I think I'm finally rested and ready to give blogging another shot after a 4 year break, ha! :) In all seriousness, I had such high hopes of keeping up with blogging regularly, but life happens and I put it on the back burner.  Since 2012, I've gone from teaching 4th and 5th grade at a suburban elementary school to teaching 5th and 6th grade at an elementary school in Chicago.  This year, I made a giant leap down to kindergarten and second grade and could not be happier to once again be in early primary.  Since the beginning of the year, I've added students in 1st, 3rd and 4th grade and we're having a blast in room 219!!  I have a *much* larger classroom this year which has allowed me the space to bring back a lot of my great teaching tools that I've had in storage for the last year.  That includes my books!! I hated having my 1,000+ classroom library in storage!  Books are meant to be read and reread and reread again! :o)  My caseload this year is a lot different than the past few years and I've been adding in a ton of DIY projects which I have the sudden urge to share here.  I've recently started to explore social media and the online community of teachers and am in constant awe of the way ideas are now shared.  It's amazing how easy it is to connect to teachers all over the country (and world!).  It's left me inspired to be the best teacher I can be.  My hope is that some teachers (or moms! or dads! or siblings! or OT's! or anyone!) can find something here that will be useful in their own lives.  Enjoy!

- Miss Fizzlepatrick

Converting Minutes & Hours

Another common core target that we are working on for 4th grade is converting between minutes and hours.  Using my yard bug as a starting point, I came up with Miss Ticktock who teaches her  little clocks how to find either the minutes or hours for conversion problems.  The first little clock says, "I know the hours, so I multiply by 60!"  The second little clock says, "I know the minutes, so I'll make a chart!"

The chart that the students use is a t-chart much like the one used for teaching inches and feet.  I've also attached an example below:

Converting Inches & Feet

Currently, I am teaching converting inches and feet to my 4th graders.  Here is a poster with prompts on how to solve the problems.

I originally got the idea from a friend who taught her 3rd graders about the 'yard bug' she found in her backyard that has 3 feet.  We don't have that math target so I modified the bug a little.  I taught that the yard bug has 3 feet and instead of toes it has 12 inches on each foot.  The yard bug is teaching her little bugs how to convert inches and feet and always asks, "Do you know the inches or the feet?"  Each little bug has a different answer that helps the student decide what operation to use.  The first little bug says, "I know the feet, so I multiply by 12!"  The second little bug says, "I know the inches, so I'll make a chart!"  Instead of teaching my students how to divide by 12, I taught them to make a t-chart, similar to the one we use for division in Everyday Math.  Here is an example:

I usually have them only go up to about 5 feet or so to start.  

Tools of the Classroom

I think it's only fitting then to have my 2nd blog based on another favorite of mine, which is organization.  I know I'm a better teacher when I'm organized.  Organization helps my day to day activities run smoothly and it's much easier to teach my kids to be organized when I'm organized as well.  I love to sort, color code and label pretty much anything.  I could single handedly keep Avery labels in business.  So far, I've tried many different ways of setting up areas for supplies in my classroom.  I think this time I nailed it and I have a feeling this will be sticking around for awhile.  I don't know how exactly I came up with the idea, but I'm sure it stemmed from my obsession with buying $1 buckets from Target.  Ultimately, I think that I needed a way of using them all so that I could justify buying so many.  I like my organization to be functional in the classroom and I came up with the idea of using a peg board to hang the buckets on the wall.  So, off to Home Depot I went, armed with a very clear picture of how I wanted this to turn out.  I bought a 4x8 peg board and had them cut it to fit the space I would be using.  I got one piece 3x3 to be used as the main supply board.  I then had them cut another 1.5x3 to have a second supply board.  Trying to find the correct hardware to hang the buckets turned out to be a chore and I had much better luck at Ace Hardware.  I bought about 30 hooks and went home to begin my project.  I spray painted the peg board silver so that the colored buckets would really pop.  I labeled each bucket (color coded of course) with the name of the supply it would be holding.  Once the peg board was mounted on the wall, I hung up my buckets, filled them with supplies and was ready to go!  I have to give credit to the occupational therapist that I share a room with for casually saying how it reminded her of tools in a garage.  A lightbulb went off and I came up with the title, "Tools of the Classroom".  If you look closely, you can tell that the letters are actually made of paint samples that I laminated and then die-cutted.  I got this idea from a teacher that my friend follows on pinterest.com.  They make the cutest letters!  That is, if you don't mind raiding the paint department at Home Depot :)  I love that I have one main section of my classroom that houses supplies and that it doesn't take up any desk or table space at all!  I have multiple things of markers, crayons and any other supplies that might be used by multiple students at once.  This is also great because my students usually keep their school supplies in their general education classroom so now I have extras for them to borrow.  I hope you enjoy the finished product!

Have You Filled A Bucket Today?

Well, I figured my first blog could be about my favorite book, Have You Filled A Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud.  It's a great story to teach elementary age children about how we affect each other in our daily decisions.  I use the book as part of my classroom management to keep my kiddos 'filling buckets' each day.  Students are encouraged to write their peers and teachers 'bucket notes' with a thank you, compliment or encouraging message.  I dedicated a huge bulletin board in my room to bucket filling because I think character education should be a big part of any classroom.  Each student has their own tin bucket (thank you Target $1 section, I am obsessed with buying buckets) that they label with their name and decorate.  The buckets in my picture are turned around to protect student names.  I can't encourage teachers enough to go buy this book.  It is fabulous!  They also have a great website full of resources:

http://bucketfillers101.com/