Five For Friday! {July 17, 2016}

Today is one of my favorite days to blog, because it's Friday! and, Friday means that I get to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her reflective 5 for Friday post. I've only done this link up one other time but I loved that I got to sit down, reflect on my week and share some personal things with everyone out there.

My boyfriend got the chance to bring this little cutie patootie into our home last week ... he's a spitfire, 9 week old purebred Corgi and I love him to pieces! Just don't let my other pup know that! They have been getting along so well, and we are almost over the potty training hurdle! Riley is so jealous of Sherman now that she knows he's here to stay, but she's been such a good momma and it's adorable to see! 

 I had the opportunity to attend the Idaho Regional Math Centers Conference last week, and I  learned so much about geometric thinking and parent communication when it comes to the common core. I will be putting together a blog post about my thoughts and ideas later, but am still letting the information all sink in. I can't wait to share what I learned with you!!!

I finished creating my second Math Facts Made Easy pack! I am so excited to have this made up and ready to go for next year! I loved how well it worked with my second graders, and am hoping it will be just as amazing with my third graders. I am going to start working on a mixed operations pack for addition and subtraction next, and then onto multiplication and division. It's going so quickly now that I have it all created and ready to go:) 

For a Free Week Sample!

I spent a lot of this last week putting my house together and it's so close to being done ... I just had to take the last few days to finish a couple of little projects and I wanted to relax a bit before the craziness of moving into my classroom starts next week. This is the last time in a long time that I am planning on moving, and so now I've been working on making everything cute and perfect! Here's a sneak peek into my living room ... I still need to head to my favorite craft store and buy some new fabric to cover the chair, but I am so loving the blue, mustard and gray combination!

I started putting together my A Modern Teacher teacher binder and I am in L.O.V.E! I purchased the striped teacher binder a few weeks ago when she was having a great sale, and have been waiting to get ink to print it out! I've still got some things to print, but am loving it so far! I also linked up with The Teaching Thief for her back to school essentials linky, and now am dying to get my bootie to Target as soon as all the back to school wonderfullness comes out!

What did you do this week? Be sure to link up with the five for Friday post and reflect on your week!

Math Facts Made Easy: My Masterpiece!

I told you I would put together a little post about my newest resource, Math Facts Made Easy: Addition Edition. I am pretty excited about how this masterpiece turned out, and cannot wait to complete subtraction, multiplication and division!

Last year, I attended a class required by the state. It’s called Mathematical Thinking for Instruction. It sounds so very boring, I know! But, I learned some great things about the four operations.

 One of the biggest ideas I took from the class was that we should not be teaching math facts in order and we should not test them every day. This was a new thought to me and I figured I would test it out, as it matched our districts quarterly tests. 

About halfway through the year, I started giving weekly assessments of mixed addition and subtraction facts, to see how my kiddos were doing. They were pretty stagnant and I needed a way to boost them up. 

We were already doing daily number talks, which was helping, but I needed something more hands on and something that could be built in quickly everyday. I came up with this program and it worked wonders. My low babies went from two or three facts in two minutes to 18 to 20 facts in two minutes. It was amazing! And, the kids were exploring, talking and working at their own pace to figure out the facts. I was so pleased, that I decided I wanted to turn it into a product and share it with everyone because I know that it works … and not just for my kiddos … for all the second grade classes and third grade classes in my school! 

I hope you enjoy this purchase and your kids grow like wildflowers!

If you would like to try a week for  

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