Find the Mean, Median and Mode of Your Name!

Our Open House is this coming Thursday and all of the teachers at my school are all a buzz thinking of some cute bulletin board ideas to showcase the learning that has taken place over the past month or so.  At the end of the year we go over Statistics: Mean, Median, Mode and Range.  Check out this CUTE activity that we did, the kids LOVED it!

How much is your name worth? Finding the Mean, Median and Mode of your name!

 Here is what is included in this set....

4 Teaching/Reviewing Posters that are GREAT for your math word wall!

A key that helps the students find out how much their name is worth...

A rough draft think sheet to record and solve for each

 The final draft recording page...

2 differentiated slides for struggling students....

 Here is how we shared our Final Draft for our Open House Math Bulletin Board...

For the Bubble Alphabet Letters that I used for their Final Drafts, you can access them free here.  It made the file too large to post on TpT.  You can also have them write their name out or use magazine letters. I liked it more uniform and went with this.

My class absolutely LOVED this activity. I did it step by step with them and used my name as an example so that they understood exactly what I was looking for. They checked their neighbor's work as I walked around and monitored too.  It was a perfect End of Year activity and a terrific Math Bulletin Board! You can purchase this set here at my Teachers Pay Teachers store for only $1.75!

Teacher Appreciation Sale

I am having a 

TEACHER APPRECIATION SALE!

Monday, May 6th - Saturday May 11th

20% off everything in my store!

In addition
TPT is sweetening the deal on May 7-8! Type in TAD13 and get an extra 8% off!

Here is the link to my store:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Fancy-Free-In-Fourth

Now is a great time to stock up on some goodies for Open House or for next school year!

May Currently!

Can you believe it is May already? Today I am linking up with Farley from Oh'Boy 4th Grade and her awesome, monthly linky.

Let's break it down:

LISTENING: Since I get my daughter ready Monday- Friday, my husband has weekend duty which means I get to sleep in (until 7:30-gasp-). I can no longer sleep in, I think I lost that ability when I became a mama, and it's especially hard right now because I am 8.5 months preggers, so I am up and down all night.  This morning, while I was "sleeping in" I was listening to my husband and daughter chit chat and it melted my heart!

LOVING: Now don't get me wrong, I love, love, LOVE my job...but I am soooo ready for this school year to be over, again probably a side effect of being 8.5 months pregnant!  Only 20 more days!

THINKING/WANTING: Summer is going to be busy because we will be turning from a family of 3 to a family of 4. I am lucky that my husband is a teacher too, so I will have him with me navigating how to have a newborn and a 2 year old.... BUT my husband got a tutoring job this summer that will take him out of the house 4 hours a day M-F.  I am lucky my in-laws live close by!  I am so excited to meet my little boy. I can't imagine the amount of love I will feel when I have him in my arms and I can't wait for my little girl to be a big sister.

NEEDING: I am soooo tired when I get home from work that I have been neglecting my blog. I feel horribly about it and I know that I need to get back in the rhythm of it again. I have sooo many photos on my phone that I never uploaded and shared... and posting them now might be strange... I don't know. Have any of you bloggers out there been in this same situation.... you've taken a mini-blog vacation and now you want to get back into the blogging world but you feel apprehensive... perhaps I am just over thinking it....

SUMMER BUCKET LIST: 

-Have a baby (wish I could flash forward the labor and delivery part!) 

- Take some mini, local vacations. Being in Southern California, there are a lot of places to go and visit for a couple of days or so that aren't too far away.  I just really want to swim, enjoy a margarita, sleep in, eat some good food and relax.... 

-Lose baby weight: I am one of those pregnant ladies that you see at the gym working out at 8 months... I do elicit some interesting looks when I walk in the doors with a HUGE belly ready to work out. I told my husband to be ready for be to be a WORK OUT FIEND once baby Eli is born and I am cleared to exercise.  I am determined to drop the weight I gained before my sister in laws wedding this November and I know I can do it!

Thanks for reading my BABY CENTRIC Currently.... I have baby brain.

34 weeks!

Just before Spring Break we got the results of our most recent District Benchmark and although I was proud of how my class scored on their exams, I spent my Spring Break examining the standards that my class struggled with the most.  Across the grade level (and EVERY YEAR) our kiddos have a hard time with the Writing Application and Writing Strategies questions.  These are the questions where they give you a passage and the students are asked to do things like rearrange, add and delete sentences as well as examine verb choice, multiple meaning words, roots, and sentence combining.  I think that the reason why these standards are so difficult for the students to master is because they have to act as the "teacher" and edit a passage that they did not write.  It doesn't matter how many different ways I have taught writing, presented these different standards in collaborative and fun ways... when it comes to these standards presented in a "high stakes testing" format, the students struggle.  That being said.... I have created six different activities to help prepare and review my class for these types of questions that are coming up on their state test in 3 weeks... ((eek!)))

Say hello to my little friend, 

Writing Test Prep for Editing and Revising

 I wrote out various passages ranging from a how to composition to  expository social studies and science ones.   I paired the passage with various Writing Applications and Writing Strategies questions that focus on these skills:

Each passage has 6-10 questions as well as an answer key.  See below for a couple examples:

These can be done in class or assigned as homework. I am going to be doing these in class and then diving into the skills more with additional worksheets and games that review the concepts tested.  I am looking forward to using these over the next couple of weeks because I have searched high and low for worksheets that review these commonly missed standards and have come up empty handed.  Plus, chunking them in this way, on separate worksheets, the students will not get overwhelmed!

I hope that these will help some of you out there too!  I will be emailing the first 5 people who leave a comment stating:

1) Your email

2) How you plan on using these in your class

3) What standard(s) you are reviewing the most for the up and coming state test!

Happy test prep to you all! I can't wait until these tests are OVER!!!!!

I am linking up with other amazing teachers who have fabulous ideas for prepping for that dang test!

National Poetry Month!

This month is National Poetry Month and I plan on taking this time to not only share some of my favorite poetry with my class, but also have them write some of their own.  Poetry is a GREAT way to review all types of figurative language before the high stakes testing that is coming our way.  If you are looking for a great review of figurative language check out my Best Seller: Figurative Language is a Hoot.  I blogged about this set here in January and have heard a lot of wonderful things about it from people who have used it in their classroom.  My students really got a handle on the various figurative language techniques and I have seen them use them in their writing or identifying them in our reading a lot.

Check it out to see if it will help you reintroduce and review before high stakes testing... it is on sale all month in honor of National Poetry Month!

April's Currently

Happy April everyone! To kick off this month I am linking up with the Fabulous Farley from Oh' Boy 4th Grade... Here goes:

Listening: Simon and Garfunkel knew what they were doing by titling a song "Sound of Silence", it is BLISSFUL after a busy week of school and Easter.  I am soaking up the quiet and loving it... for now!

Loving: That I am on SPRING BREAK! It felt like it was never going to come, and it is finally here! I have no real plans other than relaxing, reading, TpT'ing, Blogging and spending some QT with my family and friends. Oh, and in honor of Spring Break I have a sale on my TpT store going on NOW until Thursday! Check it out- 20% off everything!

Thinking: maybe I should change this category to STRESSING... our State Test is in 3 weeks after break.... I feel like there is still A LOT that I want to cover.... we have covered so much, but there are still a few things that need to get done... I think everyone feels this way... who is ever completely ready?

Wanting: My husband is on a landscaping kick and he has been working really hard in his free time on ripping out the plants from the previous owner and weeds that have overtaken the yard.  He even spent last Saturday jack hammering concrete out of the back yard so we can have a garden.  BUT, ripping out is the cheap part...landscaping is the expensive part... I am hoping my TpT sales can help landscape the backyard and my hubs is even looking into some SAT tutoring as a side job for over summer. We shall see.

This is a picture, taken by Apples and ABCs. Michelle and I were having a blogging date and we looked out the window and saw my husband cutting down a tree. We were crying because of laughing so hard at him figure out how to cut it down and watching him shimmy up the tree with a little hand saw. 

Needing: Well, being almost 30 weeks pregnant makes shopping NOT fun!  I am having 2 baby showers coming up and I want a cute dress (or two) to wear.... This should be a challenge! 

Me and Eli Donovan at 28 weeks!

Advice: We have all heard it, "sharing is caring", and this cliche is true. Whether it be sharing a resource you created with a coworker or blogging friend, or giving an unexpected gift to a well deserved friend, letting people know you care is important.  I have become a better teacher because of those mentors who have shared with me knowledge and resources and I have become a better parent, wife and friend by taking time to share with those around me who are in need. I encourage you to share some goodwill with a coworker, friend or family member this week. It will make your day and bless theirs!

That's all for this month... I am excited to see what you all have shared on your April Currentlys. 

Be sure to check out my sale:

Happy Spring Break to ALL -20% off SALE!

Throw on your sandals and later up that SPF 30....  In honor of Spring Break, enjoy 20% off of EVERYTHING in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store in honor of Spring Break!