It's A Small World After All~New Unit Posted on TPT!!

Aloha Blogger Friends,

I am soooooo excited that it is Spring Break and I just posted my new unit on Teachers Pay Teachers. It is called It's a Small World After All. I have been using it in my classroom this year and am loving what my students are learning from it. The other day we were working on a little South America collage activity and one of my students said "Mrs. Christian, is that line the equator?" It was one of those moments that I almost fell on the ground...in a good way! I told him to go check on the globe. It was a magic moment when he spun the globe right to South America and said "yep, that's it."

Don't you just love that type of reflective, exploratory learning?

Well, here it is...months in the making:

It's available now on TpT...just click above! 

And guess what? My store's on sale for the next 24 hours!!!! So click...fast and get it!! Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Fairy tale update and a Writer's Workshop Freebie

Aloha blogger friends!

I wanted to stop by quickly to post my lesson plans for the week. I am going to Mexico on Friday and worked today to get prepared for my awesome sub "Mrs. Chrissie" next week as well. We are super busy with fairy tales, balance and motion and maps around here. There are a few pictures below...we had snow up on Mauna Kea! Have a wonderful week friends!!

This is the view from my classroom of Mauna Kea. Can you see it behind the trees? There is a little snow on the top. It is fun for our kiddos to see. Some of them were lucky enough to go visit it or to have some brought down to play with.

During the month of February we learn all about Europe. Each week we learn about a different country: England, France, Germany and Italy. This week is our last week, so we will be learning about Italy...mainly Venice!

Of course here is a freebie for you...an elipsis poster! Just right click and print it as a picture.

Classroom Lesson Planning FREEBIES for YOU! Happy New Year...

Aloha blogging friends,

I only have a couple of goals for this New Year...
1. to be a happier, healthier me (live each day to the fullest, lose a few pounds and be positive)
2. share more on my blog and tpt (hence the post below)

I love free things and organization, so I am going to share the three things that help me to achieve this in my classroom when I am planning my lessons each week. You can watch a little video of me sharing these with you here and then you can click on the links below to get your own.

So, here is the big question. How do I organize my year?

Well I start off by filling in a very simple one page word document that is a birds eye view of my year. This has been invaluable in keeping me on track each year and knowing what my focus is. It's not cute, it's not really meant to be cute, there isn't room :-). To get it in word click here.

The second thing that I do is fill in a week-by-week overview. Here is where I break down what I filled in for each month and then copy and paste all of the things that I have purchased from tpt, things I have created from my hard drive, etc. Again, this is in word and has nothing fancy so you can easily fill it in to your choosing by clicking here. I did also upload a .pdf version so you can see what mine looks like by clicking here.

Now here is the best part. For each week I just copy and paste from my Week by Week Schedule onto my Peek at my Week. It is very quick and I use it as my guide all week. I just print it two-sided and put it in a page protector. At the end of the week I pop it into my binder. I have uploaded it for free in my tpt shop. Just click and it is yours and it is editable.

All of these documents are stored in my binder and I bring it back and forth from school to home daily. I also have parent contact info, important papers from meetings, etc. in there as well. I keep every binder at the end of the year for future reference.

I hope this helps you in some itty bitty way!

In other news I finally finished my All About Australia Unit that I taught about in October. Yes, it was finished except for the finishing touches (that took me all day yesterday) to complete. Now I am on to Penguin Parade: An Antarctica Adventure. I taught this unit in December. I will be back soon with more updates and how I travel around the world (all year) in my classroom. I have taught this way for the past eight years and absolutely l.o.v.e it!!

Happy New Year!

Peek at my little week 11.25.13

Aloha blogger friends,

This is going to be a great, short and sweet week. Happy Thanksgiving!!

 

True story...Five for Friday 10.25.13

Aloha Blogger friends,

Somehow Fridays are always crazy, so I am doing this on a Thursday night. The crazy thing is that I am still in my classroom at 8:00pm because my son is at a middle school dance and we live too far away for me to drive back and forth. After school I had a meeting for two hours about report cards which fell right into a Boy Scout meeting of which I am the Scoutmaster (another story). My desk (and the floor surrounding it) are soooo messy that I think I could be swallowed by it all. My room feels like it is half of what we were working on (Australia) and then a bunch of insect, arachnid and Halloween stuff! This time of year seems to get busier and busier.

Here is my 5 for Friday for the week...



(Drum roll...listed in no particular order)

We have learned so much about insects for the past two weeks. I love how much our morning messages are helping with that. They were first inspired by Deanna Jumps chit chat messages. I love the handful that she has on her blog that are focused on science topics, so I have made one for every day of my classroom. This one was about bees. Did you know that they have 5 eyes??

After getting this idea from a Frog Street SPLASH Conference a few years ago, I am loving keeping a class science notebook...right along side of my students notebooks. I am adding our learning as well as pictures taken while we are doing the experiments...lab coats and glasses help! I love these books and they come from Resources for Reading.

 

Oh yes, it was my birthday this week! I am so grateful and thankful for all of my friends and family who each did something to make my birthday super special. This plant was from one of my students. I also received 1 million Starbuck's gift cards...not really!

 

 



 

Every year I take my students to my house to collect insects. We have a big pond and plowed fields that allow us to use nets in the grass, dig in the dirt and search in the pond. If we are lucky we may find a dragonfly nymph in there. This book Eddie's Backyard Bugs is a super fun book that combines fiction with non-fiction. I read them this book and then give them their entomologist kits. We use the paper straws to drink like a bug...only the best bug juice (sparkling cider).



 

 

I l.o.v.e Halloween...need I say more!

 

Happy Friday,



 

 

Peek at my ((little)) week!! 10-7-13

Aloha blogging friends,

I am soooooo excited that this is only a three day week due to Parent Teachers Conferences. I feel like I can take a little time next weekend to make sure that I am fully preparred for the remainder of October. We have two big field trips coming up (insect collecting and going to the pumpkin patch) as well as the 50th day of school, Halloween, learning about insects, spiders, bats and Australia! I will link up to Deedee if she does her linky party this week ( I know all the cool girls were partying in #NashVegas13 this weekend...wink!)

The Australia Unit that I am using a ton this week is still a work in progress by me. I hope to have it posted in the next couple of days. I absolutley love teaching about the world around us!! Have a great week.

 

Five for Friday 10-4-13 (on a Saturday) Linky Party

Aloha,

Wow, I forget each year how busy the fall can be with holidays, conferences and after school activities, I easily get lost in all of the fun. Here is a quick five for Friday thanks to Doodle Bugs.

We travele to Asutralia this week in our classroom after succesfully completing two weeks in the Texan Wild West. For a fun little snack we made Wombat Stew thanks to this recipe.

 



 



 We have a new puppy at home...need I say more. He is super sweet and smart.

 

Next week we will begin learning about insects and arachnids. To get my students excited I put out a bunch of fun things in our room. I overheard this little sweeting say "oh cool" on her way to sharpening her pencil.

 







 

 

 

I always loved Deanna's Chit-Chat messages so this summer I spent some time creating my messages for the year. Each months worth of messages are in their own chart book (from Wal-Mart). This one is from my soon to be published Australia unit on Teachers Pay Teachers. It comes with the words to write, picture and graphic. I can't believe how much better my students are at phonics this year because of this. I also couldn't believe that half of my class hasn't been snorkling!

 







So, if you haven't figure it out already, I love animals and food. On the way to school Friday morning there were two little (wild) piggies who ran out in front of me. I am glad that they are pretty much the largest wild animals around here.

 

Happy Friday on a Saturday...