Valentine's Day Freebies & NEW Multiplication Bingo

Here are a couple of links to two Valentine's Day Freebies over at my Teacher's Pay Teachers Store.

The first one is called Student Compliment Notes. This is something I do with my students on Valentine's Day each year. Each student designs a heart shaped mailbox and then I have them write one compliment to each of their classmates and they deliver their notes on Valentine's Day. I also make sure we talk about what a meaningful compliment looks like, because if we don't, I'll get notes like: "you're a good friend" or "you're really cool", and so we think of ideas that are specific to that person.

Some ideas we think about for each compliment:
What does he/she do really well at in school?
Think about a time when he/she was really caring or honest or brave, etc.
Tell that person one think you admire about him/her.

I always find this is a time of year when students need a bit of a refresher on how to get along with each other and how to speak with kind words for everyone, so this lesson is perfect. I also like that it isn't entirely centered around candy and chocolates! This freebie also comes with notes that are not Valentine's Day themed so you can use them any time.


The next freebie is a called Valentine's Day Multiplication Match. My students are still working on multiplication facts so I created this as a fast finisher activity during our Math block. Students cut and past the correct answer under the multiplication problem. There are 3 levels to allow for differentiation within or between grade levels. I'm going to give the 2 digit x 1 digit to my advanced students as a challenge.

The last thing I have to share isn't a freebie but it is new to my store. I just posted it today! We needed some extra multiplication practice and my store-bought bingo boards were falling apart from so much use that I decided to create my own multiplication bingo. This product comes with a bingo board template and cut and paste numbers to fill the board. There are 5 different cut and paste pages to add variety. Answer calling cards are also included. It's only $2.00 at my store right now!

Also, I LOVE comments/feedback. If you download a freebie please consider leaving me feedback here in the comments, or at my TPT store! Thanks!

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

I'm also linking up with:

Explorers and Adventures Unit Plan and Ideas

Unit Plan for Explorers and Adventurers

Click for full unit plan

I thought I would share my unit plan for my next integrated Science and Social Studies unit called Explorers and Adventurers. Click here to download a .pdf version of the plans. It has clickable links that go to different products around the web.

I've used parts of this unit for the last four years, but it's nice to finally have it all pieced together neatly. Does anyone else enjoy that as much as I do? We will begin this unit when my third graders return in January and I'm pretty excited. I think I've really found a few things to engage my gifted students. I can't wait to see what they come up with for their research projects!

Freebie Links

I also have as extras for my blog visitors only. These two single lessons didn't have a place in any of my exploration resources so I decided to make them freebies for everyone that stops by. You can't find them anywhere else! Either click through on the .PDF unit plan above or download them below:

Where in the World? A Google Earth Investigation
Explorer Motivations Flipbook

Please let me know what you think of them in the comments!

All products created by me for my exploration unit can be found at my TeachersPayTeachers Store: 

Let's Research: World Explorers 

Choose Your Adventure: Age of Exploration 

Christopher Columbus Close Reading Biography 

World Explorers Close Reading Biographies (5 Biographies)

Create a Timeline: Exploration

Exploration Scrapbook

Exploration: A Complete Resource

Thanks for stopping by,

Jennifer

FREEBIE: 2015 New Year Memories and Goals Student Mini-Book

I know must of us are in no way ready to start planning for January, but here's a FREEBIE to get you started anyway! Click the picture for a student mini-book for celebrating the new year. This is great as independent work during the first week back to school in January! I know my students always enjoy activities like this one that they can pull out once they finish other work. It also serves as a goal setting booklet and a reminder to be respectiful and kind to each other! Something I think my students will need after three whole weeks apart from each other.

The mini-books are easy to make. You simply print and cut all pages in half and assemble in any order. There are also two blank pages (one 'Looking Back', and one 'Looking Forward') for you to prompt your students or for your students to prompt each other! Or just use them as extra picture drawing spaces. This is what I intend to use them for.

Other recent freebies:

Color by Multiplication Fact: Christmas Edition

Nondenominational December Break Reading and Writing Challenge

Please take a moment to visit my TPT store, leave feedback, and follow me for product updates. As always, thanks for stopping by.

-- Jennifer

How to determine the Lexile Level (reading level) for ANY text

I'm finishing up a new close reading packet for my Teachers Pay Teachers store and I noticed that several other close reading packets that I've purchased over the years have a Lexile Level attached to them. I wondered how teachers had determined that, so I did a little Google investigation and thought I would share my findings with you.

1. To determine a Lexile Level for any text, go to https://lexile.com/analyzer/   
2. You will be asked to register for a free account. A free account allows you to analyze up to 1000 words of text at a time. This was more than enough for my needs, but it looks as if you can request to have access to the pro version for longer texts. 
3. After you register and accept their terms, it will ask you to upload a file. Since my text was in a powerpoint file, I just copy/pasted my text into a word document and clicked save as: plain text. The analyer can only read a plain text document. 
4. Hit submit after it loads the document and you should have your Lexile Level! 

The Lexile Level for my Christopher Columbus: the Man, the Myth, the Legend close reading article was a bit high for a good number of my third grade class, but I might make a couple of versions and include different levels. This seems to be the trend at the moment anyway!

You can use a reading level correlation chart to cross-reference other systems, such as Fountas & Pinnell's A-Z system.

https://lexile.com/ can also be used by students to find books on their reading level, or by teachers to determine classroom library book levels. Very easy!

Please let me know in the comments if you have ever needed to determine the Lexile Level of a text before. Was it helpful for student learning?

-- Jennifer

Two Christmas Freebies: Color by Multiplication Fact & December Break Reading & Writing Challenge

I know most teachers have started their holiday already but it's never too early to plan for next year! Anyway, I wanted to link up with freebie Friday, so here are two recent freebies I've made. You can find the links on my teachers pay teachers store or by clicking the pictures.

Working in an international school usually means about half of my students do not celebrate Christmas. I wanted to create something that was not Chirstmas specific for my students to complete during the break. I've made this optional because most will be traveling great distances, but for students that are staying in Rwanda (or for parents that have requested extra help!) this an option to keep reading and writing skills sharp. I also created a BONUS websites for practice page that I photocopied back to back with the challenge page. I had a few parents request extra practice for mathematics and spelling.

This is just a fun 3 page color by multiplication fact freebie with a bonus blank page where students can create their own color by fact drawing for a friend. These kinds of things are always lifesavers for me on the last day or two before a big break from school. I hope you enjoy!

Visit teachingblogaddict.com for more freebies!

-- Jennifer

Let's try this again...

Well, it's been a long time! I suppose it's time to try keeping up with this blogging thing once more. The students are on break already. Having three weeks off at December is always nice and it makes up for the complete lack of holidays during the regular school month!

 Here are a few resources I've been working on lately:

FREEBIE: Nondenominational December Break Reading and Writing Challenge
 I used this last year and this year with my students. Three weeks is a long break from school so this gives them something to keep their minds from forgetting all of the things we spend so long on in school! It's also nondenominational because working in an international school always leaves me with a good mix of students who celebrate Christmas and who don't celebrate Christmas. I always leave this optional because I know most of my students' families will be traveling great distances and there isn't always time for extra work.

My Dictionary: A personal Word Wall
I sometimes find my students asking me to help them spell the same words over and over again! I know I'm not the only teacher with this problem! I hope this will help my students be more independent when they return in January.

I can track my Independent Reading
I always give my students 15 minutes of reading as homework for Monday-Thursday and a traditional reading log to record the title and the minutes read. Well, lately they have been getting lazy with this process and many do not fill in their reading time until Friday morning after the time it needed to be collected! So we will be using this in January and students will be using reading journals to record all of their homework for reading. I also believe this will keep them accountable to actually reading what they say they are reading, something that I've found is difficult to track when parents are not checking regularly on homework.






The next two products are research oriented. Our new Science and Social Studies curriculum (IPC: International Primary Curriculum) is very research heavy and has great sequencing guides but not very much in the way of practical resources, so I created this series to aid my students in the research process.

Let's Research: Countries of the World Every year, students in our elementary grades complete a country project as part of our International Week in October. We used this project to help us stay organized and the projects turned out really great!

Lets: Research World Exploration
I've used parts of this in years past, but we will use the full project in January and February when my students return. Our next IPC unit is Explorers and Adventurers, and this research project goes well with the unit. I'm excited to try it out fully.

Choose your adventure: Age of Exploration
The last project I made will go along with our Explorers and Adventurers Unit in January. Again, I've used pieces of this in the past, but decided to give it a makeover and make it more coherent. This project allows students to know what it might be like to travel with an explorer like Christopher Columbus in the early 1500s. It also gives them open ended tasks to complete, so I'm really excited to see what my group of very creative third graders come up with this year!