December is SHAPING Up!

I can't believe we are into December---Christmas is only 15 days AWAY!  YIKES!  For me, that means only 7 school days left of the semester to teach and assess before the next report cards go home.  Add into the mix a holiday movie here, 24 student made parent gifts there, and we'll be on winter vacation in no time!  Amidst all of the chaos, I am trying to get in some fun, hands-on activities with the owlets, because I LOVE the standards we're teaching in second right now!

We are currently in the middle of a geometry unit--focusing on 2D and 3D shapes!  I love taking a break from all of the computation strategies for some shape fun!  It's a nice reprieve for my kiddos that have struggled with addition and subtraction too!

We started the unit reading The Shape of Things and then creating our own shape transformations!  I gave my kids fun scrapbook paper to add onto their base shapes and turn their shapes into something new!  The final products were SO cute!  You can pick up a FREEBIE copy of this project by clicking the picture below!

I have also posted a few new items in my TPT store that I'm using to reinforce our learning of shapes during math games/stations!   Head over to my store to check out these fun products!

2D Shape Dominoes

3D Shape Puzzles

Hope you are finding calm among the chaos at this time of year!

Hootfully yours,

Lindsay

Cyber Monday is Coming!!

I can't believe what a busy, crazy time the last few weeks has been!  It seems most of my class and my personal family has been sick at some point in the past few weeks!  I've somehow managed to get in a little time with friends/family and finish our Christmas decorating...all prior to Cyber Monday!

However, I have not stayed up to date on this sweet little blog!  So my holiday and certainly New Year's Resolutions will certainly include blogging more regularly!  That won't keep me from spilling my excitement for the HUGE Cyber Monday sale starting tomorrow on Teachers Pay Teachers! I'm starting my sale tonight...2 hours earlier than the official Cyber Monday sell!  My 20% off discount will be in addition to the site wide discount starting at midnight! That's 28% off some awesome products!  I know I've got a wish list full of items to move over to my cart tomorrow!!  Just use the code:  TPTCYBER at checkout!

Starting tonight, my store will be 20% off in honor of the Sunday Savings Circular hosted by Nicole at All Things Apple in Second!  Go check out her Linky Party and her fun products!  I just purchased her set of Solve It! addition and subtraction games...so CUTE!  Here's my savings circular!

Happy Shopping!

Lindsay

All About Addition and Subtraction

So between Parent Teacher Conference Week, Halloween, and my first Formal Observation/Evaluation of the year, I'm WAY behind in blogging!  Sorry!

So, my little owlets are in the midst of learning all about addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers!  They are working hard on learning new computation based strategies, that will help them build upon their mental math skills!  This is tricky for many of my students, who have parents at home teaching them the traditional regrouping/borrowing algorithms we were all taught in school! Since the Common Core Math Standards don't have students learning those methods until fourth grade, my team and I have been working hard to teach a variety of strategies to our students over the past few weeks!  When we first began unrolling the Common Core standards in math several years ago, I'll admit I was a bit skeptical in these new approaches, which seemed to be requiring so many more steps for students to arrive at an answer.  However, after giving myself and my students ample time to try and learn these strategies, I was AMAZED at the difficult computation my students could do mentally...not to mention that my mental math improved as well!

That being said, I'm at the very beginning of an addition/subtraction unit that will repeat and grow more challenging throughout the remainder of the year.  At the moment, some of my students are not confident with any one of the strategies we're working on, but we're all a work in progress!  So, I've created some Addition and Subtraction Strategy Posters to correspond with the strategies we're using in class!  I'm hoping to put together a whole addition and subtraction bundle soon, but in the meantime, head over to my TPT store and check out this bundle of mini-anchor charts!  There are 8 strategies included and posters come in color and black and white!  They will be 20% off through Tuesday, November 11th!

Hootfully yours,

Lindsay

Sunday Savings Circular!

In our household, many Sunday afternoons are spent looking through the Sunday Sales Circulars, clipping coupons, and saving money on groceries!  That's why I was so excited to link up with Nicole over at All Things Apple to participate in her Sunday Savings Circulars Linky Party!

This week, I've put my Ten Frames Classroom Decor sets on sale for 20% off!  These sets are PERFECT as number lines across your classroom or even as student flash cards when printed as multiple slides to a page!  Each set comes with numbers 1-20!  Purchase a set for your classroom and then head over to see what else is for sale!

Happy Savings!

Lindsay

BOO...It's Getting SPOOKY in Second

Truth be told:  I LOVE HALLOWEEN!  I don't like horror movies or real haunted houses, but I do love pumpkins, bats, and spiders, OH MY!  With Parent Teacher Conference Week starting at my school next week, it's a PERFECT time for putting some Halloween-y projects out in the hall!  Look what my owlets have been up to this week!

MATH:  We are working on representing numbers in a variety of ways!  I loved the look of the Silly Spiders from Doodle Bugs Teaching but needed a way to make it standards based for my class.  So, my kids got caught up in a web of number representation!  How cute are these creepy crawlies?

WRITING:  We've been working on writing a variety of fiction!  We took some creative liberties and wrote Scarecrow Stories and created these adorable scarecrows (on paint sticks), to go along with the stories we've been publishing.  The lesson plans & craftivity should be up in my TPT store this weekend! 

We also read a book of Autumn Acrostic Poems and wrote our own October Acrostics!  Our Acrostic Pumpkin Patch is weaving it's way through our hallways!

CHARACTER PUMPKIN PROJECTS:  Last but not least, our grade level started the tradition of completing the Character Pumpkin Book Report projects a few years ago, to coincide with our Character Unit in Reading Workshop this time of year!  How cute are the projects that are coming into class?

What's your favorite FALL/HALLOWEEN project to do with your class?  Leave a comment to share!

Hootfully yours,

Lindsay

Happy Fall Y'ALL!

It's FINALLY feeling like FALL in North Georgia, and I am soaking up every happiness about my favorite season!  The hubs and I took our little monster to the pumpkin patch yesterday, drove through the mountains, have been decorating for the season, and I'm about to throw a pot of taco soup in the Crock pot! 

I couldn't ask for a better way to celebrate cooler temperatures, everything pumpkin flavored, and the haunts coming out in the neighborhood than to link up with Nicole from All Things Apple in 2nd for a Sunday Circular Sale!  Right now everything pumpkin, Halloween, fall, and/or monster related is on sale for 20% off in my TPT store!  Head to my store to scoop up some spooky savings and then go check out what other awesome teachers are selling in their stores this week too!

Hootfully Yours,

Lindsay

The BIG Thank You --- Writing Letters to the Troops

Hey Guys,

So I have a BIG favor to ask of you all!!  I know, I know, it's only my second post and I'm already asking for favors.  However, what I'm asking is for your to help spread some love and thanks to our American troops deployed overseas AND work on letter writing skills in your classroom or with your children at home!

A local Atlanta radio  morning show, The Bert Show on Q100, hosts The BIG Thank You campaign each year!  The purpose of The Big Thank You, is to get a heartfelt, handwritten letter into the hands of every service man and woman deployed outside of the United States on Thanksgiving Day!  You can read all about this letter writing campaign at: The Bert Show's Big Thank You.

I LOVE that this project can spread some love to those serving and protecting our country, while also providing an opportunity to hit some important writing standards in the classroom!  Most of the staff, students, and school families at my awesome elementary school participate in this project, and I've made it easy for you and your students to participate too!

Please download the packet below as a FREEBIE from my TPT store, or by clicking on the Google Docs link below!  This packet includes all of the directions, teacher tips, sample homework/parent letter, and letter writing templates that you need to get this project going in your classroom!  What a special way to teach our students to have gratitude for our freedom!

Please send this information out to your other teacher friends!  Get your school, church, temple, sorority, fraternity, business, etc. to write letters to our troops! 

All letters should be received by October 30th!  So download, read the directions, and get busy writing your letters of gratitude!

The BIG Thank You Project

 If this is a project that you can tackle with your classroom, please leave me a note/comment below, or e-mail me at theowlteach@gmail.com!


Hootfully yours,

Lindsay

The First Hoot from The Owl Teach!

Ahhhhhhh! I'm SO excited to finally be launching The Owl Teach blog! Becoming a teacher blogger has been a personal goal for quite some time. I have read and followed countless other amazing teachers over the past several years, learned from them, laughed with them, but I just wasn't ready to take the leap of faith that I could also share my experiences in teaching! However, I'm blessed with some of the most amazingly supportive family and friends, who gave me the push of confidence I needed. So The Owl Teach was born!

As in most things in teaching (or life really), getting this blog up and running did not go as planned. I had the PERFECT plan in fact, the grandparents would keep the baby for a weekend, while my husband and I would watch videos and read tutorials to design the cutest blog ever.  Sounds easy enough, I mean I had pinned dozens of "how to" articles about blogging, we are relatively tech savvy, easy as pie we thought! I created my logo, had my design concept in mind, all we needed to do was write the code to put everything in place. Nine hours of frustration later...I was scouring the web for blog design company options...hubs and I were willing to pay just about ANYTHING to have someone else take on this job for us! So we can thank the design team, especially my fabulous designer Corinne, from The Cutest Blog on the Block, who took my vision and brought it to life! Seriously, if you are looking for a fresh look for your blog, website, etc. check them out!

Moving forward I plan to share my experiences in and out of the classroom with you, hopefully, with a slightly humorous twist...which is how I try to look at life day to day. If I couldn't laugh, I might just go crazy! Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you'll visit often! Check out my TPT store and follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest!  I'm looking forward to meeting and talking to so many other awesome teachers!

Hootfully yours,

Lindsay