Monday Mood Lifter #6

Hello all!

Hope everyone's week is off to a good start.  Here is your encouragement for the day:

"Stay committed to your decisions; but stay flexible in your approach." --Tony Robbins

I know for me personally, this can be difficult to follow.  Share with us a fun story of a time you had to be flexible.

George Washington Activities

FREE Download today Feb. 21 to celebrate Fun Friday and tomorrow Sat. Feb.22.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/HIStory-Mp3-Song-453032I started the week with singing this song about history and then we discussed what history means.  Then we started our study of George Washington and talked about his history.

I read this book and discussed it with the class.  It is a nice short book that is on their level.  We also started this Magic Treehouse book for a read aloud:

My kiddos love these books!   The cool part of our discussion came when one of my students noticed this:

He remembered the picture from the first book I read and all the kids were like"Yeah"

So, we talked about the picture and how it is a famous painting.  I laughed when one of my students said,"Yeah, but Jack and Annie aren't in the real one."

My students wrote a class book about George Washington:

Here are a few pages form our book:

I had my students do a book response half way through the Magic Tree House book:

We ended our week with an awesome and easy George Washington craft:

Start with a paper plate

Fold the plate like this:

Turn it over for the white horse.

Punch a hole for the tail that will be made with white yarn.

Put the yarn through the hole and tape on the bottom.  The students will also need to make a horse's head out of white paper and glue it on the plate.  I had my students make their own instead of giving them a pattern because it makes them all different and I love that!

Draw a face on an oval piece of manila paper.

Cut out a blue hat and glue it on the head and then glue cotton balls for the wig.  Glue him on a stick.  We used tongue depressors.  Cut out a small red rectangle to wrap around the stick for a cape.  Cut a hole in the middle of the plate for the stick to go up and down .

Done!:)

Of course, my students decided to add arms,rein for the horse and some added a sword.  They are just so creative!

How cute are these!  My kiddos loved making these and they love that their  horses rock!

We hope you got some great ideas today and we would love for you to share any great ideas you may have for teaching about Washington.

Thanks and Have a Great Weekend! 

40% OFF TODAY:)

Last Day for 40% off of this great game that our kiddos love to play every month.  I divide my class into 2 teams and let the kids take turns reading the cards that have questions about the March vocabulary words.  They get a point for their team if they get the correct answer.  If they don't, it bounces to the other team to answer.  The vocabulary words are also introduced daily in our March Word of the day Calendar, which is also 40%off today.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-of-the-Day-March-Brain-Bounce-Game-1121771

T

his is our Word of the Day March Calendar that has a ABC pattern for the kiddos to follow as well as a March vocabulary word on each calendar piece.  My students write about the word every day in their calendar notebooks.  Their writing as well as their vocabulary has really increased since they started using these calendars and playing our Word of the Day games and using the word of the Day products.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-of-the-Day-March-Calendar-1119945

Here is a sample of  what some of my students wrote using words from our January Word of the Day Calendar.  They chose 5 words and wrote a story using those words.

This one was done by an ELL student who was not writing at all at the very beginning of the year.  He was so proud of himself.  I know I was very proud of him!

Monday Mood Lifter #5

Hey there!

Hope everyone had a great weekend.  Here is your "lift" for the day:

"The greatest sign of a success for a teacher...is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist." -- Maria Montessori

How do you encourage independent children?

FUN FRIDAY!

We have been talking about President's Day so I decided to do our "Who Am I" song and let the kiddos dress up as the famous Americans on the song, Betsy Ross,Pocahontas, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  The kids love to shout out who the American is after the clues are given.  You could also add your own famous people.

  We will be offering this song for free on Feb.14 and Feb.15.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Who-Am-I-Mp3-Song-453062

You may want to check out our other song about the office of President.  Kids love to shout out the name of the president when the part "Our president is…."  They all yell "Barrack Obama."

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Our-President-Mp3-Song-453043


After we sang both of these songs, we sang "Quality Students."  I used the words from our song and applied it to what a quality president would be like.  Then my students wrote some great pieces on what they would be like if they were the president.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Quality-Students-Mp3-Song-450741

So, after we sang all of our songs and discussed what a "Quality President" would be like, it was time to write about what we learned.

I was so proud of the writing that my students did!

Just one more.  It was hard for me to choose which ones to show:)

If you do get a chance to grab our songs, we would love some nice comments about them in our store.
We are in the process of doing more songs so we would love to hear some suggestions of what concepts you would like to see covered.  Thank you for any suggestions you may have:)
We hope you enjoyed FUN FRIDAY!
Happy Valentine's Day and have a great weekend!

Monday Mood Lifter #4

Happy Monday Everyone!

Here is your inspiration for the day :)

“Education...is painful, continual and difficult work to be done in kindness, by watching, by warning,...  by praise, but above all -- by example.” -- John Ruskin

How do you lead by example in your classroom?

Our Showing the Love Giveaway Winners!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our giveaway!  We were so blessed to have a great turnout and hope you found some great new TpT stores.  Now for the winners...

In the K-2 category...DEBBIE MINTER, Congratulations!
In the 3-5 category...SANDRA JUDE, Congratulations!
In the Clipart category...CHRISTI ANNA, Congratulations!

As we said, everyone gets a prize.  We are compiling a great sample pack for you all to use in your classroom.  Also, since we all love FREE, check out our new youtube series with free ideas to use in your classroom!