Just a few pictures of Elf on the Shelf Fun!

Our elf likes to play with the monkeys!

Our elf, Spike, has been taping notes to the desks of children who have worked hard!

Spike loves 2nd grade!

A student in my class drew the Grinch for me.  We are putting a heart on the Grinch for each act of kindness that is witnessed in our classroom.

 

 

I just thought I would post a few quick photos of holiday fun!  What do you do during the holiday season in your classroom?

Kenzie (Visit my treehouse!)

Teaching Students with Emotional Disturbances

What is ED?
It's a broad term used to describe various emotional disorders and conditions. Some disorders that fit under this category are anxiety/mood disorders, conduct disorders, eating disorders, and psychiatric disorders. ED can affect every facet of student learning, such as concentration, pressures of student responsibilities and time limits, and social interaction.  

I think one of the most challenging parts of being a special education teacher is working with students that have emotional disturbances. I don't think there is one right answer for helping these students, but I can share things that I know have worked. You can also take ideas and adapt them to fit what works for you and your students. These are not quick fixes, and invested time is required to help these students. 

1. The most important thing is knowing your student. You need to study them. Know what type of emotional disturbance they have, their history/experiences, and try to access records from a psychologist or counselor if applicable. The more you know, the better you will understand that student. The more you understand the student, the easier it will be to sympathize with them and help them. 

2. Learn what the student likes and what their strengths are. Set the student up for success. Give opportunities that will allow you to praise them and build them up. 

3. Support the student by including them in group activities such as partner work and cooperative learning groups. It may be overwhelming for some students, so give them a place to go when they need a break from all the stimuli. 

4. Set clear classroom rules and expectations. Be consistent ALL of the time with your behavior procedures. Students with ED do not need wishy washy. They need to know what is expected of them throughout the whole day. 

5. Provide accommodations that help students reach their behavior IEP goals. Do not expect them to be successful 100% of the time. They are not going to be perfect and they will still have bad days, no matter what plan is in place. 

6. Communicate with their parents or legal guardians. They will be beneficial when making behavior plans for their child. Also, that is your way to stay informed on medication changes and any other changes that could affect their behavior. Life is tough for kids, too. I think we tend to forget that sometimes. 

7. Do not take things personally and do not get stressed over what isn't being accomplished. You are accomplishing more than you realize. We will never know what impact we make in children's lives, and students with ED cannot be successful academically until their behaviors are under control.

Since we are on the topic of behaviors... I made a behavior management system specifically for children with special needs. They are concrete learners and they learn best through visual and tactile experiences. The system has a weather theme because you can easily connect weather with emotions. All of the students start at the top on a sunny day. As necessary, students will move down to a cloudy day (warning), a rainy day (lose recess or whatever fits for you and your students), and a thunder storm (call parents). I've also created punch cards for the students and monthly certificates. I like to reward students in small ways and give them a bigger reward at the end of each month. 

'Tis the Season to get freebies fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!!

Hi there sweet cyber friends,
So raise your hand if you are overwhelmed... yep, me too. BUT, how awesome would it be if I show you how to get a ton {I mean it!} a ton of free, awesome resources for your classroom?

I am linking up with Hillary from Rockin' Teacher Materials to bring you ...

CLICK HERE to get your Winter Ebook for grades 1-2.

Each year a number of TpT sellers contribute to create a holiday resource full of great ideas and FREE products! So, what are you waiting for??  Go, grab your flash drive and download 'til you drop! Lol!!! 

For the PreK and K Winter Ebook click here!!

For the 3-6 Winter Ebook click here!!

Enjoy these freebies sweet teacher friends!

Laura
My Store
Facebook 
Instagram
Pinterest

BIG CYBER SALE 12/02 and 12/03

Hey guess what?

Oh yeah! A-ha! Oh yeah! A-ha!!! Here at TLH we are throwing a sale on top of TpT's discount. Follow the link to our stores and get awesome deals on great products:

• Get 20% off at Totally Sweet Math Centers by Tabitha Click here!!
• Get 20% off at A Tender Teacher for special needs Click Here!!
• Get 20% off at Kinder Bilingue by Juliana Suarez Click here!!!
• Get 20% off at Laura Graham's store  Click here!!
• Get 20% off at Kenzie's Tree House Click here!!

My wish list is about to pop you guys! Lol! Enjoy your weekend and happy shopping!

Laura :)

The Magnificently Marvelous Merry Follower Giveaway

If you enter the K/1 giveaway, you will win the following awesomely  amazing items!

1.)  First Grade Memory Book

2.)  Winter-Themed Picture Scrabble

3.) Christmas Letter Match-up

4.) Christmas and Holiday Picture Words and Flashcards

5.) There was an old lady who swallowed a bell 

6.)  Winner's Choice from Brittani Black's Store 

7.) Winter Math, Literacy, and Science Centers

8.) Winner's Choice from Alyson Hennessy

9.)  2014 Classroom Calendar

10.) Winner's Choice from Kenzie's Treehouse

11.) Winner's Choice from Laura Graham

If you enter the 2/3 giveaway, you will win the following awesomely  amazing items!

1.) Time to Write - My Favorite Holiday

2.)  Incomplete Work Labels

3.)  Diary of a Mini Elf Book

4.) Winner's Choice from Mrs. Beattie's Classroom

5.) Snow Much Fun With Homophones

6.)  Dictionary Skills Dictionary Daredevils Packet

7.) Winner's Choice from Jessica Pelka

8.)  Winner's Choice from Kim Solis

9.)  Bully Prevention Song

10.) Winner's Choice from AmyLynn

11.) Winner's Choice from Tabitha

If you enter the 4/5 giveaway, you will win the following awesomely  amazing items!

1.) Close Reading Authentic Literacy Instruction Manuel

2.) James and the Giant Peach Novel Study

3.)Fraction Task Cards

4.) Winner's Choice from Whoo's Ready to Teach?

5.) Winter Theme Math Center Activities

6.) Wrap it Up! Perimeter and Area Unit

7.) Theme Mini Poster Set

8.) Chevron Genre Posters

9.) Turkey Decimal Dash

10.) Winner's Choice by Janet Rainey
11.) Math Task Cards --- Multiplying Fractions at the North Pole

Please note that there are three separate giveaways.  You may enter all three!

Enter the 2/3 Giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway 

Enter the 4/5 Giveaway!

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Enter the K/1 Giveaway!

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A few organizational ideas. - Juliana

   Things like classroom space, grade level, students in class, curriculum, whether you are teaching all subjects in a self-contained classroom or if you have more than one group of students in your classroom. Each teacher has to find what works for them. I want to show you what works well in my classroom. Hopefully, you can take one or two ideas and modify them to fit your needs.

1. Student folders: Each student has a file in my class. I store them in a file cabinet. I use this for conferences and meetings where information about the student is needed. I include information that I think is important or relevant to use in conferences (e.g., behavior reports, assessment for beginning of the year, absent notes, a sample of their best (and sometimes not so good) work. Be careful not to put every single thing in here. Think conference time!

2.Community supply area: Students have their personal materials but I also keep an area when, in case of emergency, can take out and keep working.

3. Copies for the whole week: There are many different ways you can modify this, depending on your classroom space. I use this crate to put all of the student copies I need for the week.

4. Keeping a dairy (that is a voice memo diary): I wish I had time to write a school diary and remember what I did the first week of school, but once you start teaching, it is almost impossible to sit everyday and write in a diary, there is simply too much going on.
    That's why I decided to record it as a voice memo on my phone. I try to do it everyday after school as I am driving home.  I record a voice memo about the things that worked well and things I should probably change. When I get a little bit of time (usually on the weekends) I download the voice memos into a folder on my computer. When summer comes and I'm preparing for the new school year, I refer back to what needs to change and things I can start getting ready in the summer.

Educents Bundle on sale now! 75% off

Want the best of the best resources for Grades 1 and 2? This Educents bundle is just what you need! 

Click here to see the deal!

I'm very excited to be a part of the bundle with Educents!  I know you will love my best seller- a set of exit tickets! There are 40 different exit tickets that print 4 to a page to save you paper. The exit tickets are perfect for any grade, any subject, and every lesson!

To celebrate this fantastic bundle, I'm throwing a giveaway! A winner will be chosen on Dec. 7. Best of luck!
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There are many other products in our bundle to get your kids learning!  

Centers, printables, vocabulary, book studies, interactive notebooking and so much more!

Check out another resource by clicking the image below!

The deal won't last long so head over now!
Click here to check out the deal!

So Thankful and Two {yes! dos! 2!} Freebies!!!

Hey there teacher friends,
I have been MIA... life is busy y'all!! This is just a  short post with two freebies that I have for you.
If you have purchased my  MClass Reading 3D units, you might be interested in a Guided Reading lesson plan format. I usually schedule my GR groups for about 20 minutes each and I do not meet with each group daily! This is the lesson plan that I created for my lessons.

Lesson Plan format click here!

AND... if you have purchased my "Gracias The Thanksgiving Turkey Mini-Unit" this is the perfect writing activity to go with it!!!

Turkey Opinion Writing!

 Nite Nite!! Love you guys!
Laura :)
Check out my store here!!

I'm So Thankful! Blog Hop and Giveaway!

We are celebrating all that we are thankful for and that includes teachers!  We want to show all of you how much we appreciate you.  Teachers do so much and this is our time to give back and say thank you!  Thank you for following!  Thank you for participating!  Thank you for collaborating!  Thank you for sharing!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Join us by hopping through each blog and gathering lots of Thanksgiving and autumn freebies.  In each freebie you will find a picture of a pie with a word on it. That word will tell you something that teacher is thankful for.  Record all of the words on your recording sheet and follow each blog along the way so that you can enter the amazing giveaway at the end!

You may start anywhere along the hop, but if you would like to start at the beginning you may go here.  This is also where you will go in the end, for the giveaway!!

You have made it to blog stop number 7!

Turkey Trail- A Math and Thanksgiving Trivia Board Game 

Turkey Trail is an exciting way to review grade level math standards and learn a bit of Thanksgiving trivia along the way! Students race around the game board with Thanksgiving character game pieces, roll the Turkey Trail dice, solve a variety of math tasks, and answer fun trivia. The first player to reach the finish line wins!

This product includes:
Teacher prep, directions
Turkey Trail Game Board
Turkey Trail dice template
8 game pieces, Thanksgiving themed
20 math task cards
20 Thanksgiving Trivia cards ( answer sheet included)

This is the most fun you'll have in math class during November! 
Thanks for looking- Happy Thanksgiving! 

Click here to grab Turkey Trail!
If you love it, please leave some feedback!

Need more Thanksgiving themed activities? Click here!
Please consider following me on Tpt!  :)

Now hop over to the next stop on your journey:

Reading Toward the Stars

Friday Special!! Buy One Get One Free!!

Hi guys!
Laura here to announce the new Friday special from the chicks at TLH:

Oh yes you read that right! We are doing a buy one, get one free OF EQUAL OR LESSER VALUE from our stores. This is what you do:

1. Buy the item of your choice from each individual store.
2. Leave feedback on the item you purchased with the item you wish for free (from the same store) AND your email address.
3. We will send it to you in a jiffy!!

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! You better stop by our stores to grab some great products!!! We are having our Friday special in all our sales on Friday November 8th, 2013! Just sayin'!

Click here for Kenzie's store!

Click here for Tabitha's store!

Click here for Juliana's bilingual store!

Click here for Tasha's store!

Click here for Laura's store!!

Happy Shopping!!!

Laura G.

FRIDAY SPECIAL!!! From the chicks at TLH!!

Oh yes!!! We are having a $2.00 special on some of our great products from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.  because we love our fans! Just click on the link and enjoy these awesome deals! 

Happy Shopping!

TLH Chicks :)

From Juliana:

Calendar Set

Jungle Animals Clipart

                      

October Morning Work in Spanish

From Kenzie:

Fun Writing Prompts

  

Play Dough Magic!!

Word Family Games

From Laura:

Earth Day Activities

Missing Addends Math Station

Number Puzzles Math Station

From Tabitha:

Turkey Trail Math Game Grade 4

Three digit addition and subtraction without regrouping scoot

November Number Line K-2

From Tasha:

Time to Write my Favorite Holiday

Froggie Fractions

The Gruffalo Mini-Unit

My classroom pets- Juliana

Hello friends!

   I am excited to share with you something that my kinder kids love, and that could work with older grades too. This is all you need:

 Yes, I’ve had the “monkey theme” for the past four years (and I plan to have it for a few more). Magically, my students started to bring me a lot of “monkey stuff”, including stuffed animals, so I decided to use them during and after class.

        I use them during class when it’s reading time and they don’t have a reading buddy. They simply go to the library, take a “friend” and read to them. It also works when I am busy talking to another student. I tell them to say it to the monkey first (and they really do!). That gives me time to finish the conversation. There is also another way I have used them. I had a student at the beginning of the year that would cry constantly because she didn't want to come to school. I told the student that our monkey was also nervous about coming to class, and that she was responsible for making sure he was okay, because I wanted him to know that he was safe in school. 

She started taking the monkey everywhere and I mean everywhere (bathroom, lunch, recess, etc). Our monkey even had a special place in P.E. I decided it worked but I didn’t want her to carry the monkey the whole day, every day. I decided I had to take it away, so I started a journaling activity.

This is how I started it:

1. The students picked five monkey friends from the classroom.

2. They named all the monkeys. A whole group activity.

3. I created the diary (duck tape on the spiral for durability):

4.  Created a few guidelines:

5. I send home every Friday, but only those who have not been on yellow the whole week can take them home. I love how it helps as a motivator for good behavior! 

6. Students share on Monday what they did with the monkeys.

Did I mention I also send a small snack(left over from the week)? I tell them that it is for the monkeys and one of my students actually brought the snack on Monday. He said the monkey was not really hungry. How cute! 

Would you like to use it in your classroom? Click here. 

Fall Anchor Charts and New Products

Hi there sweet readers!

The fall season is full of great themes and content, I love, love teaching all these fun and engaging things. We have been learning about pumpkins, nouns, addition strategies and so much more.

We have  been reviewing the differences/similarities between fiction and nonfiction. We read "The Pumpkin Book" and "The Biggest Pumpkin Ever" to further develop an understanding of books that are real and books that are pretend.

 

For language we have been learning about nouns. We created an anchor chart in which we sorted between person, place, thing/animal.

                                               

We continue to work hard at our goal for reading using the CAFE board. Instead of adding Post-it notes, I use the my firsties' pictures on the specific CAFE goal. 

                                            

In writing, some of my firsties were really haing trouble coming up with ideas to write about. Once upon a time, I created a heart map with my students and they got to hung up on it... So I look for different ways to get them started. This is a group of October prompts I created, they have been really helpful!

                                 

                                                      

You can find this set of prompts in my little store.

In Math we continue to use BUILD stations. 

                                                       

I am a holiday nut and I put the Christmas tree out and dress it as a harvest tree, the kids love it, and the classroom looks so so cozy. I use it to display student work. 

                    

We have made subtraction monsters 

And addition spiders

                                                                

We have also started with addition strategies:

                                      

 Last but not least, I have added these products to my little store:

All the word problem types for second grade! You can find them here!!

So Thankful Math Centers!!

Who doesn't have to do Nonsense words these days, check my intervention pack!!

This teacher is tired!!! I am in the middle of a soccer tournament with my oldest son, and we have an early game tomorrow. Nite, nite!

Laura :)
Come visit my little store!!