Inexpensive Student Ornament Gift

Are you in need of an expensive student gift? This one cost me $3 for 30 ornaments.  You can personalize them with a vinyl cutter or by hand lettering them with a sharpie.

Materials:  Plastic Poster Board (find at your local craft store), Used Crayons, Sharpener, Sharpie or 2 Sheets of Vinyl, Hot Glue Gun

First you'll need to cut the poster board into your desired shape.  You can use a die cut, scissors or a vinyl cutting machine.  I used my Cricut for these.  Next I used my hot glue gun to melt a circle opening at the top of every circle.  You could also use a sturdy hole punch.

Next I cut the names out of vinyl.  If you don't have a cutter you could hand write them with a sharpie marker.

 Then I sharpened crayons to sprinkle on the back of every circle.  Less is definitely more when it comes to placing the wax on the circle.

 After you place the wax on the circle you'll have to melt them at 120 degrees in the oven for about 2 minutes.  If your circle starts to roll at the edges, place it in your freezer and gently press the center down until it cools flat.

This is the final product. You could tie a ribbon on it or give it with a suction cup.  They make great sun catchers.

I'm giving my students the ornament with this tag.  You can find it for free by selecting the photograph below.

It Will Never Be Enough - My Best Advice For Fellow Teachers

Have you stopped to look around at all the amazing teachers lately? These teachers are killing it. They have kids engaged in learning that's mind-blowing.

If you aren't a teacher let me give you a quick glimpse into our lives to help you understand this post's central message. We have 20+ (give or take a few) kids in our classes.  Each one of these beautiful children comes with their own special set of care instructions.  Each child comes with 0-4 parents and 0-8 grandparents who sometimes want to communicate their thoughts with the teacher about how they could be doing it better.  Some children have a varied set of abilities like throwing desks as far as a discus thrower or throwing themselves on the floor for a marathon tantrum, all while these teachers keep teaching, solve the child's problem and never stop loving that kid who just spit all over them.  Teachers understand that behind every behavior lies a broken child who needs help.  They stay up late at night coming up with the perfect lesson that will support Johnny while helping Jane to flourish.  That amazing teacher will stop by the store at 6:00 a.m. and spend their own money to get the needed materials for today's lesson.  They know what it means to differentiate and move every child in the room through at least a year's growth.  Only to have their district personnel come in the next day for a walk through and rip them apart.  Meanwhile the district isn't upholding their contracts and providing compensation so that the teacher can eat and pay their electric bill.  While they're standing in line the person next to them decides to tell them that they should be thankful because they get summer's off.  Any teacher will tell you that this scenario is common place and not an exaggeration.

As a mentor teacher one of the most frequently asked questions that I get is "What would you like all new teachers to know?"  To that I answer this, "It will never be enough".  You can stay up all night and it will not be recognized.  You can teach your heart out and it will be expected and not appreciated.  You can spend every last dime to provide for your students and you'll be thanked by having your tax credit taken away.  For my fellow teachers, just know that I'm with you.  I've shed the same tears over the same sorrow as you.  I suggest you do what you can in the classroom while living in a way that provides a happy life for you and your family.  In the end it will never be enough in the classroom, but it will be in your home so choose wisely friends.

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Cultures From Around The World - ELA Lesson Plans #12

Here we are in week two of one of the best units EVER! The students are having a great time learning about cultures from around the world, how those cultures affect us, all while incorporating reading, writing and social studies standards together.  This week will not disappoint! All teachers know that learning just before a break can leave students a little less motivated, distracted and it may feel a bit like herding cats.  This is why I up the engagement of my lessons so that students keep on going until the minute they leave on Friday.

We will be diving into comparing and contrasting again on Monday.  The students will have a host of H.O.T questions to guide their thinking.  On Wednesday we will take a break a break during shared reading from cultures and dive into Thanksgiving.  We do not learn about a sugar coated Thanksgiving, rather we learn an age appropriate approximation of the events.  Students will look at the cause/effect relationships between these events in order to connect each event through a timeline.  Students have been discussing and learning about an author's point for weeks now, Thursday will have them reading three passages, determining the purpose and finding evidence to support the different points.

So much going on this week that every minute counts.  Our shared reading lessons will run between 20-30 minutes.  We will have fun read alouds ever day.  (I'll list some of them below for you.). We will also be incorporating fall fun into our guided reading.  Students will continue to write their Sweden pieces to display for their culture fair.  If you are interested in details to any of the extra events that I have listed, please look for links below.  You can find my lesson plan outlines from A Modern Teacher here.

Click below to see what a culture fair is and how to run one.

Here are my read alouds for the week.

Need a freebie for bellwork? Click on the picture below.  Check out last week's lessons for a couple other freebies for a culture fair.

Click below for some of the materials that I'm using this week.

Playdough Word Workstation

Looking for an inexpensive word workstation that's ready to go? I found these letters and play dough in a set at Walmart for $6.  The play dough fits perfectly in a pencil box.  The letters also fit perfectly in a pencil box.  This center pairs perfectly with my DIY sound boxes.  Click on the picture below to find the directions for them.

Key Details - ELA Lesson Plans #11

The next two week's of lessons are going to be two of the BEST WEEKS EVER!  The students absolutely love learning about different countries and essentially getting to travel around the world. We will start the unit off during bellwork on the first day by making a suitcase to store our papers in.  You can see an example of the suitcase in the picture below titled "Travel The World".  Each day we will focus on a new standard and a new country in reading.  Students have already encountered each of these standards and will lead their learning in small groups.  Centers will be set up for them that include differentiated text, hands-on images of items from the country, flags, maps and a sight seeing guide.  You'll see examples of these in pictures below.  The unit that I made for these standards contains all print and go materials so there's not a ton of prep.  There will be a written assessment each day in the form of a graphic organizer that students will store in their suitcases.  Each day we will play a folk tale from the country that we get off of youtube for a read aloud.  It's another great way to incorporate more standards while the students stay engaged.  When time permits, students will get to make a craft during bell work from the country of the day.

During writing we will write an informational piece on our country of choice.  Each student will be assigned a different topic to write about.  The topic may include:  food, art, music, practice, clothing and/or beliefs.  We will use this writing during our culminating experience which is a Grade Level Culture Fair.  If you want to see how we run our Culture Fair, click on the second picture of this post.

Click on the picture below for a Sweden freebie.

Click below for a free passage on the U.S.A.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-United-States-Reading-Passages-2166287

Click on the pictures below to find the materials used this week.

You can find my lesson templates over at A Modern Teacher by clicking here.

DIY Sound Boxes

Need a word work center that will last forever for under $5? One of my favorite new DIY crafts for word work is wooden letters.  Walmart has a ton of different ones for $2.50/pack.  They also have the rectangles for about $2.50.  I painted the letters and wooden rectangles in under 15 minutes.  Then I cut out circles on my Cricut to represent sound boxes.  You could draw boxes or write CVC, CVCE, etc.  The letters and sound boxes fit perfectly in a pencil box.  I also store them in a large paper tray from The Container Store when I want to add word lists.  See below for a twist on the idea and a link to another workstation that costs under $5.

If you want to spice up your centers you can find play dough sets with letter stamps for about $6.  The set below came from Walmart and it fits perfectly with my sound boxes.

For you higher students use the blank back of the rectangles.  They can build longer words without boxes.

Click below for another DIY word building workstation.