Five for Friday (On a Saturday)

Here we are again at the end of another week! We are yet another week closer to the end of the school year! We have just 19 more instructional days left at my school and I can't believe the time has gone by so quickly since I started in my classroom in January. I have loved every minute of it, but am looking forward to a break this summer, before I start my first full year in the classroom! This summer will be dedicated to my two small businesses: My TPT business and my new Jamberry business. I can't wait to put a ton of work into the both of them!

This week I am linking up as always with Doodle Bugs Teaching for their weekly Five for Friday Linky Party! I meant to post this last night, but I came home with a crazy headache yesterday and by the time I got up from a nap and took care of some Jamberry business that needed done, I was exhausted again and just decided to call it a night and head to bed. So here goes: five things that happened in my classrooms, personal life and business life this week!

This week we got the first of our two SOL tests for third grade over with! I am very proud of my students for working so hard to prepare for both of these tests! After taking our reading test on Monday and Tuesday, we spent the rest of the week reviewing for our Math SOL coming up next week! I tried to find as many fun ways to review as a I could so I could keep the students engaged and learning through the boring review process. One of the ways I did this was to bring out some of my scoots to practice some basic skills, that students may have forgotten or still struggle with! All of my current Math Scoots can be found in a bundle at my store here. This is a growing bundle so once you purchase it, you will receive all future updates from it for free!

This week my students recived academic and behavior awards from the 3rd quarter! The first picture is the students who received quality student awards and the second picture features my students who received the Principals List (All A's) and the A/B Honor Roll (Two of the honor roll students were absent the day the picture was taken). I am so proud of everything that all of my students accomplish each and everyday!

I have been on the search recently to find the perfect planner for me at an affordable price and this week my search has finally ended! I was shopping at Target one night after dinner at Panera (whoever thought those two in the same parking lot was good idea must be a genius) and they had just put out all of their new planners! I purchased the Day Designer Planner. It has everything that I need to have a successful and organized year for my teacher life, personal life, TPT Life and Jamberry Life. The only bad part is that it doesn't start until July and I can't wait to start using it. 

This week I made an investment in my two small businesses and purchased a Shot Box on Amazon to  create some images of new products for Creative Teacher Resources and Jamberry. I can't wait for it arrive! I am very excited to start using it!

I have some very exciting launch news for both of my businesses!

My online Launch Party for my Jamberry business is starting tomorrow! I would love for all of my readers to attend and learn about all of the amazing products that Jamberry has to offer! We will be playing fun games throughout the week, having giveaways and there will be freebies! Join in on the fun here.

I am also still looking for some more hostesses for Jamberry Parties online. Hosting a party is so easy, you get awesome gifts from me, you can wear whatever you want and the rewards are fabulous. Shoot me an email or leave a comment if you would be interested in hosting a party!

The second exciting bit of launch news that I have is for my upcoming official blog launch! My blog launch is set for the week of June 6th! It will be a fun week full of blog posts, freebies and a huge giveaway I have put a lot of work into planning. The week will end with an awesome kick-off to my summer book study. We will be reading Guided Math in Action: Building Each Student's Mathematical Proficiency with Small-Group Instruction if you want to get a head start and purchase the book ahead of time! It's a great read and for sale at an awesome price on Amazon. If you use the link above, I will also get a small commission for referring you to the book!

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Five for Friday May 13th, 2016

Happy Friday the 13th everyone! I hope everyone had a great week! I am so looking forward for the next two weeks to be over already! My students start their SOL's for reading on Monday and take Math the following week. I can't wait for them to be done so we can move on to some fun projects for our last month in school! 

I am linking up again with Doodle Bugs Teaching for their weekly Five for Friday Linky party. This week was pretty slow school wise, but I'll try my best to come up with five things to write about!

My students brought in their animal research projects this week and they turned out amazing! They had to write a paper about the animal they chose and then create a project to showcase that animal with information they found! I've got a ton of creative kids in my class!

I am getting to be really close to finishing the first installments in a huge resource that I have been working on for about a month and a half. I have started working on Spiral Review Homework for the entire year! These resources will be for 3rd Grade and will be aligned to the

VA SOL's. I have completed the August/September Language Arts already and am putting the finishing touches on the Math for August/September this weekend, so I can have them up in my store soon! I will have a full post about them when they are posted in my store, but they will be available individually and different bundles to help save some money!

My host rewards and starter kit from Jamberry arrived this week! I am so excited to be able to use these awesome new products as I am starting my new business! I love being my own boss in a business!

To go along with number 3, my Jamberry business has officially started! I am currently sending out free samples and catalogs to anyone who signs up. You can find the sign up sheet here. You will receive your sample and catalog in my first mailing if you sign up by tomorrow morning! I will be putting them in the mail tomorrow afternoon! I am also running a special for booking parties! If you book a  online party by May 31st, you will receive a special mani starter kit free from me! Contact me if you have any questions about hosting a party online on Facebook! We really spoil our hosts with host rewards. The above picture shows everything I got for free or at a small cost from hosting a party and the chart shows everything you can earn! You can find more information at my business Facebook page or at my Jamberry website.

I just wanted to give a little update about the list of resources I will be working on for my class and my store this summer! In addition to the monthly spiral reveiw homework, I am also going to be working on the following: 3rd Grade Daily Spiral Morning Work, Scholastic Reading Level Notes, Words Their Way resources for Within Words and up, Monthly Newsletter and Calendar Templates and additional 3rd grade scoots! I can't wait to share everything I am working on with you!

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Five for Friday ~May 6th 2016

I am linking up again this week with Doodle Bugs Teaching for their weekly Five for Friday Linkup Party. 

I can't believe that another week has come and gone already! It feels like we just started this week and now it is already almost over. As the year is winding down, I am coming up with so many great product and resource ideas to work on this summer, that I can't even keep them all straight right now!

This week in my classroom has been pretty boring though since we are in full test prep mode right now, but I will try and make this as interesting as possible! I have some fun announcements to use as my some of 5 Things at least!

Before I start, what does everyone think of the button/icon I created for my brand?

We started working with 3-D Measurement this week in my classroom and to help my students visualize the comparisons and how the units build on each other, I had each of them construct a gallon bot. The students loved building the bots and then adding their own personal touches to them!

One of the skills my students have beens struggling with still was contractions! So to get them some more practice before our SOL's we took some time to do a Contractions Scoot! It was a hit. My students really love scoots and I love letting them do them because it gets them up and moving around! This scoot is in my store and is on SALE until Sunday. You can find it here. (I promise it looks way better when printed in color. My printer ran out of ink when I went to go print it). This scoot helps both with creating contractions and identifying the two words in a contraction. 

My first Donor's Choose Project went live this week. My project is to raise money to get a classroom set of Kindle Fire Tablets for my classroom. I have so many ideas of things I want to do with my students, but can't because of the limited technology so I would love for my students to each have a tablet to use while in the classroom. I also would just love for them to have more opportunities to read on a screen, since we do take their state tests on the computers, but generally take weekly tests by paper/pencil. Please check out my project here.

So recently I've been posting a lot about a Jamberry party that I have been hosting through my college roommate! Well the reason I was hosting this party was to earn credit towards my own consultant kit! That's right I am starting my own Jamberry business in addition to my TPT business. I should have everything up and running in a few weeks to host my own launch party! Stay tuned. If your interested in hosting a party, let me know! In a few weeks Ill be ready to start with online party sign ups!

I have been working on a major task this past week that I am ready to share! I am currently working on my official blog launch! The official launch will happen June 6th-10th and I am hoping it will be awesome! There will be great freebies, sales, new products and hopefully an awesome giveaway. I am in the process of putting together a giveaway as I look for product donations for it! At the end of the blog launch will also be the start of my summer book study where we will be reading Guided Math in Action: Building Each Student's Mathematical Proficiency with Small-Group Instruction. If you want to have the book ahead of time, use the link to purchase it and I will receive a small earning from posting it! Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter for exclusive freebies and to stay updated on everything going on with Creative Teacher Resources

Finally don't forget that my entire store will remain on sale through Sunday! 

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May Currently, Wishlist Link Up and Some Announcements!

Today I am linking up with two awesome blogs as well as giving some personal announcements at the end!

The first linkup I am doing is the Currently with Oh Boy Its Farley. I was sad to see that it is the last month for this linkup party, since I only recently found it and have loved reading everyone's posts for it!

My mind completely seems to be on State Testing which we are starting in two weeks! I am so excited though that I will be having my official blog launch in a month I am hoping. I am in the process of lining up giveaways and working on ideas for it and getting my book study to go along with it, so stay tuned for more info on that! Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter to get all of the most up to date info and freebies from me!

I also wanted to share my new Jamberry haul and throw out there that I am still hosting a Jamberry Party through Thursday night on Facebook. You can find the party here. Anyone is welcome to join in on the fun! We are having Jamberry Bingo night tomorrow at 9 PM EST which is going to be so much fun! I am hosting this party as a way to earn some credit to buy my consultant kit because I love these products so much! So here is the haul I got today!

The second link up I am participating in today is Teaching in the Tongass's Wishlist Linky. These three items are the top wish listed items in my Teachers Pay Teachers

This is one of my new scoots and my students loved it when I tested it out with them. I love doing scoots with my students and I know that any class could use this as great review! You can this scoot here. 

This is another scoot that I have made for third grade! It was also a hit with the students I had while I was student teaching. You can find it here. Both of the scoots shown here are in included in my Third Grade Math Scoots Growing Bundle, which can be found here. 

This is a project that I created while I was student teaching. The students choose a state to research and then creates a book with with all the information they find. It took about two weeks for my students to complete with about 40 minutes given to work on it each day. I think this is a really fun project where the students learn research skills and also get to show their creative side. It can be found here.

I have a ton of items on personal wishlist that I am looking at snatching up during the sale this week including some flip book templates, stem ideas and new clip art. I am have a special sale in my store. Starting today and going until May 8th my entire store will 20% off and on the 3rd and 4th you can also receive the additional 8% from Teachers Pay Teachers. In addition to my sale, I will also be having some flash sales and freebies. I will be posting when those are happening on my Facebook and Instagram so make sure you are following me on at least one of those accounts to take advantage of the sale. 

Finally, I wanted to post a special announcement! I have started my first Donor's Choose Project to try and raise money to get tablets for the students in my classroom. We are limited on the time we get to spend using technology because of the small amount we have in our room. I would love for you to check out my project and share it with your followers. I would really appreciate it! My project can be found here. If you donate from now to May 8th, use the code LIFTOFF and Donor's Choose will match your donation for up to 100 dollars. 

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How I Use Classroom Jobs in My Classroom

I've recently had a few people ask me how I have implemented Classroom Jobs in my classroom, so I decided to write a post about how I use them and what each job entails duty wise. 

This is what the classroom jobs board looks like in my classroom. The job titles were created by Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations and can be found her store here. Each student has an owl with their name on it. Everything on my jobs board is magnetic. 

Every week I change my students job by moving the magnet with their name to a new job. I have enough jobs so every student has a job each week. I have 22 different jobs, with one being done by two people since I have 23 students in my classroom. I try to make sure that the students get to try out almost every single job, but there are a few jobs not every student can do because they need to be extra responsible and trust-worthy to do them!

If the students complete their job satisfactorily during the week, they get paid 3 gems on Friday. (Gems are part of classroom reward system and I will have a post about how I run that later on). 

Now for the list of classroom jobs I have and the descriptions for each of them. 

Scrap Monster: This person is in charge of passing out baskets to put scraps in and monitoring them when we do interactive notebooks or craft activities. When they see that a basket is full they are supposed to get up and empty it for that table and return it. I created this job after I saw how chaotic it got during interactive notebook time with everyone trying to get up and throw their scraps away at the same time. 

Desk Inspector: This job inspects students desks on Tuesday, Thursdays and after desk clean-out on Fridays to see if each student is keeping their desk the way they are supposed to do or if they need to work on it. If it is not cleaned out or set up correctly, the student will leave a slip letting the owner of the desk know that they need to clean out their desk before they can recess the next day. 

Homework Sheriff: The Homework Sheriff walks around the room each morning that homework is due with the Homework Checker. The Homework Sheriff is in charge of collecting students homework and writing down the names of the students who are missing a homework assignment. 

Librarian: The Librarian is in charge of keeping the classroom library organized. They make sure the books are in the leveled letter baskets that they belong to. They are also responsible for taking the students library cards with them to the library on the days that we have library. 

Paper Passers: The paper passers are in charge of passing out any papers during the day that I ask them to pass out. 

Clean Up Cop: The Clean Up Cop is in charge of cleaning up the classroom at the end of the day by picking up any trash that they see and sweeping up the classroom. They are allowed to pick a different friend to help them each day. 

Substitute: The Substitute fills in for any job when that student is not in the classroom when they are needed or a student is absent. Some days they may have multiple jobs if their are multiple students out. 

Homework Passer: The Homework Passer is in charge of passing out homework at the end of the day. If we have more then one homework assignment, they are allowed to pick a friend to help them pass out homework. 

Pencil Sharpener Captain: The Pencil Sharpener Captain is in charge of sharping the spare pencils at the beginning and end of each day. 

Girls and Boys Bathroom Monitors: These students stand at the door of each bathroom during our bathroom breaks and watch for any students misbehaving and let students know when they are allowed to go into the bathroom.  

Line Leader: This student gets to be the first to line up every day. 

Teacher's Assistant: The Teacher's Assistant is in charge of taking the lunch count each day and delivering it to the lunch room. They also are responsible for writing down the bus order at the end of the day. I also will ask them to run errands or other small tasks throughout the day. 

Board Cleaner: The Board Cleaner is responsible for cleaning off all of the boards each day. 

Door Holder: This student is in charge of holding the door when we go out to recess and to lunch. They also get to line up second in line all week. 

Homework Checker: This student walks around the room with the Homework Sheriff when homework is due and checks to see if the student has completed their homework. If the student has the Homework Checker will put a star for that day on the students homework sheet. 

Electrician: The Electrician is responsible for turning the computers on and logging them in each day as well as turning on and off the lights in the classroom. They also serve as the Caboose when we line up. 

Directions Director: The Directions Director is one of the jobs that I only let my super responsible students do. The Directions Director is responsible for listening to all directions given during the day and helping any students who did not listen to directions and do not know what to do when I am working with other students. 

Mail Carrier: This student is responsible for loading the mailboxes with any papers I place in the mail basket by the end of each school day. If their are lots of papers that need loaded they may select a friend to help them with their job. 

Sanitizer Captain: This student is responsible for taking the Hand Sanitizer to the bathroom, lunch and recess and giving it to any students that need it when we are out of the classroom. 

So, those are all of my classroom jobs! Be on the lookout for more posts from me about other elements of my classroom in the future!

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