Friendsgiving and All Things Food at Work

 I'm a part of one of the leadership teams at work, and one of my favorite things is to come up with fun treats for the staff.  I try NOT to do the same things over and over b/c.....that's dull, and if you don't do whatever it is every year, you disappoint people, BUT if you do different things at different times...it's always fun.  There is one exception I've made the last few years....the pie cart.  I think this is her 3rd or 4th round.  Basically, each person from the team brings two pies, and we roll it around the building and let teachers pick their slice of pie.  Nobody complains.  This year I added a basket of apples and caramel/peanut butter b/c of some dietary restrictions.

 Another work tradition I started at least five years ago was a Friendsgiving meal after our school's Turkey Trot.  About 15 of us spend our entire day outside with no real breaks until 2 pm.  We are in charge of watching students run around the school during their specials.  After wards, I started inviting the folks helping back to my room to share a meal.  This year, our Turkey Trot got rained out, so it will be a Jingle Bell Run, BUT....I didn't cancel the meal.

I tried out PioneerWomans Sweet Potato Casserole.  There is a reason that lady has a cookbook (or 4)!  I even had some troubles b/c I wasn't able to bake my sweet potatoes long enough before cutting them up (I was supposed to mash them, but had to leave for an event when I was making them and mistimed the baking), but after cooking a second time under the crust, it was still delicious.  It's probably my favorite sweet potato recipe to date.

Teaching Tuesday: Veterans Day Parade

This was our third Veterans Day event at my school.  Each year has been a little different, and last year there was rain and it was 30 degrees, so we had to try plan b-an inside parade.  This was much cuter with students, but due to privacy, I'll just post the gist.  We started the day with a flag ceremony (thanks to the girl scout troop).  Our PE teacher had a City Councilman come and talk about Veterans, and we had Veterans (family members of ours students and those in our community) come and sit up front).  The students all sat facing them.
After the ceremony we had a parade through the halls.  The year before we 'paraded' down to a local nursing home.  This year, our plan was to head down the street to a nearby church.  Each grade level submits a 'float' for the parade and we give an award to the winning float.  The teachers have some pretty creative entries.

One of our clubs sponsored a sign out front, and our PE teacher also placed flags along the walk.  

 This year, each student was given a red or blue sign with the names of veterans.  I sent out a survey in advance to the staff and families and asked them to let me know the names of Veterans that impacted their family and then printed these all off.  I have also done a flag display out front with a name tied to each flag, and that was really neat, but this year I was trying to think of something for the students to carry.  I tried noise makers the year before, but I think this was my favorite to date.

 I'm posting this year, because.....it's never too early to plan a parade.  We have a great police officer who also leads our parade, and it's a lot of planning, but well worth it.

Teaching Tuesday: Mock Tales

 OK, so this isn't exactly a lesson, but it is teacher related. The leadership team at my school rolls around a cart a few times a semester with a fun treat.  This May we put together this Mock Tail cart on Buddy Fun Day.  We figured it would be a hot day....but ended up having field day inside, but nobody complained about a cold beverage, even though we didn't sweat outside first.

 I found some fun cups at Party City, umbrellas via Amazon, and summer straws from Dollar Tree.  Each person on the team brought a soda/water and then some sort of fruit to float in the drink as a fun side (limes, lemons, pineapples, cherries, and some cherry flavor).

It was a super simple, but fun treat to personalize for each teacher.

Teaching Tuesday: Egg Word Families

Here's a simple center for those left over eggs.  Make word families.  I just used permanent marker and added the family to one side (-op, -it, -ot, -ap, -et) and then added the letters to the other side students can spin to make words.  They can make words and write them down, and you could even slip a little answer key inside with all the words they should make and a QR code of you recording yourself saying the words.

Teaching Tuesday: Teacher Incentive

 

 I'm on a committee that works to try to come up with fun things to keep the moral high in the schools.  This is something I originally saw on instagram and adapted to our school.  I created a room service menu with a list of snacks and drinks for each teacher to choose from that will be delivered to their room.

Here is a link to a free printable.  We aren't going to do this for a few months, it's one of several upcoming things we have for the teachers, but I figured I'd post about it before the file gets lost somewhere on my computer.  We are going to buy a bunch of snacks in advance and then deliver, and use the left over snacks for a state test that is going to be the following week.  I imagine you could also tally up the snacks and go shopping that evening, but I'm definitely a work ahead kind of girl.  Now it's time to copy and cut a bunch of these out so they are ready to roll out and down the hallway.

Teaching Tuesday: Incentives

I am a part of a group that is in charge of student incentives and awards this year at work.  To keep a long story short, we had a small group that won a 'prize' when they earned cards for doing the right thing and it filled up a line.  I saw an idea like this on pinterest, so I got to work and covered some boxes to look like cars.  The students came down, ate popcorn and got to watch a movie. 

 Another incentive was a fortnight dance party for a larger group of kids who won a points contest for their team.  Students would earn points for following expectations and the team with the most point got a glow necklace, flashlight, and an invite to the gym to dance to some fortnight moves under the lights of a 'disco' ball. 

Teaching Tuesday: Author's Purpose

 I made this a few years ago using free articles from readworks.  Step 1 is students sort definitions/examples etc of the different reasons author's write stories.  Step 2 is applying that to stories they read. 

Here is a link to the prinatable version.

Teaching Tuesday: 100th Day-Entertainment

     Apparently, it's all about the 100th day right now.  In my defense, it's what I've been working on.  In my other life, I'm helping plan a trip that got really big really fast, so all the details have consumed a lot of my time.  By the end of January, I will be back, and my hope is I'll have more time to prepare things in advance, like lessons.  I'd love to put all my 100th Day Museum pieces in one email, but right now, I'm posting it piece by piece. 
     I'm creating a 'museum' of things from 100 years ago for the students to tour on the 100th day of school.  I have all different categories:  school 100 years ago, entertainment, inventions, daily life, food.  There will be some interactive pieces, and samples. 
     This year, our district provided ipads for each student, so what I've been doing for a lot of the different categories is making QR codes.  In this case, when you scan the QR code for the Jazz page, a song should pop up that was popular in 1919.  Here is a link to a free printable of this page. 
     Once I have it all together, I'll try to post it all together, but right now you can click the 100th day link below this post to go to the other resources I've already published.   

Teaching Tip: 100th Day Museum

I started sharing about our 100th day last week, but this week, I'm adding another addition.  I'm going to set up a 'museum' in our school with inventions from 1919, food, politics, and news stories.  Another big thing that happened in 1919 was the fact that this is the year Congress endorsed the 19th Amendment.  I made a little flyer with a QR code that leads to a short/informative video about how this came about.  Here is the link to the free printable. 
I also used this website:
https://www.thoughtco.com/womens-suffrage-activists-3530534
to print off info about 10 women.  I'm going to set up a ballot box with their names on the ballots, and I'm going to make a sash like the ones they would have worn during protest. 

Teaching Tip: Context Clues

Things have been a little crazy at work, so in an effort not to let go of this little day of the week, I found an old lesson I did.  If you click on this free link it will take you to the full activity.  Once kids learn about four different types of clues, there are a bunch of example sentences (I found a lot of them and just reformatted them) and they sort them into the four sections.  

Teaching Tuesday: 100th Day of School

Here's a confession, that nobody that knows me will be surprised to hear.....I'm working on 100th Day activities for February.  That's right, it's November....and I've been thinking about what I want to do since last spring.  There are pockets of grades that do a really cute job celebrating 100th day at my school, but I was trying to think of something that would be fun to provide for the whole school to do (amidst their usual celebrations), one idea I came up with was creating a museum of things from 100 years ago.  I've put out a call for some different inventions and items, and I have some food I'm planning on purchasing, but one fun thing about 1919 was the popularity of silent film, specifically, Charlie Chaplin.  I'm planning on running a youtube video and providing this little flyer about ol' CC.  I'm making a bunch of these and trying to create some interactive stations at my museum.  Here is a free printable of this particular station. 

Teaching Tuesday: Elf on the Shelf Week

 As a specialist, I do a lot of 'big theme days' for the whole school, but I have to be sensitive (or try) to the 'rest' of the schedule.  In August, I had all these grand plans for an Elf on the Shelf week complete with a Santa's Workshop.  Enter, district scheduling and it turns out there are about 543,122 test going on this week.  I don't know why.  So, I adapted.  My teammate and I used some of our budget last year to purchase this book for the different grades.  I made a powerpoint with an award winning poem (insert sarcasm) about there being an elf at our school that spends December catching kids being kind.  I then bought some green bowls at Walmart that I added vinyl to and I'm going to place all over the building.

The PTA graciously donated a ton of little candy canes to the project, and I made a 'caught being kind' note and printed off enough for every student.  I'm giving each teacher a baggie with the notes and candy canes so that the elf can 'catch their kids' being kind throughout the week and leave notes on their desk to find in the morning.  The PTA is going to come up and pull pranks throughout the school each day, and on Friday all the teachers are going to dress up like elves.
I put some fun things on our school drive like 'finding your elf name' that I found online for free by just googling.
In a week filled with testing, this should be fun without causing too much interruption.

Teaching Tuesday: The Mayflower Simulation

We are introducing our Thanksgiving unit with these little activities.  The picture above is NOT mine, I googled Mayflower Simulation.  I also refer to a challenge activity that I found a free printable off.  Here is the video link.

The district has added in social studies test this year, so I included a few activities to have them reading compasses and using map scales like the one below.  

 I also found this free link to Scholastics where kids can 'tour' the mayflower and I provided QR codes.

Once the students try this out and we find out what works or what doesn't.....I'll spruce it up and make a printable until maybe by next year.  If it's a complete bust.....I won't.

Teaching Tuesday: Reading Game with Native American Story

I made this game using a free article (3rd Grade Level) from readworks.com called I am Native American.  Once the students read it I made some questions that go along with Texas Expository TEKS for 3rd grade.  I used released STAAR question stems.  BUT, the fun part is I created these little arrow head QRS.  You can print them and pass them out to students as they A)  Work well together B)  Find correct proof in the story C) Get the correct answer.  I'm going to have them work in groups for this, so the group earns arrow heads.  Then after each question, pause and let each team scan their arrowhead.  They then get those points for their team, which is a good deal for teams that aren't able to earn as many arrow heads because they have a shot at still winning if they collect enough buffalo!

There are six different pictures that pop up with assigned points (a buffalo gets 500, deer 400 etc, and there is one that does not receive any points).  Here is a printable link to the questions and arrowheads.  I'm planning on giving out beef jerky as an award. 
Printable Link

Teaching Tuesday: Autobiography vs. Biography

 I recently made a Native American Unit I'm pretty pumped about.  I LOVE teaching through Social Studies.  Obsessively.  It's over 70 powerpoint pages long.  Whoops.  I was covering a bunch of Informational Text TEKS  under the Native American umbrella, hence the teepees, and the examples of autobiography/biography books using real books about the subject.  If things slow down, I throw a printable version on TPT for free, but in the meantime.....here are all the sorting pieces. 

Teaching Tuesday: Snot and Buggers

      Look at me following through two weeks in a row.  Truth, I really am pretty good about following through with things, but I just wasn't sure if I wanted to add a teaching piece to my blog.  Truth, I didn't want to start a new blog either, so I'm just going to be me, which is someone with a lot of pots in the fire.  My goal is to make these more user friendly.  If you don't need teaching tips, skip Tuesday.  I'm not loading printable files today b/c I googled the images from the internet, and I don't want to get in trouble, BUT the ideas are easy to do.  I merged two ideas-SNOTS (Short Notes On The Side).  I have no idea who had that idea first, it was just an acronym I saw written at the top of a paper in a district lesson plan, and I googled what it meant, and another activity via Wade King, which I saw recently on Instragram.  It was done with math, but I found a way to adapt it to reading.  

     The first step is for kids to interact with the text. They write S.N.O.T.S at the top of their paper and then they jot down little thoughts as they are reading the text.  Let them use a green pen or pencil so it looks like they snotted all over their paper.  

     Then give them multiple choice questions.  Group them, print off the answer choices and they have to #1 decide the answer, and #2 go find the write booger that matches (A,B,C,D).  BUT have them put some green dyed vaseline on their nose and make them find the booger and pick it up with their snotty nose and take it back to their desk.  

   Winning team definitely needs some sort of green treat.  Sprite (snot juice) etc.