Classroom Decor

I am a believer in your classroom decor not only being fun for the students, but also reflecting your own personality! I have loved mysteries ever since I discovered Nancy Drew and I think they're a great place for some reluctant readers to find their niche. Isn't learning in school somewhat like uncovering a mystery, too? With this in mind, I decided to make my classroom detective/mystery themed. I had emailed some local libraries asking for detective-themed book posters, but never got a response. I'm still hoping to uncover more treasures as the year ends, but here are some mystery themed highlights so far:

I also added random magnifying glasses around the classroom to try to carry the theme, even with the unrelated academic posters:

My bulletin boards also have mystery-related titles on them, like, "The mystery of history," "case notes," and "hot on the trail of learning." 

What does your classroom decor look like this school year? :)

Teaching the Constitution and Bill of Rights

Hello teachers! We are just finishing up one of my favorite units to teach out of all of my classes! I love teaching students about how our government works here in America. I believe it is so important to society that our future voters are well-informed and know what the Constitution says. Last year, I discovered a really great product on Teacher's Pay Teachers for teaching students the branches of government. In this project, students make a really cool flip-flap book about the branches of government! It even comes with a little booklet that has information about the branches in very simple language and that aligns perfectly with the questions asked in the flip-flap book. The bonus to it is that it looks amazing up on a bulletin board! Check mine out!

The yellow stickies and weird black line are covering the student's names. I just put them on for this picture. :)

I purchased this project from Simply Skilled in Second on Teacher's Pay Teachers. You can get it here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Branches-of-Government-1189930 . It is well worth the price, even if printing it is a little bit complicated (some pages need to be printed on legal pages). One example of checks and balances from this booklet is how a bill becomes a law, so of course, I had to show the classic Schoolhouse Rock video, "I'm Just a Bill." (Aren't those the best videos??)

After completing the flip-flap book, we played a game entitled, "Branches of Power" to test our knowledge at www.icivics.org. I love this website!!!! I use lessons and games from it numerous times throughout the year to teach U.S. history. I only wish there were a website like it for world history activities.

Next, we study the Bill of Rights. I use a Bill of Rights lesson from www.icivics.org. In the picture above, high and in the center, is one of the activities we do from that lesson. Students have to match a simplified version of each amendment with its number. There are a few other fun activities in the lesson and I modify them for my class as needed (we do parts in groups, parts individually, and parts as a whole class). We then play another game at www.icivics.org. This one is called, "Do I have a Right?" It's similar to Diner Dash, except you are running a law firm and matching clients and their problems to a lawyer who specializes in a corresponding amendment. This game truly allows students to put their knowledge into action! The last activity we did with the Bill of Rights was a discussion activity that I created after reading about "chat stations" from Cult of Pedagogy. You can read more about them at http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/chat-stations/. The discussion questions I created for this activity are totally free on Teacher's Pay Teachers!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Bill-of-Rights-Discussion-Activity-2338448

I was incredibly impressed by the answers I got to these questions. Most were well-thought-out with good evidence for their answers. I really felt like the students were able to apply the principles in the Bill of Rights to their own lives through this activity. 

I hope some of these activities give you inspiration for teaching about our amazing Constitution and Bill of Rights! Please comment if you have any questions. :)

Preparation for Multi-digit Multiplication

Sometimes it’s difficult for students to go from multiplication facts to multi-digit multiplication that requires regrouping. I like to have the students practice multiplying and then adding so they have some experience with the process they will do after regrouping. This is especially helpful for students in special education. Then, I have the students practice multiplying without regrouping so they practice doing steps in the right order. Any time we can have the students practice any of the steps of in a multi-step process beforehand, it helps increase their confidence because it actually looks somewhat familiar. 

I have a new Teachers Pay Teachers product up to help with this! I have included five pages of "multiply, then add" worksheets with 30 problems each. I have also included five pages of multiplication of one digit by two digit numbers without regrouping. Each page has 15 problems. It all comes with an answer key as well. I hope these activities help your students ease into multiplication with regrouping! Check it out here: Preparation for Multi-digit Multiplication

The Right Way to Write

Hello followers! It's obviously been a long time since I've written on this blog. I still keep my TeachersPayTeachers store updated, so I suggest you subscribe to me over there to stay more "in the know." My TpT Store

I am happy to say that I have five writing projects over on my Teachers Pay Teachers store! I think writing is absolutely one of the most important skills a person can learn. My knowledge and experience with writing has impacted my personal life in so many ways. In high school, I wrote articles for our local newspaper's "teen" section and wrote for the school newspaper. I loved and enjoyed these things and they also gave me more to put on my college applications. In college, because of my past experience, I was able to actually make money by writing for my college yearbook. That is one of the best jobs I have ever had- doing what I loved, being involved in my school, and getting a stipend for it. 

Being able to write well is almost always a prerequisite for getting into college and is often part of a job application process as well. Many jobs require writing almost daily- whether emails or reports. As you can see, I've given a lot of thought to the importance of writing. 

Knowing that writing is so important, I sometimes struggle with how to teach it to my special education students. Their writing ranges from being unable to form a correct sentence to being unable to incorporate research information into their writing. In addition, I try to focus on the grade level standards as much as possible. The writing project templates I have created on my Teacher's Pay Teachers Store are extremely structured. Most of them have sentence starters and blank spaces for students to fill in. Everything is created with scaffolding in mind so students can start with the most basic and move into a completed essay. I have made changes based upon watching my students use these templates. For example, most of my students were marking off the peer editing checklist without actually doing the steps, so I added an editing checklist that requires them to "make up" their essays so I can quickly tell whether or not they did the steps. I am very proud of the fact that my students write compare/contrast, persuasive, etc. essays like their general education peers, just with more supports. I hope that these essay projects will help you with your students, too!

Biography Assignment for Any Subject 

Compare and Contrast Research Essay        

Persuasive Essay Packet       

Research paper and transition activity 

Personal Narrative Packet   

Open House Part 2

I very clearly took the summer off in more ways than one! Lol. Sorry for never finishing my open house project blogs! Looking back at May, for math class, I had to think of something we could do that would look nice when displayed, but also be educational! That balance can be difficult to find the older your students get! Then I came up with an idea... we were studying mixed numbers at the time. I had the students figure out their age as a mixed number and then represent it by drawing a timeline and boxes. I LOVE anything where the students can take an abstract concept like mixed numbers, apply it to themselves, and find a way to make it more concrete! I will certainly be doing this in the future. Here's the picture:

Sorry it's so far away. They wrote I am ____ years old on the top, created a number line, and put a dot for their age. They then drew boxes to represent their age (the last box only being part full, except for the student who happened to have a birthday that month!). I'm sure there is a way to make it more artsy as well- gluing graham cracker pieces to the board instead of drawing boxes, etc.

Open House Projects Part 1

Hello Followers! Earlier this month, we had Open House! My students and I crammed in a couple of cute projects in the tiny window between state testing and Open House, so our classroom would look good! The first one I'm going to share was for my American History class. First, the students researched someone connected with the creation of the Constitution and made a timeline of their life. The first event was their birth and the last event was their death and the students found two significant life events to put in the middle. We folded construction paper in half and cut four strips on one side to make a timeline. On the front of the strips, the students wrote the date and drew a picture of the event. When you lift the flap, you see a short summary of the event. I then had the students make "name tags" for the person, which I stapled above. I made my students an example of Johnny Depp's life, as seen below:

Below is our completed bulletin board (with their biography projects from January). Although this was a fairly simple project, it gave the students a chance to do research and made our bulletin boards a little more 3D.

Here is a link to the FREE research template I created and had my students use for this project!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Timeline-Project-Graphic-Organizer-676839

I will be posting about our math project next!

Books and Movies

Hello friends! I would like to share with you a bulletin board I came up with earlier this year. Blockbusters all over are going out of business (sad!!) and as a result, they are selling 20 "movie backer cards" for $1.00. I saw them and felt that I had to find a use for them in my classroom, whether as bookmarks or on the walls. My fiance and I went though them and purchased all the ones we could find that were based on books. Here's what I came up with:

My students seem to love this bulletin board! They are always looking at it and discussing the movies, while I'm yelling out, "You should read the book!" I love it because it will (hopefully) get them excited to read the books these movies are based on! Also, it's hard to come up with cute bulletin boards for older age groups. Enjoy and get to Blockbuster before it's too late!