In a sharing mood?

I'm calling all K-6th grade teachers to help me out with a little "Better meeting your needs" project! If you would be so kind as to fill out the short survey below, you would make this teacher's day!

* Once you have submitted your survey, I have a special thanks waiting for you! Thanks again for all you do to improve the education of our kids!

Please click the link below to share your amazing insight :)

Click here to take the survey!

Teacher Appreciation Week and a TPT JACKPOT TODAY ONLY!

Teacher Appreciation Week is coming up! It is an important time to let your child's teacher know how much you appreciate what they do for you and your child! Take some time to let your teacher know that their hard work does not go unnoticed.

Some ways to show your teacher you care!

* You don't have to shell out the bucks! A thoughtful handwritten note goes a long way!
* If you are determined to buy your teacher a gift make it one he/she can use and enjoy in the classroom! (I've never met a teacher who didn't like a gift card! lol)
* If you are a pinterest nut like me... :) you will find a plethera of ADORABLE ideas for teacher appreciation!
For example I think this is just plan awesome! (Hint Hint my 5th graders... lol)

 

Source: skiptomylou.org via Stacey on Pinterest

 

This is a cute idea as well!

Source: tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com via Laura on Pinterest

However you choose to show your favorite educator... have fun with it!



Teacher Appreciation Jackpot!

Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week, and Sunday is sure to be your lucky day! Announcing the very first BLOG HOP with over 130 participants!
We wanted to show our appreciation for you in a BIG way, so we've all agreed to give away one of our TeachersPayTeachers products for free on that day! Each free gift will be valued at between $3 and $8, so the total jackpot amount is estimated to be over $500!

Because so many bloggers are participating, this event will be divided into three grade level groups. Each of those smaller events is being coordinated by one blogger as shown below:

• PK - Grade 2 - April McNair on A Modern Teacher
• Grades 3 - 6 - Laura Candler on Corkboard Connnections
• Grades 7 - 12 - Adrianne Meldrum on The Tutor House

TPT will also be throwing an ADDITIONAL 10% OFF if you use the code TAD12! So take advantange of this deal as many sellers will be putting their items on sale as well! (Including myself :))
Thanks so much for all you do! We appreciate your commitment to your students and your dedication as an educator!

Below you will see the BLOG HOP! Here you will be able to hop all the blogs who are participating in the Teacher Appreciation Jackpot! There are TONS of FREE materials! There are over 130 blogs participating! Talk about a JACKPOT! So get downloading!!

This item is no longer free but don't worry if you missed the blog hop!  Most items (including mine) are still on sale until Tuesday night AND you can get the additional 10% using TAD12 at checkout! My product is My Reading Skills Detective Game. If you like what you see, please consider following my store or blog for product updates and more!

Click here to download! (Don't forget to leave some feedback if you feel like sharing the love! :) )

Fun ideas for Easter

Here are two fun ideas for liven up your Easter egg hunt with your kiddos this year!

Glow-In-The-Dark Egg Hunt!

Step One: Buy a bunch of plastic slightly translucent Easter eggs (from Walmart or other places will work. Pastel colors work great).

Step Two: I found a ton of glo-sticks in a 15 pk. at our local dollar tree. They are bracelets when put together. Place a glo-stick and candy into the large egg. It will glow the egg perfectly!

Step Three: Place them throughout the yard on a dark night and watch your kiddos have a blast!

* Note: I did find the bracelets a little big for the large plastic eggs so I left the tips unattached so they could curl just a bit closer together. The kiddos just attached them as they opened their eggs. After the hunt, they had so many colorful bracelets to play with outside in the dark! So much fun!!

Fluorescent Glow-In-The-Dark Egg Hunt: A twist of #1!

Step One: Buy your plastic eggs OR boil real eggs for this activity.

Step Two: Decorate the eggs with fluorescent paint (Michaels, HobbyLobby, or whereever. Just make sure it is fluorescent!)

Step Three: Then give the kiddos small black-light flashlights (Amazon.com among other places) and send them searching for those eggs on a dark night!

Recommended for older students (Elementary and up). (Pictures to come!)

A fun math activity using Plastic Eggs

I wanted to share a fun activity I have done in my classroom using those plastic Easter eggs.

I set this game up like a relay race of sorts. There were baskets set up with different sets of eggs throughout the legs of the race. All numbers are written in permanent marker on the outside of the egg.

The first leg: These students had to put all of the eggs in numerical order to least to greatest. Another student was the checker and they had to ok their answer before allowing them to tag their partner.

The second leg: These students had to separate the eggs into two categories: Prime and Composite numbers. Again, the checker student must verify a correct answer before they can tag their partner.

The third leg: The checker will call out a number and the student must find two numbers that can be multiplied (or divided, added, subtracted whatever you want) to reach that number. They have to find 3 sets this way before they can tag their partner.

The fourth leg: The checker will give them a number and they must find all the numbers that are factors of that number.

The final leg: Eggs will be placed in a line and students must discover the pattern. If they get it correct the checker will give the okay and they run to the finish line.

Fastest team wins!

Huge Leap Day Sale on TeachersPayTeachers!

It is time to celebrate that once every 4 years day that is right around the corner... Leap Day! Currently, all of my products are 20% off but on February 29th, TPT will add an additional 10% off by using the code found on the banner below! It is a win-win situation and we hope to see you there. Tons of sellers already have products marked on sale and are spreading the word! Don't miss out!

Another useful website

I recently ran across a website that it pretty useful and thought I would share it. The address is

http://wordcentral.com/

The dictionary part of this website is student friendly so the definitions are easier for your kiddos to understand.

The thesarus part of the website unfortunately leaves much wanted so I would probably use thesaurus.com over this website.

There is also a rhyming option for students to use which would be very useful when it comes to creating rhyming poems. Students have the opportunity to click on rhyming words to see what they mean as well.

The games are simple but good vocabulary practice. These games focus on spelling (Alphabot), word knowledge (Robo-Bee), and synonyms/antonyms (BigBots). Unfortunately, the last game was blocked for my students but not for me. The jumble game has them unscramble simple words for clues to solve a riddle (Jumble Kids).

The Build Your Own Dictionary section is pretty interesting. Students can create words and then enter the usage (noun, verb etc.), the definition and an example sentence. This would be great for students who are studying prefixes, suffixes, and roots as they create their own words to show understanding of the meanings. This would also be a fun activity for those classes using the novel Frindle. You can see a list of previous words created by individuals from all over and you could have the students dissect the created words and look at the user-created definitions to see where they came up with them based on the word!

There is a nice tab dedicated to educators which provides some interesting information. Again, some of the links would go great with the novel Frindle, as they could read about how words get added to the dictionary and so on.

I hope this website proves to be a fun and engaging place for your students to learn even more about words! Enjoy!

Liebster Award

Thank you Amy of Science Stuff and Ann Marie of Innovative Connections for nominating my blog for the Liebster Award!

Here's a little background on the award:

Liebster means “dearest” in German, and the award is intended to help up-and-coming blogs get the attention they deserve.

As with any award, there is a bit of ceremony involved. In order to accept the award, we must do the following:
1. Copy and paste the award on our blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who gave us the award.
3. Pick our five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.
4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs.

What a privilege to accept this award and I am passing it on to the following blogs!

Mrs. Johnson's First Grade

Third Grade Etc.

Science Etc.

Go Figure with Scipi

Joy of Teaching