Swinging for Success

Hey everyone! I hope you were able to pick up a bunch of great items at TpT's huge sale the last 2 days! I know I did!

Well, it's Wednesday so it's time to talk about what's working in my room. Now, this is the first one that Gina (Third Grade Tidbits) and I are hosting as a linky party so please link up and share what's working in your room!

This week I wanted to share a motivational bulletin board that I have in my room. I'm blessed at my school that my students use ST Math....affectionately referred to as Jiji in my room.

My students are able to play Jiji at home and they go to the computer lab once a week and spend a little bit of time working on it there. If you've never seen it, it's amazing! It's a visual way for kids to practice math. At my school grades 2-5 do Jiji. They solve "puzzles" and progress through the various levels. I've set up the content to align with what they've learned or are about to learn in class.

As they progress, I use this bulletin board to document their growth.

As Jiji (the cute little penguin) completes 10% intervals, I get an email postcard saying where she has travelled to.

Last year I would just show the kids the postcards as I got them, but this year I wanted to highlight individual students as they work hard to complete the program. So the bulletin board was created.

After a little bit of searching I was able to download the postcards. If you use ST Math, you can find them by clicking here.

Then I created a little "personal Jiji" for each of my students.

click here to download this template.
when it shows up in google drive the background is white, but when you download it you can see the background

As they move through the program, I'll move their Jiji to the different postcards. That way if the class is only at 10% completion, but they're at 30%, they can say their Jiji is in Paris.

I also made a "class Jiji" to show where we are as a class.

So far the kids love seeing their progress. They come in and let me know they did Jiji the night before and I try to check progress multiple times a week and move the Jiji's so that the reinforcement is relatively immediate. It's also helped get the kids motivated and excited to complete the program. I don't have to assign it as homework because most of them want to do it so they can see their progress......a definite win for a teacher!

So now it's time to link up! The link will be open each week from Wednesday to Tuesday. Gina and I love Farley's rule of 3 so we're adopting that. Please remember to comment on the one (or more!) before your link and the two (or more!) after your link! We all love the feedback!

Brandi

Brandi 12:00 AM 2 comments

I'm linking up with Jessica and Jenn for their 5 for Five linky party. I love making lists and crossing things off. Over the last few years, I feel like I haven't been very goal oriented. Due to personal issues, I think I've just be existing, not really living; but I'm ready to change up and I know that making lists will help me get back on track!

So here goes.....my 5 things I want to get accomplished this week:

Eat breakfast at home all 5 days: this one should be easy this week since I'm broke :( but I need and want to get back into the habit of eating at home with my daughter.
Pack my daughter's lunch the night before 3 times: I need to do a better job of this and by doing this, I'll have more time in the morning to eat breakfast at home.....a 2 for 1!
Read my devotional and Bible-reading plan in the morning: Since I've gotten my new Galaxy SIII, I've downloaded the Bible and am committed to finishing the plans I've started.
Bring a water bottle to work and DRINK IT: I have so many waterbottles at my house and I know if I could cut back on the calories from drinks I could start working on my weight loss goals, so this week I want to bring my waterbottle daily and actually drink from it.
Research and finalize on a 2013 planner: I really want an Erin Condren life planner, but don't want to spend that much. I've used Franklin Covey in the past so my goal is to do some research and make a decision on a planner for next year (all help in this would be appreciated!).

Make sure you stop by on Wednesday for the first What's Workin' Wednesday link up! And have fun shopping on Cyber Monday.....be sure to check out the big sale on TpT!

Brandi

Brandi 5:36 PM 3 comments

Well my cart at TpT is packed and ready to go for tomorrow's sale! I'm super excited to be getting some great products. Please make sure to check out my store for up to 28% off! Here are 2 of my newest items:

I wanted to give 2 people a chance to win, so I thought I'd do a "Pin it to Win it" giveaway! All you have to do is pin the 2 pictures above and leave a comment with your email and link to your pins. On Thursday I'll pick 2 winners who can choose which item they would like!

I'm still hoping to reach 300 followers---won't 1 more person follow my lil ol' blog :) Once this happens I'll be throwing a big giveaway!

Brandi

Brandi 9:27 AM 5 comments

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and is enjoying the time with family and friends. I'm not braving the stores this weekend, but will be doing some online shopping!

With that in mind, I'm jumping on the sale bandwagon and offering a 20% sale on everything in my store. Combine that with the 10% discount on TpT by using the promo code CMT12 and you can save 28%!

Here are some new products I've been working on that would be great during this holiday season (click on any of the titles to check them out at my TpT store):

Dear Santa Letter Writing Mini Unit:
This mini unit on letter writing contains 3 different letter writing activities: an elf application, dear Santa wish list, and gingerbread house letter. For the elf application, students will apply to be an elf and write a letter to Santa explaining why they would make a good elf. In the dear Santa wish list activity, students will create their wish list of what they would like to receive and what they've done to earn these presents. Finally in the gingerbread house letter, students will write a letter to a gingerbread kid detailing what type of materials they should use to build a gingerbread house and why those materials would be a good choice.
Each activity contains prewriting pages, draft pages, and lined writing pages (narrow and wide lines, single and 2 page letters).
I've also included a craftivity where students will create an elf and attach their letter to Santa explaining why they would make a good elf.

Gingerbread Man Writing Directions Craftivity and Flat Ginger Activity:
In the Writing Directions Craftivity, students will decorate a gingerbread kid and write detailed, step by step directions on how to recreate it. They will bring in these directions and trade them with a classmate who will then follow the directions to create the gingerbread kid.

In the Flat Ginger Activity, students can use the gingerbread kid they created in the writing directions craftivity or they can create another one. This activity is similar to Flat Stanley---students will take their "Flat Ginger" home with them during the holidays to share in some family holiday fun. I've included a bubble map to help kids remember their adventures and plan their writing. It also includes writing pages and a rubric.

Missing Addends Snowmen:
In this FREEBIE students will match a 2 digit missing addend problem with the answer, and a subtraction problem that could be used to check it. This would be great for centers/math stations!

Happy shopping!

Brandi

Brandi 6:00 AM 4 comments

So I don't know if this really constitutes as something that's working, but I just wanted to showcase a few of my "Disguise a Turkey" projects.

My students did such a great job with this and the families had a lot of fun being creative---so I guess you could say family projects are working in my room! Here are a few of the complete projects:

Darth Vador

Student in our uniform

Rock Star

Bear

Bunny

I promise to post more pictures this weekend. I can't believe how fast the month is going and that Thanksgiving is next week! If you'd like to do this project with your kids, check it out {HERE}:

In other news, Gina from Third Grade Tidbits and I have decided to make this a weekly linky party! We plan to start on Wednesday the 28th, so get ready to link up what's working in your room. We'd love to share what everyone's up to!