Motivation for Testing

I don't know about you, but my third graders start PARCC testing on Monday.  This is the first time that they are taking a state assessment; so their anxiety is at an all time high!  It's this time of year that I use my Motivational labels along with a small treat to let them know that they can do this and ROCK that assessment.  You can find them here at my store for FREE!  My students have loved the little motivators in years past; yours might too.  Check them out!

How to get your students pumped about reading!!

Today has to be a favorite day for my students; not only is it Friday but, it's Flashlight Friday! 🔦 Wahoooo!

Rewind back to August 2015, I had recently read The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. (BTW, if you have not read this book, you are missing out!!!). The book introduces the 40 Book Challenge; where you challenge students to read 40 books during the school year from different genres (future post in that later). 

As a special education teacher, I often have very reluctant readers because it is often a challenging task for most of my students.  I was determined this school year to get my students to love reading! But how?! 

At first, my class of third graders were not happy to hear of this challenge and thought one book was a lot to read during the school year. So... I did some brainstorming for activities we could do to get the kids excited about reading. Well, the number one activity on the list that we do is Flashlight Friday.

There is just something special about getting cozy in your classroom, turn out the lights and reading with a flashlight! The students love to go under their desks, go in dark corners, and just READ... Ahhhhh! I found some good quality mini- flashlights at Marshall's and a pack of four finger lights at the Dollar Tree that students love just as much! 

My co-teacher and I do other activities too. We do a snack and chat where the students share the book they're reading and provide a synopsis for their small group of classmates.  This is for other students to explore different books that they might not normally pick out on their own! If their peers recommend a book, then it becomes a must read! The teachers provide the snack and allow time for the kids to chat about their books! Students also provide book commercials for their books; another way to get other students intrigued about a story! This "sells" the book to the students without giving the entire storyline away! My students even love reading to me; which totally makes this heart smile. I love what this challenge has done for my students. students that struggle, I have created a template for students to follow which you can find here! 

Even the simplest of ideas, can get students EXCITED to read! For younger kids, you could have students bring in a stuffed animal, doll, or action figure to read to aloud. You can also pair up varying grade levels for Buddy Reading. Contests are always fun too! Students certainly love a bit of competition.

Back in January, my co-teacher and I decided to ask the students how they now feel about the 40 book challenge; and we were so happy and surprised how their feelings towards reading has changed! 

I hope this post inspired you to try some new things in your classroom to get your students excited to read. Do you have other ideas that you would love to share?! Please comment below! 

Happy Reading!

Flash Freebie

Hope everyone's weekend is off to a great start (and snow free...)  I am in the sharing mood; so I have a flash freebie for today!  I am sharing my Multiplication Word Problem: Winter Edition.  The word problems all relate to the winter theme; hot chocolate, ice skating, snowball fights, etc....  I truly made this for my students to use and practice their multiplication skills, but also working on their reading skills.  Numbers in the word problem are not always in standard form, but also word form and they must truly understand the question.

You can use this product for centers, practice with the skill, an early finisher, etc.... Let me know your thoughts!  I would love your FEEDBACK on the product on Teachers Pay Teachers too!  Below is the exact link to the product on Teachers Pay Teachers!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Multiplication-Word-Problem-Task-Cards-Winter-Edition-2275681


Have a great weekend!

Inside Snowball fights????

With the upcoming snow tomorrow, I figured it would be the perfect time to play one of my favorite review games! It's a favorite of the kids too! I have adapted it for all subject areas; so you can too. It's a SNOWBALL fight!!!! A perfect review game for the kids to get up and moving around the room; especially since we have had quite a few inside recess days lately! It has F-U-N written all over it!

Today's skill was math.... Adding and subtracting three digit numbers with regrouping! All you need is scrap paper (who doesn't have a ton of that around?!). For this Math review, I had students solve different regrouping problems. After they solve it on paper they rolled it up into a ball. They can do any number of problems you would like. The more problems solved; the higher the number of "snowballs". I have kids spread out to the corners of the room and start their "snowball fight". They love getting each other. They love "hiding" behind desks, sneaking up on people, and then some... After a few minutes of fun, students have to get the same number of snowballs they through in the snowball fight! Chances are; they will get different problems!

 Students will have to check one another's work and explain how they are correct or how to fix it and explain what they did wrong. The students don't know who it is from but it is a learning experience; since we review those problems as a class! They explain it to the class under our document camera. A lot of my students love playing teacher and this is the perfect opportunity for that!

There are so many ways to adapt this game... Vocabulary review, spelling practice, writer's notebook activity such as adding on to sentences to create a group story, etc.... Be creative! 

I would love to know what you do for review that your students love?! I know grudge ball is another favorite of ours. Please share what works for you or other indoor activities that are perfect for the dreaded cold weather inside recess. 

Just did my first Periscope.......AHHHHHH!

For those of you that have no idea what Periscope is, it is a social media site that provides live broadcasts.  If you can't join in on the live broadcast, the site will save it up to 24 hours.  People can join in on the broadcast and ask questions, make comments, and so on.  You can follow certain people and get notifications about their broadcasts.  I didn't hear of this site until I started selling Rodan and Fields.  My team started to use this app/ site as an online networking tool.  It wasn't until I started to dig further that other Teacher Pay Teacher authors were getting in on the hype too.

So today, I made my very first Periscope.  You can go back and view it and follow me on Periscope and just type in Katie@Motivational Ms Mac and then my mug will show up....LOL!  Much like my blog, I don't want it to just be about teaching.  I would also like for it to be scopes on some of my interests outside of teaching, such as working out, recipes, skincare, health, family, etc....  My first scope was stating just that; my ultimate goal for using the site.  I was a tad nervous, so please don't judge.  (I did say I was an overachiever and someone commented that I obviously wasn't "modest huh?!")  If you know anything about me, you know that I often take on too much, but I truly feel that is when I work best.  C'mon, what teachers do you know that aren't overachievers and total Type A personalities?!  It can be looked at as either a positive or negative....sometimes I look at it as both.  It was more of a dig at myself, not trying to boast!  I guess that is a caveat of live broadcasts......"haters gonna hate."  I'm ready., I got this...BRING IT!  HAHAHAHA!

Although, this was my first scope and was semi-nervous; I am seriously looking forwards to sharing quite a bit.  Watching your own video is a little funny too...I asked myself, "Do I ready sound like that?" or "Huhhhhhh, did I just make that face?!"  Time to reflect......

Anyways..... would love for you to check it out and join me on yet another adventure.
Periscope..... Katie @Motivational Ms Mac

If you are scoping too; leave a comment!  I would love to follow you!

What Is Scoot?!

As a teacher author on Teachers Pay Teachers, I often see my fellow Teacherpreneurs sell things that they call scoot! I felt a little silly asking my TpT seller friends so that I didn't sound crazy; so I asked my third grade unit at work. All they did was rave about it!

So I decided to give it a try! My students were struggling with rounding to the nearest 10 and 100.

This was a great activity to get the students up and moving. Our curriculum is so fast paced... Yet I decided to slow it down a bit as this is a skill they will be using in math in future grades and even in life! 

The students loved it!  This is how I played.... Students were to get up out of their seats.  When I yelled to begin, they are to flip over the task card at their desk and write down their answer on the provided answer sheet.  After they have written their answer, they are to flip cards back over.  Once I yell "SCOOT" ( about every 30 seconds), they are move onto the next desk, flip over that card and solve.  I tried to make this as uniform as possible in my classroom, by having students go to all of the student desks' at their group and then as a group move onto the next set of desks.  But that is totally up to you.  I have even spread out the cards around the classroom for the students to find.  I love that the students have to think quickly, but I would adapt the time depending on the skill they are working on.  Since this skill was rounding, I only gave about 30 seconds for the students to complete each card; making it roughly about a 10 minute game for my students.   The pictured cards are ones I found on Super Teacher Worksheets; but I have since created my own scoot cards.....VALENTINE'S STYLE!  

You can find my version here: 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Rounding-to-the-Nearest-Hundred-Valentines-Scoot-2390772

FREEBIE ALERT: Printing on Sticky Notes

After seeing posts about printing on sticky notes over the years, I finally decided to try it out for myself. I was planning for an observation and was trying to think of ways for students to review the plot of a story they were familiar with. As I knew I was being observed, I wanted to spruce it up a little. So I thought.... This was just the thing I needed to do! For me it was super easy, all I did was set up a template in Power Point. With the template, I typed up information about a story to complete a story map I made with my class.  The students loved reading the sticky notes and allowing them to get them out of their seats and placing the notes on the story map.  It was actually great because the students had discussion about the story and even gave valid points when they disagreed on sections of the plot.

I printed out all of the templates first.  As it was my first time doing this, I wanted to make sure that everything lined up correctly.  From the printed page, I placed sticky notes over each box, and printed again.  That is it! Voila!  A total time saver!

For independent work, I had students continue to work on reading passages and highlighting the literary elements in different colors.  I was able to print these out on color and send with the students to their seats, so I could easily move onto working with my other guided reading group here!  

Find my FREE template here!  

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Printing-on-Sticky-Notes-Editable-Template-FREEBIE-2381657

Please let me know how you have used this in your own classroom!