Christmas in July FINAL DAY with FREEBIE!

Today is the last day of my 20% off Merry Christmas in July sale!  Head HERE to get every product in my store at 20% off!

 And click HERE to get my Winter Fraction Scoot Task Cards for FREE today only!!!

With these cards your students will complete 7 of each of the following problems (28 total problems):

-Simplifying Fractions
-Converting Improper Fractions to Mixed Numbers
-Converting Mixed Numbers to Improper Fractions
-Draw Models for Fractions

Enjoy!

Christmas in July Day 2- FREEBIE!

On top of my entire store being 20% off today and tomorrow, I am doing a FREEBIE in honor of my Merry Christmas in July Sale!

Today's FREEBIE is my Christmas Poetry Packet!  It was one of the very first products I made for TpT!

Grab it today for FREE so you can light up your holiday season with Christmas poetry!  Poetry pages include Shape Poem, Acrostic Poem, Haiku, and a Cinquain.

Comment and let me know what you would like to see featured as my FREEBIE tomorrow!

Jamie

Essential Back to School FREEBIES!!!

It is officially 'Back to School' time! I wrote this blog last year and am posting it again so you can get my FREEBIES and check out a few other things I use at the beginning of every school year!

I can't believe it, but the beginning of the school year is quickly approaching! In my district teachers report back on August 14th and the student arrive on the 20th! It's going to be here before I know it! (insert anxiety here)

I have recently spent some time preparing for our Back to School Night.  I absolutely LOVE Back to School Night but it can be an absolute nightmare if you're not prepared!  There are a few things that are VERY important to me that I must do at the beginning of each year.  The first and most important thing I do at Back to School Night is make sure parents get my welcome packet!  Before the students arrive on Back to School Night I put this packet on each student's desk.  That ensures that the parents get it, because they will often pass over a stack of papers that say "TAKE ONE"!

Below are the contents of my Back to School Night Welcome Packet...  If you want a copy of my ipad contract (I made it generic by taking my name off), or my Parent/Student Info Papers you can get them for FREE HERE!!!!!!! (The years have been updated to reflect the current school year!)

1.  The first page in my Welcome Packet is my 'All About Me' page.  This helps the parents and students get to know me a little bit.  I find that the parents are more relatable when they know their child's teacher is an actual human being with a family and interests outside of school!

The black boxes are personal information such as names, places and contact info.
They are blacked out for online purposes only, not in the actual packet!

2.  Right behind the 'All About Me' page is a page for the parent to fill out their contact information. (I use that constantly through out the year!) On the back of that is a page on which I ask the parent to answer some simple questions about their child.  Reading these in the first week of school has helped me immensely in the past few years.  I truly believe that knowing a little background on your students is key to building relationships. :-)  (The years have been updated to reflect the current school year!)

3.  Up next is my iPad contract. I have every single student read and sign the contract before they can even touch one of my iPads.  If a student breaks a rule on the iPad I can bring this bad boy out and show them which rule they broke and ask them how they can be sure not to break it again.  Holding my students accountable with this contract has helped the iPads be a huge success in my room! 4 years with NO broken screens!!!! (crossing my fingers--knocking on wood)  (The years have been updated to reflect the current school year!)

In my TpT store you can download the generic version of this with my name removed!

4.  Next is my F.A.Q. page for parents.  This is a list of commonly asked questions I get through out the school year.  I explain my grading policy, behavior management, how I hand back papers, my classroom food/drink policy, etc.  Very useful for parents to know this information right off the bat!

5.  And lastly, I give parents a copy of my classroom procedures. In a perfect world the parents would go over these procedures with their student during the first week of school, but I'm pretty sure that is just wishful thinking on my part!  I like that no matter what, I KNOW the parents received the basic procedures of my classroom so they kind of have an idea of how an average school day in my room is run.  Of course I cover these with my students in the first week of school, but I like the parents to have a copy as well.

Well, there ya have it! I hope this post has given you some ideas of what to include in your Back to School Packet for parents!  Grab the Parent/Student Questionnaire and iPad contract for free from my TpT Store HERE!  Oh, and follow my store while you're there!

How I use Data Folders in my Classroom!

Good afternoon!  Last night I set about creating student data folders that I am going to use this year. Of course, as soon as I asked my husband for help he disappeared until I was done, but somehow I got them all done up pretty quickly.  And it will be well worth the time in the end!

Last year I had my students glue graphs in their interactive notebooks and many times it would fall out, the notebook would get lost, etc.  This year each student will have a data folder that I keep in a crate so they don't get lost!

I got some of the pages that I use in my data folders as a FREEBIE on TpT from Christina Bainbridge's store.  I heart freebies!  I also created two pages for my students to graph their math and science unit test scores on.

Up first is the page that my students will decorate and tape onto the front of their data folder.  It will be fun for them and will keep me from making labels for them!

The first two pages inside the data folder are for my student's Math and Science Unit Test Scores. We take multiple unit tests during the year and they graph their scores here.  Before they color their scores in, I have a conference with each student.  I ask the students what they thought of the test, how they feel about their score, and what they could do better next time.  We go over the problems they got right and the ones they got wrong. Then they color in the column using either green, yellow, or red- based on whether they got mastery, near mastery, or remediation on the test.  (P.S.- Using Mastery Connect makes these testing conferences with my students an absolute breeze...if you haven't heard of it, check it out HERE!)

Last year I really felt like having students graph their own scores made them take ownership over showing what they've learned.  They knew the scores they got on their tests actually meant something, that they weren't just another grade in a grade book.  They got to analyze their answers and see what they did wrong so they could correct it in the future.  Sidenote:: I absolutely do not believe that a test defines a student, but we rely heavily on these tests for many things so my students have to know that they are important.

Next up in the folders is a place for my students to graph their reading level and reading fluency through out the year.  Graphing this gives students a visual on their improvement, and being a visual person myself, I know I would've appreciated this in school!  These graphs also take their levels from being just a letter or a number to something more meaningful to them when they can see it on paper.

Lastly is a Personal Goals sheet.  I plan on doing this with my students every 9 weeks.  I did not do this last year so I'm excited to add it in this year!

Five for Friday and Freebie Friday!

TGIF! I am so happy that it is Friday! Not so much for myself, because right now every day is Friday, but so that I can spent some time with my hubby this weekend, even though he is under the weather right now. :-(

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday and Teaching Blog Addict for a Freebie Friday post!  If you're here for the Freebie, head down to #5!

Today I went to Mardel to shop around during their 20% off for Teachers Sale! My favorite finds are these tee shirts I got for $5 a piece!  Love them!  I also got the GINORMOUS bag below for free for being a teacher! I heart Mardel!

love, love, love this shirt!

biggest. bag. ever.

I am totally obsessed with the color I got on my nails today!  Teal is slowly but surely becoming my favorite color!

I spent some quality time creating common assessments for my math curriculum this week.  I got the first unit's common assessments done and I'm super pumped about it!  I love putting my assessments on Mastery Connect and my students can take them on the iPads.  Super easy and the computer computes the grades for me! It's pretty awesome! 

Who doesn't need some color in their lives?!  I created a "Super Bright Colors" Digital Paper Pack for TpT and I LOVE IT!  The colors are beautiful and the designs are super cute.  You can use it for scrapbooking, TpT creations, classroom newsletters, etc.!  Check it out HERE!

And lastly, here is my freebie!  I wrote a blog about it just last night, that explains how I utilize these pages in my Back to School Night packet that I give parents each year.  Check out the blog post HERE and go download my Parent/Student Questionnaire and my iPad Contract FOR FREE HeRe!!!