Chip It

I was just clicking through Pinterest and clicked on a hair tutorial from Kate at The Small Things Blog and then had to catch up on some of her recent blogs when I came across her post inspiration for her bathroom update.  She used a Sherwin-Williams app called Chip It! which takes an "inspiration" picture and turns it into a paint palette...

So I've had this inspiration picture I've had in my ideas folder and thought I'd Chip It! and see what colors match up.

Old Chevy Truck -  CheyAnne Sexton

So you just go to Chip It! click upload an image and....

Paint chips from inspiration image

there you have it, paint colors to match my inspiration!  How cool is that?!

PS: Definitely really fun for everyone :)

Mapping with Directions

Introduce mapping skills and practice direction words using shapes!  Students will determine direction and practice using direction words to identify relative locations and fill in the blanks using appropriate direction words.

Mapping with Directions on Teachers Pay Teachers

PS: Students will want to color it when they complete filling in the blanks.

Character Squares

Knowing about characters can help students better understand the story. Students will use the character square graphic organizer to identify character traits, illustrate a picture of how they visualize the character, identify the character's challenge (problem) and how the character faces her challenge (resolution).

Students can write the character's name on the starburst and then attach it to the center of the character square page.

Character Square on Teachers Pay Teachers!

PS: Here's what they look like...

Character Squares

Behavior Point Cards

I've used a behavior card for several students to monitor behavior areas that need some extra help.  The students really seem to buy into the point card when they own it.  When creating the point card I meet with the student to discuss and identify the behavior areas we want to work on and then we create it together on the computer.  They pick the color paper we will print it out on, we discuss the daily/weekly incentive and we talk about how to set a daily goal.


Once in place, "Point Card" becomes part of the student's morning routine.  I quickly meet with   student and we talk about the daily goal (sometimes we have to do a little bargaining).  


I just uploaded the point card and note home to my TPT store.  

Get your student behavior point card and note to send home here!

PS: The "daily goal meeting" also gives me a good idea of what kind of day this student is going to have and we can sometimes refocus and reset right then and there and make it a really good day for everyone!

Quote the Character

In Summer Enrichment we are working with students to give them a jump start on the upcoming school year.  We do this by previewing key concepts in ELA and Math.  We've been identifying and defining literary elements and we know that good readers can use them to better understand the story.  This week our focus literary element was characters.  The target skill was to "identify the characters in a story to better understand the text."  So I decided we could use the story as a reference and find where the character was speaking and then directly quote the character - AND when they ran out of direct quotes, they could infer what the character might have said, still use the quote bubbles, just no quotation marks.  I printed out pictures of the characters with their names underneath and quote bubbles.

PS: The kids thought is was fun and they really had fun making inference statements!

Bulletin Boards

Welcome bulletin board

Personti spent some time on Pinterest and came up with a layout for the welcome bulletin board.  I helped out scrunching tissue paper (not too perfectly), made some tissue paper flowers and added the "bienvenidos" for our Spanish friends.  It looks awesome and I love the border!

PS: We had really fun putting the bulletin board together :)