Perimeter and Area Activity

Here's my attempt at making perimeter and area just a little more exciting!  We haven't gotten to area, yet...but I'll be introducing perimeter today.  My students love working in small groups, and they love the dice in dice, so I figure this should be a winner!  Plus, with very little adaptation, they can play it at home and for whatever reason (and I'm not complaining one bit!), this class seems to like to do things at home with their families more than previous classes I've had.  Click HERE to download the activity for free.  Click HERE to download the graph paper to go with the activity.

Mean Mode Median and Range Posters

Just a quick little something to get you through your day :D

 

FREEBIE ALERT: Click here if you would like to download these free posters for use in your classroom!  I matted them on cardstock (matching colors to the print) and they look great!

Winter Treat Bags - Bag Topper

YAY!  I finally finished my winter treat bags and they came out super cute if I do say so myself!

 

I have different versions of these toppers for sale, and even some for FREE!!  Keep reading to find the freebie!  The Winter Treats, some are shown above, can be found on Etsy or TPT. 

 

Clean Desk Snowman

 

 

 

 

For the most part my students keep their desks neat and tidy, but there's always a little room for improvement. During each month I like to have a clean desk "friend" stop by to help us keep our desks clean.  I had a Clean Desk Turkey in November and Clean Desk Reindeer in December.  During the different times my students are out of the room, our Clean Desk friends stop by and find a desk or two to leave a little note on. Once they get a note, they leave it on their desks. At the end of the week our Clean Desk friend leaves a little treat bag for anyone who has a note on their desk. I don't do these every week, just about once a month. However, since implementing this students have gotten into the habit of keeping their desks clean the majority of the time. Their desks typically look nice and neat and they tend to put things away when they are done using them. I used to take time each month to have everyone pull their things out of their desks, organize, and discard, etc. but now I don't have to! It's win-win! I don't always give food treats. I often give coupons, little erasers, whatever I think will keep them interested :D My goal is that EVERY student gets a treat every time we do it, and so when we get to the end of the week if there is someone who I don't think is going to earn one I might say something like, "The Clean Desk Snowman mentioned earlier that he notice a couple of desks that had random paper in them instead of paper being in folders." This helps those students pinpoint what they need to do to earn their note.  FREEBIE ALERT!!! The Clean Desk Snowman can also be found on TPT, but it's FREE!! 

 

Snowman Soup

 

 

Oh, no!  Mr. Snowman has melted!!  I also did some bag toppers for snowman soup!   You can fill with just marshmallows, white jelly beans, etc. or fill with marshmallows, pretzels (snowman's arms), Junior Mint (snowman's hat), candy corn (snowman's nose), M&M's (snowman's buttons), chocolate chips (eyes and mouth), etc.  You can find this one on Etsy.

 

I hope you enjoy your freebie :D  Happy teaching!

 

Clean Desk Reindeer

At Thanksgiving I posted about the Clean Desk Turkey....well, apparently the Clean Desk Reindeer was a LITTLE bit busier than the Turkey because he didn't leave notes this time, just treats at the end of the week!  This is definitely not the best picture ever, but you can mostly see 8 brown reindeer noses (Whoopers) and 1 red reindeer nose (Jelly Belly cheery thingy).  You could fill the bags with anything....M&Ms, Hershey kisses, stickers or mini erasers (if you aren't allowed to do food)....you get the idea!

 

FREEBIE ALERT: To download the bag toppers, click HERE! 
If you want step-by-step directions how to make the bags,

see my Thanksgiving post by clicking HERE!

What will my next treat bags be you ask? 

Why I do believe we'll be having a Clean Desk Snowman visit our classroom!  And of course, we'll have some other snowman treats, too!  Stay tuned!

 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 

Christmas Bulletin Boards

This first picture continues to amaze me!  I was going to be out for the afternoon so I decided to leave a little art project for the end of the day.  I left paper with ornaments drawn on them, yarn, fancy scissors, decorative paper, sequins, etc.  I had put up the black paper and red border, and told them they could hang their ornaments themselves.  When I came in the next day I was astonished how great the board looked!  They did such a nice job and were so creative with their designs!

Idea from: http://firstgradeblueskies.blogspot.com/2013/12/easy-ornament-bulletin-board-freebie.html

This is our bulletin board out in the hallway.

Craftivity found at: http://allisonspeechpeeps.blogspot.com/2012/12/christmas-speech-craftivity-freebie.html

It's a two part board.  The top part has Christmas trees that they wrote analogies on.  They came up with analogies and then write them on the ornaments.  For example read:words::count:numbers.

 

The bottom part of the board has Christmas presents.  Students cut out verbs and sorted them as past or present verbs.

 

 

Thanksgiving Time

It's Thanksgiving time...by far my favorite holiday of the year!  There's no gift exchanging, no stress....just quality time spent with those you love, being thankful for everything you have...and did I mention there might be some yummy food, too?! 

This year in my classroom I had some fun with the "Clean Desk Turkey".  For the most part my students keep their desks neat and tidy, but there's always a little room for improvement.  For about a week before Thanksgiving, every time my students went some place the Clean Desk Turkey stopped by and found a desk or two to leave a little note on.  It looked like this:

 

FREEBIE ALERT!!! 
To get a sheet of the Clean Desk Turkeys....
just click on the picture above!

I told them that the Clean Desk Turkey wanted me to be sure to tell them to leave the note on their desks.  They wanted to know why....I acted all mysterious and said I didn't know why.  Before I knew it desks were looking nice and neat.  Things were put away when they were done using them...it was great!  By the end of the week most everyone in the class had little notes on their desks.  We had school the Monday and Tuesday before break, and by the end of Tuesday everyone ended up having tidy desks and a note on their desk.  We have PE last thing in the day, so while they were gone, the Clean Desk Turkey visited and left them little treats.  They looked like this:

I use these treat bags frequently for different things...for my own children's teachers, for my own children's classmates, my students, my co-workers, my husband's employees...just about anyone!  I love them because you can vary the size of the bag, just by stapling them lower or higher!  Here's how to make them:

The first trick is to get bags that can close.  I actually get mine in the jewelry department at our local craft shop.  My favorite size are 3" X 4", but any size will work.  I think I pay about $3.50 for 100 bags.

 



Then I simply staple my bag topper on the opposite end of the zipper closure.  By doing this I can get them all ready to go ahead of time and then just fill them a day or two before I want to hand them out.

 
In the next two pictures you can see how by changing where I staple them I can make the filling area bigger or smaller....(in case it's hard to tell - the first one is smaller, the second one is almost twice as big...same exact size bag!).

 

 
Here are some of the other treat bags I did this year for Thanksgiving.  I also have them for Halloween and Christmas...and plan on making ones for other Holidays as they come up, too!

 

To purchase these treat bag toppers, please
visit my TeachersPayTeachers store!

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

 

 

Turkeys on the Run!



It's Thanksgiving time - every turkey's worst nightmare!  But our turkeys are super smart and disguised themselves so they won't be found this Thanksgiving! 

 

 

But just in case that doesn't work....

 

 
  

 

 

Our turkeys are using their newly gained persuasive techniques to persuade people not to eat turkey for Thanksgiving this year!

 

 

GOBBLE GOBBLE

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I used the following two products from TeachersPayTeachers for the Turkey craftivity:

Just Say NO to Turkey
Don't Eat the Turkey