The Classroom Clique is a group of teachers who met at the TpT conference in Las Vegas last year. We collaborate to make all of our stores better for our buyers.  We have worked together to organize this blog hop to show our appreciation for you, the teachers who visit our stores. Be sure to collect all the awesome tips and freebies our members have posted for you and enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway for a chance to win some great gift cards for some of your favorite places!  You deserve something special!

As the school year is winding down, it might be a nice idea to plan something special for the moms of your students. What could be better than having your class host a fancy tea party  to honor their mothers and/or grandmothers?  The kids will love the planning, the moms will love attending and you will be earning some of the best PR any  teacher could ever hope to get!

I am going to share with you some of the festivities my granddaughter Mia planned to celebrate her 7th birthday. She had a great time planning her "fancy"  tea party. When she was brainstorming possible ideas to make her party an awesome event, I remember thinking what a great idea a fancy tea party would be to celebrate Mother's Day in the classroom--or an awesome event to invite moms in near the end of the year. I want to share some of the decorations Mia used and offer a few suggestions for creating an elegant tea party on a budget.

To set just the right tone for the tea, you will need some colorful decorations. Grab some brightly colored tissue paper, pipe cleaners and a pair of scissors. You are ready to begin creating beautiful flowers to decorate your room and to serve as a gift for moms to take home. In the picture below (on the right) you can see a flower hanging from the ceiling!  I have outlined the steps to create the flowers in an earlier post. Click here to read it. Your kids can absolutely make them!

Another powerful element for setting the right mood is the table setting. Mia used table cloths and a runner from the thrift store. A less expensive version would be to use a long sheet of white paper from a large roll to serve as your "linen" tablecloth. Cut a table runner from a large roll of colored paper.  Have the kids write little messages to moms and grandmothers and enhance the messages with drawings. Irresistibly cute! You might chose not have the moms sit at the table. It could be used as a decorative table with trays of goodies and a pretty tea pot--or coffee. The children attending Mia's party actually had a choice of different juices and chocolate milk.

The roses decorating these chairs were purchased at a Michael's sale. A less expensive version would be to decorate chairs with kid-made flowers to match the table setting.

Mia's mom used  cookie cutters to make these adorable sandwiches. Butterfly sandwiches are on the right.  You could serve chocolate chips--homemade or packaged--or any other cookie, brownie or cake you can get.

Here's one happy kid celebrating her special day.  I have tried to give you some cost effective ideas so you too can host a special day for your students and guests. Don't forget some materials, such as a pretty tea pot, can be borrowed too. There are so many things you can do for the kids to have an unforgettable day to celebrate the end of a year in your class. If you do decide to host a fancy tea party, let me know how it turns out.

Treat yourself and your kiddos to a great memory book chronicling the year in your class. The memory book will be a keepsake they can share with their family and friends.  For the duration of the blog hop, I have  special offer just for you. The cover on the FREEBIE says "School."   I will send you a cover with your school's name in that space. The customized cover will make your memory books so much more personal. Don't forget, the offer is good only for the duration of the blog hop and applies to the paid versions as well as the freebie. The offer ends Sunday, May 8th.

Enter the Rafflecopter below for chances to win gift cards.

1st Place--A $50 Teachers Pay Teachers gift card

2nd Place--A $30 Target gift card

3rd Place--A $15 Starbucks gift card

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What is the secret phrase?  Each blogger in the hop has a secret word or phrase for you to collect. Make a note of this word and hop on over to the next blog to collect a new word or phrase. You will need to complete the nine-word phrase or sentence to enter the contest. Here's the word from A+ Kids.

Click the button to hop over to the next blog. Enjoy the blog hop! We created it just for you!

I am excited to be participating in a blog hop hosted by Kim from Elementary Antics. Over 40 bloggers will be offering great spring ideas to use in your classroom and FREEBIES to make your job a little easier as the year begins to wind down.  Be sure to hop around all the blogs to collect all the goodies. When you get back to A+ Kids Bloggin' you know you have completed the entire hop.

Clip art courtesy of Laughing Deer Studio

Every year we have lots of fun with our grandchildren at our annual Easter Egg hunt held on our back lawn. The kids enjoy it and look forward to it. However, last year I realized that the kids were getting too big to truly enjoy opening little plastic eggs with little candies and trinkets inside. I decided to create something new. The kids had a great time and when it was over I thought an adapted version of my new math egg hunt could be used for classroom fun.

I created a new Easter Egg hunt based on luck but was engaging and lots of fun. The eggs were stuffed with numbers.  Just for fun, the numbers over 10 were printed in yellow to be recognized as having a higher point value.  Here are the sheets of numbers waiting to be cut and stuffed into the eggs.

Each kid got a sheet with 16 numbers. The kids had to choose 12 numbers, to match the number of eggs in a carton--one dozen eggs. These are the only numbers they would get credit for finding. Their chosen numbers were written in the bunny ears. ***Challenge for selecting numbers---Of course, lower numbers are worth less, but there were more of them in the eggs, so the chance of finding lower numbers was greater.

Then the kids ran around the yard looking in the garden, on benches, in flower pots, in window boxes, etc. until they were sure they had found all of the eggs.   

Each child was given an egg carton with the 12 numbers they chose--one number in each section.

When they opened the eggs there was a number inside from 5-20. Then they sorted the numbers from the eggs into the egg cartons. If they had chosen the number in the beginning they were awarded that number of points.  If the number in their egg was not on their list, it was discarded.  We computed one number at a time, starting with 20 and working our way down to 5.  "How many 20s do you have? How many points is that?" Then the next child was asked, "How many 20s do you have? How many points is that?"

Next the numbers had to be tallied. It was interesting to see the 9-year-old who "doesn't like math" adding those points--all of a sudden interested. "I found five 9s. That's 45 points."  The 1st grade twins had no problem concluding "I found three 10s. That's 30 points."  Finally, the 9-year-old used a calculator to add the total number of points for each of them.

Winner's Prizes

Slightly larger eggs were stuffed with a $$$$ to create 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes.

And, of course, they each received a present from their grandparents. Here they are holding the prize eggs. That was my hunt for my grandchildren. It was lots of fun because they enjoyed the steps of the process and there was suspense to see who would win. Shockingly, the older one liked doing the computing. Everyone was very happy!

HERE'S AN IDEA TO ADAPT THE MATH EGG HUNT FOR A CLASSROOM ACTIVITY:

1. Gather enough plastic eggs for each kid in your class to find at least 3 eggs. (You decide the number). To be safe, be sure to make a few extra eggs. Occasionally, 1 or 2 eggs are never found!
2. Stuff the eggs with numbers the kids can add on their ability level.
3. Enlist someone to help you "hide" the eggs on the playground just before your hunt.
4. Arrange kids in groups of 5 or 6 and send in a general direction so as not to have them run over each other. There is no need to rush or push or fight. Everyone gets to collect just 3 eggs and there are plenty for everyone. It is a game of luck! No one know which eggs have the "big numbers."
5. Tell kids when they have found 3 eggs, they should return to you.
6. When all of the eggs have been collected,  and you return to the classroom, the kids add their numbers. The 3 kids with the highest totals win 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes presented in larger eggs or envelopes--or whatever you create. Prizes can be dollar store finds or homework certificates.

If you try the math Easter Egg hunt, let me know how it works for you. Have fun! Happy Easter! Happy Spring! Before you leave to go to the next blog, be sure to check out my freebie created especially for you--participants of this blog hop!

SPRING INTO LEARNING

FREEBIE

12 task cards are included in this math resource that will be free for the duration of the blog hop.

Math skills are reinforced while using task cards to play a Scoot activity or a Kaboom game. Skills reinforced are:
-addition and subtraction of multi digit numbers
-multiplication and division of multi-digit numbers by a one-digit number
-using symbols for less than, greater than and equal to

Can be used in small groups, whole groups and math centers.

Visit my store to download your free resource. Enjoy and let me know how you like it!

www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/A-Plus-Kids/

Click the blue button to visit the next blog.

I am so happy to be participating in this blog hop with all of my friends from The Classroom Clique. The ringing in of the new year is the perfect time to assess past routines and think about how changes can make an improvement in work, relationships and life in general. So we have collaborated to share our New Year's resolutions and some great new resources. Hop from blog to blog for some inspiration and pick up a New Year's freebie made especially for you. Wishing you a happy and healthy 2016!

In 2016 I want to get back to my exercise program. I was taking zumba and yoga classes and that was so good for me. Then the gym I was going to totally changed their schedule. The old schedule worked so well for me and the new schedule did not so I went less and less and  . . .   The new year is a good time get back to what I need to do.

I lost a few friends in 2015 and that made it a very tough year. Losing a friend is a sharp and painful reminder that life is fragile and precious. In 2016 I want to be sure to extra attentive to my friends and make time for them no matter how busy life gets. I have many traditions with friends that I am so grateful to have taken the time to do every year. I will be sure to continue them. Examples of a few Christmas traditions with friends: 1) My one friend and I go on a holiday house tour every Christmas. The tour consists of visiting 4 or 5 home decorated for the holidays. Sometimes one house hosts a little boutique with a few unique gifts and another house hosts some yummy goodies, hot cider or hot chocolate, cookies or candies. It's a fun day!  2) My husband and I have a few groups of long-time friends that we go out to dinner with every December to celebrate Christmas. We pick a different restaurant each year and have a great time catching up on news and wishing each other a Merry Christmas!  And a non-Christmas tradition-- 3) My best friend and I both got married on the same weekend 2 years apart. Every year we have an anniversary dinner together to celebrate. It's been a very special tradition that the 4 of us cherish. There are many more but you get the idea.  I hope you have lots of traditions too. They make great memories. Remember the time to appreciate your friends is now!

My Christmas tree, my pride and joy, with ornaments from every year we have been married. Another tradition!

I have two married children and one of them lives out-of-state. I try to plan a special event every year, or at least every 2 years, when we can all get together. I like to see my kids, their spouses and my 5 grandkids together enjoying each other's company. Every odd year we've been vacationing at a villa in Disney World in Orlando. We try to do something in the even years as well. Sometimes it's at one of our homes and sometimes we are lucky enough to go away together. I need to check work schedules and explore possibilities for this year.

I know what my business needs to grow right now. Better marketing. I resolve to become more active on social media. I need to promote my store in general and specific resources in particular. Of course, I am looking forward to the TpT conference in Orlando this summer.  2016 is my year to become more visible!

I have started a new series of resources entitled "Heroes, Idols, Patriots and the Infamous." The series highlights historical characters who are either heroes, idols, patriots, or infamous for their behavior. All of the resources in the series are perfect exercises for reading comprehension and include scaffolding to help your students learn how to better comprehend text. There are currently four different resources in the series. More on that in another post very soon.

The newest resource is Harriet Beecher Stowe, hot off the presses today, and I am offering it as a FREEBIE for the New Year's Resolution Blog Hop to give everyone a chance to experience one of the series free. As a freebie the Harriet Beecher Stowe unit will be the resource with the least number of scaffolding exercises supporting the story in order to keep the unit to 10 pages as per TpT requirements for a freebie. The resource consists of a three page story about Harriet Beecher Stowe, comprehension questions, upper level vocabulary, a graphic organizer, and fact or opinion statements.  Here is a sample of a few pages.

The Harriet Beecher Stowe resource is perfect for Black History month in February and Women's History month in March as well as any other time. I am very excited about adding this resource to my new series "Heroes, Idols, Patriots, and the Infamous." A teacher friend of mine told me how much she likes the series because kids need to hear more about our heroes. They need someone to look up to, someone to emulate. If you download it, please leave some feedback as I would like to know what you think too as I plan the next historical character in the series.  Hurry over to my store to get your free copy now.

Remember to visit my friends to see their resolutions and pick up a freebie.

New Year's clip art courtesy of

To give you a special treat for the holidays I am celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas hosted by Brandi and Angela from Focused on Fifth.  Many bloggers have joined together to share holiday ideas for you to use in your classroom. We want to help make December an educational, fun time for you and your kiddos. So read on to learn about the hints and treats that bloggers have prepared for you.

To celebrate the first day of Christmas, bloggers have prepared holiday-themed math ideas. Here is my new freebie, Elves Writing Fractions, Decimals and Fractions, made especially for you. It is designed with an elf holiday theme to help your students read, write and understand numbers written as fractions, decimals and percents.

The Cover

This resource contains 3 anchor charts, one each for decimals, fractions, and percents. Each chart has math sentences for the kids to complete.

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There are 12 task cards in this resource. Here is an example of what is included.

This is the festive student response sheet for kids to record their responses.

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So hurry on over to my store, A+ Kids, to get your free resource--and if you like it, don't forget to leave some sweet feedback too. By the way if you look around my store there is also a math, critical thinking, freebie called Holiday Puzzles for your kids to keep busy--and think too. Enjoy! Happy Holidays!!

Check in everyday with Brandi and Angela at Focused on Fifth to find out which bloggers are participating that day and collect lots of great ideas to make December more fun for you and your class.

It doesn't seem possible but we are getting ready for Thanksgiving already. Bloggers belonging to The Classroom Clique have organized a blog hop with special Thanksgiving treats just for you. Hop from blog to blog to get ideas, read about traditions, find delicious recipes, and grab some great freebies! Please be nice and leave some sweet feedback if you download any resources. This will encourage bloggers to create more freebies for you!  Start hopping and hurry! The blog hop is only for the this weekend Friday, November 13th to Monday, November 16th. After Monday many of the freebies may revert to paid products!

Being thankful, having an attitude of gratitude, is the key to happiness. Think about all the blessings you have, count them off in your head and teach your kids to focus on their blessings too. That's a true celebration of Thanksgiving!

Every year my grandkids and I get together a few days before Thanksgiving to make some festive decorations for the holiday table. A favorite craft is making place cards for every member of the family having dinner with us. First, the kids write a list of family members who will be there. Then we design this year's place card and get to work. When the table has been set, the kids take their creations and place one next to every plate. I wish you could see the looks on their faces when they hear the oohs and aahs as people enter the dining room.  It's a real source of pride.

A place card made from a foam craft kit.

Two turkeys cut from construction paper, stuffed with small pieces of newspaper and then stapled together. Decorate with moving eyes, a beak, a waddle and feathers with the name of a family member.

Do you like cranberry sauce? Here is a recipe for cranberries and pears. It is soooo delicious. It's one of those recipes that is simple yet makes you look so smart. Your guests will love you. If you try it, let me know what you think.

Click on the recipe for a better look.

A Thanksgiving story. A reading comprehension resource. Sarah Josepha Hale is often called “The Godmother of  Thanksgiving” because she lobbied American presidents to proclaim Thanksgiving a national holiday. Finally, a president agreed with her. President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a day of national thanks in the midst of the Civil War.

Click on the cover's image to grab your free copy of the resource. It's a great Thanksgiving story.

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Click on the buttons below to visit other blogs participating in the hop.  Be sure to hop to every blog to grab holiday ideas, recipes and freebies. When you get back to my blog you will have completed the entire blog bop!  Invite your friends to enjoy the Thanksgiving hop as well! Remember the fun only lasts for the weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Welcome to our "Trick or Treat Blog Hop" hosted by Rachael Partlett, author of The Classroom Game Nook Blog. Rachael has organized a dynamic collection of blogs with lots of fun tricks to use in your classroom as well as some awesome treats.  At every stop along the hop a blogger has featured a resource to giveaway. Be sure to enter each blogger's Rafflecopter for a chance to win some great resources.  As an additional sweet treat, each blogger has posted an exclusive freebie just for you--our blog hoppers. Download them all and they are yours. (Of course, the copyright belongs to the original teacher-author).  Please keep in mind that most freebies will remain free only for the duration of the Trick-or-Treat Blog Hop and will convert to paid products when the blog hop is over on Halloween, October 31st. So be sure to do lots of hopping before then to grab all the freebies and enter all the giveaways.

Happy Trick-or-Treat Blog Hopping!

At the beginning of every year I would write a class list of names on a piece of graph paper with large boxes. Then I would photo the list and keep a pile of them in my side top drawer.  These lists were invaluable to me every time I needed to keep track of whether each student had whatever.  Who brought in money for a class trip?  Who returned a permission slip? Who had a turn at the new math center? It is so easy to grab a list and just place check marks next to students' names instead of writing names on a piece of paper and then trying to figure out who is still missing.  Also, every once in a while the front office or another teacher would ask for a class list. No need for any time-consuming tasks, just hand them a copy.

In my self-contained Special Ed class, I stapled a copy to the bulletin board where we did our morning routine. Every morning I would give a one-minute "news" report, about something that happened in my life since the day before i.e., made a special dinner for my family, took my kids to soccer practice, etc. Then students could volunteer to give their own news report. Everyone who gave a report colored in a square next to their name.  A bar graph began to develop. Soon the most reluctant speakers, (a few in this class rarely, if ever, said a sentence aloud), wanted a colored square and were asking to give a news report. Seeing classmates be successful helped some students be willing to take a risk and participate. It was worth every second of class time. The list could be used as a quick reference for any student assessment, i.e., learning those times tables. It was a motivating factor because it was actively used each day.

The list is a small thing, but so helpful.

And about the sweet treats . . . 

The FREEBIE

Click this image to see Monster Math Scoot at A+ Kids.

Monster Math Scoot is my brand new game made especially for the Trick-or-Treat blog hop. It is a 3-games-in-1 resource. The 36 cards in this game can be used as task cards, a scoot activity, or a kaboom game. The adorable monsters clip art was done by Ashley from Watson Works. Objectives are: 

1) addition and subtraction of multi-digit whole numbers, 2) greater than, less than, equal to,

 3) place value, 4) numbers in written form.

Play KABOOM.

The GIVEAWAY

Click this image to see Know Your Math Facts at A+ Kids.

Know Your Math Facts is an activity to promote math fact fluency in multiplication and division. There are 120 cards in all, 30 task cards for each of the following: 1) multiplication facts for the 7, 8, and 9 times tables, 2) multiplication story problems, 3) division facts for the 7, 8, and 9 times tables, 4) division story problems.

Notice the kid on the right is using his fingers to get the answer 63.

Just for fun kids select answers to multiplication and division problems from a list on the side of the game page. Then they write one number in each bubble. As they solve the problems on the task cards, they color in the bubble if they chose to write that answer in a bubble. The game is over when one person has colored in all of his bubbles. This activity is great for differentiated instruction because the teacher can have each player choose only from the deck of cards that meet his personal objective--working on just the facts or solving story problems, multiplication or division or both. Or all of the cards can be mixed into one pile to play.

Enter the giveaway now for your chance to win this festive resource.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Click on the button to trick-or-treat at the next blog.  Be sure to hop to every blog to collect your tricks and delicious treats. When you get back to my blog you will have completed the entire blog bop!  Invite your friends to trick-or-treat here as well! Remember the fun only lasts until Halloween.

Have fun and Happy Halloween!

So exciting! I am happy to be participating in the "Trick-or-Treat Blog Hop" organized by Rachael Partlett that begins this Saturday! Only 2 more days before the fun starts.  Over 50 bloggers are participating to give out helpful tricks for your classroom and lots of treats too. There will be Halloween freebies and chances to win some great festive resources.  You can begin the blog hop right here on my blog, so be sure to stop in and go trick-or-treat at each blog to collect a bagful of Halloween goodies!

I am joining Rachael from The Classroom Game Nook to share ten pictures of recent days. I missed Ten on Ten last month so this month I am catching up.  Life has been extremely busy and lots of fun. Lots of family fun going on!

1.  Had a great time at our granddaughters' dance recitals.  The two sisters each performed in different shows on the same day. Abby was in the morning show and Alexa performed later in the 4:00 show. So it was a day of dance for our family.

Alexa and Abby

2. Six days later our granddaughter Mia performed in an afternoon dance recital.

Mia

3. Our family was lucky enough to get everyone together for a week at Disney. We can never get enough of this. Here is a picture of our "Fab Five" being greeted by Pluto at EPCOT.

Our Fab Five

4. Olaf cupcakes were a favorite dessert in Disney. Yummy!

5. Darth Vader is a family favorite villain, the guy you love to hate. He was really scary during the show at Star Wars in Hollywood.

6. This is the new business card I had made for the TpT conference in Las Vegas. Laine from A Little Piece of Africa designed it for me. The coolest thing is I met Laine at the "Cool Kids Meet and Greet" in Vegas. Laine traveled a long way to be there and share ideas with everyone. It was great to finally meet her.

7. My friends thought it was funny when I shared this vacation photo with them. It was taken in Vienna. Yes, it is a hot dog stand. However, they do not have frankfurters. They serve sausages on rolls.

  

 

1)  Choose ten pictures that show your readers what's been going on in your life lately (a peek into your classroom, getting ready for fall festivities...etc...).  The pictures can be both teacher and non-teacher related.
2)  Place the pictures in post on the tenth of each month. You can include a small caption with each picture if you'd like.  You must include the blog button from Rachael's  The Classroom Game Nook (below).
3)  Come to the Classroom Game Nook and link up your post to the linky party.  Check out other bloggers who have linked up and leave a comment or two on their blogs to share the love!