Monday Made It! 6/22

Hey y'all! I  am loving summer break and having time to create, cook new recipes, and workout.  Here is a few of my made its from this week! 

 

While browsing through Pinterest I came across these super cute classroom rule posters.  The rules were perfect and they matched my classroom so well, so I just had to purchase them on TPT.

After I downloaded these, I went and printed them at Office Depot.  I didn't want to use all our black ink at home.  I set out to find some 8x10 frames, so naturally I headed to the dollar store.  I found some black frames that would be perfect (and of course I found some other goodies at the dollar store too...you can never have too many storage containers).

I cut the posters to fit the frames with my paper cutter.

I put the posters in the frames and  I love the way they look!  I like having just a few big rules that encompass so many things. I can't wait to hang these up in my classroom and use them as references throughout the year.

 

Like I said, I have been trying some new recipes.  I found this recipe for Chicken Stir Fry on Pinterest and let me just tell you it is delicious and so easy! Click here to enjoy this recipe!

This year we are not purchasing planners, so I decided to create something that my students could write on each week to keep track of what we are studying, homework assignments, and any upcoming events.  I got this idea from this Pin.

So, I created this:

 

I will just copy of a bunch of these at the beginning of the month and cut them in half, so we will be good to go for the month.  I think this will be great for my kids and parents.  I think that having this half sheet of paper right in their homework folder will be a lot more likely to seen. I am excited to see how this works!  Feel free to download this for free from my TPT store.

Hopefully I will have some more to add next week! Happy Monday!

Spelling Homework

I have been working on updating my spelling homework and this is what I came up with.  I give my students the Words Their Way Spelling Inventory spelling assessment at the beginning of the year, and the reassess them on the same assessment throughout the year.  This assessment decides which spelling list my students will be given. 

I have a total of three lists.  Each one is a different color and students know their color and write down their words on Monday.  Once we get back to school I will post a picture of how I display the lists.

This Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe I made can be used with any spelling list. I assign my students 10 words each week based on their spelling levels. They are given the words on Monday and have to complete three of the the tic-tac-toe tasks by Friday. Completing three tasks each week gives them one night to just study them. On Friday, they take their spelling test and turn in the tasks they have completed. 

My students will keep this tic-tac-toe sheet in a sheet protector in their notebook, so that I don't have to copy it each week. On Monday, I just give my students a sheet of paper to write their spelling words down and then they staple their list to their completed tasks on Friday.

In the download, I have included the page for them to write their words down.  There are three per page, so just print and then cut them to save on paper. I included examples on the spelling tic-tac-toe, so that my lower students will have access to them.

I get my spelling words from this website: http://barton.mpls.k12.mn.us/words_their_way.  They have great leveled lists to pull words from each week. You can purchase this Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe from the TPT store. Let me know how you implement spelling homework in your classroom!

Back at Blogging

Well, it has been almost two years since I have posted.  A great deal has happened in those two years.  I got married, learned a new grade level, and bought a new home with my husband.  Things seem to have settled down a bit, so I am going to give blogging another try!

This was a great year in fifth grade!  We learned a lot, gained new friends, and had a ton of fun.  I especially loved the last few weeks of school.  We practiced our graduation ceremony (which went great!), enjoyed a picnic, and completed several STEM activities.  My students loved these activities.  It was awesome to see them apply all of the skills we had been working on all year.

We did the Egg Drop Parachute Challenge, Spaghetti Tower Challenge, Boat Design Challenge, and Catapult Design Challenge. My students surprised me with all their awesome ideas.  They thought of ideas I would have never thought of.  When we completed the Egg Drop Parachute Challenge, most of the groups were successful, which was awesome!  However, my class wanted to see some eggs crack! We decided to remove the parachutes from their designs and see how their eggs would fare.  There were broken eggs everywhere!  This was definitely their favorite part.

These activities were an awesome way to end a fun year. I purchased most of these activities on TPT.  Just search STEM activities and a ton of choices will be available for you.

This is a picture of one of the towers from our Spaghetti Tower Challenge. The goal was to build the tallest tower with the available supplies, but the trick was that they had to balance a large marshmallow at the top. My students came up with some great solutions and of course we had to eat some marshmallows too! :)