Five for Friday and a Freebie!

A lot has been going on this week, so I am super excited to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching with their Five for Friday!

#1....
With Thanksgiving around the corner, I made a fraction riddle for my students to do next Friday.  It's free, so go pick it up!

We'll be studying converting between mixed numbers and improper fraction and adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators.  So this riddle has some of both, including reducing the answer to get simplest form.

I'm linking this up with Teaching Blog Addict's Freebie Friday!

#2...
This week is National Young Readers Week, and my school has been having a blast encouraging the students to become "Wild Readers."  We had an author come speak to the students yesterday.  He got my students so excited about writing that some have already started writing their own stories!  Today, our principal set up camp, literally, in our front foyer.  She had a tent, rocking chair, and the area was decked out in a cabin theme.  She read to all of our students (in 10 minute increments) throughout the whole day.  They absolutely loved it!

#3....
We did a few cut-and-paste activities this week, which my students love.  Playing with scissors and glue is so much fun to them (who knows why?), but I am just glad they really seemed to internalize the information that was included!

#4....

This Monday was our Open House and 5th grade Veterans Program.  The students helped me get the room all clean and pretty to show off to the parents.  We had work samples sitting out on their desks for the parents to see what we have been doing in 5th grade.  

The Veterans Program was AMAZING!  The students did an awesome job with their singing and skits!  There were four super proud 5th grade teachers.

#5....

Last night our local high school put on a production of Disney's High School Musical.  The kids killed it!  The singing was awesome, the acting was superb, and the set was AMAZING!  Plus, it was really good seeing my old students rockin' their skills!  Some of the most quiet students I ever had were up there singing and dancing their hearts out.  Such a great night!

I'm really looking forward to sleeping in this weekend.  Have to get ready for this last week before our 9-day Thanksgiving Break!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Fun with Personal Finance

This week my students are learning all about personal finance.  We have discussed income, taxes, budgeting, and, of course, bank accounts!  Before we learn about balancing a checkbook, I wanted make sure that my students could determine whether a situation meant we would be depositing money into our "bank accounts" or withdrawing money.

A sort was definitely the way to go!  Anything using scissors and glue makes the students super happy.....so why not give it to them?

Students cut out the sort, after picking the color of paper they wanted, and worked in groups to decide in which column the given situations should placed.

I gave the students about 12 minutes to cut out the sort and discuss with their group.  Then we discussed each situation, and the students had to explain how they knew that it was a deposit or withdrawal, ex) "Since we bought the new iPhone, we had to take money out of the account to pay for it."  I know it sounds obvious, but it's super important to me for the students to be able to verbally justify everything we do in class, even the easy stuff!

After we agreed that each situation was sorted into the correct column, the students glued it to a piece of paper and put it into their Math ISN.

Here's the sort if you would like to use it....and it is free!

Now we are ready to balance those checkbooks!!!

Have a great Thursday!

Cut and Paste....and Some Fun for All!

Today was the first day of our personal financial literacy unit, and the students have some vocabulary that they have to memorize.  While we will be discussing these words throughout the week, I wanted the students to have them in their Math ISN.  But just copying the words can be soooooo boring! I made a quick and easy matching activity.  

Students cut out the words and definitions and used the textbook glossary to match them up correctly and put the page in their Math ISN.  You can see that some of my students just decided to leave the column of words and cut the definitions out separately.....good thinking and problem-solving skills at work!!!

Today, we focused on income and taxes, and students used this resource to help them determine which type of income or tax the given situations described.

Now onto the fun stuff....

Someone had fun at Dollar Tree this weekend....... :)

Some fun stuff for the classroom.....

Some fun stuff (and smell good stuff) for me.......

And some fun stuff for the students........ hello, treasure bucket!

I'm pretty sure I got a little carried away, but it was so worth it!!!  What kind of stuff do you like to buy for your classroom?

Have a great week everyone!

Multiplying and Dividing Decimals....Task Cards

This year is full of new math concepts for 5th graders in Texas.  We have new students standards, and multiplying and dividing decimals are just some of them.  Luckily, when I taught 7th grade math, these concepts were in my curriculum.  So at least I have taught them before!  But, teaching them to 5th graders is soooooo different, mainly because 5th graders are not as confident in themselves when it goes to multiplication and long division.  

We spent a lot of time practicing multiplication and long division.  My students rocked those skills! I could just see their self-confidence rising as the weeks passed.  When we added the decimals to the skills, it was easy-peasy! (Whew!)

I am starting to really challenge my students with high rigor word problems.  After all, that is what our district and state assessments are!  We played Decimal Around the World on Monday.  This allowed us to talk through the word problems, decide which method we wanted to use to solve the problem, and work out the solution.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the students worked with partners on the task cards that I made.

They did an amazing job talking through the problems together!  I just love walking around the room and hearing their discussions!

Not only do the students have to solve higher-level thinking problems, but they also have to solve using decimals models.  Most of my students were able to solve the answers in their head and could not understand why they had to use the models....but, even if they couldn't, I saw how using the models really helped them understand why the decimal was placed in the solution where it was.  I included the models in the task cards....

When we took the district assessment on this unit on Thursday, the students did AMAZING!  I can't wait for the people at our administration to be able to look at those results....Proud teacher right here!

Now we are on to a week of Personal Financial Literacy....the perfect unit to reinforce decimal operations!

Hope you have a great week!

Sunday Scoop 11/9/14

Linking up for the first time with Teaching Trio for their Sunday Scoop!

So here's the "Scoop" on my day and week.....

Starting a fractions unit that is divided up with a week off for Thanksgiving is stressing me out!  So, you can tell that I'm trying to plan ahead.  Fun activities are a must that week before Thanksgiving because we all know that the kids (and me) will be antsy waiting for our 9 days off!

Have a great week!

Five for Friday....

It's time for Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

One.... I finished the task card set I worked on all last week! Wahoo!  It took forever for me to just finish it so that I could put it on TpT.  My students loved it and stayed engaged while collaborating to solve the higher rigor problems.  Hallelujah!

Two.... Today is the football game between the two high schools in my town.  It is a HUGE deal to everyone.....I mean, today the town is DIVIDED!  I grew up in Forney, and was a Forney Varsity Cheerleader.  So tradition says, "Go Rabbits!"  But I teach on the north side of town, so I have taught the majority of the player on the North Forney team.  So it's not just a town divided....I'm divided!!!  

But I'm sitting on the North Forney side tonight, cheering on the Falcons, wearing blue and white, and running through the Falcon tunnel with all of my current and former students..... while my sister, brother-in-law, and niece are sitting on the other side of the stadium wearing black and gold!

Three....  OMG!  I can't believe it's been ten years since I used to wish that I was dating Carmine! Hahaha!  Monday cannot come fast enough!!!!

Four....  My best friend, Lindsey, loves to get craft ideas off of Pinterest.  Then she usually ropes me into doing them with her.  The problem is, they never end up being as easy as they say or look on Pinterest!  Latest project...yarn-wrapped letter.  Word of advice....DON'T DO IT!  After 4 hours, this was the end result.  It's cute, but not perfect.  But, hey, we had fun bestie bonding time!

Five....  This was on my Facebook News Feed, and I'm thinking this is a craft project that I can do!  So, I'm thinking this may be getting done tomorrow!

This has been a great Friday...did I mention that it was a jeans day at school!?!?!  There's nothing better than a Friday with jeans! :)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Currently November!

It's time for a fun linky with Farley!  Go check out her page for some laughs and good times....

Listening...... 

Sons of Anarchy is one of my most favorite shows!  All the drama, violence (eek!), and plot twists anyone could want.  Not to mention, a super handsome main character (Hello, Jax!).

But it comes at 9:00 and goes until 10:30....and with the time change and school in the morning, there is no way this girl can stay up that late!  So I record it every week and watch it before the yawns take over.  Because who wants to be tired when they see this...

Loving.....

A cold front has come through, so it is officially winter in Texas, I don't care what the calendar says!  It seems like we went from summer to winter, without a fall in between.  So with temperatures in the 40s and 50s, this Texas gal is super thankful for the warm, soft blanket that I got from my parents for Christmas last year!


Thinking.....

Not like I've ever been a person who loves to work out, or makes it a priority, but the stress of implementing new curriculum this year has really stopped any activeness I may have had.  But things are flowing better at work......but my pants sure aren't fitting better!  So I fired up the old treadmill today and walked for 20 minutes.  Not a lot of time, but the incline kills me!  Pretty sure I won't be able to walk tomorrow....

Wanting.....

I'm with Farley on this.  Colder weather means that new boots are needed!  I really want some (fake) Ugg boots.  I mean, I'm a single teacher....where are all the deals at?  Help me, fellow bloggers! :)


Needing.....

Yeah, I'm pretty sure my pants would fit better if I craved celery instead of the warm, soft Subway chocolate chip cookies.

Reading.....

"Story's End" by Marissa Burt.  It's pretty good so far, and I can't wait to find out the conclusion to what happened in the first book!

I bought around 25 books from the Scholastic book order last month in order to put new fun books in my classroom library.  But I really wanted to read the books before the students got them and bent the spines and page corners.  So, I've read about 15-18 books in the past three weeks (which is doable since they are all 5th grade books).  I'm almost done with that order of books....just in time for November's book order! :)

BTW...my favorite books that I have read so far are definitely the Maze Runner series.  So much better than the movie!

Hope you have a Happy November!!!