Five for Friday with the Pencil Sharpener that Will Change Your Life

Happy Friday Ya'll!!! When Friday gets here, I just want to leave school and go home and take a NAP. I packed up my bag this afternoon and headed out so quickly, I almost forgot my laptop!! That would've made me SO upset, because this weekend I'm putting together a GIVEAWAY for my 100 followers!!!! Stay tuned for that. 

Since it's Friday, I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching! 

This pencil sharpener will change your life. We've all read that -- and seriously -- didn't we think the teachers who said that were crazy?! Welllllllllllll....................they were RIGHT. I got home on Wednesday afternoon to see a box on my front porch, and believe you me -- I was EXCITED. I immediately knew my pencil sharpener from Classroom Friendly Supplies had arrived. There are a few things I have to say about this sharpener. 

1) It is VERY nicely made -- like SERIOUSLY. My teaching partner Joanne tried it out, and she couldn't believe that this sharpener was made with such amazing quality. It really is a heavy duty sharpener. 

2) You have not seen a sharp pencil until you sharpen a pencil with one of these. 

3) The quality of my students' work increased. You know that kid whose writing you can't read? This sharpener gets the pencils such a nice point, that it actually helps the legibility of your students writing! 

4) My electric sharpener is going in the trash. Seriously. Once you go Classroom friendly supplies, you never go back! 

5) This is KID friendly. I showed all my kids ONE time how to use it - and they're all old pros now! I don't think I'll EVER  have to sharpen another pencil as long as I live - but I want to! This sharpener is that cool! We have pencil sharpening only in the morning, and you wouldn't believe how much faster my kiddos are coming to the room from breakfast. 

My next step -- is ordering a couple more of these! I want one for my colored pencils, one for my desk, and one for the kids! 

Area vs. Perimeter - Post it Note Style

So....students ALWAYS mix up area and perimeter. They just do. The more hands on interesting activities you can do, the better. We started off the week by creating our own Area and Perimeter Robots on Tuesday and Wednesday! The most fun activity however, was today's Post-It note activity. 

I handed each group of students Post It notes. My directions were, "These are your units. Tell me the area and perimeter of a desk in your group. Go". I didn't answer any questions, and FORCED my students to do what they thought was correct, and talk in their groups about their methods. It worked AMAZINGLY. I must give these kiddos credit-- they usually do pretty good with cooperative learning. 

I know I'm not the only one doing this.......Seriously

Check out the new design.....

This is a blog design I worked on with some backgrounds and banners from the Cutest Blog on the Block. They have super cute designs, and I love all things Nautical. Even my hubby commented that he liked the new look! 

GIVEAWAY..........

I'm putting together my 100 followers giveaway. If you want to donate a product, and increase the flow of traffic to your site, join by filling out this form! 

Thanks for stopping by!!

Jessica 

Five For Friday Easter Edition!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs for Five for Friday!! 

Wow!! I blinked, and April was here! Then I blinked again, and now it's 1/2 way over. Does anyone else feel like that happens to you? Spring Break officially started yesterday, but my niece and I have a tradition to do lunch and a movie on Spring Break. (Her birthday is in March, and this is her present from me). This year, she decided she would rather go shopping and have lunch and ice cream. (She is MY niece after all!) So, she brought her birthday money and gift cards, and we headed out. I was excited too, because I had $40 in Max Rewards from Office Max and a save $10 off $40 coupon. 2 hours later in Office Max, and we walked out with $50 worth of merchandise for only $1.13!

Included in my haul were these goodies for me! I LOVE new pens...I bought them because I have about 1,000,000 papers to grade over break. Yet -- I'm blogging instead of grading.... I think I need more coffee! 

After shopping, lunch at Chipotle, more shopping and ice cream at Sweet Frog -- she was DONE. 

Does anyone else remember these? While in the Dollar Tree my niece and I found these! She had never had them, but my sister and I used to eat them ALL the time. I bought her some, and she and her sister LOVE them. 

All the pretty things........... 

Spring Break Organization  Project #1 complete! Thirty One party supplies and collection somewhat organized. Keep in mind...all those totes are FULL of Thirty One, and my everyday use stuff isn't even in there. My house looks like a Thirty One Catalog. I'm okay with that -- everything has a place, and a place for everything! So happy to get some of this organized! My goal is to do something productive each day -- but considering we only get Thursday-Monday off -- that will be HARD! 

Happy Spring! This is my newest Thirty One tote -- I'm in LOVE! 

I am doing a Jamberry Party from now until the end of the month! How CUTE are these Lolipop Chevron nails? Perfect for Easter!! 

Capacity!!! I love, love, LOVE teaching measurement! Hands on lessons EVERY day! Yes - I know it takes planning - but it's SO much fun! My kiddos LOVE measurement every year. Our state standards require my 3rd graders give the best estimates for capacity. I still teach customary conversions using the Measuring Monarch - because I believe that's a life skill, and I know the 4th grade teacher thanks me! This year, I have a VERY visual group. So, what better way to understand exactly how much is in a gallon than to dump it out! We picked a day that was over 80 degrees, and headed outside! It was amazing to see the kids faces as they got to DUMP water onto the blacktop. Of course I worked in the water cycle, as we saw how quickly the cup evaporated! 

The cup was so tiny! 

The pint wasn't much bigger-- the kids could quickly see this was about like spilling a full bottle of water. ( I was a proud teacher when they started having math talk without being prompted!! One of the kids said -- hey -that's about how much a bottle of water spilled looks like- remember when I spilled my bottle last week!) 

No - we weren't being mean making this child go far away from the rest-- he was dumping a Liter-- and since liters are only used in Europe - the kids said it should be away from the US Measurements. 

What a cool action shot -- every time the kids dumped water, the whole class screamed and cheered! Then, they would talk about how big/small the puddle was and how it compared -- WITHOUT being prompted! My hard work with Math Talk this year has paid off! 

Ahh...the gallon. This child had a look of pure joy on his face. Like he hadn't EVER gotten to just throw water for no good reason. :) 

Here's the anchor chart for the Measuring Monarch we made! 

Then, we wrapped up with small charts "I would use a ________ for" with all the measurements. The kids wrote their responses on sticky notes and added them to the posters. 

Measuring the Track: 

So - after capacity, we started measuring length. We have a pretty nice track (each lap is 1/8 of a mile) that wraps around our soccer field, and we had such an awful winter that we needed to get OUTSIDE. So -we took meter sticks and yard sticks, and set to measuring the track - "Goal to Goal" (length) and "Bench to Bench" (width). Then, we came back inside and converted our yards to feet and inches, and converted our meters to centimeters. 

 

 
 

 

100 Followers Giveaway....

So I posted a few weeks ago that I wanted to do a 100 Followers Giveaway!! Then, April happened! So, during Spring Break I will be gathering some items to attempt to do this!! If you are interested in donating to the giveaway, comment and let me know! :) 

Five For Friday!

It's time for Five for Friday Saturday already! This was the longest, fastest week I've had in a while! This week seemed to be dragging on FOREVER through Tuesday, and then I blinked. Suddenly - it was Friday! A lot of exciting things happened this week - which is probably why the second half of the week flew by!! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching -so hop on over and see other bloggers Five For Friday!

1. What a perfect way to start a Friday -- I got an email from Carrie over at Anchored in 3rd Grade to say her giveaway is underway!! Click on her blog name or this picture to check out her HUGE giveaway. I am so honored to be a part of this - my FIRST EVER giveaway! I donated a few things from my store - including a zip file with an entire YEAR worth of spelling list & parent letters to send home! 

2. Thirty One announced a FLASH SALE!! As many of you know, I am an independent Thirty One consultant, and I love that it has helped my husband and I in so many ways, especially in January when he lost his job! I was SO excited when I got an email saying select classic patterns would be 50% off! I can't WAIT until Sunday morning at 10:00 to shop for MYSELF! I need some mini utility bins for wedding gifts for this summer, baby shower gifts, and toy boxes for my nieces! Some of my out of town friends are shopping the link and choosing to have their items sent directly to their house -- who can pass up 50% off!

3. Kate's Saint Patrick's Day Fun

Okay - so this is another Thirty One comment, but I did a party Friday night with a St. Patrick's Day theme. It was SO MUCH FUN! Most of the women were parents from my school - and they have the BEST sense of humor. Who wouldn't love hanging out, talking and eating good food and drinking wine all while SHOPPING. Seriously - we had the best time. It was so refreshing to not talk about work too! Usually people want to talk to the teacher about school - but they were SO amazing and never brought it up. They all have some amazing kids who were there too -- but of course they looked at me like I was crazy because I was a teacher who wasn't living at the school :)

 4. I started AND finished my graphing unit!

Okay - not really finished ALL the way -- we test on Monday. I have really taught bar graphs and pictographs all year long, so it wasn't like starting from scratch. I made this awesome pack, and copied the pages small enough to fit in the kiddos math notebooks, and we were able to work through the sheets to review our graph skills, and to learn line plots. On Friday, we celebrated being done by doing our review work on iXL! You can grab the graph pack for only $2 on TpT!

5. I don't even want to write the next one. Seriously. It's after midnight - so technically this is Sunday's forecast. I haven't went to bed yet, so to me "today" is still Saturday. It was 70!!! I kept the side door open ALL DAY while the doggies played outside and slept in the sun, and by Sunday night SNOW....Seriously Virginia -- get your act together - I want a spring break and my kids NEED to be IN SCHOOL. We have missed TOO many days! I know all the other VA people are feeling your pain. I don't mind the cold. Really I don't. What I do mind is a 50 degree difference in a day! I've been getting bad headaches because of this - and I could really do without those! lol 

I hope everyone has an amazing weekend -- I know that I am going to enjoy SLEEPING IN :)   tomorrow while the hubby has to work :(  Happy for me - sad that he is working -- but then again - so happy that he has found a job!