Tried It Tuesday-- Snow Day Style!

I'm linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried It Tuesday!

Today is our 6th snow day this month!! I love a good snow day like anyone, but I really need to be in school teaching my kiddos!! We are SOOOO far behind! Sooo....for my "Tried It Tuesday", I'm going to share something I did at HOME that was COMPLETELY unrelated to school. I taught myself how to knit!

My Nanny (grandmother) taught me how to crochet when I was about 8 or 9 during a few LONG winter snowstorms, but all of the beautiful scarves I see are always for KNITTING. I bought my yarn at AC Moore, because 1)They had a 20% coupon off any item. 2) I could also use my teacher discount there! I choose to purchase Lion's Brand Yarn (my aunt who knits and my Nanny had ALWAYS used this yarn for ANYTHING they crocheted or knitted.) in the Hometown USA Aspen Tweed, which is a great thick yarn. I set to work with my needles, and it wasn't so easy going at first. I thought I was doing great until I realized I had accidently dropped a few loops here and there (which can cause your ENTIRE project to come undone, but I just took some yarn and sewed it together real quick! After a few hours of watching some videos on YouTube to make sure I was doing everything right, and watching my recordings of Real Housewives of Atlanta (I know it's not quality TV-- BUT --- It's FUN to watch!! If rich people don't have their life all together, then I don't feel so bad about being poor and not having mine together either haha). After you finish the length of your scarf, you cast off and use yarn to stitch together the two ends to make an infinity scarf.  Here's Yolo modeling said scarf: 

Now remember -- she has like an 18 inch neck! haha -- so it's actually looser on me! 

Another "Tried it Tuesday" was a sock bun. Now - I haven't been THAT out of the loop- but I haven't done a sock bun since I cut my hair two years ago. (Like...16 inches). Although my hair almost touches my shoulders, It's too short for the regular sock bun, until I saw a super cute way on pinterest....it's SO easy-- all you do is put the sock onto your ponytail  and wrap your hair around it, and secure with a hair tie. That's all!  I rocked it yesterday to work - and having my hair up ALL day didn't even give me a headache. I  almost wish I hadn't discovered this hairstyle-- because it's too easy! I might just wear it EVERY day! 

Hopefully we can get back to school SOMETIME this week. Enjoy your snow if you have it! :) 

Teachers Pay Teachers Store Update!!

I realize I am blogging TWO days in a row, but the post that was published yesterday I actually wrote last week, but I had to add the pictures in! Tonight, I have had time to work on a few things because my poor puppy has another ear infection :( So, drumroll please..................I have FINALLY updated my TpT store!! I have uploaded 10 new things this week! WOW...just WOW. Some of the items are even FREE.  So, to CELEBRATE, I'm doing a TpT GIVEAWAY! You can win $10 worth of product in my store!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So, join this giveaway to win some GREAT things! :)

Do You Have The Time? My favorite Telling Time activity EVER!

Happy New Year!! What a holiday season! I feel like I have been running a marathon, and the finish line isn't anywhere in sight! My weekends have been CONSUMED with school work, and I think I'm even going to have to give up coaching our school OM team this year because I just have too much on my plate. (I'm hoping to turn this over to a parent). I have had this post in "drafts" for a while.... I haven't blogged in forever, and I PROMISED myself I would do it over Christmas break. Then, the week before Christmas (on my BIRTHDAY!) I woke up sick....it started with the new strand of norovirus, then I got strep throat, then an eye infection, and then a sinus infection. I truthfully wasn't feeling better until New Years! I don't wish that virus on my worst enemy-- it was brutal!!

Anyway -- the real reason you are here! I just did a telling time to the nearest minute activity last week, and it is by far my favorite activity ever in the history of teaching math. I absolutely love, love, LOVE it! I call this activity, "Do you have the time?"

I saw this on Pinterest about 1,000 times, but didn't know if I would like it. Each child gets their own "watch", and then students travel around the room reading each others watches and recording the times. I was originally just working on some clock faces of time to the nearest minute to glue down in a folder and laminate for Intervention practice in my small group instruction. After creating the clock faces for my game, I realized I would only need to create 4 more to have a class set. Well........... 4 more turned into 6 more, because I always like to have extras. After creating the clock faces, I cut strips of construction paper to make watch bands and glued the clock to the construction paper. Viola! Construction paper/card stock watches! I laminated the final product (this is all with the help of Ms. Bailey - an AWESOME paraprofessional at our school who is working on her teaching degree!) and punched holes in the bands. My original thought was to hook the watches with paperclips through the holes. Third graders do not do paperclips well enough for this! In the interest of time, we just taped the bands on, but I may add some string for next time, or even make the bands out of string. 

The students traveled around the room asking their classmates, "Do you have the time?" The classmate would then show them their watch and let them read the clock face. This was REALLY hard for my students who could tell time really well because they wanted to tell their classmates the answers. Since I did this as a graded assignment, they knew they couldn't! Each child had a record sheet that was numbered from 1-22. In our class each student has a number, so when they read that child's watch, they wrote their answer next to that child's number. It was SO MUCH FUN. In the end, I was quickly able to see who really "got it" and who really needed help. When several students missed the same problem - I could easily tell that they had simply looked at the hour hand wrong.

If you love this activity- you can find the clock faces I used on my TpT store here! They are only $1!! I hope this post finds all in blogger land healthy and happy in this new year!