300 (Almost) Giveaway

Can you believe that I am almost at 300 followers?  I can't wait any longer, so I'm starting my giveaway before I reach 300.  I wanted something to show you all how much I appreciate your support, comments, and blogs, so I'm giving away 2 gift cards:  $30.00 for Teachers Pay Teachers and $30.00 for Target.  I decided on 30 because it was close to 300 (and I couldn't do $300...so this is the next best thing)!

Thanks to JW Illustrations for the frame, Melonheadz for the adorable clip art, Painting Fairy for the background paper, and me for the font!

My giveaway starts on Sunday, March 24th at 12:00 a.m. and ends on Sunday, March 31st.

Hope you win! Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank You and Upcoming Giveaway

Thank you so much for your kind words, thoughts, prayers, and support.  I'm so sorry that I was down.  But as some of you told me...if I let it get to me, I am letting that negative person win.  So forget negative...here comes happy!

In honor of all of you...I am having a super Almost 300 Follower giveaway. 

 

 

It starts tomorrow at 12:00 A.M.  and goes until Easter Sunday at 12:00 A.M.  I will announce the winner on April Fool's Day (pretty appropriate, huh)! 

 

Please enter...I want to share the love that you all sent my way!  :)

HELP...Comments on TPT Make Me Sad

Hi everyone.  I need some HELP!  I'm feeling a little sad.  Why do some people leave not very nice comments on TPT?  I really work hard on every item that I put in my store.  And it takes a lot of nerve putting things on TPT or on my blog in the first place.

Some people leave not nice comments when an item is FREE...or they don't leave any comments at all.  Or they rate things lower than 4.0 and never leave me a comment as to why it isn't 4.0.  I would so love to help them if there is something wrong with a product.

I just had someone leave me a comment complaining that I have St. Patty's Day on a banner and not St. Patrick's after the saint.  I would have loved to explain why I cannot have saints in my public school classroom and St Patty's Day is allowed.  But I didn't get a chance...instead I have that comment sitting there forever! 

I don't know....maybe I should stop trying to put things on TPT???  Do you every feel like this?  I mean my store is only about 8 months old, but it is beginning to make me sad...

HELP!!!  How do you all deal with negative comments or ratings?  I'm beginning to feel like I stink at all of this...blogging....TPT....TN...  :(

Fractions and Laundry

Today I had to teach ordering fractions.  So yesterday after school I'm sitting at my desk thinking....how am I going to teach this lesson when it is usually difficult for third graders??? 

 

Here is what I came up with. Laundry and a clothesline!  No really...  First, I got some clothing pieces.  I found these free on TPT.  I made three "clothespins" (out of my magnet men), so I had to make my laundry fractions in three pieces.  I wrote fractions on each piece of clothing. I color coded them so that I could keep track easier.

 

 

 

When I was ready to teach the lesson, I told the kids we were going to do laundry.  They looked at me like I was goofy (what else is new, right???).  They said, "But our I Can says we are ordering fractions."  What well trained students...they even looked at the I Can statements before we started math for the day!

 

Okay, back to my lesson.  I passed out clothing to each student.  Then I called them by the color code.  So I said all the purple fractions stand up.  They told me what fraction they had and I wrote it on the board.  The entire class had to work with partners and fraction strips to make each fraction to put them in order from greatest to least.

 

Once I saw that every partner group had the fractions lined up, I called the color group to the board.  They had to clip the clothes to the clothesline in order from greatest to least.  

 

 

Sorry...I had to smash the clothesline together to fit into the picture!

 

The class had to either give them a thumbs up or they had to say, "Shuffle those clothes!"  O...M...G...we had so much fun!

As we progressed I made sure there were fractions that they didn't have fraction strips to use.  We reviewed how they could solve these problems by looking at the denominators/numerator and they were on their way.

Then we used a fun resource I found on TPT from More Time 2 Teach.  It was called "Ordering Fractions:  A Little Birdie Taught Me..."

They had to work again with their partner to put the fractions in order.  Didn't they turn out cute?  This was one of those lesson when I wish the principal was in for an evaluation! They were disappointed when I told them we were done for today!  And we were all giggling how they were going to go home today and tell their parents "Shuffle those clothes!"  Heehee  :)

Leprechaun Visit

We had a fun little visitor to our school on Friday for St. Patrick's Day. 

Before he came out to the kids, we had to call out Lucky....Lucky....  He then came out asking if we were going to take his pot of gold.  When we answered no, he read the story Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato.

Each grade level had story time with Lucky.  He even had an Irish accent.  Soooo cute!  It was really the husband of one of our teachers, but don't tell anyone.

Division Games and New Pennants

Hi everyone!  I just finished up a division game unit.  It has two games:  one task card/scoot game and one poke game.  I used cute Popsicle graphics to give it a little summertime feel.  You can pick it up in my TPT store.

 

I also made two banners available in my store.  One is St Patty's Day and the other is Happy Spring.  I know I'm late with St. Patty's Day...it's been in my store for awhile, just forgot to blog about it!

What do you think??? 

Misc March Stuff

Happy St. Patrick's Day my wee little friends!  I wanted to share some cute projects my students did for St. Patrick's Day.

 

 

This is a symmetry project I do. The students cut out the white leprechaun paper and glue it's symmetrical match on the other side.

 

 If the students wanted to add details to their leprechaun, they had to add it to both sides. This way it was symmetrical. Here is a picture of one of my student's creations.

Every month we do a glyph.  I LOVE glyphs!  Here is our St. Patrick's Day one.  Some of my students wanted to accordion fold their shamrock's arms.

 

 

Here is one of my student's creation...

And here is another one...

What fun projects have you done for St. Patrick's Day?