Monday Made-It November!!

Happy Sunday!  I had some much needed girlfriend retail therapy with an overnight trip on Friday to an outlet mall.  It was CRAZY busy on Saturday!  Wow...I spent more time waiting in line.  Boy, I am still exhausted and am so thankful we have an extra long weekend.  Thank you Veterans!!

I read this book, The Wall, every year before Veteran's Day to my students.  Our team hadn't discussed it but the other two team members usually read it as well.  At the end of the day on Friday, we just happened to all be reading it to our classes (which we were unaware of) and we all cried like babies!!  When our students went to get their bags and coats from their lockers, we realized that we read the book at the same time and were all CRYING!!  The students were buzzing about it:)  You have to read this picture book.  It is short but very powerful and could be shared anytime of the year!

I am so excited to be  linking up with the wonderful Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for the November Monday Made It!  

My first Monday Made It is actually Tara's Made It but I did print and laminate it!  Doesn't that count?  She has an awesome Holiday math centers pack filled with SEVEN different centers!  Check it out here at her TPT or you can get each center separately too:)  

 Here is only a small portion of all the activities in her Holiday Hoopla Math Centers pack.

With all these amazing products that I have been finding for my students to do during centers,  I really needed a place to store them more efficiently.  I still want to get some plastic drawers to store more manipulatives, but I bought this Scholastic file folder handing organizer that works like a charm to hold many copies of center work!  I found it here on amazon.  It has space for ten folders vertically, however, I already have 2-3 folders in some sections together.

I have this hanging on my board with different colored folders for easy access.  It has math games/activities, cursive practice sheets, and holds extra copies of papers for math, social studies, science, and ELA.  It is very strong and holds a ton of papers!!  In the past I put extra copies of papers on a shelf behind my desk with no real system of organization.  It drove me bonkers!!  Now, I can have students check the folder for a paper instead of trying to find it myself.  I did tell the students that they have to ask me before getting extra papers because I only make two extra copies of each handout.  Some students would always be going to get the extra copies instead of organizing their papers to find their original:)

I am loving these 4th Grade Common Core Math Vocabulary Cards!  Again, I didn't "make" it but I bought them, printed, laminated, and cut out:)  You can find them here at TPT.  I printed them single sided and then placed the word and definition back-to-back before laminating.  I was worried that you wouldn't be able to see the definition through the front, but they turned out great!

I have a group of words hanging up at a time using these little, but very strong magnet clips found here on amazon.  These are the best little magnets ever!

Finally, I actually did make something with the help of KPM doodles:)

I added some great covers to my Ancient Civilizations DBQs (Document Based Questions) that I have listed on TPT here.  The colorful covers with graphics from KPM Doodles and the preview sets I made really jazz it up!  Thank you for all the inspiration fellow bloggers:)  

Jerusalem: The Holy City

Ancient Egypt

Ancient China

Ancient Greece

Ancient Rome

Middle Ages: The Age of Faith

I was disappointed that no one guessed who Lilly was for Halloween!!  

She was KIKI from the Fresh Beat Band!  I sent "The Queen Bee" a DBQ of her choice for being the first to try and guess:)

This picture reminds me of how I feel I need to act as a teacher sometimes to get my students' attention!!  Haha!  Aren't we quite the performers?

November Currently and DBQs!!

What a week!  I was home Monday with a sick daughter, Tuesday we had no school due to Sandy (some lost power and downed trees but no real damage, thank you Lord!), Wednesday was a crazy, rainy Halloween, Thursday was busy preparing for a substitute before a workshop all day Friday!  I'm telling you...I really do need that retail therapy next weekend and today to get my thoughts in order.  Here is the November Currently from the A.MA.ZING! Farley at Oh' Boy Fourth Grade:

I spent most of my free time yesterday updating my DBQs (Document Based Questions) that I created years ago for ancient civilizations when I taught sixth grade.  They just looked so "blah" on TPT so I jazzed them up some:)  It took a long time but I am happy how they turned out (and I LOVE the screenshot tool on my Mac).  Here is a sampler of the Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome DBQs.

The Common Core is really stressing the reading of informational text and drawing from primary and secondary sources.  When I updated these to include the CCSS, I was amazed at how well they aligned.  If you teach ancient civilizations, I have six DBQs (Egypt, Jerusalem, China, Greece, Rome, Middle Ages) for sale here at my TPT or here on TN.  Our state has the drafts out for our "modules" for ELA and math.  They are like units to guide your yearlong instruction to align with the Common Core.  All the modules are social studies content except one science module.  Does your state have modules (units) for the CCSS as well and are they mostly social studies or science content?

I love to have my students listen to music during free time.  They love popular songs that they can sing to and it is great to see this happy, free side of them.  We have dance parties all the time and sometimes the students who you thought would never dance are the best dancers!!  

I will leave you with one pic of my little loves on Halloween:)  Charlie is a fire chief of course (with a rescue truck in hand).  Can anyone guess what Lilly is supposed to be?  The first person to tell me who she is dressed as can have one DBQ of their choice for free!  If you don't teach ancient civilizations, share with a colleague:)