Monday Made It

I'm linking up with 4th Grade Frolics to show you my Monday Made Its! 

Do you work with people you love? I do! I have the best team, but my favorite part of loving my coworkers is that I work with my best friend! She got hired a week or two before me and I swear I don't know how people get through their first year of teaching without their best friend by their side! Yikes! I digress…this week we did some major school supply shopping, so I've been busy getting the supplies ready! New math and science journals with sweet clip art from Krista Wallden. 

Then I labeled each table supply with a color of scotch tape. Each team gets their own color, and is in charge of keeping up with their own supplies. In other words, "Ain't nobody got time for that!" And I really don't y'all. It never failed last year that we would be in the middle of reading a story at our carpet area and some sweet, misguided child would end up half way across the room shouting, "WHOSE BROWN MARKER?!?!?!!!!" I may be a little dramatic, but I'm really thinking this new system will save some time and sanity. 

Last year I had a friend who had some SERIOUS attendance issues. I was banging my head on my desk trying to think of a way to get them to come to school when I remembered something I'd heard during student teaching. There was a teacher at my school who used, "Attendance Lights." When I brought that fresh strand of twinkle lights into my classroom, my students were thrilled! It's simple, when everyone is at school, lights go on! When we have absent members of our class, the lights stay off. My student still missed many days, but his 2 absences a week went down to 1, and he even had some perfect attendance weeks! This year I made them a little fancy by adding fabric scraps. I cut 2 in. by 7 in. strips of fabric and then tied them on in a pattern. 

I wanted to make these last year, but never got around to it. (First year teacher brain, ya know?) So after I made birthday homework passes, (50% off in my TPT store!) I attached them to crazy straws. Ready to go for the whole year! 

Last but not least, my favorite garage sale find! A gum ball machine. This guy was broken and disgusting when I found him. And while it still doesn't function as a gum ball machine, it will be the perfect class incentive! Students will earn a handful of pom-pons every time they get a compliment from another teacher or staff member. When it is full, we vote on a class reward. (No shoes, reading with pillows and blankets, and electronic time-to name a few.) 

Thanks for stopping by! Make sure you enter my $25 Erin Condren gift card giveaway! 

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Saturday Snapshots

I'm linking up with Run! Ms. Nelson's Got the Camera for Saturday Snapshots. 

I was looking for a ring holder for awhile before I found this guy at Target. I love him. I don't constantly take my rings off to sleep, but when I do, I love that I have a safe and pretty place to keep them. I can't believe we've been engaged for almost a year! Time flies! 

 Speaking of being engaged, I love hydrangeas. We're using a ton for our wedding. I love having them in our house. :) 

Speaking of wedding flowers, this is my flower girl! I love this sweet baby to the moon and back. I wish I lived closer...or that I could teleport. It's been too long since I've seen her. 

This super fun cup was given to me by one of my sweet team mates. I have the best team and this is the best cup! 

 Now on to some school stuff! My teacher table pencils had duct tape flags so my kids wouldn't walk off with them. It worked! I only lost a few during the year! I know many teachers keep pencils lead side up. That drives me nuts! I've accidentally stabbed myself trying to get a pencil when they are lead side up…and I'm a 23 year old! I think it's way to dangerous for the littles. So I wadded up some plastic and put it at the bottom. It's a great cushion for the pencil points. 

Here are some pictures of my "Welcome" banner pencils printed out! I just need some cute ribbon and this banner will be ready! It will read, "Welcome to third grade."

Last, but not least, one of my math game bundles in action! Students take the gum multiples and place them onto the gum ball machine factors: 

You can click the pictures to go to their product listing in my TPT store. 

And don't forget to enter my $25 Erin Condren gift card giveaway! 

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Five for Friday and an Erin Condren Giveaway

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! 

I have an exciting announcement coming up! But more on that later…

This FREEBIE is available in my TPT store! 

Do you ever feel like putting your students into partners takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R?! Well this is my solution:

Students find five partners and write their names down (one for each number). That way, when you need kids to partner up, you can say, "Partner three," and students will find the person who is #3 on their list. 

In my classroom, I will assign their first two partners or three partners and then I will let them pick the remaining partners. 

When we first set this up, I will explain it to my students, and then tell them to find a partner. (Not the person I assigned as their number one or two.) Once they are standing with that partner, they will write the OTHER person's name down on their own paper. We will repeat this process for the rest of the number slots. 

My students will keep this in their "Reference" folder. (More on that as I get closer to back to school time!) 

 I've talked about my Welcome Back Bundle a couple times. Now I've taken the pencil welcome banner, as well as the "We are…" sign and separated them. So if you just want one of those, you can pick it up without buying the whole bundle! 

I bought some goodies for my classroom! I'm going to stick to the same blue, lime green and red theme. I love blue and green (don't we all!) and I love the addition of red because then my Texas Tech stuff fits in! Wreck 'Em Tech! 

I started my Instagram (Livin_the_Third_Grade_Dream) a week ago and just hit the 100 follower mark! Wahoo for mini-milestones! (If you scroll all the way to the bottom of my blog, there's an Instagram logo that will take you to my account.)

Here are some other things I've added this week:

(You can click any of the pictures to find out more.)

Drum roll please…

My first Giveaway! I'm so excited to announce my first ever Giveaway for an Erin Condren $25 gift card! 

You can enter many different ways! Follow my TPT store, my (brand new) Facebook and several other ways! 

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Wonderful Word Problems

Today I knew I had to design something with these precious crayons! 

So today I made these addition and subtraction word problem operation sort. I can already see myself using it during tutoring or Saturday school! And I just love those little crayon by Krista Wallden! 

If you're needing some multiplication word problems for next year, take a look at these! They're two digit by one digit. These task cards are designed for around the room math! 

This set of cards is a self-checking set. That means that once students solve the problem, they look for the apple that has the product they found.That is the next word problem they solve. Then they find the apple that has that product and so on. They will know they are done when they get all the way back to the card they started at. This is one circle of problem solving, so students could start at any problem, and they would still finish at their first card. 

A little more about around the room math: 

I'm not sure if everyone does this, but my team used this idea a lot! Around the room math is great because it involves independent thinking, practicing the skill, physical movement and differentiation. Students can move at their own pace. When I do around the room math in my classroom, I often have some kids working with a partner and others working independently. You can also make mental notes about when to check in with students. If Johnny has a problem with multistep problems, when I see he is at the multistep problem, I know I need to check in with him. It's also a great time to introduce a challenge problem! While students are working on the cards around the room, you can call students over for a challenge, or even reteach. The possibilities are endless! 

Wild About...Less than greater than

I am so excited to be done with this Wild About... set! EEEEK! Wild About...Less than/greater than!

It is FREE for the next 10(isn) hours, so you late owls and early birds, grab it ASAP! 

Five For Friday

Today I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! 

I just posted, in my TPT store, the first two parts of my Wild About... games, featuring these precious zoo animals. 

First is Wild About...Fact Families! 

I am *SO* excited to use these next year. I love the QR code for checking answers! 

Second came Wild About...Multiplication

This contains two digit by one digit multiplication task cards. 

Right now I'm working on Wild About...Greater than/Less than games. 

Here's what I have so far!

I love listing products as free for the first 12-24 hours, so if you want a chance to grab this for free, follow my TPT store! 

I got an Instagram! I mean, I've had one for forever, but I made one for my blog and TPT store. It has been really depressing exciting to see everyone's Vegas pictures! I love how quickly I can share ideas on Instagram. No offense blogger, it's just so easy! 

Instagram: Livin_the_third_grade_dream

Oh Target...you get me every time. I went for toilet paper and soap and walked about with $50 of classroom "essentials." I'm sure I'm preachin' to the choir! (How could I say no to $3 outdoor pillows?! Obviously I couldn't!)  

Hello beach balls! I've already started making these fun inflatables into valuable classroom tools! Come back for Monday Made It to see how I'm going to use them in my classroom!

(My Five for Friday is really a Four for Friday, but it's summer, so who's counting?!)