New Look and Top 5 Posts of 2014!!

Notice anything different? It was about time for a blog makeover!!! I was THRILLED with what Megan from A Bird in Hand Designs created! 

She was so easy to work with and tolerated all my questions. :) I am in LOVE!! I love the unique feel and it's so ME! :)

I've been a terrible blogger lately and I'm not going to make excuses. If you follow Tried It Tuesday, you can link up here all month. Here is the new Tried It Tuesday button for the next time you link up. It will be official with the new link up of February (second Tuesday of the month!).

So, I'm finally linking up with my BBB, Jivey from Ideas by Jivey to share my top 5 blog posts of 2014. Better late than never! Thank you Jivey for keeping the link up open all month! :)

This post was all about using Post Its in graphic organizers for ELA. Now that I teach only math, I would like to find some more creative ways to use Post Its in math. I would love to hear how you use them in math!

This was a post from last January about New Year's Resolutions that my class made. See the post here for details on the great product I used by my BBB, Joanne at Head Over Heels for Teaching!

In this post I shared how I teach Folktales in my ELA classroom. 

It included links to many resources that I used!

In this Tried It Tuesday from last June, I shared about how I used a book challenge throughout the year in my ELA classes. 

The most visited blog post from 2014 was focused on teaching Text Structures. This standard seems to be weak county wide on our state assessment. We spent a lot of time on it but it is still tricky! Check out the post here for some links to text structure resources!

Have a great week everyone!

Tried It Tuesday {Math Notebooks}

Happy Tuesday and Happy New Year!

It's Time for Tried It Tuesday! 

What have you tried at school or home?
If you've never linked up with Tried It Tuesday, just link up any idea school or home related and what worked or didn't work. Simple! 

My Tried It:

Math Notebooks
I posted here about how I use interactive notebooks in ELA when I taught that last year. I wanted to share a little more about how I am using math notebooks this year. We are departmentalized (read about the change in 2013 here) and I am teaching three 80 minute blocks of math this year (LOVE!).

I am hands down a composition notebook fan. No spirals and no binders please. Composition notebooks hold up and they are organized. There are no papers falling out and it's what has worked best for me. The back of the notebooks are for our math meeting everyday. We started on the last page and are working our way backwards through the notebook. Here is a picture of day one of our math meeting in September.

 I am so glad that I chose to make math meeting a part of our schedule each day. I can't say enough about it. I posted here and here more about how I am using math meeting in my math block this year.

The front of our notebooks are dedicated to class notes and interactive elements. This is a recent lesson we completed using the acronym "Does McDonalds Serve Burgers" to help students remember the steps to division. This interactive page template is from Runde's Room Interactive Math Journal.

This was an interactive element for place value also from Runde's Room notebook.

We saved the first couple pages in the very front of the notebook for the table of contents. 

I use the Reteaching pages from our Go Math series for notes pages often. It takes so long for students to actually copy notes, so I would rather spend more time on practicing the skill and give them the notes to just glue down to use for review later. Some student can't read their own writing in notes too! 

The PEMDAS page for order of operations above is something I typed up. 

The reteaching page is on the left.

This is the first year I have used math notebooks in this manner or tried interactive pieces in a journal for math. I know I will be tweaking things every year but I am pleased with how I have used them so far! I would love to hear your thoughts on notebooks too!

Tried It Tuesday will be new once a month, opening on the second Tuesday of each month (like TWOSDAY).
Feel free to link up as many times as you would like during the month! 
My blog is getting a facelift. I'm SUPER excited...check back soon to see some changes! :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Top 10 Insta Pics of 2014!!

I finally got on the ball this past summer and signed up for Instagram! Like most things, I have a difficult time keeping up but I have really enjoyed using Instagram. It's fast and easy!

Linking up with Teachery Tidbits for this fun linky!

My username is @4thgradeflipper if you would like to follow me!

Those are two of my BBB's above with me in Vegas! Joanne from Head Over Heels for Teaching and Michele from Coffee Cups and Lesson Plans!

Loving my Stitch Fixes! Click here to get started and use my referral code! :) 

My 4th grade teaching partner, Emily (from Style Closet to Classroom) and I on Christmas pajama day!