Oct 29, 2014

Be Inspired by Teaching Strategies Blog Hop


Welcome to our blog hop for Teaching Strategies! We are always inspired by each other in our teacher network . We share our great ideas, and those ideas are altered into a new ideas. Since things never stay the same we never run out of creativity to share. That is how a network works...together. We may have individual blogs, and stores but we are apart of the same network. We share a common love of learning and teaching and it binds us as a community. I do see my TpT community as a family. We interact with each other and build these fabulous relationships. Its pretty neat, I love it.

I first learned about Tsu (pronounced Sue) from Teachers Pay Teachers bloggers, already I like how the network is based on family trees, you are able to grow your own network. You can read about it from Debbie at  Crockett's Classroom Forever in Third Grade and Blair at One Lesson at a Time.

Today I wanted you be inspired to teach students how to use planners or agendas. It is a product I am working on. You may ask for your students to take out their planners to write in them daily. What would happen if you stopped doing that. Are you thinking it'd be chaos. Its entirely possible they'd stop using it. Yet, what would happen if they were given more responsibility for recording their day.Would they learn to organize their day? Would they learn to manage their time? My vote it yes.

I have used several different ones over the years but I think the one that worked best for us are the ones that I created to meet children's individual needs. They can be taught to stay organized and given reasons why they should care about not having to look for missing papers, or forgetting about projects. Children can benefit from planner just like adults.



Think lesson plans. When you create your lesson plans you plan for them daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. Children can have similar learning plans. It goes beyond a newsletter home or having it on your agenda. If next month you are going to learn about Rocks, students will have something to look forward to, if they have a rock collection they can gather materials to share with their classmates to be apart of the teaching process.


There is much talk about raising responsible young people. I even wonder how many I times a week I tell my little ones to act responsible. Then I wonder if I give them enough room to be responsible. We simple tell them to do this lesson or that lesson and they rarely know what is coming next or how it relates to the previous lesson. Do you often hear the why do I need to learn this? It's not enough to say because its on the lesson plan. They should be apart of that plan. We do that by spending a few minutes once a week, to talk about what is next on the agenda, answering questions, and hearing about how the week could have went better.


We use the sticky note system. If my little ones have a question or cant figure out part of an assignment they write the question and add a sticky note. Then we can come back together and look over it. We also use that in our planner. Once the week is over we add a new set of sticky notes in.
You can add a pocket to keep all their important information and dates to remember.


Busy little ones need a way to manage their time. To see time as dividable into sections that create their whole day. If they can predict how long an assignment will take they can set a time for it. Rushing is a big problem and you can tell they do when their handwriting is sloppy and assignments are smudged. They may learn stop rushing if they learn time management.


My favorite part about using planners is looking back and seeing everything they accomplished. They can visually see what they learned and the date they learned it on. They can use their agenda to review for tests by being able to find notes, and lessons as they are written. In front of them they see their personal growth and know where they need to put more practice into learning or areas they are comfortable with so that they can teach others. There is great pride in that for the student and for the teacher too.



 Find your free Morning Work with an Agenda here
Perfect for Second Graders

 
Find your free Daily Agenda here
Perfect for First Graders 


You know what I love about this new Pinterest board everything is turquoise. 
It just so happens its my favorite color!






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Oct 22, 2014

Amber Pet Alert- Free Lost Pet Flyers


Phew! Its been busy here. Monday night our puppy managed to get out of our fenced in backyard and ran off into the night without a collar. Talk about a nightmare. We searched the neighborhood into the wee hours of morning but did not find her. We quickly put together flyers and posted her picture on lots of social media networks. We had a lot of people share her picture and offer their virtual hugs during this time. Yet none of us slept, we were hoping to hear that tiny little bark outside.

This is Molly

Daylight came slowly. Our little puppy did not make it home that night. Everyone was trying to be hopeful as we continued our search. We made some more flyers, and went to door asking neighbors while other family members drove around to local businesses, others stayed home just in case she came home. Meanwhile someone had a dropped her off at the local animal shelter, where she was found. Our little puppy was found.  Everyone was over joyed. 

Molly on her way home

It was quite a scare to loose a pet. We are happy she is home safe sleeping in her poka-dot sweater. All of us a bit more cautious opening and closing the gate and doors around here, checking to see where she is. If you haven't considered micro chipping your pet you may want to consider it, I know we are. 

If you are missing a pet, here are some virtual hugs! I know how you are feeling. Below are some flyers you can use to post around your neighborhood for your lost pet. Have faith, when you spread the word of your missing pet someone will see them and it will bring them home. 

There are several different types of flyers, just add in your information and print and many as you need.







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Oct 10, 2014

Halloween Bash with The Teaching 2 Step


Hello Friends! Glad you are here, the gals and I from The Teaching 2 Step are throwing a Halloween Bash Blog Hop. There are 40 bloggers all, teacher authors from Teachers Pay Teachers. At this party you'll find crafts, recipes, giveaway prize packs and you'll find who is having a store sale.

This cutie pie wanted to say Hello too!



Cute apple mouths with teeth are an easy snack to make. Use your apple core cutter, to make a hole in the center stuff with peanut butter and marshmallows. It is a gooey yet healthy snack for kids. 



Have outdoor fun with a Halloween golf set. To create these  draw some of your favorite Halloween favorites, paint them. Then make the holes using power tools. I drew them onto sheetrock we had left over from a home project. My little ones painted them in. This game we can use over and over again as it is easy to storage.





K-2 Prize Pack Teaching 2 Step jump drive full of all these treats...



2-5 Prize Pack Teaching 2 Step jump drive full of all these treats...

Secondary Prize Pack Emailed from The Teaching 2 Step...



a Rafflecopter giveaway


Find more Halloween Bash bloggers below. 
Thank you for blog hopping with us this week.

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