Monday Made It: September (A Day Late)

I've been busy working on all kinds of project this past month, but I was a little behind writing about all of them!  Here is my Made It Monday: September!  Sorry it's a day late!

 I really wanted some kind of whole class reward system for both of my classes.  I found this at First Grader at Last.

Here is my version

I used a little washi tape to spruce up the pans.  I found the brownie image through Google and they look so real!!!!

 My second project was quite the under taking!  My huge wall of windows needed some curtains! This is the final product!

I used lots of math to complete this project and you can read about the details here on my Math IS Real Life post for September.

Finally, here is a little tutorial for making a burlap wreath.

Here all of the supplies I used.  I bought the burlap at Wally world for $3 a yard!

Cut the burlap into 4 inch strips.  This little tip was a life saver for making straight cuts!

Cut squares that are approximately 4 x 4 inches.

This is how may squares I got out of my yard of fabric.

Fold each square so it bubbles.  I tried to pin them on the wreath but they didn't stay.  I resorted to hot glue and that worked great!

Here is the first row complete.

Keep adding burlap bubbles until you are satisfied with the look.  I glued some of bubbles together so you couldn't see the wreath.  

Here is the final product!  I glued some fall colored flowers to the side and it looks so cute!  It is now hanging on my classroom door showing that I am ready for fall regardless of the temps in the 90's!  

Don't forget to go check out all of the other projects for the month!

Five for Friday

How is it that short weeks alway wear me out the most???!!!!  I'm so happy that it's Friday and it's time for ...

We had a very busy week, but it was a really good one!

 We took advantage of the Labor Day Weekend sales and we bought a new sectional!!!!  The current sofa set we have is looking a little rough and we needed an upgrade.  We were going to buy a custom sectional, but the sample one in the store went on sale and we were able to get a 4 piece sectional for what we were going to pay for a 3 piece custom sofa.  We got a great deal and our sales tax paid for!  It will be here at the end of the month, just in time for all the guests we will be having around the holidays! Here it is in the store.

 I said in my Peek at My Week post, that I was going to be tackling subtraction this week in math.  Well I did my introduction lesson on Tuesday and my kids were bored!  I went home upset and decided I needed to find something different that would help my kids practice subtraction, but that would be fun and exciting!  I found this wonderful project from Teaching with a Mountain View.

This is a great project that is real world and has the students practicing addition and subtraction!  My kids have loved working on this project this week.  They have been so engaged and love coming to class.  I've also added a writing component to the project and my students are having to write journal entries telling what they did during their vacation.  A little creative writing in math never hurt anyone! :) I also have a personal connection to this project because I spent 6 weeks in Ireland and Northern Ireland in college as part of a study abroad program.  I've been able to share my pictures and experiences with my students and it's been a great way to share part of me with my students!

 I finally got my laptops out this week!  It was exciting and frustrating all at the same time!  All we did was log in and I ended up have several issues with kids being locked out and/or having the wrong username and password.  I'm working with our technology department to get these issues fixed.  I'm trying to plan for how I'm going to take all of the projects I'm currently working on including the one above with my laptops.  It's going to be interesting getting this all set up.

 We went to our first Jr. High football on Thursday!  Ainsleigh had a great time and our little family looks great in kelly green and navy blue!

I have to give mad props to my husband this week!  He is training for his second marathon that he will run in November.  He got up 3 days this week before 5 AM to go run 4-7 miles each day!  I'm so proud of his hard work and dedication to his training.  He is such an inspiration!  I need to get my butt in gear!

What happened in your life this week? Don't forget to go check out the linky party and what everyone was up to this week!

Math IS Real Life: Curtains!

MATH IS REAL LIFE

Today I'm linking up with 

for Math IS Real Life!

I've posted my classroom reveal and I really love how my classroom looks this year, but I really wanted to make some curtains for my big wall of windows.  I love my windows after being in the dungeon last year, but I wanted to add a homie feel to my room with the addition of some curtains! Here are the windows before the curtains.

  There are a total of 8 windows but there is only a break in the middle of the wall.  I knew that I would need to make 8 individual curtains - one for each window - because I wouldn't be able to to hand one SUPER long curtain.   I went to school and busted out the measuring tape - math use number 1.

 Each window measured 44 1/2 inches wide and since I only wanted the curtains to be half the length of the window, the length ended up being 32 inches.  I added an inch to each side for seam allowances and got 46 1/2 by 34 inches.  I then did a little multiplication.  46 1/2 X 8 and got 372 inches.  Fabric is sold in yards, though so I had to do a little converting. 372 divided by 36 = 10 1/3 yards.  Here is a look at how I did the math.

With my measurements in hand, I headed to Hobby Lobby to find the perfect fabric to match my cute orange, teal, chevron, and owl room.  This is what I found! Perfect teal chevron!!!!

Then I ran into a problem... The bolt was only 10 yards long.  I would need another 1/3 yard but not just a 1/3 by itself.  I sat with the helpful ladies at the cutting counter trying to figure out how to cut two separate pieces of fabric so that I would have enough for the last window in a single piece of fabric.  Instead of using the 46 1/2 measurement, we rounded up to 48 inches or  1 and 1/3 yards since that would give me a couple of inches for gather and and we could get the correct amount of fabric for each of my curtains.  I ended up getting one piece that was 9 and 1/3 yards and a second piece that was 1 and 1/3 yards.

When I got home, I realized that if I wanted the chevron to go horizontally instead of vertically, then I had to change my measurements again!  I cut the fabric into one yard sections (for the length) using my trusty yardstick, and then I had excess across the top for lots of gather!  When I changed the direction I was cutting the fabric, I was actually able to make 10 curtains that each measured about 46 inches wide. I decided that this was a benefit because then I could overlap the curtains on the rod for extra fabric.  

I decided that I didn't really want to sew, so I used iron on hem tape instead.  I ended up standing at the ironing board for a total of 3 hours over the course of the long weekend! And to take the no sew even further, I hot glued pieces of ribbon to the back of each curtain to use to hang the curtains. 

I took all 10 curtains to school to hang on my wall of windows.  I bought 8 adjusting curtain rods to use to hang the curtains.  Since I had no walls to put the rods between, I had to use some command hooks to solve my problems.  

Now the command hooks I needed come in pack of three, but I needed 2 hooks per window.  So 2 packs would cover 3 windows, 4 packs would cover 6 windows, 6 packs would cover 9 windows.  I only needed 16 hooks, but I had to buy the 6th pack to have enough with 2 leftover.  This is going to be a great math problem for my kids next unit!  I finally got all the rods up with the curtains - some overlapping, and this is the final product! The lighting is terrible because the sun is coming through, but they look great! I'm so happy with how they turned out!

How are you using math in your real life?

Tech Tuesday: Scootpad Edition

Ok, so it's already 9:15 and I'm tired, but I really want to share with you all this little web based tool for you classroom.  Welcome to Tech Tuesday: Scootpad Edition.  Maybe I'll work on a button for this, but that's for another day!

Ok, so Scootpad is a great resource for math, reading, and spelling practice. It's free to sign up and they make easy by letting you sign up/in with Facebook or Google.  I used Scootpad at the end of the school year last year as a way to keep my students engaged and working up until the last day.  They really loved it!  Now that I have a class set of laptops, I plan on using it even more this year!

There are 3 levels of membership when you sign up.  The basic level is free and then depending on what "extras" you want, you can enroll in the premium or ultra premium plans. Below is part of the chart that shows you what each plan includes. Click on the picture to take you to the actual pricing guide.

Here are some of the things I like about this resource:

1. This tool is totally Common Core aligned, which just about everyone needs these days!
2. You can set up rewards for the students to work towards by completing assignments and earning coins.  It's a great motivator for kids!
3. You can get email updates with information about what students are logging in, and how they are performing.
4. It customizes the problems to what the students need.

It's super easy to get kids set up with their own user name and password and they love being able to customize their avatar and emoticon.  I've got my students enrolled, and we will be logging in for the first time this week!

Anyone else out there use Scootpad?  How do you use it and what have been your experiences with it?

September Currently

I can't believe that it is already September!  I guess the summer is officially over now, even though I've been in school for a MONTH! I had decided earlier in the week, that I was going to link up with Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade.  I had to wait until today to do so, but I think it was worth the wait!  Here is my September Currently!

Listening: I can't believe my little girl is going to be 9 months old in just a couple of weeks!  She is growing up so fast, but she still likes a 30 minute nap in the evening. Here we are in our Arkansas gear!

Loving:  I've been working on lots of projects for my room - classroom wreath, brownie points pans, and curtains! I always say that I want to have my room totally complete when the kids come, but there are always more projects!

Thinking:  I like to have my lesson plans typed.  I usually write them in a notebook, but it scribbled and usually unorganized.  I like the neat final copy in my binder for school.

Wanting: We've spent quite a bit of time cleaning the house this weekend.  I just get so busy at school that the last thing I want to do when I get home is clean!  Can I get an AMEN?!

Needing:  I am planning on getting my student laptops out this week.  I've been working on a system to get their passwords organized and easily accessible.  I need that system put together so we can actually use it!

Love Myself: 1. I ran a half marathon last year at 6 weeks pregnant and really haven't run much since.  The hubby is training for a marathon and I'm feeling pretty lazy.  I need to get my but in gear. 2. I really want to be able to leave Fridays with everything ready for the next week at school.  3.  My little girl is growing up so fast and with the hubby's new job, family time comes at a premium.  I want to make sure that we get some quality time, just the three of us.

What are you up to this month?

Peek at My Week

I don't know about you, but I'm so happy that I will not be driving to school at 6:45 tomorrow morning!  Yay for holiday weekends! Today, I'm linking up with  Jennifer from Mrs. Laffin's Laughings for her Peek at My Week linky party. 

This week, we will be working on subtraction up to the millions place.  We've had a little practice with subtraction so far through our spiraled bell work of Math 4 Today. It is a great preview/review of the 4th grade math concepts.  I'm going to give a pre-assessment of 5 problems to really target the skills my students need the most help with and give the same assessment at the end of the week, to see who mastered subtraction and who still needs work.  I plan on spending quite a bit of time on subtracting across zeros, since that usually seems like a very difficult area for students.

In Social Studies, we are working on lines of latitude and longitude.  I've found this game that I am going to use with my students and our smart board to practice using lines of latitude and longitude to find locations.

 We are working on finalizing our intervention groups this week, so we can start them next week.  We are working with the RTI model, putting our students into tier 2 and tier 3 groups for literacy and math.  We use testing data from our state test from last year, along with the students' most recent STAR and MAPs testing data. The students who don't need intervention will be put into enrichment groups based on ability levels. 

It's the first Jr. High Football game this week!  I know it sounds silly, but ever since my hubby started working at the Jr. High level, 6 years ago, I have greatly looked forward to the football games!  The kids are still young enough that the teams are big and most kids get playing time.  The parents are a hoot to listen to, and I get to see the cheer and dance teams perform!  They are AWESOME!!!!  Go Timberwolves!

What are you up to this week?  Go check out what everyone has planned and don't forget to link up!