Five for Friday, Sale, and a Freebie (for Friday only!)

Whew!  It's been a great week of blogging, finding great resources, and cleaning out closets/sorting baby clothes!  In honor of spring weather coming our way next week (fingers crossed big time!) it's SPRING CLEANING time, and my store is 20% off through Monday!  Check out my TpT shop to get some great new resources for your files and to make your life a bit easier for the end of the year!  

Want to see ALL of the great sellers who are discounting their stores this weekend?  Check out Valerie's blog at Georgia Grown Kiddos for the entire group of Linked Up Sales!

I'm joining Five for Friday to highlight some of my products that may be of use to you, especially since they're on sale.  And be very, very careful, there might be one product that is FREE on Friday!

Okay, first things first.  Don't forget to go back and review previous products you've already purchased and rate them and leave comments.  You get credit for these toward more purchases!  To begin, I'll highlight the product that has the most reviews: Weather Super File!

 *Jam-packed 57 page unit with great weather foldables and only $4.00!

Here are some of my students using their Weather Super Files to review and study!

April is National Poetry Month!  Be prepared with this great Poetry Unit with graphic organizers, writing paper, and mini posters for each type of poetry!

 Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice Posters!  These are a great resource for students to understand the fundamentals of math beyond just the daily lesson and workbook pages.

A new product this week is an added I have...Who Has? Game.  This one is for the skill of multiplying decimals.  Oh, and by the way, it's FREE all day on Friday!  Free FRIDAY!!  Don't forget leave some love in the feedback section if you download it for free.  

And finally, I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Spring Break Season!  Although I'm home on maternity leave, my district is starting their SB today for the next 2 weeks.  Everyone deserves some recovery time to reenergize for the last drive of the school year!  If you're already returning, then best of luck in your remaining weeks of school!

Math Madness Wednesday: Subtraction!

I must say that math has always been my favorite subject to both learn and teach.  In my district I am on the district Math Committee and have always taken a liking to all things math.  I'm joining Krista at Teaching Momster for her Math Madness Wednesdays Linky.  This week's topic of subtraction is especially intriguing because I think it's a challenging topic for students to grasp and truly understand.  In my post I have some tips and tricks for teaching subtraction and then some fun games I've created for subtraction!

One area that I see often when I'm observing in classrooms is that teachers go from a visual representation of something straight to the abstract.  There needs to be other pieces in between these two steps where students have opportunities to make meaning with the manipulatives and have scaffolded opportunities to move from the concrete to abstract.  In order to do this there are several steps to think about.

1. Student exploration with materials and attempting to solve the subtraction problems.  Here is a student using paperclips to explore measurement.

2. Teaching with visuals and manipulatives to solidify the student exploration, clarify misunderstandings, or directly teach a brand new concept. Also, this doesn't just mean one form of manipulatives.

3. Highlight specific content words that will be necessary for explaining the process of subtraction.  This would include difference, subtraction, etc.

3. Student talk about subtraction.  In order to understand the concept, students need to be able to display their thinking visually and talk or write about it using the specific content vocabulary from #3.  This needs to be both teacher supported and collaboratively with peers.

4.  Once these pieces are in place, then I think it's appropriate to move to the abstract or formula-based solving of subtraction.

And finally, students need to have FUN with subtraction!  Once there is a conceptional understanding, games are a blast to play, and they make subtraction a little less stressful for students.  Here are some really easy games to print and play that I've created for subtraction.

This is the easiest version with just basic subtraction facts.  Use this game as a small group review game or to practice fact fluency add a timer to the game! On TpT for $1.00!

 

 This game includes double digit problems with regrouping.  This is definitely one of my best-sellers - it's only $1.50!  Use this as a whole class review game with students using dry erase boards at their seats to solve all of the problems.  A great class game or to use when you have a substitute teacher. 

This game has 2-digit problems with and without regrouping.  Put this at a work station for students to solve and put the cards in order based on the answers they get when solving each problem.  A great way to encourage practice through a fun game! Again, just $1.50!

Happy subtraction to all!  Gotta run, err continue to walk post-baby for a while!

Mini Marathon, Teacher Appreciation Freebie, and SALE Time!!

Mini Marathon...
Put the 2013 Mini Marathon in the books!  My official 13.1 race is done and although, it wasn't quite what I wanted, I finished!  Part of the mileage is done on the 2.5 mile track where the Indy 500 takes place...the magical Indianapolis Motor Speedway!  Here is a photo of Flash and Spiderman in front of me on the track.  I was certainly okay with them passing me...after all it is the Flash!

I must say I am a complete sucker when it comes to motivational moments and crying.  At the start of the race there are over 30,000, yes 30,000 people waiting to start this race.  There was a huge tribute to Boston, our soldiers, and all that makes the United States the greatest place in the world.  I was running by myself, but really had to choke back some tears during all of the beginning festivities.  It gave me great motivation to start the race at a good pace and appreciate the ability to run!

Teacher Appreciation Freebie!
As many of you know, my new role this year has given me a completely different perspective on teaching, the demands teachers have, and the increasing accountability put on both teachers and administrators.  I must say, however, I am pretty darn lucky!  I have the best staff who is willing to do anything and everything for their students.  We are a decent size school with about 640 students, and we have a great amount of collaboration and teamwork that works together to increase student learning.  They truly are THE BEST!

As teachers, we need to appreciate each other as well during this week and thank those around us who have made this school year just that much better.  Here is a link to some FREE Teacher Appreciation labels I created last year.  You can also check out my blog post from last year too!

  

Teacher Appreciation Big Time Up-to-28%-Off Sale!

It's that time of year!  Where YOU deserve to be treated to something special.  Use this discount to get some things in your cart or make life easier for these last few weeks of school!  Some frequent purchases are listed below for you to check out!  

Graphic by Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah (who has awesome graphics on TPT too!)

ake 

A simple but fun Vocabulary Game just for Weather! Get for $1.08!

A 57-page comprehensive weather unit with foldables!  Just $3.60!

78 pages of Data Binder fun and how-to documents for conferences...just $4.32 during the sale!

A great I have...Who has? game for addition with regrouping.  

This is perfect for the end of the school year.  $1.08. 

Poetry unit with 7 different types of poems, posters, and publishing paper.

55 pages for $2.88.  Wow!

Enjoy the week you have so richly deserved this year.  YOU ARE APPRECIATED!!  

Gotta run!

My 5 Fav Products!

Well, as of 3:40 yesterday I am officially on Spring Break!  Woohoo!  And it's Easter weekend, so why not join in on the fun and throw a sale on my 5 Favorite Products!  Head over to my TPT shop to get 20% off of these products!

Here's a preview of the 5 I've selected!  Click on the image to get a more detailed description.  

 Catch my #1 selling product...Data Binder and Student-Led Conferences!  This is your go-to resource for everything data and setting up student-led conferences.  Enjoy 20% off!

If your weather is anything like Indiana right now, you're going between types of precipitation and seasons all in one week!  We had 9 inches of snow last Monday and a Snow Day!  Tomorrow will be 60 degrees and spring! Enjoy this Weather Unit to help your students understand all this weather mania!

 Ahhh...beloved subtraction with regrouping.  Grab this great review game for just $1.20 through Sunday!

Poetry month is oh so close!  Grab this unit with examples of styles of poetry, differentiated writing pages, and ideas for mentor texts to use to celebrate the month of April. 

9 games in one big back!  Enjoy addition and subtraction format in a fun way...especially at the end of the year!  

Happy shopping!  Gotta run...no really, I'm going to run!  (I'll post about this week's running adventures over the weekend!)

Week #1 of Mini Marathon Training and a TPT 20% off Sale

Good morning blogger friends!  I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since my last post.  I wish I could say I had a good reason, but I've just been busy, busy, busy!  I think it's that time of year where everyone gets bogged down with cold weather, still a while until Spring Break, and our state testing is right around the corner (wah, wah!).

This week was my first official week or mini marathon training.  As a kickoff to the Indy 500, there is a HUGE (30,000+ runners) Mini Marathon in Indianapolis at the start of May.  Part of the course takes us on the track of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which is a portion of the luster of this race.  I think I have run the Mini Marathon 6 times, each time with decent scores, but I haven't run it since my marathon.

As week #1 started for me on Monday, my goal for this half marathon is speed.  I know I can finish it, but I'm trying to build speed work into my workouts.  If you've never trained for a race, start now!  There are so many spring races of various distances everywhere these days!  It doesn't matter what you look like, how much you weigh, if you have a matching Lululemon workout look, JUST DO IT!  (By the way, I own zero, zilch, nada Lululemon items...$60 for a racerback tank I can get at Kohl's for $15...no thanks!  Well, don't get me wrong, their stuff is cute, just too expensive for me!)

I am a pretty faithful Hal Higdon fan for training and always follow his training programs.  He has a variety of option for the half marathon, and because of my speed goal, I decided to challenge myself with his advanced training program.  I am scaling back the weekend 90 minute run, though, because I'm not quite there yet, but I'm hopeful!

Week #1 was underway and going well this week!  Except for Friday...some friends from my old school asked if I wanted to grab a drink after school!  This was a no brainer!  :)  I'm off to the gym here in a bit to finish off my Sunday workout and begin Week #2 tomorrow.

Anyone out there training for anything this Spring?  I'd love to hear about it!

Also, I'm throwing a President's Sale 20% off sale! I'm featured today on the math page of TPT for my St. Patty's Day Palooza Unit!  Enjoy the discount today and tomorrow!

Gotta run for now, but stay tuned for my Do's and Don'ts at the Gym List (unfortunately, I will tell you Don't walk out of the gym in only your shower towel). 

Free Game and a Super Sale!

My kids have always loved I have...Who has? games, so I've created several variations of the game with math facts.  One of my favorites, though, is the nonfictions conventions game.  I had a teacher who had asked to add more conventions for her upper grade students, so I created an Advanced Version!  Both the primary and advanced versions are free for you here! :)

 Also, I've linked up with TBA's Freebie Friday again!  Check out all of the other great freebies this week!

Super Sale!!

I'm also teaming up with Teachers Pay Teachers for their Super Bowl Sale on Sunday to help all of you super teachers catch some good deals and score some great products (okay, did I go too far on the football wording?).  My store is all 20% off and TpT is throwing in an additional 10% with the code SUPER.

Check out some of my best selling units and ones that might be useful in the near future!  

*Originally $5.00.  With my sale it's $4.00.  With TPT it's just $3.60! 

*Originally $4.00.  With my sale it's $3.20.  With TPT it's just $2.88!

*Originally $4.00.  With my sale it's $3.20.  With TPT it's just $2.88!

 *Originally $1.50.  With my sale it's $1.20.  With TPT it's just $1.08!

*Originally $1.50.  With my sale it's $1.20.  With TPT it's just $1.08!

You get the point...it's one of TPTs best sales and it's always worth throwing those wish list items into the cart!  I can't wait to finally get some of the things in my cart on Super Bowl Sunday!  

Have a wonderful Friday.  It's my bosses 40th today, so I need to go get all of my black clothes on! :)

Gotta run!