you are trying to use rekenreks during number talks. If you already have these in your classroom you can make packets or baggies and place them at the school for parents to pick up. We've done this for various things this school year. 

If you do not have rekenreks, but would like a set of rekenreks you can create a donorschoose project to get them. You can find more directions on how to create a donorschoose project at my previous blog post here.

Lastly, you could create these for your students using cardstock and pony beads or give the materials to students to create. (Using the pick up method from the front of the school) We put crates in the front of the school with teacher names on the crates and parents come and pick up baggies or packets of materials from these crates. 

Lastly, students can use this digital set of rekenreks during number talks. 

This set of Digital Rekenrek Number Talk Slides includes one slide that has a completely blank rekenrek with red/white circles (beads) that students can drag to place on the rekenrek to show their thinking. 

You can use any of these rekenrek ideas with these task cards during number talks each day.

These task cards give you prompts of what to have students show on their rekenreks and can guide your instruction during number talks each day.

Subitizing Dot Cards are also extremely useful during number talks and these task cards can be shown over a zoom or google meet and you can have students give a thumbs up once they have the amount shown on the dot card and then call on students to explain how many dots they see and how they know it is that many dots. Some students will explain their thinking by saying they counted 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. while some students will say I see 2 on that side and 4 over there and I know 2 and 4 is 6, or they may say I see 4 and then 2 more is 5, 6. 

Number talks is all about building number sense and all of those responses are correct. Students that count one by one will start to learn from others during number talks over time and it's an excellent way for you as a teacher to understand how your students see and understand numbers. 

I also have a digital version that can be used as an activity for students to complete. There are dots that they can drag and place on the google slide to show the number at the top.

All of these NUMBER TALK resources can be found in this BUNDLE for amazing savings.

Year Goals for TPT Authors

I am someone that loves to make lists and charts. I have multiple notebooks with lists and goals charted out in them. I have notebooks at work and notebooks at home. The problem is that I often have trouble finding the specific list I already started on and end up constantly creating new handwritten lists. While there is something absolutely cathartic and internally gratifying about marking through things on a handwritten list, I see the need to better organize myself. Hence, I have created a few digital charts for creating lists, tracking progress and refocusing myself on goals for 2021. I have created this charts and lists using Google Drive and you are more than welcome to use these lists yourself. I figured I would share, because if they can help me then surely they can help someone else as well. These lists/charts were mainly created to help me with Teachers Pay Teachers and social media goals that I have to grow my TPT business.
The topics on this digital list include: Instagram - You can track how many followers you have at the beginning of 2021 and then each month's growth.Facebook - Same concept with tracking the amount of followers you have on your business account and the growth for each month.Blog Ideas- You can make your goal number of posts for the year and also brainstorm about some topics for each month.TPT New Product - You can again create your goal for the year and then write ideas for what/which products you would like to work on each month.TPT Followers - You can track the amount of followers you have at the beginning of 2021 and then each month's growth.

Click HERE to get a copy of the digital file.

Black Friday Cyber Sale

What did you end up getting during the Black Friday Sale or are you still planning to shop on Cyber Monday?

Warning: This will not be your typical teacher Black Friday blog post with pens and post it notes. While I love those things with a passion, this post shares some of my other favorites!

Here are some things I grabbed up.

I absolutely love Aerie for sleep/lounge clothes. I grabbed some of their Real Soft Joggers and the Waffle Henley. These are my favorites. I literally have some on while I am typing this blog up. Last I checked, they are still 50% off. Some sizes are out of stock, but go ahead and sign up for them to notify you when they become available. Thank me later.

https://www.ae.com/us/en/p/aerie/bottoms/joggers-sweatpants/aerie-real-soft-jogger/0496_4924_357?menu=cat4840006

https://www.ae.com/us/en/p/women/t-shirts/aerie-t-shirts/aerie-waffle-henley-long-sleeve-t-shirt/5493_2061_618?menu=cat4840006

I also had to stop by Bombas and check out my very favorite socks. I live in their ankle socks. My husband does as well so I grabbed him some as well. They are 20% off with CHEER20

https://bombas.com/products/womens-holiday-ankle-sock-6-pack?variant=mixed&size=m

I also checked out JCrew Factory

 

I bought my husband a few things and then ended up throwing in these super soft looking slippers and cute earrings. 

https://factory.jcrew.com/p/mens-clothing/slippers/fauxshearling-moccasins/H1299?color_name=caramel-suede

I also thought about my cats and stopped by chewy.com They had a great sale on cat trees. I ended up getting the exact one that we already have, but it has seen lots of love and needs to be replaced.

https://www.chewy.com/frisco-72-in-faux-fur-cat-tree-condo/dp/129326 

For Christmas decorating, we decided to get a few more strands of our favorite lights while they are on sale.

These are from Target. They have color and white lights and are Philips brand. I like that they are big and it's plastic around the lights. I've dropped them quite a few times while untangling them and they have yet to break. 

https://www.target.com/p/philips-25ct-christmas-led-g40-string-lights-multicolored/-/A-50851666#lnk=sametab

My husband was extremely excited to get a tree for our front porch from Home Depot.

Ok, let's talk for a second about Rakuten. If you shop online a lot and you don't use it, you are missing out. Just leaving money out there that could be in your pocket. I use it as an extension on my computer and before I make a purchase on a website I check click the extension and see if they are offering cash back on what I am about to purchase. I signed up to use it last Christmas and I've already earned $350 to date from them. I admit that I shop online and rarely go into stores (this is just me, even before quarantine). 

Click the photo link below if you also like to shop online and would like to sign up. 

Technology Recap from GaETC!

GaETC was different this school year...as everything has been different this school year. It was a Virtual Conference and took place Thursday Night, Friday during the day on into the night and then Saturday. My principal allowed me to attend from my office in the media center on Friday. I watched many sessions that were specifically about Media Specialists of the Year, Exemplary Media Programs and Future Ready Libraries, but I also attended wonderful sessions by some presenters that are my favorites at GaETC each year, Leslie Fisher and Tony Vincent. 
I've put notes from their sessions into a Smore Flyer, like I have done in the past for GaETC Recaps.
Check out some of my previous GaETC Recaps as well. You will be shocked at how useful and relevant the resources and information from years past remains.
2016 GaETC Recap2017 GaETC Recap2018 and 2019 GaETC Recap

Integrate Science and Writing

Are you running out of time for teaching science each day with the main focus being math and language arts while science and social studies get the short stick?Well, I just may have a solution for you.

I have revamped a product that I made and used in the classroom many years ago. 
Now this resource is a PDF as well as a Google Slide.Use it in-person with students in your classroom or use it during a google meet or zoom by sharing your screen and having a discussion about the animal similarities and differences. The absolute best part of this lesson is the discussion. Kids are so funny and when you start getting them talking about animals and their prior knowledge about each animal I promise someone will say something that shocks you and is funny. Those laughable moments turn into teachable moments where you are also making connections with your students and building relationships. 

Response sheets are included that can be printed or shared in google classroom. This is where the integration of writing comes in. You can print the response sheet for in-person students to draw the animals they are comparing and write a response. 
If you are teaching remote or if you enjoy using technology instead of paper copies, you can share the slides and students can add text boxes. 

Did you know that students can actually draw on assignments in google slides?The image below shows how to get to the scribble option where they can freely draw on the assignment. This would of course be something you need to teach and I'm sure they will become pros over time. 

I've been teaching students how to use google drawing during our media center lessons and they have really been enjoying it. If you know how to use google drawing, it works exactly the same in google slides. 
If you like this product also check out Digital Picture of the Day to focus on generating ideas and making inferences. 

I've actually update all of my Picture of the Day Products in TPT. Here are some other examples: