It Really Worked Monday- Wood Scratches

Living in a older home has proven to me that anything can be made new again. My husband and I have lived in our house for almost 3 years and with every new day, I find something new that I can work on, organize, fix or improve. Today, I will be sharing with you something I am most excited about for 2 reasons:

1) It really works!!!!
2) It requires very little materials that are cheap and may already be in your house!

Our well lived in home has over the years, acquired some "love marks" on its wood surfaces. These surfaces include wood doors, wood paneling, wood cabinets, wood closet doors. After doing a little research, I came across a solution for these wood scratches.

Get ready for this... Vinegar and Olive Oil. Yep, that's right, equal parts of these 2 ingredients mixed in a jar can fix these "love marks".

 

First, get yourself a jar with a lid and pour equal parts of regular white vinegar and the cheapest olive oil (to save yourself some money). I combined a half cup of each, made it around the whole house and barely made a dent in the jar. I would recommend doing a forth cup of each and trying it in a small hidden area before committing to doing the whole house. One thing I did notice was places with scratches in thicker glossed wood pieces (window seals) did not fair as well but since a majority of the wood in our house has a thin layer of gloss I was able to make good use of it!

Here are some of the results:

 

Before

(Under our breakfast bar)

After

 (The marks remaining are scuff marks only)

 Before

 After

 Before

(Kitchen Cabinet) 

 After

Before

 Bathroom Door

(previous owners dogs did some damage to our doors)

 After

Before

Bathroom Cabinets

 After

 

Owl Themed Classroom Set

Today I am introducing the next of many of my "Classroom Themed Setups". Todays, theme is OWLS! Everywhere you look in classrooms you will see owls. These adorable little feathered friends are brightly colored, adorably designed and just dying to "hang" out in your classroom and complete your classroom theme.

Click on any of the pictures below to be taken directly to my TpT store!

 

The items below are not included in the packet above. These are a separate purchase and can be viewed by clicking on the pictures.

 

Dots of Turquoised Color Theme Classroom

I am so excited about the latest creations in my TpT website. As a teacher I struggled with the frustrating fact that my classroom never seemed complete once I set my mind on a theme for my classroom. To solve this problem, I created the missing pieces that made my "Dots of Turquoise" themed boarder. Check it out... because this packet includes:

Table signs (3 versions)
Material labels (2 versions)
Clock labels (2 versions)
Calendar months
Day numbers (4 versions)
"Today is, Tomorrow is, Yesterday was"
"Are class is at" flip cards
Class time schedule (4 versions)
Class/floor/ cubby #'s
Sharp and unsharp pencils (2 sizes)
"Welcome" pennants and blank version too
Parent/Student contact sheet
Bulletin board signs (homework, morning work, to do, missing work, extra credit, completed work, 2 blank templates).

Click on any of the pictures below to get to my TpT store!

Upon request I have also included to additional items to this bright and fun pdf:

My Version of Math Groups

As teachers are eagerly getting things sorted and ready for the upcoming school year I thought I would take some time to reflect on my experience with Math Groups. In previous years of teaching, I always taught the lesson whole group, scrambled to get to the struggling students desks and pass out papers... Sound familiar?

Well, I decided to jump ship of this routine and try Math Groups. After browsing Pinterest and many blogs I finally felt like I had a good idea of what I was wanting for my 3rd grade classroom. Below is a run down of how I set things up.

Schedule

Looking at my schedule I knew that I had enough time to do 4 math groups in one day. Each group would receive modified versions of the same lesson. My first 2 groups were 20 minutes each and my last 2 groups were 15 minutes each. Now... like you I thought that it was a crazy idea to try and teach in 15-20 minutes. How would I teach everything I needed to teach? How will I make sure these students got and practiced what was being taught? Well listen up, I did it and it worked. I figured out what I really wanted the kids to master with me in the short time and what they could do in another rotation/station. My decision: Get down to the nitty gritty at my table and spread out review, worksheets and practice out into the other rotations/stations.

 

Rotations/Stations (same thing!)

With 4 rotations decided on, the next step was to figure out what students would do in each station. Station 1 (teachers table)- students would meet with me for the nitty gritty lesson of the day.

 Station 2 (at your set work)- students would work on that days worksheet/visual that is related to that days lesson.

Station 3 (math games)- students would play different file folder/teacherpayteachers.com games that I found and created.

Station 4 (math facts)- extremely important and improved my students memory with daily math fact games that I created or purchased on teacherspayteachers.com

 

Stations Prep

Teachers Table- manipulatives needed for the lesson, a pencil box/container containing everyday materials they may need (5-6 glue sticks and scissors, sharpened pencils, eraser caps, dry erase markers)

At Your Seat Work- Worksheet that is related to what students learned that day. There would be a sign letting them know if this was practice or if it was for a grade. Either way, students turned in their work at the end of their station time.

Math Games- I started off with 6 choices... TOO many. My kids were crazy and they did not take care of my games :(. Taking that down a notch, I got a three plastic container from Target and took the game choices down to 3... JUST RIGHT! Now to prep for this, I looked at my units and created or purchased 5-9 different games from teacherspayteachers.com that would relate to each unit. I found a bunch of free games. Click HERE for some of the games I created myself. These would last for about 4-5 days and then got rotated with another game that was related to the unit... hint the need for 5-9 games revolving around each unit.

Math Facts- Again, these are games that I found on TPT that are all focused on math facts (+0 to +10, mult/divide games, etc).

 

 

Whew... almost done

Now that we know all about my stations, the number of them and whats going on in each. Here is what a day would look like in my classroom. Students would take a pretest at the beginning of the unit to determine if they are in group1,2,3,4. Two groups were reserved for my higher level students, one group was reserved for my med/bubble kids and one group was reserved for my struggling students. I tried to keep groups in sizes ranging from 4-6 students. That allowed them all to fit at my teacher table.

Once groups were decided, students would be told their group number and who their partner was in that group. Their partner was who they would pair up with and work with in all the stations. Partners changed weekly but groups stayed the same throughout the unit. When all students were assigned a group and group partner, students would look at our board and figure out what station they would start at everyday during the unit. Students would go to that station and begin that days activities. For my sanity I would keep a timer on my phone that would ding when it was time to rotate. Students would get a 1 minute warning to clean up, the timer would ding, they would look to see where to go next and rotate. Simple! After the first 2 days students began to remember where to rotate. It was basically a big circle that they would follow each and everyday.

By the end of all the rotations for that day, students would have received their daily nitty gritty lesson, did their worksheet, practiced the topic by playing related math games and lastly review their math facts.

 

 

Now... breathe. I know that was a lot to read but I hope at this point is that you have an idea of how it worked in my classroom. From prep to execution, my students saw success and was able to feel confident in their learning. When asking students, they ALWAYS said they preferred small group math rotation because they "got to learn more".

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask below!

 



Multiplication Facts Lap Book

I am excited and ready for my kids to have some fun with this activity this year! Each student will make their own lap book to take home with them for the summer time to use as a review before going on to 4th grade. Students learned tips and tricks to help them remember their multiplication songs. Of course this could be decorated more... but you get the point! To purchase the templates I used visit my TpT store.

Food Chains Notebooklet

When we began our unit on food chains, I wanted a nice tidy area for students to record their notes. Having a hard time finding one that fit my needs, I created this food chains note booklet where students can record their notes.

Sections included in this are:
-what i already know about food chains and illustration
-producers, consumers, and decomposers notes page
-herbivore, carnivore, omnivore notes page
- 3 practice food chains pages which include a producer.

For the 2nd and 3rd parts mentioned above... I used this website. Not only was it written in kid language but it also included fun graphics and games related to food chaints. Check it out: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/foodchain/producersconsumers.htm

If your interested in buying this booklet, I kept it well priced and it can be purchased here.

Measurement pt. 2

Measurement Part 2

     This week my students have been working hard on the second part of measurement. Above is the anchor chart I created that we referenced all week.

      To start the week off, we started with Weight. After discussing our prior knowledge on it, we weighed ourself and talked about where our weight number came from... gravity. We talked about ounces and pounds and each of them got to hold an ounce bag full of popcorn kernals and a pound bag of popcorn kernels. We determined which was more and which was less and that ounces come before pounds. I made the connection that when counting in units we count ten units out and trade them in for a long/rod (10) and that we do the same with ounces and pounds by counting 16 ounces and turning them into 1 pound. Next, we explored food scales, the one I brought from home and the ones we see at the grocery store. We talked about their importance when working with recipes. To connect it to their everyday lift, I pulled out a snack version of applesauce and showed them where on the label they could find its weight. I repeated this with cleaning items, chapstick and drinks.  Last each student recieved their own scale and was able to determine in ounces and pounds the weight of differen classroom objects.

     Day 2 consisted of a short review of where weight comes from (gravity) and ounces in a pound (16). We moved on to mass and how we are not trying to determin its weight but how much stuff was used to make the item. Students learned about balance beams, gram cubes and then explored once again with items found in the classroom. I used the items from the day before (applesauce, etc) to show them that our food packaging often tells us the mass of it. I feel like the kids really understood the difference between mass and weight.

     Day 3 consisted of Volume. We talked about the anchor chart... what we could see, and what was hidden in the picture. We talked about how to build it and how to count it on the paper. Once students built it, they compared it with the answer they got when they counted it on the chart. Lastly, students worked on a worksheet consisting of different block quantities, first shading and counting it. Followed by building it and checking their answer.

     Day 4 wrapped up our lesson. We focused on capacity. Items in our lives that have the capacity written on it and why they thought it was important to have this printed on the packaging. Following our discussion, students explored, each getting their own large tuoperware container filled with water, different measuring cups and graduated cylinders. We ended the lesson by creating a visual of different units used to measure capacity.