*** Destination Vacation ***

I grew up traveling every summer with my grandparents. I love visiting places! Some of the places we went included Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, Denver, Nauvoo, Illinois, Branson, Missouri, and Kansas City, Missouri (every other year).

We would visit KC to see my aunt and uncle. Mostly we would just hang out but we would make sure to catch a Royals baseball game and visit Worlds of Fun. :)

We ALWAYS spent a week at the Oregon Coast. I don't have pictures from there because it's been way too long since I've been. We would take a camper and head to Cape Lookout State Park.

(Taken from OregonStateParks.org)

It is a great place. I spent a lot of time playing around the campsites and out on the beach. Now the Oregon Coast is not a warm beach. It is cold, I usually had to get numb to play in the water, and it has a habit of being windy, but it is gorgeous! We would walk the beach, make sand castles, fly kites and take little day trips.  We would visit Depoe Bay and Lincoln City.

I have to mention were I live…South Central Alaska! I say it collectively because if you want to see the best places, you do have to travel a little. Be prepared to pull some long days but it is an amazing place! When we have visitors our must see places include:

Palmer Reindeer Farm:

Some kind of ocean excursion out of Seward or Homer…charter fishing trip, wildlife tour, or just out on a boat of someone we know, if they don't keep moving :)

Hikes…they are all over the place! 

Musk Ox Farm in Palmer

Fishing on one of the many rivers… This is the Kenai.

This is the Russian River and yes, that is a mama brown bear with two cubs.

 Visit a glacier…pick one. This is the Matanuska Glacier

The Native Alaskan Heritage Center in Anchorage

Visit Talkeetna to try to catch a glimpse of our country's highest mountain, Mckinley AKA Denali.

Or even just a nice river float trip.

Our favorite place to eat is Moose's Tooth a pizza place in Anchorage. We don't drink but a lot of people like the place because they brew their own stuff. I just like the pizza. :) For a spendy place to eat, I also like Glacier Brewhouse in downtown/tourist area Anchorage. 

You should totally come visit! 

There are many places that I have not even touch on. 

North to Alaska! The Last Frontier!

Anchor's Away- Point of View

Now I feel a little silly and embarrassed to admit this, but this is the first anchor chart I've done this year. I blame it partly on me having to embrace and do three different scripted reading programs during my reading class (we level and split the whole grade up). I was pushing it to get all three done in the time period, let along do anything extra. 

Well, we finished one level of one of the programs and I decided to do some review before our big state tests next week. One of the topics was Point of View. I found this great freebie from Buzzing With Mrs. B and it came with an anchor chart idea and a practice packet. It came out great!

After we created the chart and talked about it, we practiced identifying what was what using the practice packet. It is the same story written three different ways. We highlighted the words that were clues to us and then identified what point of view it was written from.

This ended up being a great lesson. My kids even made connections to stories that we've read together!

Next, we are going to write our own paragraphs based on this photo...

The kids will get to choose what point of view they will take.

1st person or 3rd person (limited or omniscient)

and

Bear or Fish

Check out other anchor chart ideas at Deb's Crafting Connections.

Random Problem Check: Spark Student Motivation

I used an awesome freebie this week in teaching metric system conversion! Another plus was that it made our first day back from Spring Break a happy, non-stressful day!

I'm also linking up with Joanne! 

(Yea, yea. I know it's not Saturday, but oh well!)

My coworker, with the advanced  group, said that her kids had a hard time with it for some reason. Because of that and the difficulty they had with multiplying and dividing by 10 at the beginning of the year, I looked at what I could use to pre teach before our program lesson. I planned to start with the metric video from Brainpop.com. Then I found this measure conversion chart by Too Tired to Teach and it helped drive my lesson.

There are a couple of different mnemonics used to remember the most commonly used metric prefixes, but my favorite is

King Henry Died Unexpectedly Drinking Chocolate Milk

This freebie is slightly different using By instead of Unexpectedly, but the kids went with it.

If I had been really thinking about it, I would have dressed in black and treated the beginning of the lesson as a funeral, complete with chocolate milk as a refreshment. :)

We reviewed what each letter stood for and what each prefix means. Then we went right into how to use the mnemonic to help them convert. The chart has a great example that we walked through together. I had found a worksheet site that quickly created some conversion worksheets for me. (I already forgot which one it was. Oops.) 

I would write the problem on the board that we were going over. I was also very specific as to what they should be doing. We put our finger on the label we were starting at. We then decided if we had to move right or left to get to the label we needed. They showed me this by pointing either right or left. 

After we knew which direction we were headed, we counted how many "jumps" it took to get from our starting point to ending point. Students showed me on their fingers how many jumps it would take.

The next part was showing their work. They put their pencil wherever the decimal in the the starting number was. That meant that if the number didn't show a decimal, it was after the last digit. They then had to "jump" as many digits as they had to "jump" on their chart with their finger in the direction we had decided. If they didn't have enough digits, they had to add 0's so they could make their jump. I was very specific that I must see these jumps on their worksheet, even if they thought they could do it in their head. Lastly, they rewrote their new number next to their new label.

I was so excited that there were only a few students that seemed utterly confused by this. I took the last 5 minutes and had students work on finishing the worksheet independently. I told them that after the 5 minutes, I would call out some random problems that could be worth some treats. I figured that most off the students should be able to finish easily. While they were working, I worked with the few that were confused. What I noticed was that they seemed to be the only students who didn't go through the problems with us actually showing their work. Once I had them do that, the lightbulbs clicked!

At the end of the 5 minutes, I chose 3 problems. If a student got it correct, they lined up with their worksheet and received a couple of M&Ms. I'm not sure if it was giving them a specific amount of work time with a countdown clock or the chocolate, but I really liked that they didn't know which problems I was going to check. It also proved a point to a few of the students who dilly-dallied and didn't finished due to their choices. 

Back in the Groove…Hopefully (Five for Friday)

Time to get back in the groove!! I'm hoping to be able to post 1-2 times a week, we'll see how it goes! Spring fever is hitting here as we near Spring Break and we have had lovely weather while the rest of the country freezes. 

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs to help me get back in the habit to share random little bits about my life with you!

I was able to attend the ASTE 2015 (Alaska Society for Technology in Education) conference in Anchorage on Monday and Tuesday. It was pretty cool, yet overwhelming, to be surrounded by so much possibility! A lot of the sessions I ended up going to seemed to be geared more toward high school/middle school, but I can definitely see the possibility for my 5th graders. It makes me excited and hope that I can try a few new things just before Spring Break.

 Who wouldn't want to play an arctic fox?! There is a new video game out that has educational value! Never Alone was created to integrate information about the Native Alaskan Inupiaq culture into it. They are also in the process of creating games along the same line with other cultures around the world.

My first thought was Sheldon! Ha Ha. (Any Big Bang Theory fans?)

This is a real robot that students can use to "attend" school and still participate if they are homebound. Seriously cool! 

We used The Brown Bag Teacher's Main Idea Comprehension Passages: Animals & Habitats, which are meant for primary students today and I loved it! I have intervention 5th graders for reading, ranging from the really low to the just below grade level. This was great so that every could read the short passage on their own. We practiced highlighting and citing direct text evidence. 

Our state just switched over to new standards (not Common Core but only 7% off) and new state tests. We haven't had much, if any training on what to expect. Kind of scary! This was a great way to introduce/practice specific skills to meet their standard, but still not overload them with too much.

I love our lunch lady's door! 

She is super happy, which is a change from last year's lunch lady, and is always decorating for the season/holiday.

I love my little girl! 

Don't look at the background too close but this her first time completely dressing herself.

Her shirt is on backwards, it should have a bunch of strawberries.

She is wearing two skirts, a black one and a blue one.

:)

Enjoying the last of February with a moose. Kasila loved it! 

The next day she asked me where the moose was. 

I told her I didn't know.

Her response, "Go find moose."

Finally, the main reason I've been MIA…

Baby #2 is on it's way! 

Due Aug. 3

That is a Happy news! and news…for a teacher. 

It's going to be an interesting start to the year as I'm planning on taking off the 1st quarter and we've had a horrible time finding subs this year. Also, we are going to be having a new 5th grade team teacher as one is moving away a Tennessee. (If you have any connections, I'd love to share those with her!) 

I got a horrible cold and took a long time to recover and just the normal tired feeling. I've had to start staying away from dairy again. Also, because I started feeling nauseous more after 12 weeks, I have to be careful with sugars. Overall, it's totally worth it! We will hopefully be able to find out if this is a little boy or girl on March 13! 

Hope you all are having a fabulous start to your weekend!!

*Steph*

Wordless Wednesday: Bags

What size of bag do you take back and forth from work?

I've noticed that I get more done at school and don't bring as much home when I use my smaller purse. It's just the right size for 1 maybe 2 assignments to grade. That means more time spent focusing on my little girl and sleeping, if I wait until she's in bed to grade!

Spark Student Motivation: Out of the Norm

Have you ever had one of those class periods where you are left speechless, in a good way?

 I had it after having my math students do an activity similar to "Scoot." 

We needed a day to step back, review, and do something out of the norm.

 I had run across The Primary Gal's decimal task cards and decided to try them out, totally intending to try out "Scoot." I decided too late in the evening to print out nice color copies so I used black and white for that day. (I now have nice color, card stock copies ready to laminate.) Before I get into what we actually did with the cards, I just need to express my adoration for her task cards! I now own quite a few of her sets and they all are super cute! The font is easy to read and the graphics are clean, in color or black and white. I also really like the sizes her cards come in. Some are the normal 4 to a page, but you'll see below that some are strips or even smaller. I like that I can use less paper and ink! I think the different sizes also help engage the kids. They don't see just another 4"x5# card.

I was all set to introduce Scoot to the kids when I remembered that I have a kiddo on crutches.

He could have worked it out, but I decided to try something new, ok not really new, but different than planned. I called it "Pass" for the lack of creativity in the moment. 

I walked the route that kids would pass and gave them these directions.

1. Turn your card right side up.

2. Solve and write the answer on your answer sheet, matching the box with your card number.

3. Turn your card back upside down.

4. Pass your card when the time goes off.

Making sure they knew where to pass, they pointed where they would pass to. 

I set the timer on my Promethean board for 28 secs, (totally weird number) clicked the repeat box, reminded them that if they chose to not follow expectations they would be choosing not to participate, and said "Go" hoping that this wasn't going to be a disaster. 

My math bunch is kind of a handful. 

I was speechless.

They moved quickly and set to work on their problem. They knew that it wouldn't be long until they had a new problem to solve.

You can see that some kids are done working and another is still working. I had them turn their cards upside down when finished. That way a kid couldn't look down the row and try to work ahead. 

I mixed the Adding & Subtracting cards even though they only used the Subtracting recording sheet. I just made sure that I only had one of each number so they could have a mixed practice of making sure they were doing the correct operation. 

I'm hoping to be able to incorporate activities like this a little more often, but for now, I'm just happy that something "out of the norm" engaged them for the review!

What have you done that's "out of the norm" of every day routine? 

*Steph*

Currently…. October!

This is my first Currently link up…. Hope you are off to a great month!

I don't create products but here is a link to my {Pinterest Holiday board} with a bunch of different activities or treats for the upcoming holidays!

Check out other fun "Currently" posts and find some treats and a few tricks!

*Steph*

Monday Made It: Spray Paint

I didn't really make anything this week but I did spray paint a couple of things. :)

I didn't want white team tubs because my walls are white, so I decided to try my hand at spray painting them. I also got this cubby from a friend who is moving. It's not big enough for my students at school since I will definitely have more than 16 kiddos but it was perfect for home. 

I tend to be a messy painter, not matter how hard I try, so I put on my painting clothes (yes, I have a nice paint spot on the backside of these bottoms.)

  

It did not take long at all! It also only took one can to do my three tubs and 3/4 of my cubby. If I didn't want to the back done I could have said "Finished!" Since I don't know if I will always use it in the same space, I wanted to make sure I covered the back and as far into the cubbies as I could. 

It looks great in my entry way closet! I'm hoping this will help keep our shoes out of the way and easy find. (Notice, my husband only has one cubby for his Sunday shoes. He usually takes his off in the garage.)

I go back to school officially this week. Eekk! I'm not ready at all. Oh well, it's going to come ready or not. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

*Steph*

My First Giveaway…Favorite Things…{$370 Amazon}

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,

Pencils all sharpened and baskets for turn in,

Borders and labels and crayons galore,

This is my favorite thing and more!

I love that song and that movie! 

Anyways, I'm am super excited to be able to participate in my first ever giveaway! If the song didn't give it away, I'm here to share about my favorite back to school item.

Fiskars Guillotine Paper Cutter

Now, this wasn't my favorite thing for school my first year. In fact, it was a Christmas present from my grandmother for scrapbooking at home. I realized that I had things to cut and didn't alway enjoy the walk across the school and down the stairs to the work room to use the paper cutter. I brought this to my classroom and it has a nice home there. 

I love it for a few reasons…

-A guillotine is a lot cleaner than the slider cutters.

-It is great to have a personal cutter in your classroom for those last minute tasks.

-You don't have to spend an insane amount of time in the work room with people waiting in a line behind you.

- This specific guillotine cutter is super lightweight and easy to carry. It even has a handle to carry it by.

- I can easily bring it home and chop away while watching a show (after my little girl has gone to bed).

Thanks for stopping by to check out my blog and for a chance to win some great prizes!

Good Luck to All and have an A-Mazing year!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out these other must have back to school items!

An InLinkz Link-up