Prefixes, Roots, and Suffixes


Classroom Setup, ELA, Fourth Grade, Third Grade, TpT Store

One of the bulletin boards I always set up at the beginning of the year is my Greek and Latin Prefixes, Roots, and Suffixes board. It starts out blank, but by the end of the year, it is packed with cards and we refer to it quite often as we are reading or discussing vocabulary. Some years I just add cards as we go, sometimes I post them by word part, and one year we had so many cards that I took them down halfway through the year and put them back in alphabetical order. I’ve been adding new cards […]

Social Distancing Greetings


Classroom Setup, Daily Life, Fifth Grade, Fourth Grade, Kindergarten, Printables, Second Grade, Third Grade, TpT Store

I still don’t know what our school has planned as far as in-person, virtual, or hybrid learning. But I know that at some point we will be back in the building. So, in preparation, I created a set of social distance greeting signs. Hopefully, they will help students connect with one another, even while being far apart. In past years, I’ve tried doing the individual greetings with each child, but I was never great at remembering what steps there were for each child. I’m thinking I may try it again this year, and with a visual reminder of the choices,

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Mini Anchor Charts


Classroom Setup, Daily Life, DIY, ELA, Fifth Grade, Fourth Grade, Math, Printables, Third Grade, TpT Store, Writing

I love anchor charts. I hate hanging anchor charts on my walls. They either take up precious bulletin board space, or they constantly fall down (or just wave at me from one droopy corner). So, a few years ago, I created a set of mini anchor charts for my tables using IKEA’s Tolsby Frames. After much frustration to get everything just the right size, I finally had a small set of charts. Multiplication chart, synonyms for overused words, math talk stems, commonly misspelled words, and more. And I also made some cute motivational cards to keep it fun and positive!

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Printable Post-Its


Daily Life, DIY, ELA, Fifth Grade, Fourth Grade, Printables, Second Grade, Third Grade, TpT Store, Writing

A friend asked if I had ever used or created printable Post-Its to use in my classroom. A logical question, since I do love Post-Its! While I had never printed on them before, my curiosity was piqued and I was on it the next morning! It took a few days, but I finally had a full set of printables that I could see myself using in the classroom (whenever we head back, that is!) Positive notes of praise, notes of encouragement to keep going, sentence starters for those days when I want to be more specific, writing checklists (my stamp

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Gratitude Journal


Fifth Grade, Fourth Grade, Homework, Printables, Third Grade, TpT Store

Last fall, I did a Gratitude Journal with my students. Every day, for 42 days in a row, they had to write down 3 things they were grateful for, or write about how they were grateful that day. At the end, they did two short reflections. For students who are used to only having homework Monday through Thursday, there was a bit of a grumble at the beginning when they had to do work on the weekends. But by the end, many were sad to see the project end. Here are a few things my students said they were grateful

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Brag Tags


Daily Life, Fifth Grade, Fourth Grade, Homework, Printables, Second Grade, Third Grade, TpT Store

We have a program at my school where students are encouraged to set weekly goals, and long term goals. I find that after a while, kids set the same goals week after week. “I want to pass my math fact test” or “I want to read x number of minutes.” I am also a teacher who likes to present extra optional challenges to my kids, and sometimes they are accepted, and other times ignored. We also do the MindUP program, which encourages qualities such as optimism, gratitude, perspective taking, happiness, etc. Some tricky concepts for some children! If only I

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TpT Sitewide *BONUS* Sale Day!


TpT Store

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I love Teachers Pay Teachers! I tried to get all of my back to school goodies a few weeks ago when they had their annual sale, but now that they’re throwing another one day sale, I’m sure I’ll be buying more!  I have put everything in my store on sale for the occasion, too!

Everyday Math Chapter Review Cards


Assessment, Fourth Grade, Math, Printables, TpT Store

I finally finished my goal of converting all of my review cards for the chapters into digital files. I’ve been using random sized index cards with hand drawn pictures and scratched out errors for long enough, and my summer tutoring along with the TpT sale days were enough motivation to get me to finish the digital conversion! Each chapter has a set of task cards, an answer sheet (and answer key), and a set of mini-cards to send home for students to study from. You can get one chapter at a time, or buy the bundle (only chapters 1-11 though…

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Severe Weather Project – Pyramid Dioramas


Cooperative Learning, Fifth Grade, Fourth Grade, Science, Third Grade, TpT Store

This year, the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade classes got together to do an end of the year project which we named Biome Bonanza. We put the students into mixed grade level groups, and had each group choose a biome to study. Once biomes were assigned, the 5th graders researched the biome itself and created a trifold, the 3rd graders each chose a country within the biome and put together a country report and short powerpoint, and my 4th graders studied a type of severe weather in the biome and created a pyramid diorama. Then, they had to work together

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Math Challenge – Presidential Math


Fifth Grade, Fourth Grade, Homework, Math, TpT Store

With every unit in math, I give out a math challenge that reviews some of the major concepts from the previous unit. I had a challenge for mean, median and mode, but it turned out to be far too complicated, which meant I had to create something new. I figured social studies and presidents would be a good tie-in. So here it is, the Presidential Math Challenge! You can view it on my TpT Store.