Fun, Fun, Fun, Summertime Blog Hop

I am so excited to be participating in this summer time blog hop with a new "tribe" I joined recently. Teachers supporting teachers couldn't make me happier!!! 

Let's talk about beating the summer slide! 

I am returning to elementary this year after being in middle school for the past four.  The main reason I am doing this, is to be with my own kids. I have a child going into 4th grade and one starting kinder. We have never gone to school together and I am excited to do this now. 

So, my almost 4th grader still struggles with his multiplication facts. I'm not a great "teacher/mom" when it comes to making him practice, but there are a few things I have done with him this summer that I know is helping. He isn't thrilled by it, but he is doing them. I keep the practice short and sweet. 

We have been playing a cover game by finding unknowns in multiplication facts. 

 We have a set of cards. He pulls one card and answers it. If he is correct he gets to cover a number on the board. Once he gets six in a row, he wins!

My partner is my 5 year old. I help him with the facts and he covers my numbers! 

It's been fun and I have actually liked trying a new product out with my kiddos! 

This game can be found in my store. There are two versions, one for multiplication and one for division. And to save a little, a bundle is available as well. 

My second share with you, is a little different. Again, using my 9 year old as my guinea pig. I created an activity for my students to work on numbers. 

I wanted to see how they'd do, so I asked him to do one for me. Reluctantly, he did. 

I also wanted this to be FREE for you all. It's too long for a TpT freebie, but I made it free here. So, go grab it and have some fun getting this ready to use this year. It is super easy and printer friendly! 

Click the picture below to visit Teaching Autism for more fun shares! 

Flip Your Lid

This past Monday I shared this picture on Monday Made It: 

I was asked how I plan to use these. 

I decided to share several ways you can use lids in your classroom. 

First of all, START SAVING LIDS, ALL LIDS, ANY COLOR, SIZE, just save them 

The very first time I wanted lids, I enlisted my entire school. Not kidding. 

The back story is this: 

My middle child was in Kindergarten and struggling to learn his sight words. 

I found this on Pinterest. 

The Activity Mom

I immediately wanted to write my son's 100 sight words on lids and help him. It was April that year and I needed lids QUICK. He was waaaay behind and needed to learn his words before school ended.  We happened to be giving the STAAR (Texas State testing) near that time and each student received a water bottle each day of testing. I sent an email out and asked the teachers to have their students save the lids. I have an over abundance of lids and until the end of the year, students would being me lids. Even if I didn't want them, I accepted them. Back then, I was a lid snob. I only took white ones with nothing on top so I could write on them. 

It did work. My son learned his sight word list before the end of school. 

Fast forward a little and I have a bunch of lids I just can't throw away. 

So, before I became a TpT seller, I created this: 

FREEBIE 

It is one of my first products I ever posted as well. and I seriously need to update it. 

I will add that to my "to do" list. 

My original post explains the same thing, almost exactly 3 years ago! 

So, a few weeks later, I received an email from another middle school math teacher/TpTer. She was (and still is) a HUGE seller. Jennifer, from 4mula Fun, saw my post and made it way better! She has since become my mentor and friend whom I absolutely adore! 

I wasn't even a seller at this time. I loved what she did and that she shared it with me. 

Now, I am moving to 3rd grade and I want to use lids again. And now, I am not such a snob. I look for all kinds of lids, sizes, colors, etc... 

I plan to have my students create equations with those lids pictures above. I can just have them create what they want or I can assign it. I see this in small group first, then put into a math station. 

I also recently create these games for finding the unknown in equations and think these will be great to use as well. Students can put the lids "in the box" 

Finding the Unknown 

I think the possibilities are endless for using lids. 

Patterns, number order, place value, greater than less than, order of operations... 

Reading words, sorting types of words (verbs, nouns, etc), making words, creating sentences, etc... 

My husband recently collected lids for something with his baseball team. They have ended up back at our house and now I have tons. Some of them have writing on the top though. 

So, I bought some stickers to cover it up and I can write on them now. I am telling, you the uses for these are ENDLESS! 

Plus, so what if a lid get lost? You can replace it since they are so accessible!!! 

Then I searched "bottle lids" on Pinterest and found a gazillion (okay, maybe not that many) ways people used them! 

A Love 4 Teaching 

Miss Kindergarten 

Learning 4 Kids

Seriously, lids are great resource for you to have in your classroom. I used the fractions, decimals and percents with my 6th graders, it's not just for elementary kids! 

I would love to hear how you use lids or ideas you come up. Please leave a comment below. 

Be creative, open the lid, and think outside the box! 

Happy collecting! 

Persicope Madness

It has been super actually meeting and sharing via Periscope. Shelia Jane Teaching is having linky party so we can meet everyone! 

Right now, I have just been sharing stuff I have made or bought, but I see great potential for this social media! 

Be sure to link up! 

Monday Made It- July 13th AND A WINNER!!!!!!

First and Foremost. Let me announce the winner of my giveaway from last week and My Masterpiece Challenge. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congratulations Marcy! 

Thanks to everyone for entering! 

And now, I am super excited about MMI with Tara!!! 

What an insane week! Started off kind of bummed that my planned trip to Vegas was derailed, but with amazing social media, I don't feel like I missed out completely. Periscope changed everything! 

I started off strong with my Monday Made Its though. I feel like I made a dent in some of the room prep. I am excited that everything is coming together. 

Products from Monica MeGown 

My calendar numbers and months of year! The blank circles will be attached to the months of the year with the students birthdays. 

Table numbers by Monica MeGown

I made these Daily 3/5 signs last year, but with my colors changing, I just changed the backgrounds to match. I use the table numbers underneath the signs of where students will go that day. 

I also made these fraction games from Katie Texas. It's a coincidence that they match my colors. 

I have been saving lids for a while. The large white ones belong to large water bottles we use for our Kuerig. The small ones are just regular water bottles. The orange are from Gatorade bottles. We go through a lot of Gatorade in this house. This is just a start. 

I made these for students to create equations. This will be an ongoing project so I can have as many numbers and mathematical symbols as possible. 

I have a few more things I could share, but they are not quite complete, so I will wait. It has been a super productive week and I have truly enjoyed my first full week off of summer. 

Be sure to link up with Tara, share your ideas or get some to start working on. 

Not in Vegas, but Linky

School in the City has put together a "Not in Vegas, but " linky. I decided to join, because I am not in Vegas. 

I actually have a "ticket". I signed up in April. I did it with the hope that we could swing it. And, recently, we realized that we could.  I even printed off some of my session handouts to prepare my notebook. 

My husband left the decision completely up to me. We are serious VEGAS people. We go every year. We may actually go later this month, just for fun (and our 10 year anniversary). 

But, not this week. 

I TpT for my son and his medical bills. This hasn't changed. They are still there. (the bills) 

Then, last week, my mom got sick. My mom takes care of my ailing Dad. I need to stay close to home. 

I'm bummed, but not overly upset. It is what it is and I have plenty to keep me busy here. I am having fun on social media checking stuff out and enjoying the posts. 

Vegas isn't gong anywhere, they'll be more opportunities. I'm looking forward to them. 

If you're "not in Vegas" be sure to link up and have some fun with the "homies". 

oh and before you go, don't forget about a few giveaways going on right now. 

1. Super Spectacular Secondary Mathletes Gievaway 

2. Finding the Unknown for Multiplication and Division 

Monday Made It- July 5th

It's Monday again. Time to share what I have been doing this week. 

First, I MADE IT through summer school. Seriously, its easy money, but honestly, my goal is to NEVER have to do it again. Of course, I just said never, we know what that means... 

Secondly, I have been making products. As part of the #tptsellerchallenge I completed two products.

The multiplication is even completed for my own classroom this year. Time to get moving on the division one. 

I am having a giveaway for this product this week. Check out this blog post to enter. 

I made these from The Brown Bag Teacher. She just reached a milestone on TPT and has them for FREE. I actually made them for my partner teacher, she is teaching writing and I thought she'd like them. 

I have more products, but they aren't quite finished. They will have to wait for another Monday. 

I'm feeling crafty right now, so I am off to go get supplies. More next week!