*** CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY ***

To help with the purchasing of Christmas resources for your classroom, a team of amazing teachers and I have grouped together to gift ONE awesome, lucky teacher with a TPT gift card! Good luck!

PRIZES INCLUDE 1 x $300 TPT Giftcard

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The holiday season is upon us, and we know that it can be an especially hectic time in the classroom - on top of buying presents and planning holiday travels! 
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Our group of TPT Authors wants to give one lucky teacher a little something extra to get them through this holiday season. Enter to win a $500 Cash prize (to be paid out through PayPal) plus a bonus $100 TPT gift card! 

Click on the Rafflecopter link to enter up to 60+ times! The contest runs from November 30th through December 8th, 2019. The winner will be announced on December 10th! Please read all of the terms and conditions in the Rafflecopter. Best of luck!



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*** Halloween GIVEAWAY ***

To help with purchasing Halloween resources for your classroom, a team of amazing teachers and I have grouped together to gift ONE awesome, lucky teacher with a TPT gift card!

PRIZES INCLUDE 1 x $300 TPT Giftcard

Here's what you need to do:
Enter the Rafflecopter - http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b4951b8572/

REMEMBER: Each Rafflecopter entry counts as ONE entry, the more links you complete on the Rafflecopter, the higher your chances of winning!!

Raffle CLOSES: Saturday 2nd November 2019 12am
GOOD LUCK!!!

Please consider viewing my Halloween resources:

Halloween Resources

Multiplication Fact Fluency Practice

Teaching my third graders their multiplication facts is one of the toughest things that I teach every year. One of my favorite activities to use with my class is multiplication fact fluency wheels. These wheels are a lot of fun to make for students and they can save them to practice their facts. We make a different one for every fact family. In this post I will be showing how we assemble and use these fact wheels in my class. There will also be a link for getting one for free to try with your students.

How to use these in class:

In my third grade class we introduce our multiplication unit around September to our students. Then each week we highlight a different fact family. On Fridays we create the multiplication wheel for that fact family as a fun Friday activity during math class. The students practice with their fact wheels with a partner. After that they add the new wheel to a large Ziploc bag collection so they can continue to practice with them at home.

I have also used these wheels as a multiplication fact fluency station in the past. You can have prepared wheels that they use, or they can create them in the station.

The first thing I do before we make them is decide how I want to print them.

Printing options:

1. Colored clip art version - If you choose this option they can be laminated and used repeatedly in a station. When you assemble them you may need to use an X-Acto knife to help you add the brass fastener.

2. Colored copy or construction paper - I use this option when I do not have time for the students to color them before they are assembled. 

3. White copy or construction paper - When I use this option I can allow the students to color them with crayons, colored pencils, or markers before they cut them out.

How to assemble the wheels:

1. The students color the pictures with crayons, markers, or colored pencils. (if needed)

2. Next, cut each wheel out on the solid outside lines.

3. Then cut out the problem opening on the dotted line.

4. Fold the paper a little and cut a slit on the dotted line of the answer window. Then put your scissors in the hole and cut on the dotted line.

5. Fold the solid black line of the answer window back to create an answer flap. Tell the students not to cut off the flap so that they can guess the answer before they look at it.

6. Place the picture wheel on top of the problem wheel. Line up the crosses on the middle of each circle. Then push the brass fastener through both crosses and then open it in the back. (Note: If it is difficult for the fastener to go through both crosses they can poke the fastener through each wheel separately. Then line up the wheels and put the fastener through both holes.)

7. Once the multiplication fact fluency wheels are assembled the students will spin the wheel to show the different multiplication facts in the problem window. Once they say the answer they can check if they are correct by looking under the answer flap.

Where can you get your set?

If you would like to try these with your students you can find the Multiplication 1's facts wheel here for free:

Multiplication Fact Fluency Wheel FREEBIE

If you decide you want more, the entire set includes a wheel for multiplication facts 1 - 12. There are also 2 review wheels for facts 1 - 5 and a wheel for facts 6 - 10:

Multiplication Fact Fluency Wheels

Learning the multiplication facts is something my students always need a lot of practice with, and these are a great way to make that practice fun. My students love saving these and practicing with them throughout the year. I hope your students will enjoy them too!

GIVEAWAY DETAILS:  

Prize: $100 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card

Giveaway Organized by: Kelly Malloy

  

(An Apple for the Teacher)

Co-hosts:   An Apple for the Teacher, The Fun Factory, 180 Days of Reading, Kelly McCown, It's a Teacher Thing, Mickey's Place, LIVIN' IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER, A Plus Kids, Sandra Naufal, TeachingLife, The Chocolate Teacher, Star Kids, Paula's Primary Classroom, Ms. K, Roots and Wings, Mrs Wenning's Classroom, Kamp Kindergarten, Samson's Shoppe, The Monkey Market, Jackie Crews, TheBeezyTeacher, Priscilla Woodard - Tasked 2 Teach, Kathryn Watts, AR Tech Star - Eva Griffin, Pint Size Learners, and The Froggy Factory.

Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter.  Giveaway ends 7/13/19 and is open worldwide.

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Independence Day Giveaway

To help with purchasing Independence Day resources for your classroom, a team of amazing teachers and I have grouped together to gift ONE awesome, lucky teacher with a TPT gift card!

PRIZES INCLUDE 1 x $250 TPT Giftcard

REMEMBER: each entry on the Rafflecopter counts as ONE entry, the more links you complete, the higher your chances of winning!!

Raffle CLOSES: Saturday 6th July 2019 12am

GOOD LUCK!!!

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The 5 Ways That Being a Military Kid Prepared Me to be a Teacher

There are many ways that I think that being a military child has prepared me to be a teacher. In this post I will be exploring the 5 main reasons that I feel that it prepared me to teach. Hopefully, you will get some teacher inspiration as you see how these things relate to the skills that all teachers need and practice all the time.

Reason #1 It taught me to be FLEXIBLE/ADAPTABLE.

When you grow up in the military things are constantly changing. One day you live in Texas, and then your Dad comes home and tells you that for high school you will be moving to England. My father joined the Air Force when I was only 6 months old and stayed in the military until I was 26. Growing up it was the only life that I knew so it was completely normal to me. 

Now you may think that you have never experienced anything like that, but in a way you have. As teachers things are also CONSTANTLY changing. Every year you get a new group of students who are different from any group that you have EVER taught before. Then there are the times that you may have had to move grades or schools and learn a whole new way of teaching. The best way we experience this is how curriculum is constantly evolving and we are told this is the new "best" thing to teach our students. Then a few years later they tell us there is a new magical way to reach students.

Reason #2 It taught me to make FRIENDS.

When you live in 9 different places by the time you are 18 you learn how to make friends easily. Since military kids move so quickly, we tend to bond with each other fast, since we know we may not live somewhere long. Even now when I meet up with a fellow military kid, we can instantly bond with each other and feel like we have known each other forever.

As a teacher this ability has come in handy. Teachers need to bond with students, parents, colleagues, and administrators throughout our career. I believe my upbringing has helped me be able to do this. You may not have been a military kid, but teachers must bond quickly with students and parents. We often spend more time with our students than with our own families. Therefore, it can be so hard to watch our students leave at the end of the year. Our classrooms can be like a little family.

Reason #3 It taught me to do well with ACRONYMS.

This one is kind of silly, but in the military, everything is an acronym. It is a big joke in the military community how many acronyms the soldiers and their families need to know. Even when we move, we say we are PCSing to our new base. 

Teaching has tons of acronyms of course too. I will never forget my first year as a teacher sitting in faculty meetings and thinking what in the world do all these acronyms mean? It is funny to listen to teachers talk sometimes when a lot of acronyms are being used. Somehow, we know what is being said.

Reason #4 It taught me to MOVE.

Being in the military is full of moving of course. I never knew that being a teacher was going to be full of so much moving too. I had classroom moves countless times while I was teaching at my first school due to overcrowding issues and renovations. I have also moved grade levels and schools. Also, there is so much packing as a teacher at the end of the year to get our classrooms ready for cleaning or purging out all the things that we have saved. When you move as much as I have you get used to asking yourself if you really need something and if it is worth packing it up and moving it again.

Reason #5 It taught me to LOOK FOR THE POSITIVES.

I have been told a lot in my life "how did you live like that?" or that I had a hard life. My parents are great people and always taught us to look for the positives in every place that we lived. They could make a place feel like home very quickly. I have now lived in the same area of the country since 1997. It has been strange to put down roots. It is great to be teaching in the same district for my whole teaching career. However, I feel blessed that I grew up as a military kid and would not trade my experiences for anything, and how they shaped me into the person and teacher I am today.

Looking for the positives in our teaching lives is so important. Some years we have difficult classes, parents, colleagues, or administrators. These are the times that we must work the hardest at looking for the positives in our job and embrace them.

I hope that you have enjoyed this post and seeing how teaching compares to being a military kid. I look forward to hearing if you can think of other ways that you think the military would connect to teaching. Also, if you were a military kid yourself, I would love to hear your ideas or experiences.