Muslim Woman in Amman

So I was going through Pinterest and I saw a pin about becoming a certified Google educator. I thought "cool," so I have been going through the process of becoming a Google educator. It is giving me some amazing ideas. Unfortunately my school does not use Google Classroom but I believe that many of the lessons can still inspire teachers to take their students to a new level. For instance I have created a Youtube playlist for our unit on Earth Systems. I then posted it to our class website and encouraged my students to view the videos and to write an extra credit paragraph about what they learned. I also posted videos that answer many of the questions they put on our Inquiry Chart. It helps the students gain a deeper knowledge of the topic without wasting valuable class time. I encourage everyone to give it a try. Here is a link to the training website:  Google for Education If your interested here is also  link to my earth systems playlist:  Earth Systems Playlist

    It's that time of year again. The time when all those little darlings come back from summer vacation. And all the work we teachers have done over the summer is finally going to be implemented. I did a lot of reading over the summer some PD and I feel like I am ready for a great new year. Tomorrow is going to be the start of a great year I can feel it.      Last week, I worked hard on getting the class ready for my kids. I am usually not one for decorating my classroom. I feel that because the walls are going to be filled with charts soon I do not really need to make it pretty. On the other hand this year I did some decorating. I put some nice wrapping paper on my desk so it is not too boring. I got my door ready for this year. I found it on pinterest and I wanted to do it too. it is bare but I hope to start filling it out soon. I also got my job board ready. and put up a cute calendar. I am looking forward to a good year and I hope the kids are ready for

          I just finished reading  Reading in the Wild: The Book Whisperer's Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits   by Donalyn Miller, and loved it. I picked it up at the library hoping it will help me improve my students reading habits. I was so inspired by a lot of what she wrote that I have big plans for next year. Not only did it make me want to be a better reading teacher but also a better reader myself.     I plan on implementing her ideas as much as I can next year. I love her forms at the end of the book and will  probably  use a lot of them. Her ideas about creating a  Graffiti  wall for favorite lines from a book was inspiring, I intend on creating one in my classroom next year. I loved her idea of book commercials too. I think I will have the students do those as well, and the best commercial gets an  honorable  mention on the classroom website. I hope next year to encourage my students to be wild readers too.       

This summer besides doing what I can to plan for next year I have taken on a tutoring job. I am helping a a 3rd grade girl who is falling behind in her Math. I had to go back to basics with her and go over place value. I bought a Math workbook from B&N but it didn't have enough practice for her. I needed more questions so I created some place value worksheets to help her. She did real well with them so I decided to post them to my TPT account. If your interested click on the image below to go to my store and check them out. Here is a sample page as a gift.

Today was the last day of school and it has been an exhausting trip to the end. My second year of teaching has taught me a lot. I have had ups and downs and got to know an amazing group of kids. Some I've had for two years some I have only just met this year, but each and everyone one of them have a place in my heart. I will miss many of them and I hope they will look back on this time fondly, I know I will. I look forward to meeting a whole new group of students next year. Yet in the meantime I will spend my summer getting ready for the next year.

Its Friday!!!! I love Friday. Not only is it the last day of the week, but because of Friday prayer I only have my students for two hours. And one of those hours is independent study where my kids catch up on all late assignments. So I really only have one hour of teaching time, which is why Friday is awesome. But, that's not all it is also the day that this amazing linkup comes up and I just love it so much. I get so many new ideas, thank you so much. And now with out further ado I give you my Five for Friday! In class we are reading Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare. We are also working on sequencing in ELA so I came up with this: It's a comic book strip illustrating chapter 15 when Matt and Attean are confronted by a bear. I collected the images off of google image search (so if it belongs to anybody let me know so I can give credit). I thought it was pretty cleaver of me and I was really excited to do it in class. After I did it my students, lovely k

I have a new product on TPT. It is a set of task cards for Math. I use them in class as a Math literacy enforcer. If the students are behaving they get the enforcer if they then answer the question correctly they get a point on their next assessment. Its a double reward, it gets them thinking about a concept as well as rewarding them for a job well done. It has a set of 20 task cards for fractional part of a set. I also am working on a set for Function Rules and input output tables. Here is an example of one of the cards: If you are interested in taking a look click on the picture below.

This week my school celebrated cultural diversity with out international and cultural dress up day. Most the kids came dressed in their native dress, and they looked amazing.  After wards we went outside where parents had set up booths from different countries. Below is the Congo but we also had Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, Palestine, Turkey, Syria, and Bangladesh In class I had my kids write their names in which continent they came from and the different countries around the world. As you can see we have a very international class. . 

I started a new store at Teachers Pay Teachers. I posted a few things that I have done this year. Please stop by and let me know what you think. Just click on the tag below.

In math class we are learning about function rules with input output tables. On Pinterest I saw a pin with a robot to act as a machine to convert the input side to the output side. I really liked the idea so I made my own robot. After I printed it out I laminated it so I can use it with whiteboard markers. I even made smaller ones so that my students have their own little robots that they can use over and over. We did a couple of different function rules with the robots and the majority of my students seemed to grasp the concept. There are a few who still need help, hopefully with more practice they will be able to grasp it.

     My running shoes have been getting a little run down lately so I went to DSW for some new ones. I saw some New Balances that I was going to buy but on my way to the counter I found some awesome red pumas. Same price around 30 dollars, but I liked the pumas a whole lot more. Luckily I happen to have a lot of red clothes so making sure my shoes match isn't that hard.      Unfortunately I underestimated the reaction I would get about my new shoes. One of my students took one look at my shoes and promptly stepped on it. Which resulted in a small chase around the classroom to avoid the little feet that were trying to dirty my new shoes. I lost. I will admit though it was kind of fun, though I think the parents think we're crazy.

     It's Friday! I have a lot of things to share from this week and it is hard to limit to just five but I will try really hard. So, with out further ado my Five for Friday! First up Writer's Workshop. One of our lessons was about writing through a mask. I have been writing my own story while the kids wrote theirs. I use it to demonstrate new writing techniques. For writing through a mask I wrote two paragraphs that show the thoughts of two different characters besides the main one. In Math we were learning about quadrilaterals so I made a small activity for the kids to do. The purpose was to help them match up the shape to its description. For my current Art Orbit rotation I had the kids make these cute brown bag trees. I found them on a Pinterest pin about useless DIY projects . I on the other hand immediately thought that it would be a great art project. I thought they came out really well. Every year the school puts together an Evening Art

It has been a long time since I posted anything on my blog but life lately has been kind of hectic. Since coming back from break I have been working on report cards and unit planning and all the every day things that take up a teacher's time. While normally that should not effect my blog but I also have people visiting from Amman, Jordan. My aunt and her daughter are spending a few months here. With all the sight seeing and such my blog has suffered a bit. Hopefully I will be able to go back to steady blogging next month but right now I cannot drum up the energy. So Inshallah I will be back soon.

New year, new resolutions. This year I resolve to interact more with other teacher bloggers. So to that end I am joining the Pick 3 Link Party . Here we go! I love this idea about the growing door. I plan on starting something like this this semester. I usually have a thematic door that changes every unit, so I am thinking on the other side I could have the Graffiti Door . As for the books I have something similar going on next to the library but the book spines are much cuter so I am going to change my current look and go for the bookcase.   This next one I started doing the very next day. Though not exactly the same, I did start giving feedback on post-it notes. I also implemented a goal system for my kids. It has really helped get a better idea on what my students need work on. Sometimes with all my students it is hard to remember exactly who needs help with what, this way I know at a glance and can work with them better. I am teaching the American Re