Facebook Rafflecopter Giveaway!

In a recent post, I was whining -- err, commenting on the fact that I couldn't run a rafflecopter on my blog, but then I found out the most wonderful thing . . . I can run a rafflecopter on my Facebook page!

So that's what I'm doing.  If you go to my rafflecopter, you can have a chance to win a copy of my newest TPT unit, Activities to  End the School Year :  When Summer Comes.

If you would like a chance to win this fabulous resource, click on any of the pictures above to visit my Facebook page.  Click on the Giveaway Tab, and there you can enter for a chance to win this item.  The giveaway ends in 3 days.

That's it for tonight.  I have a terrible headache because I stupidly slammed the van hatchback door on top of my head after putting groceries in the back. I'm going to take two aspirin and an ice pack to the couch.  Have a good night, everyone.

Geeking out!

I've never considered myself to be much of a techno-geek, but I'm geeking out here!  First, I wanted to remind you that I'm giving away Teresa's awesome Fun in the Sun with Tic-Tac-Toe games.  You can win this by entering the Rafflecopter on the giveaway tab on my Facebook page.  I set this up last night, and I didn't set it up so that you had to like my page to enter the Rafflecopter, but I think it requests it.  I did make following Teresa's TPT store mandatory, and then following her Facebook page and blog optional.

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Click here to enter the rafflecopter or Teresa's awesome summer fun review games! Giveaway ends in 7 hours, so hurry![/caption]

So that was sort of techy-geeky, right?  But here's where I'm geeking out!!  QR codes -- not just visual, but auditory QR codes!  Oh.My. Gosh.  The possibilities are endless, right?  For my first product, I'm playing around with reading a sentence that does not have ending punctuation, and by my INTONATION, the kids have to sort the sentences into the proper ending punctuation.  Are you kidding me???   Of course, I will also make it self-checking by including a visual QR code to check their answers.  Keep an eye out for this product!

Happy Friday, all.  It's going to be a busy weekend here, with my daughter's birthday party tomorrow, and my son's Senior Youth Ministry senior night on Sunday evening.  I had a good cry putting the pictures together for the slideshow.  How did my baby grow up so fast?  (Crying again)

S'more Product Swap number 2

Hi everyone!  I'm back again with a new wonderful product to review for you!  With spring fever hitting hard and heavy, this product from Teresa Williams at 2nd Grade Pig Pen is just the ticket to keep antsy children engaged in learning!

Click here to visit 2nd Grade Pig Pen's blog for lots of great teaching ideas and resources.[/caption]

Today's product is called "Fun in the Sun Tic-Tac-Toe Games."  With its bright yellow cover and beachy theme, it is sure to catch the attention of beach-dreaming little ones.  The beach/summer theme is carried out throughout the whole product, with flop flops, strawberries, beach balls, Popsicles, surfboards, sand buckets, and other fun summery objects.

The packet includes three language arts review games and three math review games.  I have not used the language arts games yet, but they include the following:

describing words

ABC Order

Correct Punctuation

I used the three math games during a Friday game day.  My kids really enjoyed playing the three different tic-tac-toe games included in the packet.  It was a great review of skills we had already practiced.  One of the games is Number Order - Before - always a more challenging skill.

No one won this game!

Another game is Number Order - After.

And the third game is telling time, which can be played two ways for differentiation -- the children can either read the time correctly, or they can read the time, and tell the time an hour later.  Time is to the hour and half-hour.

My students really enjoyed these games, and each time they played, it came out a bit differently.  What I liked about these games was the fact that they are perfect for end of the year review, that they didn't use a ton of ink, and that the directions are right on each page.  Now that my children know how to play the math games, I have put them into envelopes for early finishers and center time.  Thanks, Teresa, for creating this wonderful product that will be fantastic for end of the year review and beginning of the year review for the next grade level.

Unfortunately, my free Wordpress blog site will not allow me to run a rafflecopter, but Teresa has offered one of her "Fun in the Sun" resources for a giveaway.  If you would like a chance to win this item, please leave a comment on my Facebook page under this post.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Practice-Makes-Perfect/319911501444232?ref=hl

I will have my random number generator, also know as whoever happens to be home at that time, pick a number on Saturday at 12:00 noon for the winner.

If you leave a comment, please consider also following Teresa's blog

http://williams2ndgradepigpen.blogspot.com/

and/or Teachers Pay Teachers store

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Teresa-Williams-8

and/or her Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/2ndGradePigPen?fref=ts

Be sure to click on the cute blue frog face to visit the other links in the collection and see the reviews on the other fantastic resources.

The Saturday Roundup!

Saturday again?!? Where is this month going?  Today it is cold, cloudy, and sometimes rainy in southwestern PA, so we are going to spend the afternoon at the museum.  For the first time in years, our son is going to accompany us on an outing.  Why, you ask?  It's all due to the influence of a girl!  He has done more with us this year than ever since he began dating his girl.  Maybe they will let me get a picture today to share with you.  Can you tell I'm ridiculously excited that he is coming with us?

So let me start up the roundup by revisiting a product I already blogged about, the Autism Friendly Puzzle Token Charts.  I revamped them a bit by adding quarter-page size puzzles so they would fit better on the desks of the students you would need to use them with.

Click here to visit my store and download my FREE Autism-Friendly Token Charts!

Have a few kids with specific behavior issues that need to be addressed? Try one of my puzzle token charts. I'm currently using them with two of my kiddos, and it's working quite well.

I recently finagled my son's tablet from him -- mentioned that I was thinking of buying one, and he said I could have his. I didn't want to just take it, and he always needs money, so I gave $100.00 for it -- and I plan on letting these two guys use some carefully selected apps as a reward when they fill their token chart. Both are currently on the 12-piece token chart, one to encourage finished work on time, and one to encourage in-seat, on-task time.

While you're at my store, if you need some Earth Day activities, be sure to check out the Earth Day story and poetry activities.  I'm so excited to use them Monday with my kids

My Earth Day story, inspired by St. Therese and her Little Way ( but the story is totally secular

Click here to see the Earth Day syllable lesson and poem writing activity, including two easy poetry forms, Haiku and acrostic poems.

Now, on to the rest of the roundup!  This Saturday, Mr. Hughes has his Share the Wealth freebie linky going on.  You're sure to find something there for the next few weeks of lessons!

And Saturday also means Primary Paradise's Top Five Freebies!

Teacher Mom of  3 has her Seasonal Saturday post up.  Meet some new sellers and see some fantastic products.

Next up is Pirate Girl and her Memory Verse Monday -- a must for Sunday School, Christian, and Catholic School teachers.  I love how she makes them relevant to the season!

Do you like to make it and take it?  If so, you've got to visit 2nd Grade Pad and check out her Thursday linky party.  Great ideas!

Remember, you can add your take it and make it link to this as well!

Mrs.  Fultz keeps us up-to-date with all the apps in her weekly App of the Week post.  Now that I've got my  hands on a tablet, I can't wait to dig into some of the apps she has posted about!

Crayonbox Learning has added a new fan freebie to her Facebook page.  You have to like her page to get the freebie.

I  hope you find some great free and paid items you can use to make  your weekly planning a little bit easier!

As always, if you have anything you'd like to add to this list, you can leave a link in the comments on my blog or my Facebook page.  Have a great week, everyone!

The Saturday Roundup - Helping You Plan for the Week Ahead

Happy Saturday, everyone! It's time for the Saturday roundup, my treasures from the blogoshpere this week!  Most will include a freebie or a giveaway of some type, and all will be great adds to your teaching this week.

First up is my own creation, Common  Core Objectives and Focus Wall.  Born out of necessity because it is now part of our observation, I had to find a way to post my learning objectives and common core objectives for each subject in a minimal amount of space.  I had one piece of a chalkboard available to me, so I created this pocket chart version of the focus wall.  For each subject I teach, I post the objective and write the common core correlations for that lesson.  The chart allows for a great deal of flexibility since you can change your objectives as many times or as little times as you need to throughout the week.

 Click here to download your free Objectives Focus Wall.

I have this available in my store for $1.50, but I am giving it to my followers as a thank you.  Just click on the above picture to download it.

Next up, did you see 2nd Grade Pad's Take It and Make It linky party?  She does this every Thursday, and you are free to link up any take it and make it ideas you have.

Click here to visit 2nd Grade Pad's Linky party.

And of course, you don't want to forget to visit Primary Paradise's weekly feature, Top Five Freebies.

Click here to visit Primary Paradise and see her top five freebies for the week!

Mondays is Pirate Girl's Memory Verse, and you can find this Monday's memory verse by clicking on the picture below.

Get your Memory Verse by clicking here.

Wednesdays, Ms. Fultz features an app review in her App of the Week.  This week it is an app to help with visual memory, concentration, and visual processing called Dyslexia Quest.

Click here to learn about the Dyslexia Quest app.[/caption]

Sugar and Spice is running a giveaway as a thank you for making her store successful enough that she was able to buy 6 tablets for her children to use!  How awesome is that?  Her giveaway ends April 19, so head over for your chance to enter.

Click here to read Sugar and Spice's inspirational use of some of her TPT earnings and enter her giveaway.[/caption]

And finally, here's an Earth Day freebie from Australia from Sea of Knowledge!

Click her to visit Sea of Knowledge and download the Earth Day freebie.

Well, that's it for the Saturday Roundup!  I hope you find some great freebies.  Don't forget to explore the stores for paid items you may need as well.  Happy Planning!

Product Swap S'More

Why is it called Product Swap S'More?  Well, because after you see all the great products reviewed, you'll definitely want S'MORE great reviews on other products!  And, this is not the only product review going on!  You can see S'MORE great product reviews by my bloggy pals by clicking on the little blue froggy at the end of this post.  Get it?

For my first product review, I picked the fabulous, funky, tie-dyed 70s-inspired unit "Peace on Earth" by Merinda Nunez Powell, also known as Pirate Girl.  I picked this unit because we started a bullying prevention program in our school after Christmas, and we have weekly meetings to learn about bullying, responding to bullying, and alternative ways to settle differences.  This unit, with it's Biblical-based teachings about Peace, was a perfect fit into those weekly meetings.

Look at all the fabulous activities you get in this comprehensive packet!

I used the first activity cold-turkey, just to get an idea of what the children thought "peace" meant.  I displayed this poster

We read it together, and then I passed out the writing and illustrating activity "

It is being friendly to other people.

What is peace? I say that peace is the peaceful resolution.

It is silence and calm.

I was pleasantly surprised at the prior knowledge the kids displayed in their writings about what peace is.  Then we took a look at Bible verses that refer to peace to get a better understanding peace.  We discussed the various verses using the task cards that Merinda includes in her packet.

There are 9 total bible verse/picture match up task cards.

The next group meeting, we read the beautiful storybook from the hymn "Let There be Peace on Earth."

The book includes the first verse of the beautiful hymn "Let There be Peace on Earth."

Two of my angels getting inspiration from the book for their own illustrations.

The peace booklets and the "What is Peace" writings, along with the Key Verse poster became a bulletin board display to go along with our Catholic Social Teachings poster.[/caption]

In the next meeting, we reviewed everything we learned about peace and tied it into bullying prevention by making a plan of action, what "I can do to promote Peace."  Again, the children had some really good ideas of what they could do to promote peace, and their reflections showed that they understand that peace begins with them and the best way to promote peace is to treat other people kindly, help other people, stick up for other people, and generally to live the way Jesus taught us to live.  Some of the kids mentioned praying for leaders of countries to work together and stop fighting as well.  We took all their writings and combined them into a class booklet for our library area.

Helping other people and take care of people and don't leave anyone out of a game. Yeah, Jesus said that, too.  Really, He did!

 Our finished class booklet.

Included in this packet are also a peace word search, peace bookmarks, a peace and love page to color, and a section that covers names of God that include the word "peace."

As I said, this is a complete package.  It would be awesome for Christian, Catholic, CCD, and Sunday School teachers.  Public school teachers would even be able to use parts of it as a morals-based or character education lesson.  It is well worth the $4.50 because you will get so many weeks of use out of it!

Now comes the fun part.  Merinda has graciously said I can give away one copy of this unit for free .  Unfortunately, my free wordpress.com site will not allow me to post a rafflecopter (grr),  so I have to do this another way.

If you leave a comment on my blog, that will be  your number.  At the end of the giveaway, I will use a random number generator (my daughter) to give me a number, and that person will be the winner!!  You can start leaving comments on Sunday, April 7, and I will pick a winner at 10:00 AM on Saturday, April 13.

Although I can't require it (no rafflecopter -- grr), Merinda and I sure would appreciate if you would follow our blogs and/or TPT stores.

Me - http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Practice-Makes-Perfect

My blog - just hit follow on the side!

Merinda -  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Merinda-Powell

Merinda's blog - http://pirategirlseducationinvasion.blogspot.com/

Good luck!

(Don't forget to check out the other product reviews by clicking on the blue frog face.)

The Saturday Roundup!

There are so many awesome freebies that are offered on Saturday that you may not be aware of,  so I have decided to do a Saturday roundup for you all.

Before I get to that, though, let me tell you about my new resource that I am super-excited about!  This time of the year, as you well know, the kids start getting spring fever, and frankly, so do I.  I have always found my spring centers to be, well, not as inspiring or as exciting as my fall and winter centers.  When I pulled out my old, ragged, broken-down spring box this year to clean it out, I wound up throwing 99% of it away.   It left me with one nice art center activity, making a spring tree.  Hmm, not good.   So I have finally been working on making some fresh, new centers for spring.  The first one I have completed is my Mixed Operation Addition and Subtraction:  The Gnome Knows.

 

Perfect spring center -- gnome, toadstool, rain. Yep, it must be spring!

I found this clipart from Ninja Girl that I fell in love with, and I knew, after checking some papers the children have done, that some of my kids need to practice LOOKING AT THE SIGN FIRST BEFORE SOLVING A PROBLEM -- you know how you can tell when they didn't look at the sign first -- and the whole center came together in two days.  Love when that happens!

Here's a few photos of the finished center.  I purposely made the + or - sign in a smaller font and red so the children would have to look at the sign closely in order to solve the problem.  I also only used sums/differences from 7 to 18 because at this point, most of the children have memorized sums/differences less than 5.  I guess I could have included 6, but I don't like having an odd number of things.  It upsets the balance.  Yeah, I'm weird like that.

The complete center set up on my side chalkboard. I used the front cover as a center header. Brilliant and it only took me 26 years to come up with that idea!

A closer view of one of the toadstools and gnomes.

And another toadstool and gnomes...

Obviously, the objective is to correctly add or subtract and get the gnome out of the rain by placing him under the correct toadstool.

To kick off my Saturday roundup, I have the worksheet I included in this packet as a freebie for you.  Of course, I hope you purchase the center to go with the worksheet, but it can stand on its own as an assessment or practice sheet.  Enjoy!

 Click here to download this freebie

Now,  for the rest of the Saturday roundup!  First up is Primary Paradise!  After taking Easter weekend off,  she's back with her Top Five Freebies of the week!  Visit Martha's blog to see what she has this week.

 

Click here to visit Primary Paradise and see her top five freebies of the week.

After that, you will want to visit An Educator's Life for Created by Mr. Hughes' Share the Wealth linky party.

And finally, while not  technically a freebie, there is a huge blog linky party going on with The Reading Olympians.  There is also a rafflecopter giveaway with it.  You might want to check that out.

Click here to learn about the Pass the Torch linky giveaway.

And one last site I just found.  It is especially appropriate in the month of April!

Find this freebie and others at Daily Autism Freebies! Click the picture to visit and explore the blog

It's so quiet at my house right now.  My hubby is away for the weekend.  My baby girl is away at Girl Scout camp for the weekend, and my son, after running in the Race for Grace (local fundraiser for Cancer Research) has headed down to the Gathering of Catholic Men.  So it's just me and the snoring dog and the two cats at the moment.  Ahhh.  I love my family, but a day of silence is not something that I get too often.  So I'm off to take a bath and do some creating.  I still need to make a literacy spring center for my classroom!    Enjoy your day!