10 Simple Gifts for Teacher Appreciation Week

This week is National Teacher Appreciation Week.  What have you done to appreciate the teachers in your life?  If you are an administrator, PTA/PTO officer, parent or fellow teacher, here are 10 simple ideas to show those special teachers how much you appreciate the hard work they do each day. 

These 10 chalkboard tags can be downloaded by clicking on this link: Teacher Appreciation Gift Tags.  These tags can be used with a variety of small gift items that you can pick up at your neighborhood Walmart, Target or grocery store.  

1.   It is so REFRESHING to have you as a TEACHER! 

Soft Drinks, Water, Sparking Water, Juice

2.   Thank You to a TEA-riffic Teacher!

Bottle of Tea, Bottle of Water and Crystal Light Package of Tea, Mug or Teacup with a few Teabags, a Box of Fancy Tea Bags, a Package of Loose Tea and a Tea Ball

3.   You are all that and a bag of CHIPS!

Small or Large Bags of Chips

4.   Thanks for Being such a SWEET Teacher!

Cookies, Cupcakes, Candy Bars, Jars or Container of Candy 

5.   Thank You for the EXTRAordinary Things you do!

Extra Gum

6.   Thank You for Helping our Students BLOOM!

Flowers, Flowering Plants

7.   Let us give you a HAND. You're one of the Best!

Hand Soap, Hand Sanitizer, Hand Lotion

8.   Thanks! You're the Balm

Any type of Lip Balm

9.   An Apple for the TEACHER

Red EOS Lip Balm

10.   Thank You for all that you do! You're the Best!

Any Gift Card

Click below:

HAPPY TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK 

Until Next Time...

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Earth Day Hats

Friends~I am so excited to share with you my Earth Day hats!  I love making these super simple hats with recycled materials! 

All you will need is 1 large-brown paper grocery bag (I let my kiddos decorate the bags with crayons and markers first.)

Check out the directions below!

*I also use old tissue paper or recycled grocery bags for the flowers!  

Click the video below to watch a quick tutorial on the hats!

You can check out more Earth Day fun over on my blog by clicking HERE!

5 Things to Do to Get Ready for Back to School

While we are still in the middle of July and summer vacation is still in full swing, the beginning of the school is definitely in the horizon from here!  As much as I want to extend my summer vacation a little bit longer, I know that any time that I put in to prep my class for the back-to-school rush now, I will definitely be thankful later. Here are ways I prepare my classroom before the beginning of the year.

 1. Decorate Your Classroom
 May you move to a new classroom, just want to revamp your classroom's theme, or want to rearrange your word wall or student desks, do it now when you have time the energy and time. New decorations and borders are always coming out in the summer! While it's definitely hard on the wallet, and I try not to make it too over-stimulating to accommodate to my students' needs, I must admit that I am a fool for all things cutesy that make my classroom inviting and engaging for my students. Try also to follow teacher supplies stores online as they often have giveaways and promotions going on in the summer.

 2. Get all the First-Week-of-School Essentials Ready
Name plates, dismissal tags, name tags, supplies organizers, communication folders, behavior calendar, sharpened pencils, and the list goes on...Whatever it is that you need that first week of school, go ahead and purchase them now. I usually get my roster the day of Meet-the-Teacher, however, I try to have all the materials on my desk ready to go when it's time. It saves me a lot of time and helps keep things organized.

 3. Create a Plan on How To Organize School Supplies
My students begin bringing in items on Meet-the-Teacher Night. There are certain things that I like for my students to keep in their cubbies for personal use (scissors, pencil box, crayons, folders, notebooks, and markers), and there are other things that are for community use (construction paper, erasers, dry-erase markers, tissue boxes, glue bottles, glue sticks, etc.).

For items that are shared throughout the year, I leave bins out in the hallways with labels and instructions for parents and students to simply drop them off. As more things are collected, I then place enough shared supplies (glue bottles, scissors, and pencils) in little bins in the middle of student desks while others like tissue boxes, construction paper, and dry-erase markers are placed on shelves or in cabinets.  Also, the first day of school is also a great time for students to work in small groups to separate construction paper by color. This activity allows students work together and take ownership of their own classroom.   In addition, whenever you need a stack of a certain color construction paper, it is already separated and ready to use! :)

Below are the labels that I use for organization.

4. Reorganize Your Teacher Desk
I try every year to reorganize the supplies inside my teacher desk simply because I know once school begins, it is the last thing on my mind. And what's more frustrating than trying to find more staples or paper clips when it's the first week of school and you have about a million notes and forms to collect?! Buy cheap desk organizers to help compartmentalize different areas in your drawers for all your office supplies essentials. This has helped me keep organized, and a great way for me to know exactly where my things are when I need them.

 5. Decide On Your Student Seating Arrangements
Some teachers on my team have decided to do away with individual desks and go with circle tables. I've decided to keep my student desks as I prefer my students having their own storage space and to eliminate time from getting supplies when needed. Once I have my student desks arranged, I make sure I place labels on their supply bins to show what group they are in (Group 1, 2, 3, & 4). This really helps when I call to pass out papers or line up. No matter what you decide, this is the time to decide if you want five students to a group, the use or desks or tables, or where all your different learning areas will be (Writing Center, Library, Word Work, etc.).

These are just five things that have really helped me get organized for the beginning of the year. What are some things that you do to get your classroom going?

Close Reading {Teaching Students to Use Text Based Evidence}

Hey everyone! It's Aimee from Primarily Speaking.  I'm so very excited to be blogging here for the first time today!

Today, I wanted to share with you how I teach my second graders to interact closely with their reading material.  Common Core asks our students to rely on the text they read to demonstrate what they know.  It says that they should be able to extract information that is explicitly stated in the text and to make logical inferences from it.  They are to cite specific textual evidence and to draw conclusions from the text.

Reading passages are my preferred method for practicing close reading.  The length of the passages are manageable and easy to reference since they are usually only one page long.  Sometimes, we read and respond to the passages in a whole group setting, and sometimes, the students complete them independently.

I like to alternate the scaffolded learning with independent practice.  This way I can teach them how to read closely and explicitly address the skills involved in text based evidence reading in a whole group setting. This prepares them to more successfully use these strategies when they read independently.

At this point in the school year, I always begin by passing out the reading passage and giving the students time to read it independently.  When they are finished, I have the students think of one interesting thing they learned and use think-pair-share to give the students an opportunity to talk about this fact.  Then, we practice locating key information and/or citing evidence to answer questions based on the text.

We always begin by using our crayons (or markers) to locate information in the text as prompted.  Since we are doing it whole group, we typically choral read the tasks one at a time.  After reading each task, I give the students time to locate the evidence specific to each task.  I have them hold off on marking anything so that we can discuss it as a whole group first and I can address any misconceptions (crayons don't erase very well).

 Once we finish these tasks, our text looks a bit like this.

  
Then, it's on to the comprehension questions.  Sometimes our questions come straight from the text and the students are able to underline and code the information to be used in their answer.

 
Sometimes, the question requires that we make an inference, as in this question below. We discussed how the text did not explicitly state the genre, but we could infer that it was nonfiction because it gave true facts about honeybees and also included a real photograph of a real honeybee as opposed to sharing a fun or silly story about a bee named Bob.

Sometimes I use these strategies when reading our weekly Scholastic News.  After reading it as a whole group, I might verbally ask the students to locate the information that answers my specific question(s).  We usually just use our pencils in this case.  Sometimes, the newspaper includes skill sheets that task students with citing text evidence, but I still have them go back to the text and prove it by underlining, circling, etc.

One more way that I like to develop the students' close reading skills is by using a constructed response component.  These written responses are a great way to get in some extra writing and they are another great way to engage students with the text.

My students always write a topic sentence (by answering the question in the prompt) and then include three (or more) detail sentences, and a concluding sentence.  Once again, I like alternating these between whole group and independent settings.  This way, the students are frequently reminded of the strategies to use when writing these lengthier answers.  I have also been known to create constructed response questions to go with our weekly Scholastic News.

And, that is pretty much how I teach my students to interact with their text more closely.  Surprisingly, my students never moan and groan when I pass these out!  They enjoy going back to the text and marking it up, and that makes my teacher heart happy. Oh so happy!  The close read that was featured in this post is from my Nonfiction Close Reads for the Spring Months.  You can check out my close read packs here.

Toodles!