Create Your Own Summer Vacation & Travel Project

One of my biggest sellers since I began selling teacher items online has been "Create Your Own Summer Vacation".

Teachers Pay Teachers (this one only uses the word "vacation" to make it usable all year round) or also Teachers Pay Teachers (this one only uses the word "summer vacation")
*I also have it listed 2 different ways because I had people buy it and tell others about it and certain code words did not work to same. So choose summer or regular vacation and have fun!

This math project has the students plan a SUMMER vacation for their family or friends. They budget gas, food, entertainment, etc.
* Teachers, you do need to plan ahead and collect restaurant "to go" menus, a map, and travel brochures. (Teacher directions are given with the lesson).
I used with my 3rd grade gifted and talented students. Other years I used it for a long term fast finisher project. Great for an end of the year activity...plan a summer vacation.
It covers: map skills, mileage, estimation, rounding, addition, calculator skills, and much much more with "real life" elements. Higher level and critical thinking skills are needed.
Students use a map to choose a destination. Estimate the cost of the trip, find how much they will spend on hotels, food, gas, entertainment, etc. Internet use is needed.
Depending on how you use it in your classroom it can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months, it is up to you on the duration of time. I also used it with other (non-GT) students and omitted a few of the sections that may have been too difficult for them. But ALL had a great time and were excited about this activity.
Each year my students thought this was one of their favorite activities because it was so "real life". 
It has been used in grades 3rd-6th in varying ways.

Common Core - 3.OA.B.5, 3.OA.C.7, 3.OA.D.8, 3.NBT.A.1, 3.NBT.A.2, 3.NBT.A.3

 It does have clipart and makes it appealing to kids, but does not go overboard on clipart. I also tried to combine and not waste paper. This is more for upper grades. The students should be able to fill in the different pages and charts on their own. There is also a rubric for the teachers to use and also for the students to see what will be graded and is expected.

*** PLEASE take time to go over this project with your students ahead of time and walk through each of the different sections. Don't print it off and throw it at them. :) This can be a great long term project and real life lesson, but invest in the 15 minutes up front and walk through it with them!

Here is a preview of the teacher page.

 

Here is page 8 of additional questions and extensions.

 

Dinoasurs Thematic Unit

 I recently created the Letter D- Dinosaurs unit and did those lessons with my 4 year old and some activities with my 6 yr old when he got home from kindergarten.

 

If you are interested in purchasing this unit you can find it here. It has 51 pages and it is much cheaper than my other units because dinosaurs are so common in the teaching world. It's a bargain!

Below are a few of the things we did with this lesson.

Here we used plastic dinosaurs from Walmart to make different footprints. The larger toys are much better as far a differentiated footprints than the really cheap bag of ones you can get from the dollar store.

Then since we were doing footprints we made a life sized footprint using newspapers to show the real size.

FYI- in doing research on dinosaurs I learned that the brontosaurus is no longer called that. It was found they used the wrong skull to the body. So now one that looks like a brontosaurus is called the apatosaurus.

Coloring pages

* Another great activity I did (that I forgot to take pictures of) was I took 5 different plastic easter eggs and put different weights in them. He then had to sort them from lightest to heaviest.

Earth Day

Earth Day is coming up and I thought I would show you my Earth Day Centers bundle which is great for 3rd grade.

4 Centers!! 32 pages of Earth Day themed centers aligned to Common Core and TEKS.
Check it our here at Teachers Pay Teachers or here at Teachers Notebook. :)

Earth Day Math Center Includes:
*Student Directions Page
* 16 math word problems with an Earth Day theme
* Recording Sheet for accountability * Answer Key

Earth Day “Being Green” Science Center Includes:
*Student Directions Page * 24 cards * Sorting Mat
* Recording Sheet for accountability * Answer Key
(Facts about conserving, recycling, etc. where they sort what is good for the environment or what is bad for the environment).

Earth Day Value ($) Words includes:
*Student Directions Page * Money Value Alphabet
* Recording Sheet for accountability * Answer Key
With Earth Day themed graphics

Earth Day themed Irregular and Regular Plural Center includes:
*Student Directions Page * Sorting Mat *32 word cards
* Recording Sheet for accountability * Answer Key
Skill: adding s, es, or ies to make words plural

Beginning Math Skills & Free Printable Beginning Sounds Game

It has been a busy and sickly last few weeks. Needless to say, preschool has been put on the back burner. It's bad when your son asks to do preschool. (I never said I was perfect, nor do I ever pretend to be). Since I had not really been making lessons and nothing was printed and ready to go, I had to get creative.

I remembered seeing this little gem online somewhere. So I whipped that up for him. He did it so quickly and easily. I was blown away!!!!

I made this for my 4 year old. He is the one who would get frustrated when counting when he got to 13-19 and completely shut down and not do ANYTHING and refuse. With the help from his Daddy (who is obviously not Mommy so its different) he let Dad help him count through those teens and next thing I know he is counting to 50. All this time I thought he could only count to 12. In reality he can count to 50 now. Sometimes it take someone else to help get them over a bump in the road.

To take this idea even farther I created a beginning sounds games for him.
On one side of the plate I used blue and picked clipart that begins with different letters. Then with blue I wrote the matching letters on the clothespins. 

 THEN on the back I added more letters using red. Notice the letters on the clothespins are red. 

*Also this is self checking. Red for the red side & blue for the blue side, but when you flip the plate over the clothespins also match the letter on the back. Pretty neat huh!

Most of the clipart I have taken from a free clipart site called: mycutegraphics.com   It is worth checking out!!

How to get it for Free:
I have given you the clipart I used HERE that you can download through "DropBox" Or if you have an account through Teachers Pay Teachers you can access it Here for free.
Or if you have an account through Teachers Notebook you can access it Here for free.

Don't forget to sign up as a follower at either of my stores for other Free items or notifications about sales. 

Math & Number Recognition Game

Remember that old card game called "War" or "Battle" where you flip over two cards and who ever has the biggest number wins those cards? 
This has been a really fun game for my boys (ages 4 and almost 6). Surprisingly, my 4 yr old caught on really fast at comparing number values. We played this a lot during our Texas off and on winter...I don't know how you Northern people have even survived the "polar vortex" this winter! Kudos to you!!!!


Directions:
Deal ALL the cards face down to the two players.
At the same time, each player flips over a card.

 

The person with the highest value card collects both cards.
If two of the same cards are displayed, then 3 more cards are placed face down. Then flip up one more card to compare values. Largest value collects all the cards.

 

Once cards in your hand run out, collect and reshuffle all your cards. You can continue playing until one person has no more cards left. Or for my 2 boys we set a timer and whoever has the most cards when the timer goes off wins. 

* I first began with number cards only, but we quickly moved to the J,Q,K, A cards and they have learned which beats which face card.

Get FREE Math Centers for the LIFE of my store!!

I've had this great idea! I have bundled ALL my math centers (for 3rd grade) together and I am selling that as one bundle now.

BUT, the great thing about it is that once you buy this bundle, you will get every other math center I create for FREE. Yes, FREE! 

This is how it works, when you purchase this bundle you will have it listed in "your purchases" section from the website when you buy it from either TPT or TN.
As I make more math centers, I will be adding them to that zip file. You can then check "your purchases" section for an update. All you have to do is download the file again for the newest math centers. So log on to Teachers Pay Teachers or Teachers Notebook to see this MEGA Bundle.

As I create more centers and add them to the zip file, I will slowly increase the price. So grab it now while the price is at its lowest.
* Since I have originally posted this bundle, it is up to 24 centers and 150+ pages.

The most recent additions are 3 new fraction centers which I have pulled from this fraction packet I created. This packet includes 3 centers, 2 activities and 1 fraction multiple choice worksheet.

My Inner Martha Stewart

I have been sick of my kitchen drawers!! I happened to cut down the kitchen aisle at Walmart and spotted this adorable red and white shelf liner. I'm still on the search for good drawer dividers, so cut me a little slack if this drawer still looks messy. You should have seen it "before". :)

BUT, I thought I'd go ahead and show my my ahh-haa moment.

I had a drawer overflowing with these straws. I tried to think what I had on hand that might contain these unruly things! I remembered  using toilet paper tubes for help hold  extension cords. So I thought this would be great for my straws.

I pulled a TP roll from my craft stash, hot glue gunned some craft paper onto it and viola!! A cute straw holder.