Woot! Woot!! CYBER Monday Sale!!

Super brief but important post...

WAIT for it... WAIT for it.....  :)

CYBER MONDAY PLUS TUESDAY SALE 2012!!

We are throwing a huge Cyber Monday Plus Tuesday Sale on Teachers Pay Teachers November 26-27th! 

You can get up to 28% off 1000s of products. 

Have you decided what different things you might need for December? January? Maybe now is a GREAT time to stock up on cute and fabulous activities and lessons for your classroom!

Thanks to Michelle (The 3am Teacher!!) for creating our OH SO CUTE graphic for a linky! If you'd like, check out all the other great stores linked up too!
HAPPY SHOPPING!!!

A Series of Educational Sites: "F"...PBS Kids!

As a Mississippi girl, I'm have enjoyed PBS Kids and PBS Teachers!! Just in case you're not familiar with PBS, I wanted to post about this site because it's pretty darn cool... for all of us--teachers, children, and parents!

This post is so much more than about PBS Kids, as the title includes. 
Let's start with the main site-- PBS.ORG! This site has created PBS Kids, PBS Teachers, and PBS Parents to name the most helpful to you...
Featuring videos, games, shows, and more, there's plenty to entertain students in an educational manner. 
Teachers...See the PBS Teachers--Kids in the Classroom! They offer a "Word of the Day," Early Childhood Resources, and quite a bit more ranging from PreK to 12th Grade. Another tidbit to check out is the Teacher Innovation Awards -Are you an Innovative Educator? See how many winners there are just in 2011! 
Parents will love this site now that school is out (or soon will be) for the summer! Mom & Dad can access activities, advice, and even recipes for quality time spent with the kiddos! Ideas are endless and perfect for those rainy days or TOO HOT days! Sign up for the PBS Parent Newsletter and stay up to date...

Want to know another great feature? 
Mobile apps are available as well! How convenient is that...for kids to watch their top fav PBS shows? A couple of these shows I remember watching when I was little!


In case you missed them, see previous posts of "A Series of Educational Sites" I've blogged about:
Educational Site A: Quizlet
Educational Site B: Arcademic Skill Builders
Educational Site C: Wonderopolis (Free Writing Printable included!)
Educational Site D: EZSchool
Educational Site E: The Problem Site

So, check out PBS Kids...and tell me what your favorite PBS show is (yes, you, the teacher/parent)? 
Was it one you watched as a child too? 
If you don't have one, what are your child's or students' favorites? 
Please share them with us in a comment below! Or, click on my signature to share your comments on my Facebook page! I'd love to see you there too!


Regards,

Assessing Comprehension with Small Group Song Performances!

Creativity is KEY in the classroom! I'm certain all of you agree. 

Constantly trying to find new ways to keep students involved in reading and comprehending literature, I've had the best time watching and listening to some rather creative song performances based on our selections we read in class!

The idea behind this activity is for students to recall details and explain perspectives, or explain story elements for example, which displays their levels of comprehension of particular texts we are reading in class or texts we have just finished reading. It's a different and fun approach to assessing comprehension that my students have very much enjoyed. 

An added incentive? Their writing skills are perfected as they work to compose lyrics on the subject matter learned and students gain more exposure in presentations! I try to get students up in front of the class quite a bit in hopes of burying "stage fright" as they approach higher grades and demands in the years to come. I find this most successful since my middle schoolers tire easily of a monotonous routine. Since my students work and deliver presentations as groups and it's a "fun" presentation to deliver, I end up eliminating some of the embarrassments that come with presentations. Variety is the spice of life!

Most entertaining to the students, besides getting to work in groups to create a song they actually sing for the class, are the performances of all groups in the class and even listening to the audio recordings of my other classes! On top of the enjoyment, students don't even realize they are gaining even more details and information from other groups' songs! 

What got me blogging about this activity today was the fact that we (my students and I) all listened to the recordings again yesterday--after the final exam! It was a nice "wind down" moment in which we went back to earlier in the school year to these songs they created and sang for the class. 

I wanted to let you know about the activity I created, Literature Response Activity: Compose Songs Based on Any Text,  with student handouts and teacher rubric, in case any of you are wrapping up, and perhaps finishing a book or story, and need a creative way to assess comprehension! Click cover image at right to read more in the product description at my TpT store, and perhaps grab this fun activity for your students. Click here to get it from Teacher's Notebook.

It can also be a great activity for other subject areas and various types of texts! Whatever the topic is, the students compose writing (songs) based on what they've learned! How much they have learned or comprehended is what we must figure out...so, why not do it with a little fun added?

Question: What is a creative activity you implement in your class to sort of "trick" your kiddos into showing what they know? I'd love to hear more ideas!! I'll tuck them away for the upcoming school year!! Thanks so much for any great ideas you would like to share here!! :) 

Be well and Happy Summer!

A Few Inspirational Summer Quotes

I love quotes, and I love Summer! So, here are a few random quotes I found out there I thought I'd post to share. I hope you enjoy!

• If you are not barefoot, you're overdressed. -unknown
• One must maintain a little bit of summer, even in the middle of winter. -Henry David Thoreau
• It's a smile, it's a kiss, it's a sip of wine...it's summertime! -Kenny Chesney
• Summertime is always the best of what might be. -Charles Bowden
• To see the Summer Sky Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie-True Poems flee. --Emily Dickinson
• In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. -Albert Camus

• Celebrate summer--sun-drenched days and starlit nights. --Gooseberry Patch
• A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken. -James Dent
• A life without love is like a year without summer. -Swedish Proverb
• I've cut down on a lot of stuff this summer, just so I can hang out and be a normal kid for a while. -Ryan Sheckler (Maybe we should all do this...)
• Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air, and you. -Langston Hughes
• The bigger the summer vacation the harder the fall. -unknown
• In summer, the song sings itself. -William Carols Williams
• There shall be eternal summer in a grateful heart. -Celia Thaxter
• A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows. -St. Francis of Assisi
• Sun shining. Weather is weet. Make you wanna move your dancing feet. -Bob Marley
• The tans will fade, but the memories will last forever. -unknown
• I wonder what is would be like to live in a world where it was always June. -L.M. Montgomery

What is your favorite thing about summer? Please share the best part about summer time or a favorite quote below!

 Can you tell my school year ends this week? :)

Happy Summer!!

Peers Interviewing Peers

Part 1 of today's post: Writing a Biography
A unique idea for getting students to submit a good writing piece is to trick them! (Sort of, anyway!) Students create questions to ask peers, and those questions, in combination with peer responses, make compositions pretty easy to put together! 

First of all, my 8th graders need to learn what biographies are, right? Writing a biography is the ultimate goal of the assignment.


Second of all, they love to talk about themselves to each other! lol...yes, they do!
So, we (my colleagues and I) have the kids compose 10 interview questions ahead of time. Then, we assign each student a partner in the class to interview---making sure they don't interview good friends. That's not too hard because our 8th grade averages about 450 kids. They tend to be pretty spread out amongst all the English classes. The interaction in the interview helps build new friendships in the classroom because they do learn a great deal about their classmates when it's all said and done. Plus, what's the point of interviewing someone you already know about anyway?
After the interviewing is done, students write up biographies about their partners! Minus a few biographies of those that would rather not have their information shared with the class, we get together for sharing time! This is quite interesting to me and the kids. 
The biography is the final draft and the interview questions/answers can serve as the rough draft of the writing process!! The kids learn about each other, then extend their knowledge to classmates with presentations! 

I must say, eavesdropping on the interviews (facilitating, I should say) is very entertaining. I love to hear my students talking one on one. The depth and direction of conversation  always enlightens me. Plus, I love that many of them are in a "comfort zone" with just one other person for the first part. This kind of activity promotes discussion, interaction, and keeps the students engaged while the teacher steps back and acts as a facilitator!
After biographies are turned in, I score them 4, 3, 2, 1. A "4" is an "A"....and so on.


Part 2: The Five Star Blogger!
The "Five Star Blogger" is a blogger challenge Charity Preston has going on to stir motivation! The great thing is that it is a reminder to me not to stray from the true reason for this blog, which is to share ideas and connect with others also willing to share great ideas! You can see all other blogs' postings of helpful teacher information, tips, tricks, and more by clicking on the "Five Star Blogger" badge below! Those participating have linked up there. 
Are you a "FIVE STAR BLOGGER" too? If so, take on the challenge!


AND, back to my BIOGRAPHY post...Please, share one of your engaging activities for students interacting with each other that requires you to serve as facilitator!I would love to read them in comments below!

A Series of Educational Sites: "D"...EZSchool!

 

I've visited and used some wonderful resources from EZSchool for almost as long as I've been teaching! Do I dare say 11 years now? 

If you need to engage students (or your own children) in educational GAMES for that extra challenge or help, this is a great place to do it! It has a wide variety of games divided into grade level categories, making it super user-friendly!

Click Images to Find Out for Yourself...

Games, tutorials, study tools, and spelling are just some of the tabs to access resources on the site.

Besides all grades represented, EZSchool has all subject areas and various languages!!

As the logo tells you, it is "The Premier Educational Portal" for teachers and students.

For your convenience, subscribe to EZSchool's newsletter for updates, new resources, and other goodies! 

You'll gain lots of insightful information from reading the many articles linked up for you!

This is today's educational web site in the "A Series of Educational Sites" posts on Innovative Connections. 

I hope I've helped connect you to a supplemental resource to educate your students or children!! After all, that's the point! 

If you have used this site before, or you use this site quite often, I'd love to hear your feedback! Submit your thoughts in a comment below! Thanks so much for visiting Innovative Connections and letting me know how you implement EZSchool...

Points to Ponder and Remember

1st: I just joined an awesome WORD WALL link up at The Teacher's Cauldron! You should see some of the ideas! Click image to the right! Thank you Jen R.!!!

Now, today's post is about:

Quotes focusing on education...

I found these on the internet as I was searching for inspiring writing springboards:

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”  ― Mahatma Gandhi

“You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” ― Oscar Wilde


"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence." -Robert Frost

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”   -St. Augustine of Hippo

Intelligence plus character--that is the goal of true education. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

These are great for upper grades to reflect on and write about in any class! Perhaps you need a writing prompt for a monotonous Monday to spice things up a bit? Happy Day!

What is your favorite quote? Please let us know so we can add it to our points to ponder!! 

Diggin' in the $1 Bin Again...

     I'm sure many of you recall the link up for "You Know You are a Teacher When..."
Well, mine was about digging in the dollar bins at Target and shopping at Dollar General ALL the time!
     Did it again this week! I went to Target for an item or two and spent 30 minutes in the dollars bins....YEP! I couldn't even get all the way into the store and beyond the checkout area! Stopped by the newly filled dollar bins! LOVE LOVE LOVE...
     There's something about atmosphere that changes my mood. At home, it's a habit for me to cut every lamp on and have a clean (furniture polish-smelling clean) house. At school, I change things up all the time! I've been hunting some of these below at a bargain price. They are a little smaller than what I wanted but, $1 will make you holler!!!!! I bought twelve!
Here's what I'm about to hang in my classroom:

Hot Pink, Yellow, and Lime Green Paper Lanterns! YES!

I would've bought more, but 12 will work I guess!

They take all of 2 secs to put together, string them with fishing line and hang! Instant change in atmosphere. An inviting classroom really does make a HUGE difference. 

Next on my list? A miniature wind chime! Yes, the teacher across the hall has one and it's super!

What is something cool you have in your room at school? Tell us where you got it so we can go get it!! 

FYI, to those of you participating in the weekly post for the "Innovative Teacher-Author You Should Get to Know," I have decided to make it a monthly (maybe 2X/month) post instead of every week! So, don't think I've forgotten you!

First Timer Creating Drawing on Google Docs

 What I'd like to know from you is... "How often do you or how many of you utilize Google Docs?"  

Do you ever find yourself playing on the computer, trying to learn new things you've heard about or watched videos on and want to play around and see what happens?

TRIAL DRAWING FOR GOOGLE DOCS!

Please leave a comment if you are a Google Docs user and can enlighten me with feedback! I know lots of us create forms and all, but do you use it for other drawing and items besides general documents or forms? I'd like to know your opinion as far as features....which seem mighty limited. I'm guessing it's for simple, quick items that don't need a lot of special attention?

Math Mojo, an Innovative TpT Teacher-Author You Should Get to Know

Visit Math Mojo's Store Here!

Alexis Sergi

What grade level(s) and subject(s) is Alexis currently teaching? What other grade levels has Alexis taught prior to current position?        

Currently 4th grade, Previously K, 1, 5, College Freshman

How long has Alexis been teaching?            

13 years!

When did Alexis join Teachers Pay Teachers as a Seller, and what made Alexis decide to become a seller?

I joined TpT as a seller December 2011. I could never find commercially made materials that were exactly what I wanted, so I started creating my own. I love to create materials, plan, and share with others. One of the teachers who I frequently share materials with suggested I check out this site and offer some of the things that I develop on the site.

One piece of advice Alexis can give to a beginning teacher & one piece for a veteran teacher:

I would tell a new teacher to take it one day at a time, take things slowly, and lean on others for support. To veteran teachers I would say one of my favorite quotes, "You can't stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf." We are in an era of massive change and pressure on teachers and survival in this job is often about learning to find joy in our jobs and learning to not fight the waves of change, but learning to surf!

Something unique about Alexis both as a teacher and outside of the classroom:

         

Teacher fact - I have taught in 2 countries (the U.S. and Australia), 3 U.S states, and my students have ranged in age from kindergarten to college!

    

Personal fact - 8 years ago my husband and I sold our house and almost everything we owned and moved to Australia to live and work for a year. We are not impulsive people, but we loved the experience! We are back in the states now and we have started a family, but we always look back on that experience and still can not believe we did it!

Math Mojo's Best Seller!

TpT Store Link:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Math-Mojo

Here is a link to one of Alexis's best selling products or click on the image to the right:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Cooperative-Learning-Cards-Algebra-Rules-for-Patterns

  

What other neat information did Alexis choose to share?

I love to travel. Before having children my husband and I visited over 30 states and 9 countries including Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Now we have 3 wonderful children so our adventures are closer to home. We live in Florida and we love exploring beaches, theme parks, and all the Sunshine State has to offer!!!

_________________________________________________________________

Thanks to Alexis for sharing a little about herself with me and other viewers/followers! I find it very interesting and love getting to know a little bit about so many of you guys!

I'm jealous Alexis lives in the Sunshine State!!! 

Regards,

 

Teaching Allegories by Writing Allegories

"Using Picture Books to Teach Allegory..." post on March 21st promised a follow up with student samples. I've finally gotten a chance to take pictures of some of the allegories my students wrote. Then,  I had to email them to myself, etc. You know the drill-as far as getting pics on your computer! 


I have tons of great student work, but here are 5 snippets. After I'd taken pictures, one of my students brought in a POP-UP Children's Book---Allegory with Waffles as characters! How stinkin' cute is that?  He spent hours, and it showed! I will have to be sure to get a picture of it too! 

Poster Display with Allegory Attached

Poster Display With Allegory Attached

                           

                                     

This one is a page in the children's book one of my students created.
Crayons were her Springboard!

Poster Display with Allegory Attached.

                                                                                  

Snippet of Cover for Another Allegory!

Hope you like these! Quite of a variety of approaches were taken for this activity, and I was impressed with the results. 

Regards,

Get to Know this Innovative TpT Teacher-Author...

Jennifer Ayers of Best Practices 4 Teaching!

What grade level(s) and/or subject(s) are you currently teaching? What grade levels have you taught prior to this year?

2nd grade now; 1st and 4th previously, reading interventionist grades 1-5 also

If currently in the classroom, how long have you been teaching? If not still in classroom, how long did you teach?           

            I have taught for 17 years…

When did you join Teachers Pay Teachers as a Seller? What made you decide to become a seller?    

January 2011....I wanted to write a book but didn't have the patience, so I decided to start writing lessons and activities! Plus, I like the challenge!

What is something unique about you both inside the classroom and outside the classroom?

As a teacher:  I have led many professional developments/training sessions throughout my district and a few across the state.  I enjoy teaching teachers almost as much as I enjoy teaching my students because the challenges are different.  I love sharing my knowledge and learning new things.

Outside of the classroom:  I hope to one day be self-employed and be able to work out of my home; I am a 'wanna-be' writer and curriculum developer.  This is a well-kept secret:  I LOVE to write lesson plans.  I just don't always follow them!!  I see lesson plans as a stepping-stone for something bigger and better to spin off of.  It drives my administrator nuts!

One piece of advice you can give to a beginning teacher & one piece for a veteran teacher:     

Beginning teacher: go with the flow--education will change 100 times before you finally feel like you know what you are doing. Then, it will change another 100 times.

Veteran: I know things are changing drastically....have changed drastically....just hang in there and go with the flow!

TpT Store Link:    http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Best-Practices-4-Teaching

Blog:    www.bestpractices4teaching.blogspot.com

One of your best selling product links:    http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Skylar-Skunks-Birthday-Party-Ordinal-Number-Task-Cards-With-Pictures

What other neat information would you like to share?

I grew up in Clinton, TN, home of the first desegregated high school in the south. Now I live in Chattanooga, TN.

I have 3 degrees--the latest is my Education Specialist degree.

I am married with 2 wonderful, energetic kids, 2 cats Isabella (calico) and her 20 lb. baby boy, Teddy. Teddy always knows if I am upset and will come and sit with em. He keeps my feet warm at night. =)

Unique fact: I went to London on a high school trip in 1989, shortly after the Lockerby, Scotland airplane crash due to bombing. The night before we were supposed to leave to fly back to the states, a bomb threat was put on our plane. We couldn't change tickets...so we all called our familes at home to let them know and tell them that we loved them. Security that day was something else--every bit of our luggage and everything in our carry-ons was taken out and gone through. Not an event that is likely to be forgotten, ever.

Are there any other sites you’d like posted for others to access?

            Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/bestpractices4teachingblog