Five for Friday 1-31-14

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs for her weekly linky party!

1.  I have good news! I have been discussing departmentalizing with my principal recently and she has decided to let fifth grade try it out next year! Next year we are moving to a brand new school and we will be starting all kinds of brand new things and just doing a lot of things differently in general.  The only hard part about this is deciding whether I want to teach Social Studies or Math!  OR BOTH!  My principal is pretty much giving us the option to try out either two teams of two teachers or have each teacher teach a different subject area (plus our own reading small groups).  I am more than excited about this!  Teaching fifth grade is incredibly difficult due to having to take 5 state tests each year.  YES, 5!!!!!  I am excited to do some research and figure things out! \

2.  This week I finished up teaching my students how to compare and order fractions!  I also taught them how to find the greatest common factor.  I used two of my TpT products and they LOVED them! (Check out the links above) It was soooo much fun! I wish I had pics but I didn't take any because I was running around monitoring the whole time!  I also found this super awesome game (that is iPad compatible!!!!) online that helps to reinforce Factors, Multiples, and GCF/LCM!  They had so much fun playing it with a partner!  Check it out HERE!

3.  My husband created a new background, header and button for my blog this week!  I absolutely love it! He is a graphic designer for a hospitality company here in OK and he is incredible!!!!  He has been trying to teach me how to work in Adobe Illustrator lately to help me make things for my TpT store!  It is difficult to learn, but I am really enjoying it!

This is my new button!!!!!! AAHHHHHH!!!! So cute!!!!

4.  Speaking of my TpT store, I have some things that I have been working on for it.  I am making a general rubric that has been in my classroom into a super cute general rubric to hang in my classroom! LOL!  I am also working on activities for fractions and decimals on a number line.  We will see what I come up with! Check my store out HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5.   Lastly, the weather we have had this week has been crazy! No snow as of yet, but we are predicted to have a little winter storm next week.  As for now it is freezing and my allergies are driving me insane from going from warm to freezing within 5 hours!  With all of the crazy cold weather recently we have had lots of inside recess.  :-(  It has not been the greatest week for me because of this.  My students, especially my boys, are really rowdy this year and they NEED to run and play outside.  I can't wait for Spring!

Well, that has been my Monday-Friday in a nutshell!
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Just for the Teacher Tuesday linky party!

I am linking up with Mommy & Me Creations for her first "Just for the Teacher Tuesday" linky party!!!

I have only had my TpT shop open for a few months and I truly enjoy creating engaging activities for my students and posting them in my store!  Today I want to post about two products I've made recently.  The first product I ever made for TpT, my freebie, Decimal Bingo!  

                   The next product I want to post about is my Winter Fraction Scoot/Task Cards!

    Go to my TpT Page and check them out! :-)

Also, link up with the 'Just for the Teacher Tuesday' linky! 

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Recap of Last Week- Recipe and Pics!

First I want to say a HUGE thank you to my husband for making me a new layout and header!  

Isn't it beautiful?!?!

And I finally figured out how to edit my blogger code to be able to make some customizations on my sidebar, but now I have a QUESTION::: How do I make the original sidebar background go away?  It is behind my new one and looks really weird!!!  

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Sitting here, finally settling down from last week, (and from the excitement from posting my new background!) I thought I'd post some pics to recap the super busy week and weekend I had!

So I made a California Club one evening last week and I haven't stopped thinking about it since!  Here is a picture of the beauty!

Nom Nom Nom!

For this delish sandwich I used sourdough bread with mayonnaise, tomato, ham, turkey, lots of bacon, and of course avocado!  It was by far my favorite meal of last week!

I also wanted to post a picture of my best friend and I at her birthday celebration this past weekend at Dave and Busters!

My beautiful bestie and I!

I totally won 500 tickets on the spin game!  Woo Hoo!

Last weekend we also went to Chuck E Cheese!  Although it is grimy and dirty we wanted to experience it!  It was my daughter's first time to go and it very well may be her last!  Haha!  At least we got a cute picture out of it!  Her face is kind of squished!!!

#mommydaddybabylove

Lastly, I want to post a picture of my baby girl at bath time one evening last week!  I just can't get enough of her! She loves to jump up and down in the bath and pour water out of her rinse cup all over herself!  LOVE HER!

Precious!

Well, I just felt like doing a recap of last week in pictures!  Hope you enjoy!

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Take a Peek!

Tonight I'm linking up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings for her Peek at my Week Linky!

This upcoming week we are beginning our Social Studies unit called "Road to the Revolution"!  I am super excited about it.  Even though my students don't love social studies I try to make it as interesting as possible.  We will be writing lots of essays in preparation for our state writing test next month.  I truly enjoy history and writing, so I hope that I can teach my students to enjoy it just as much!

In math I will be teaching finding the greatest common factor and simplifying fractions.  I am super duper excited to use two of my TpT products this week!  Check them out below!


This one is called "Find the GCF Scoot/Task Cards".  These can be used as a center game, as a class Scoot game or as task cards under a document camera.  Love these!  These task/scoot cards can be found HERE!

This one is called "Simplifying is Fun"!  It's a bored game in which students move their game piece each time they correctly simplify the fraction card they pull from the deck.  I have to do just a few more tweaks on this and it should be up by the middle of the week!

One goal I have for this week is to go to both of my Zumba classes!  One of our kindergarden teachers instructs Zumba twice a week at my school.  I used to go every single week but I have fallen off the wagon.  I've gotta get back into it!

Today was an absolutely beautiful day but we are supposed to get another "Arctic Blast" tomorrow so unfortunately it will be another week of inside recess.  I am sooooo ready for Spring!

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!  Don't forget to link up! :-)

A Peek at my Week!!!

Tonight I'm linking up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings for her "A Peek at my Week" linky!

First, a quick rant about last week...
Well my first week back to school was quite a doozy!  My body didn't agree with my alarm clock going off each morning and each evening I just couldn't fall asleep no matter how tired I was!  I had so much on my mind.  So much I am wanting to get done this semester.  This is the time of year when testing stress starts to unravel me.  Thinking about how much I have left to teach is almost overwhelming!  I've just got to take it one day at a time and do the best I can!

Now for the upcoming week!  I am starting our themed unit called "Road to The Revolution", which I love!  Teaching history is one of my favorite things to teach, especially the American Revolution.  In math we are beginning fractions.  I've made a couple of resources I plan on using this week to support my instruction.

First, I created a set of task/Scoot cards to help students practice Finding the Greatest Common Factor of two numbers! They are yellow Chevron with a super cute tulip and butterfly on each card! I love them!

Check them out HERE!!!!!

Next, I created an Ordering Fractions Sorting Cards game to help students order fractions!  I can't wait to use these in my room next week!

Get this activity HERE!!!

Thanks for reading! :-)

Christmas Vacation Pics!

I have had a wonderful Christmas vacation!  I haven't done a whole lot but relaxing has been lots of fun! I've gotten to play with my daughter and spend time with my husband, which is always a good thing!  She got so many wonderful gifts and got to spend a bunches of time with her family, especially her little cousins that she just can't get enough of!

Now is the time I have to show off how adorable my daughter is!

We made yummy Christmas cookies!

We also made a super cute gingerbread house!

Here is one of her Christmas pics!

Here is the one we used on our Christmas cards!

She was obviously very excited to meet Santa!  Hahah!

Laying around relaxing and not having to focus on school has been wonderful.  I must admit that I am (almost) ready to get back into the swing of things, but I am already looking forward to Spring Break and Summer!  They will be here before we know it!

Just about the only productive thing I've done for school over the break is create a new item on TpT called 'Simplifying is Fun!'.  It is a board game that can be used during centers, for early finishers or really at any other time as well!  I will begin teaching fractions on Monday and I definitely plan on using this game to help reinforce the concept of simplifying fractions!

Here is a preview of it!  Please check it out at my TpT store!  

This is the game board!

These are a few of the cards for the game!

Go get it HERE!

I hope everyone's break has been as wonderful as mine!  Follow me on BlogLovin'!