Back - to - School Blow Out Sale

 

 I am so excited to announce that Educents.com is having a HUGE back-to-school blowout sale and I am going to be featured in one of the curriculum bundles! From July 30 - August 2 (Wednesday - Saturday), they are bringing back all of their favorite and most popular bundles for INSTANT download at up to 77% OFF! There is something for everyone and it is their BIGGEST sale of the year! Take a peak into what is on sale! Tell your friends, because there is something for everyone!Grades 6-8 bundle

Here are some bundles I thought you might be interested in.

Complete Full-Year Curriculum Bundle (Grades 6-8) - 77% OFF

This is an awesome collection of resources from a group of amazing teacher authors. There is something for everyone!


Looking for a  way to keep your students engaged while having fun this school year? My "Number Centers" series is featured in the Grades 6-8 bundle. These are great to use as centers, games, challenges, problems of the week, or activities for those early finishers. You can check them out here.

Tricky Math Curriculum Bundle (Grades 3-5) - 69% OFF

  

Management, Decor & Organization Bundle - 76% OFF

Don't Miss It!

And the winners are...

Congrats to...

You are the lucky winners of my "Writing in Math Class?" resource. Check your emails!
I hope you find this resource useful in your classroom this school year.

Thank you to everyone who entered. I loved reading through your comments. I was so glad to read that a lot of you are already implementing journaling in your math class, and those who haven't yet, are eager to start!

Happy journaling!

Writing in Math Class?

Do you have your students journal in Math class? If not, I highly recommend you start. It can be very insightful!

Check out my guest post on Minds in Bloom, where I explain the benefits of journaling and how to implement journaling in your own math classroom.

I recently added 30 more journal starters to my "Writing in Math Class?" resource. That means you have 60 starters to help get your students thinking beyond the numbers in math class.

This resource is one of my top sellers. If you have already purchased this resource, make sure to re-download to access the revised copy.

OR

Leave me a comment below telling me what you like most about journaling in math class and you could win your very own copy! The more comments, the more winners, so spread the word.

The giveaway will be open until Monday night and I will announce the winners on Tuesday.

Good luck and happy journaling!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Monday Made It - July 21, 2014

I'm linking up with Tara at 4th grade Frolics for Monday Made It.
Here is what I was up to last week....

Finally made it out to the strawberry farm with the family. There is a great one not too far from us that my son loves. They take you out to the fields on tractors and they also have a petting zoo and playground.
With our 3 year old in tow and my 4 month old strapped onto me, we were able to pick 4 baskets. My oldest son sampled the strawberries, more than picked them!

So after I got them home, I figured I better do something with them. I froze the majority for smoothies throughout the year, but I wanted to make sure I made a few things while they were still fresh.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble Cake

Strawberry Jam (with no sugar or gelatin)
 

Of course we ate them as is, as well as over frozen yogurt...delicious! Nothing beats fresh picked strawberries!

I had created a set of math posters awhile back emphasizing the importance of number sense, but was never happy with the look of them. My design skills have improved since then, so I decided to play around with them a bit. They look A LOT better than the original.

If you think you could use these in your math classroom, feel free to download the set here.

Have a fantastic week!

Bright Idea #5 - Establishing a Math Routine

I am excited to be teaming up with an amazing group of teacher bloggers, once again, to bring you the "Bright Ideas Link Up". This link up was created to bring you practical classroom ideas from a variety of teachers, from different grades and subject areas. I hope you find some great ideas that you can easily implement in your own classroom. 

Enjoy!

Are you thinking about next year already? I bet you are!
Just because we are on holidays doesn't mean we ever stop planning. As teachers, I feel that we are always reflecting, and thinking of ways to make this next year bigger and better.

This month, I decided to go into a little more detail with last month's post, and talk about establishing a routine. Seeing that I LOVE Math, I am going to tell you how I go about setting up a Math routine in my classroom.

Establishing routines and expectations is so important, especially at the beginning of the year. Once students understand the expectations, they become more willing participants because they know what to anticipate.

The idea - Setting up a Math routine

Whether it's math class, or any other subject, students need to be able to walk into your room and know what they need to do! Here's what my routine looks like in my Math classroom...

Monday - Mental Math Mania - Get your students to master their basic facts. I like to switch it up by using different mental math activities each week. Variety helps those students who dread mental math.

Tuesday - Tricky Brain Teasers - Challenge your students and get them using their problem solving skills. This ranges from projecting optical illusions, solving riddles, puzzles, and challenges, anything to get the students thinking and engaged.

Wednesday - Wacky Number Warm-ups - Help your students strengthen their number sense. These activities range from "Number of the Day", "Mystery Numbers", "Spot the Imposter", etc. Any activity that gets your students "playing" with numbers and using math vocabulary.

Thursday - Thinking Math Thoughts - Get your students to write openly about their feeling and thoughts about all things related to math. Get them thinking by providing them with a journal starter, and have a possible class discussion afterwards.

Friday - Fun & Fast Games - Let your students have some fun with math, as a celebration to the end of the week. This is usually used as an incentive to behave through the class, as the game is played in the last 10 minutes.

Each of these daily activities is intended to take only 5 - 10 minutes, but it gets your students engaged and in the right frame of mind to start your math class.

If you enjoyed this bright idea, please consider joining me on Facebook for more great ideas!

For even more bright ideas, please browse through the link-up below, and choose a topic/grade level that interests you. Thanks for visiting!

An InLinkz Link-up

Monday Made It - July 14, 2014

I'm linking up with Tara at 4th grade Frolics for Monday Made It.
Here is what I was up to last week....

I finally made it out to dragon boat practice for the first time this season (I had to stop mid-season last year due to my pregnancy).
It was a beautiful day to be out on the water, and the exercise felt great! Unfortunately, my son refused to take a bottle while my parents watched him, so it may be a little while before I get out to practice again.

I don't know about you, but I am always trying to prepare healthy meals for the family. I came across this awesome website on Facebook, Super Healthy Kids, that has some super simple, and healthy recipes. Fortunately my 3 year old eats just about anything we put in front of him, so we don't have to worry about sneaking veggies in to things, but I am always looking for new snack and meal ideas. This week I decided to try out their recipe for Whole Wheat Veggie Calzones.

I made a few adjustments, such as sauteing all the veggies first and using an egg wash to help seal the dough.
I would have also added some chopped up pepperoni, but I didn't have any in the house. 

The finished product! I was pretty impressed. The dough turned out nice and light, nothing compared to the deep fried pizza pops you find in the store. My husband and I really enjoyed them, but did my son?? You be the judge...

That is one clean plate! I guess I will be making these again!

After downloading Miss Math Dork's Subway Math Art a couple weeks ago, I was feeling creative and decided to make my own Math art for my office area.
I decided to grab some canvas at my local dollar store, print off the four operations in my fave fonts and colours, add a little mod podge and ta da...

 Here is a smaller one page version for you to download for FREE! I have included it in 5 different fonts, all by the talented Jennifer Jones.

Have a fantastic week!

Monday Made It - July 7, 2014

Now that it is summer, it seems that I have that little bit of extra time to do things that I really enjoy, and why not share those things with you! I am excited to finally link up with Tara at 4th grade Frolics and her Monday Made It posts. I have been watching this linky from the sidelines and gathering awesome ideas since last summer, so today I am jumping in and joining in on the fun. Here we go.......

I finally found the time to sit down at my craft table and make my newest son's (now 3 months) name banner for his bedroom. I used the same colour scheme as my first son's but added a few stripes into the mix. I think it turned out pretty well. 

July 1st was Canada Day! A time to celebrate, however, the weather wasn't very cooperative this year. "Rain, rain go away" was the soundtrack of our house last week. With the rain, and the horrendous mosquitoes, we did not think it would be worth it to pack up two little boys to attempt to watch the fireworks. So I had to think of the next best thing.

Being at home full-time on maternity leave, my oldest son no longer attends daycare, so I try to think of little activities to do with him while his brother naps. Why not make our own fireworks with a little glue and glitter?

Thank you Pinterest and my local dollar store for helping me pull this off!

With my husband home on holidays as well, we finally made it to our family cottage for longer than a day trip! This is our first summer as a family of 4 and I am always amazed at how long it takes me to pack everything up. It's crazy the amount of "stuff" we need to survive 2 nights from home, with a toddler and a baby!

Here's a pic of my 3 year old heading down to light the stove in the sauna with his Pappa.

Last, but certainly not least. My son has made it to sleeping through the night!! He is only 3 months, so I am not delusional in thinking this will last...as teething is inevitable, but I will gladly bask in all its glory for as long as I can! 

Looking forward to sharing more Monday made-its with you this summer!

Math is Real Life - July 2014 Edition

 I am happy to once again join up with the fabulous linky hosted by Miss Math Dork, 4mulafun, The Teacher Studio, and Teaching to Inspire in 5th! 

Here we are, the first week of July! It is officially summer vacation! Even though I have been off with baby for over 3 months now, it will be nice to have hubby home with me for the next 2 months!

One of the things I most look forward to in the summer is visiting the local Farmer's Markets. There is nothing like farm fresh veggies and fruit. My dream has always been to have a large garden of my own one day from which I can make pickles, can tomatoes, and harvest veggies to last us into the winter months. Now that we have the land, we just need to find the time. I had big hopes for my dream garden becoming a reality this year, but alas with baby and the huge amount of rain we've had, it just isn't going to happen this year. Never the less, we will have some fresh veggies.

My "garden" this year consists of some plants in this old abandoned well that was on our property when we bought it, and some pots around the house. Not quite what I had in mind, but it will have to do for now.

Gardening really is quite a science... and of course math. There are a lot of things to take into consideration, to maintain a plentiful garden. Where to plant, what to plant, how to plant, and so on. My grandpa was an avid gardener and he has shared a lot of his wisdom with me. I use to love going into his garden as a child (and even an adult) and popping fresh cherry tomatoes in my mouth. I want to pass this love of homegrown, fresh food on to my own children. So when it was time to plant our garden, I asked my son to help.

Here was my son's pick for his garden - Rattlesnake beans.

When you buy a packet of seeds, they come with directions stating how to plant.

 According to the package, for best results, the seeds need to be planted 10 cm/4 in apart and 2.5 cm/1 in deep. (Now try telling a 3 year old you can only plant 4 seeds in our tiny garden. We may not have followed the directions perfectly, but he is so excited to see them grow.)

We ended up putting in 2 rows with 8 seeds per row. So we should hopefully end up with 16 plants covered in 20 cm / 8 in green beans streaked with purple.

So now we wait...

Apparently I am suppose to construct a tepee like structure for them to grow up, as they grow to 10 feet! I'll add that to the hubby's to-do list!

If each seed we planted takes, my little garden is going to be overtaken by rattlesnakes! Can't wait!

The package claims that we will have beans in 60-90 days. As of yesterday, we are off to a pretty good start!

If you are a gardener as well, I wish you a plentiful garden this summer!