Saturday, May 21, 2016

Are your anchor charts a hot mess?! Here's a solution!


Anchor charts! Love them! A definite helpful resource for the kiddos throughout the year. But also can be a pain to store. They can be big and slippery and good heavens don't roll them or you'll be sitting paper weights on them for a week to flatten them! 


EEK! seeing that picture gives me hives! Now I realize some teachers may not "keep" their anchor charts once they are made. However, I like to do a mixture of both keeping and re-making. I make a lot of charts in the midst of teaching and may end up "raffling" them off to the kids and not keeping them. But I also make a lot of "templates" ahead of time, laminate them, and then add in the info with dry erase or wet erase with the kids. 


SO what have I done? Saved those clear plastic hangers I get when I go shopping haha. 
I hole punch the posters I am keeping and put the rings through them to hang them on the hangers.

I categorize them by content area and then by objectives we teach together or back to back. 
Of course I need it to be color coded as well. 
I use these amazing labels:
They fit perfectly in the empty space on the hanger. I then tape over it to secure it a bit more.

Here are some close up's:





Now I can easily access all my posters and just pull the hanger I will be needing that week or month.


Phew! Anchor chart madness averted! Hope this helps! 

Have a BLESSED weekend! 







Saturday, May 7, 2016

Five for Friday...Freebies, Videos, End of year!

Ever feel like you're part of a three ring circus juggling balls that clearly can't be juggled!?
Enter my happenings right now! I am not complaining by any means, just saying there is a lot to be juggled right now. Thank goodness I have a God who will juggle with me and always FOR me! 


First up, Mother's Day activities!
We made cards for our moms to start. 
Look at this sweeties!! Exactly how I feel about my mom too!!

Then I was at home like two days before the end of the week and boom! Idea!!
I used the scrap book cardstock papers you can buy at Hobby Lobby like 50% all the time and put their picture on it! I made little banners to hang at the top, laminated, cut, and there we go!

Then upon making these the next day I was like AHHH! another idea!! So this happened. 


I know I can be a hot mess when it comes to ideas last minute but  hey, you can go download this FREEBIE now for next year! 




We have been working on Nonstandard Measurement in math the past two weeks. They love this so much because they get a lot of hands on experience. I made a template a couple of years ago for their recording and will be redoing it soon and posting it among other measurement items on TPT. 



We work a lot on making reasonable predictions/estimates and being ok with them not being correct! Everyone take a deep breath.....it's ok to be wrong ;) 
This little owl is mastering the ability to make a reasonable vs. unreasonable prediction based on her object and tool she is measuring with!




-ill, -ell, -all were our word families for the week!
When we go to the word "cell" immediately I heard...."You used to call me on my cell phonnnnneee" 
Um, ya'll are listening to Drake, friends? haha
Anyways, I challenged them to create a sentence using as many of the ill,ell,all words they could.
EX: I called you on your cell so you can come over and grill while we chill, you know the drill!

Here's what he had to say!




Place value has been important the whole year but especially now that we are learning how to represent it past 100. 
Please excuse the smartboard "do-over" it was  not cooperating with me that day, and I had to draw my own lines. OCD in full explosion mode.

I also posted a Teacer appreciation FREEBIE idea this past week. Once again, I know it is now over but there is always next year! 
Also, I post daily on my FB blog so you can snag these type of things when they are relevant. 


Even though it is the end of the year, we are still trying super hard to incorporate our WBT gestures and teaching each other all that we know! 
Here are some videos of what we did this week pertaining to Habitats. I promise if you try this with your kids you will love it! I sometimes pre-plan the gestures but the best is when the kids help me and make up their own!! They take the learning onto their shoulders and fly with it! 

First, is buddy teaching.




Desert habitat:

Ocean Habitat:



Arctic Habitat:



Rainforest Habitat:




Well that is all for now!! I hope you all have a BLESSED weekend! 

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." 
Revelation 1:8