Happy 2014!

Hey everyone!  It's only the second day of the new year and I don't know about you, but my year has been fantastic so far! I feel relaxed and ready to return to school tomorrow.  I miss my fabulous fifthies and I can't wait to hear all about what they did over the winter break!  I spent time reading, organizing, watching movies, catching up on my favorite shows, and working on resources for my classroom.  I know some of you may want activities to do with your students this first week back.  I know I need them!  I have included two pages out of my latest resource, "Cheers to a New Year" for you as a little gift to help you get back into the swing of things at school.

 

 

 

 

Oh, did I mention that right now I have a {GIVEAWAY} going on over at my blog?  You can win one of two great prizes: a $20 gift certificate to TeachersPayTeachers or 14 resources from my store! Come on over and join in the fun! I'd love to have you! Just click on the link below to enter.

 

 

I hope your year is a great one filled with much joy and success!  Happy 2014 and thanks for following ATUE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read More

New Years Cooperative Games Activities

Hello ATUE Readers,

It's Kristy from the 2 Peas and a Dog blog. I cannot believe that Christmas is over and I am writing this blog post hours away from 2014. I still remember the Y2K scares and I remember ringing in the 1990's. Where does time go?

The days back to school after the holiday break are key to re-establishing and reminding students of the tone of your classroom community. This is a great time to reinforce the classroom norms, rules and expectations you have for your students. They will need time to adjust back to the routines of school after being on holidays.

The first few days back are a great time to use cooperative games in your classroom.

Earlier this year I organized a cooperative games morning for the Grade 8 students that I teach. They rotated through three stations: spaghetti tower construction, mural paper graffiti wall and quick team building activities.

1. Spaghetti Tower Construction 

Provide students with an equal amount of spaghetti (10-20 pieces per group), some masking tape and an equal amount of marshmallows (approx 4) and tell them they need to create the tallest freestanding structure as a group. Set a timer and let their imagination thrive. The key is to explain freestanding - because you will have students that try to tape all the pieces together and hold it up. Have a meter/yard stick handy to measure each groups' creation.

2. Mural Paper Graffiti Wall

Have students watch an inspiration video from You Tube or another source to get them thinking before they graffiti. A great video from You Tube is 212 Degrees: Turn Up the Heat it visually represents for students what can happen if they put one extra degree into their work. After the video have students use markers to free write their ideas onto chart or mural paper about the theme of the video. Have them use creative fonts and doodles to get their messages across. Hang up these papers around the classroom or the school. 

3. Quick Team Building Activities

Have students participate in a few of these activities to help build a community of learners. 

Bench Switch: Have a group (depending on the size of the bench and class) of students line up on a large gym bench. Then call out instructions for the students to line up by birthday, height, favourite foods etc. They must change places without falling off the bench. If anyone puts a foot on the ground the activity starts over again.

Noun Finder: Prepare ahead of time sets of noun cards (celebrities, famous places, foods, etc). When students arrive tape a card to their back and have them mingle around the room asking questions about their noun. They cannot ask others to read their card to them, but can ask many questions to try and guess what the card says on their back. 

For more team building activities check out this blog post on my site with detailed instructions and how to videos. 

Happy New Years Eve and 2014!

Kristy @ 2 Peas and a Dog 

Teacher Pay Teachers

Pinterest

Facebook

Bloglovin

Read More

New Year's Reflections: Academic and Social

With all the "pre holiday jitters" behind us, I like to encourage my students to reflect back on what they've learned so far this year, both academically and socially. 

In order to reflect on their academics, I like to use the "color by numbers" system I found on Pinterest here:

As we go over the results of a test, the kids color in the problems they got wrong, then anonymously leave them in a pile to be glued to a file folder.  This way we, as a class, can see what we need to review.  I've been doing this sort of data collection myself for ages (on a blank roster, with x's and o's instead of color) but I feel like the kids are more informed when they see not all questions are the same difficulty-wise.    

As far as fourth grade social skills go, my group this year are pretty good at working together.  Last year my group got really ratty with each other around the holidays, so I took more drastic measures which I described on my blog here.  And although it was a good experience for them, I'm going to save that activity for later this year.  Either when they really need it, or if they stay even keel, it's a nice end of the year activity. 

Instead of writing to each other to build better working relationships with each other, I'll be referring the kids to another great Pinterest find:  our GROUPS and PARTNERS posters.  I altered mine slightly to reflect the reminders needed for specific students in my class, but if you'd like similar free small posters I found them on Pinterest as shown below.

How will you get your students back into the swing of things in January?  

Amber Thomas's Classroom Favorites at Teachers Pay Teachers
Shut the Door and Teach Blog

 

Read More

Ring in the New Year with Ideas from Pinterest

Hello friends! This is Jennifer from Teaching to Inspire in 5th, and I hope all of you had a great holiday and spent some quality time with your family and friends.

Speaking of quality time, I wanted to share with you some great Pinterest boards to help you get ready for the New Year, and save some precious family time!


First up is my own personal Pinterest board for New Year's Ideas. I just started this board, so it will have tons of new freebies and ideas added over the next few days! Click here or on the image to see the board.

And here are two other great boards! Just click on the links to check them out!

New Years in the Classroom from Marcy (Simply Sprout)

Happy New Year from More than a Worksheet


I hope you find some great ideas to help you transition back to school and start the New Year off the right way!


Have a Happy New Year!

Jennifer

Read More

New Year, New Me (Mobile Activity)

Greetings My ATUE Friends!
It is so nice to be stopping by with my monthly post! I don't know about you, but I can't believe that today starts my Christmas vacation. HOLEY MOLEY! Keep the theme from Leanne, here is my take on the new year!  
    With Christmas Break knocking on our doors and the hope of a nice break from the routine of recess duty, correcting assignments, and endless meetings a heart-warming thought ready to happen, you may NOT want to think about those first few days back. After all, if you are like ME, you will want to just pretend school is our for the summer break.

     Sadly, the reality of school will hit us about December 29th, and we will hit panic mode! Now NO ONE should have to worry about the new year with New Year's Eve and Day that needs to be celebrating!

Enter the solution:

This fun activity is PERFECT for students in most every grade. Students are asked to reflect on the past year and set goals for the coming year! They look AMAZING hanging for the ceiling in your classroom, hallway, or even on the wall!

Here a couple of pictures from MY classroom:

I LOVED how they looked last year, and I am excited to see them hanging again this year! If you want a more detailed post about them, visit MY blog post by clicking HERE!

I am confident that this will be one of the best activities you will do in the new year! You can get your OWN FREE copy simply by visiting my Teachers Pay Teachers shop HERE.

From all of us here are Created by MrHughes, have a most joyous Christmas and a wonderful new year!

Mr. Hughes

Pinterest     Facebook     Blog     Twitter     Instagram    

TeachersPayTeachers     Tools for School     Teachers Notebook

Read More

New Year...New You {In Poetry}

As a writer, I have always enjoyed poetry.  There is just so much you can do with it!  As a reader, you can make inferences, determine a theme, ask questions, explore the mood, and the list goes on.  As a writer, you are able to use figurative language and add similes, metaphors, and personification to your work. So much can be studied and created with one simple poem.  Additionally, if you are nervous about exploring close reading, you can begin with a poem. Students who are usually intimidated by long pieces of text with size nine font are suddenly ready to try a close read when it is the form of a poem. I have always found a place for poetry in my ELA classroom because it is so versatile!

 

With the new year quickly approaching, students may want to create their own resolutions.  They may engage in goal setting activities to guide the remainder of their school year. A great way to encourage this type of thinking is to have each student create an "I Am" poem.  Students will truly enjoy sharing who they are and what they are about.  Spend some time discussing how the new year is a time for transformation.  Students could even write two poems:  one for who they were before the new year and one for who they are (or hope to be) after the new school year.

 

When I teach this, I begin by sharing a sample "I Am" poem such as the one below.  Although I have provided a picture of this, I did not include a copy because I think it is best when teachers share about their own lives as a model.  It is much more interesting for students to learn about you than it is for them to have a random model.  To make, use a piece of chart paper set up like this:

 

 

Be sure to model your thinking as you create your own poem so students can use the same thinking as they are writing.

 

You can copy the template from the link below to create a poster to write on if your school has a poster maker.  If not, chart paper will work!  Don't forget the technology available to you!  This could also be inserted into an interactive chart on the classroom whiteboard.

 

 

As another option, make the poem interactive!  Here are some directions for making this activity interactive.  Just click on the link to print your instructions. 

 

Below you can click to have a copy of the this version.  It would look great on patterned scrap paper or added into an interactive notebook!  These could also hang in the hallway or on a bulletin board for a cute New Year's display.  Hang them around the room and have the students do a gallery walk to learn about their peers.  If you have an idea of how to use this creatively, be sure to comment and let others know about it!

For an extra special display, have students create a collage of photos to accompany their poetry!

 

If you like these poetry activities, you can find more like them in one of my latest resources, "The Ultimate Poetry Pack."  There are over 100 pages of posters, journal activities, and poetry fun for your upper grades students!

 

 

I hope you have fun celebrating your students through poetry in the new year!  Remember to take pictures if you choose to try these activities!  We could display them on the ATUE Facebook page to share with other teachers.  (Hint:  Only photograph the poetry and not the students.  Do not include any student names in your pictures.)  Enjoy the holidays and have a Happy New Year!

 

Warmly,

 

 

Read More