Life of the Rookie Teacher – Page 2 – Life of the Rookie Teacher

What is Happening

March 14, 2020March 14, 2020Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged 4th Grade Life, 4th Grade Teacher, Books, COVID19, Elementary School, Emotional, Health, Life of the Rookie Teacher, Reading, School, School Fun, School Life, School Safety, School Stress, Stay Healthy, Teacher Blog, Teacher Blogs, Teacher Life, Teaching, Teaching Blogs, Teaching LifeLeave a comment

Well well well…I feel like I need to share my thoughts on everything going on considering the education system is being effected pretty hard.

I know some other states are closing schools but Minnesota has yet to follow in their footsteps. Our neighbor state Wisconsin announced yesterday that they will be closing for the next week. Our governor has stated he is doing everything possible to prevent our schools from closing.

That being said, yesterday was INSANE because throughout the day, we were constantly getting updated memos on policies and procedures that we had to follow to keep our kids (and ourselves) healthy and safe.

Thursday night we got an urgent email saying that we had an impromptu staff meeting Friday morning with updates. We were told that the state had some basic policies we needed to follow in order to protect everyone. Most of the policies that were stated are already a thing we do in our school. One main thing that was different was that, as soon as our kids were settled in Friday morning, we had to show them a hand washing video. Parents had requested that we teach our students how to wash their hands. (Although, I have my own opinion on parents not teaching their own kids how to wash their hands, I do think that it was important for us to remind the kiddos on why hand washing is important.)

Another policy that we had to implement, was preventing the interaction between large groups of people. Ironically, yesterday our students were supposed to walk over to our high school to watch a musical put on by the middle schoolers. We were scheduled to leave at 8:40. We literally found out as our students were putting on their jackets at 8:37, that the musical was cancelled. It was pure chaos. My kids were so excited to go and I was so excited because that was 2 hours of no teaching time for me. Because of this, I had NOTHING prepped so I just kind of went with it!

We survived the unplanned morning but I still had to adjust my day to meet the new policies and procedures. During our meeting in the morning, we were told that we had to prevent intermixing classes that don’t usually interact. This was to prevent the spread of germs they’re not used to. Because of this, we had to stagger our dismissal times at the end of the day. It was so weird because usually with dismissal time, when that bell rings, the halls are CRAZY BUSY! When I released my kids yesterday however, the halls were DEAD!! It was eerily quiet and I didn’t like it.

I know these don’t sound too crazy, and I probably could’ve shared some more, but my brain is fried and I just can’t believe some of the stuff that is happening. Our hometown girls basketball team made it to the state CHAMPIONSHIP game that was supposed to be today and they couldn’t play because it was cancelled. How sad is that? I understand the precautions but it’s still heartbreaking thinking about the girls on the team and how hard they worked to get there. I’m also personally devastated because with the cancellations of ALL NCAA competitions and tournaments, college gymnastics is over already and that’s my normal Friday night date with myself. What am I going to do now!?

I hope all of you are being healthy and safe and are finding the nonexistent toilet paper to help stock up your homes (to lighten up your day, I found some pretty fantastic toilet paper memes on one of those Facebook ads that I think you may love Just click on the link!) Hopefully this all passes soon and are lives will be back to normal.

Also, to brighten your day, here is a picture of my lovely kiddos with their new monthly book! This should also put a smile on your face!

For more day to day action, go follow my Instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher!

Fairytaletopia

February 11, 2020February 11, 2020Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged 4th Grade Life, 4th Grade Teacher, Fairytales, Inferencing, Life of the Rookie Teacher, Mystery, Reading, School Fun, School Life, Teacher, Teacher Blog, Teacher Blogs, Teacher Life, Teacher Love, Teacher Resources, TeachersPayTeachers, Teaching, Teaching Blogs, Teaching Life, The Land of Stories, The Land of Stories Wishing Spell, Valentine's Day, WritingLeave a comment

If you’re anything like me, you LOVE read alouds with your students. Back when I was doing one of my teaching practicums in a 3rd grade classroom, I heard the most memorizing story I’ve ever heard (apart from Harry Potter of course!) The story was called The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer. My cooperating teacher would read this book to her students during their snack time when I would be doing other tasks for her. I would be so distracted listening to her read the story, that I struggled to get my jobs done. As a 20 year old girl, I was hooked to a story written for young readers.

The story is part of a 6 book series called The Land of Stories. The main premise of the book is about a pair of twins (a boy and girl) who magically find themselves trapped in the fairytale world. They get to meet all of their childhood heroes while working with them on a variety of adventures. It puts a fun and crazy twist on the fairytale characters we all grew up reading about. I HIGHLY recommend looking into reading this book to even your own kids. (Or just for your own pleasure. I know I loved it!)

After hearing this read during my practicum, I knew this was going to be a read aloud in my own classroom. This is my third year teaching and I have read the first 2 books of the series every year. What I’ve found with all 3 classes is that they LOVE this story and can relate to the two main characters. The twins start off in the 6th grade and are complete opposites. The boy is the goofy, funny, and care free character that gets in trouble in school, but doesn’t understand why. The girl is a perfectionist who gets A+’s on all of her assignments and tests but doesn’t have a lot of friends. The two may be different but they are the best of friends and stick up for each other no matter what. Students find that they can relate to one of the two twins (or both) which makes the story even more fun to read.

I have not had a class love this series though, as much as my class now. They are OBSESSED and I love it. I see them reading the series on the side and are having discussions constantly about it. Somehow they’ve convinced me to read all 6 books in the series to them, which I haven’t done before because I wanted them to continue to want to read on their own (which, like I said, they are still doing!)

A few years ago, after I learned how much my students loved the series, I found a fun inferencing activity on TPT from The Teaching Twins that allows students to solve a fairytale mystery. The activity is about something going wrong at Cinderella’s engagement ceremony. The pack comes with interviews from famous fairytale characters along with finger print examples and handwriting examples they need to look at. I have used this the past 3 years and it has always been a success. They LOVE being able to solve a mystery that involves the same characters from The Land of Stories.

Today, we got to start with reading witness interviews and looking at clues found at the scene. They each are working in groups of 3 to come up with their answer on who committed the crime. Tomorrow, we will finish reading the interviews we have left and then, as a group, they will each write a summary explaining who their main suspect is and why. I love it so much!! They have so much fun!!

We also are working on a project to celebrate “I Love To Read Month.” Yesterday, I told students they had to think of their favorite book of all time. They were then given a piece of white tag board and were told they had to “recreate” the cover of their favorite book. It melted my heart to see over half of my class pick a book from The Land of Stories series. They had so much fun starting this project and have begged me all day to give them more time to work on it. I can’t wait to share the final product with all of you!

It has been a fun fairytale filled couple of days and I love it! I can’t stress enough how amazing this series is and that you should definitely go take a look at it for yourself!!

PS. Happy Valentine’s Day week, teachers…may the odds be ever in your favor!

For more day to day action and live projects, go follow my teacher Instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher!!

Colds, Idioms, and Snow

January 18, 2020January 18, 2020Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged 4th Grade Life, 4th Grade Teacher, Colds, Decimals, Idioms, Life of the Rookie Teacher, Math, Minnesota, Minnesota Life, Place Value, School Life, Sick Days, Snow Storms, Sub Plans, Substitutes, Teacher Blogs, Teacher Life, Teaching Blogs, Teaching Life1 Comment

This has been an interesting week with a lot of unexpected events.

This week started off as a “normal” week (which I’m starting to question is ever a real thing in the winter when your teaching) so I was ready to attack it with all of my motivation and efforts. This lasted all of 1 day, because Tuesday morning I woke with a terrible cold.

I hate being sick but I especially hate being sick while also being a teacher. There is never a good time to be gone, so even though I was feeling terrible, I still went to school.

This was a BIG mistake. I was exhausted, crabby, and stuffed up all day. It was so bad that at one point, one of my kids literally said, “Ms. Nygaard, you look terrible.” Oh the honesty of kids. I pushed through the day but got lesson plans made for Wednesday because I needed to sleep.

What do you do when you have a sub? Do you continue your weekly plans and are okay that someone else is teaching it and you don’t know what’s going to happen? Or do you give the sub a bunch of review for your class so they don’t have to teach anything? I always HATE giving the sub major lessons to teach. (Yes, I’m a control freak!) I usually give the sub a reading lesson that my kids do every week with a different story so they know what the expectation and the lesson is. I struggle having a sub teach a new math lesson. I always have review set days that I’m gone so I have nothing to worry about. But of course, since I was not planning on being sick, I couldn’t switch up Wednesday’s lesson. I came back Thursday and found out my kids struggled understanding what was taught.

Coming back after being gone for a day of school is always stressful. I got to school early Thursday morning so I could get everything taken care of from the day before and prepare for the current day before the kids came. For math, I had to reteach the day before (which I knew I’d have to do.) My kids are currently learning about decimals and have learned place values to the tenths and hundredths. When I was gone, they learned about the thousandths and started to get it all mixed up. During my prep on Thursday, I went around taping some cheat sheets to everyone’s desks so they would have a reference right in front of them!

Luckily we had a fun activity planned for reading so that helped me get into the day!

This week, we had to review idioms. A few years ago I found this super fun template for a “class idiom book.”

Each kid picks an idiom from a hat and has to describe what the idiom is, what it actually means, and then draw a picture of the idiom if it was literal. I LOVE this activity (and they did too!) They all turned out super cute!

It made the day a lot more fun after dealing with catching up from being gone.

Today was another crazy day with a crazy twist. Up here in Minnesota, we are currently in the middle of a snow storm. The storm was predicted to start at noon today. Because it was (and turned out to be) supposed to be a big and bad storm, last night most districts made the announcements that schools would release early before the storm. We got out a noon today and it was crazy but also amazing! I’ve spent the past 6 hours relaxing, watching movies, and catching up on sleep because I still feel crappy.

It’s been a week, we’ll see if next week finally brings “normal week” that has been much needed after break.

For more day to day action and live stories, go follow my Instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher!

Back After Break

January 11, 2020January 11, 2020Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged 4th Grade Life, 4th Grade Teacher, Back after Break, Back to School, Elementary School Teacher, January, Life of the Rookie Teacher, New Year's Eve, Rules and Consequences, School, School Life, Teacher Blog, Teacher Blogs, Teacher Life, Teacher Love, Teacher Observation, Teachers of Instagram, Teaching, Teaching Blog, Teaching Blogs, Teaching Life, Teaching Love, WinterLeave a comment

Oh man guys what a week back! I am EXHAUSTED!!!

I don’t know when you went back to school (teacher friends of course, sorry to those who had to work over break) but we went back last Thursday giving us a 2 day week followed by a full week. Man, a full week of school is HARD!!

Last week, on Thursday, I wanted to ease back into the school day (which was for the kiddos but also for me because I was not in the mood to be back.) I started the day like it was the first day of school all over again. We sat and discussed our rules and expectations as a class. On the first day of school, I have the kids put together a “contract” about their top 6 rules they want for the class along with their top 6 consequences they want for the class. Coming back, I had them discuss those rules and consequences and had them discuss what rules and consequences they wanted to keep and what they would want to change for the second half of the year.

They decided they wanted to keep 5/6 of both. I was so proud of how seriously they took this! They are such a great group of kids who constantly want to do the right thing. Their list of rules and consequences show how mature they are!

This week was a marathon with a TON of extra stress that was added. Obviously, I knew this week was going to be hard, and I was ready for that. The difference is I was surprised with an observation this week….

Being a non tenured teacher, I have to be observed 3 times throughout the year. I’ve already had my first one back in October and wasn’t thinking about another one AT ALL coming back after break. I got a nice little surprise on Tuesday morning when my principal said he wanted to get my second done this week. I hardly knew what I was doing that day so I had to pull it together fast so I could get a good observation under my belt.

I was able to come up with a good lesson and thought it went well when I was observed today. It wasn’t a perfect lesson AT ALL but, considering the week and how unprepared I was, I thought it worked out.

Man seriously, January is rough. I coach high school gymnastics (which is a winter sport) so I feel like I am constantly working and never have time for anything else except for sleep. I love my teaching job and I love my coaching job but I am so excited it’s a Friday night so I can finally sleep and do nothing for the next 2 days!!

PS: I never shared my New Year’s Eve catastrophe about how I met this guy at a bar and really connected with him for a couple hours trying to get that midnight kiss. I have the worst luck in the world (especially with guys) so about 20 minutes until midnight, he disappeared so no kiss for me…..ugh. BUT I thought I looked great so I wanted to share my awesome outfit!

For more day to day action and live activities, go follow my Instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher!!

Blogmas Days 5 and 6 (PLUS Hot Chocolate Craft!)

December 17, 2019December 17, 2019Posted in Blogmas 2019, UncategorizedTagged 12daysofchristmas, blogmas, Blogmas 2019, Christmas, Christmas Blog, Christmas Countdown, Christmas Presents, Christmas Tree, Hot Chocolate, Kindness Month, Life of the Rookie Teacher, Merry Christmas, School Life, Teacher Blog, Teacher Blogs, Teacher Life, Teacher Resources, Teachers of Instagram, TeachersPayTeachers, Teaching Blogs, Warming Hearts1 Comment

Blogmas Day 5 – Tree Skirt

This is a hard one for me. I know some families have a tree skirt that they may have used forever and it has sentimental value….not our family. We would usually buy a tree skirt every few years from Target, but they’d always be the cheapest one they had. My mom always said that it’s better to focus more attention decorating the tree itself than buying something expensive to go underneath. We also would have a ton of presents for friends and family under our tree, so we never really could see the tree skirt.

When I moved out into my own place, I wanted to buy a nicer looking skirt for my tree because I wanted it to have a full and finished look. I got a pretty white and red one from Hobby Lobby last year and have it again this year.

Blogmas Day 6 – Anti Wish List

This one is hard for me!! I usually don’t even have a wishlist for myself on Christmas. I’m a lame person who prefers giving gifts rather than receiving them. I am appreciative over anything I get. Being a teacher, I get a lot of amazing gifts but I also get a lot of gifts that I don’t really have any use for. I am grateful for anything and everything I get. Because of that, I don’t really have an anti wishlist.

Want to participate in Blogmas 2019? Check out the following guidelines!

Last year you might have followed along with the 12 Days that I did with some of the gals listed above and we had such a good time that we decided to celebrate again together this year! So without further ado here are the guidelines for my 12 Days of Christmas.

use the image provided in each post, so that way anyone who might jump in later can see what the plan is for the month.

for sure link back to me, Abbey@ThreeCatsandaGirl, so that way I can celebrate your Christmas with you and maybe get some ideas of how to create festive enjoyment!

spread Christmas cheer in the way you know best!

School Fun – Warming our Hearts

In school yesterday we did one of my favorite projects of the year that I wanted to share. It is one of my favorites that we do during the holiday season. The project I got off of Teachers Pay Teachers a few years ago from Counselor Keri‘s shop for $2.00. It was totally worth it! We start the activity with a mindfulness activity that gets them thinking about what makes them happy. They pretend they’re holding a cup of hot chocolate and think about the warmth they feel. We talk about how that warmth is like how our hearts feel when we’re happy. After the activity, I hand out 4 paper marshmallows and ask them to write something that makes them happy on each one. They then cut them out and put them on a hot chocolate (paper) mug they already have colored. They always turn out so cute and sweet.

For more day to day action and activities, go follow my class’s Instagram @lifeoftherookieteacher!!

Blogmas Day 2 “Books of the Season” AND Reindeer Writing Fun!

December 13, 2019December 13, 2019Posted in Blogmas 2019, UncategorizedTagged 12daysofchristmas, 4th Grade Life, 4th Grade Teacher, blogmas, Books of the Season, Christmas, Christmas Blog, Christmas Break, Christmas Countdown, Creative Writing, Instagram, Jan Brett, Life of the Rookie Teacher, Love, Reindeer Writing, School Fun, School Life, School Projects, Teacher Blog, Teacher Blogs, Teacher Life, Teaching Blogs1 Comment

Blogmas Day 2 Books of the Season:

Oh boy, when I think of books of the season all I can think about are my favorite Christmas picture books that I read daily to my students at school. I have SO MANY favorite books of the season that I have enough books to read 1-2 different picture books everyday to my kids from Thanksgiving until Christmas break. I’ll share the list of books (and activities) I do with my class below.

When I think about the books of the season I also think about a single author who holds a very special place in my heart…Jan Brett. Her books were always ones that my mom would read to my sister and I every night until Christmas. When I see her books, I instantly begin to think about the holiday season.

I know that some people are probably going to share their favorite novels or adult texts, but Christmas isn’t Christmas without some good old picture books and lucky for me, my job lets me read them on a daily basis!

School 15 Day Holiday Picture Book List:

Want to participate in Blogmas 2019? Check out the following guidelines!

Last year you might have followed along with the 12 Days that I did with some of the gals listed above and we had such a good time that we decided to celebrate again together this year! So without further ado here are the guidelines for my 12 Days of Christmas.

use the image provided in each post, so that way anyone who might jump in later can see what the plan is for the month.
for sure link back to me, Abbey@ThreeCatsandaGirl, so that way I can celebrate your Christmas with you and maybe get some ideas of how to create festive enjoyment!
spread Christmas cheer in the way you know best!

Reindeer Writing:

Speaking of Jan Brett, her books always inspire my favorite December lessons/activities at school. On Wednesday I read one of my favorite of her books, The Wild Christmas Reindeer, and then did a fun creative writing project. If you’ve never read this story before, it’s a great book to teach kids about how to be respectful and how being “bossy” doesn’t always work out well.

The main character in the story is an elf who has to get Santa’s reindeer trained and ready to go for the Christmas Eve flight. After our story we brainstormed ideas on what they would do if they had to train a reindeer, whether to be one of Santa’s or to just train them as a pet. They had the best ideas!

After they wrote out their ideas, they drew a picture of them training their reindeer and then they colored and cut out a reindeer head and hooves to mount their writing on.

They all turned out so cute! I love this project. It gets them to practice their writing while also incorporating art and Christmas, some of my favorite things!

Oh man it’s been a crazy, long, and exhausting week. I am ready for the weekend but I’m even more ready for Christmas break to begin one week from today! We’re almost there teachers, we can do this!

For more day to day activities and live action, go follow my blog/teacher Instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher!

Blogmas Day 1 – Wintery Breakfast (PLUS Kindness Month has Begun!)

December 8, 2019Posted in Blogmas 2019, UncategorizedTagged 12daysofchristmas, 4th Grade Teacher, blogmas, Blogmas 2019, Christmas, Christmas Blog, Day 1, December, Kindness, Kindness Month, Life of the Rookie Teacher, Light up the world with kindness, Projects, School Fun, School Life, Teacher Life, Teacher Resources, Winter, Wintery Breakfast1 Comment

Last December was the kick off to my blogging life. Within a few days of joining the blogging community I stumbled across an amazing idea known as Blogmas, or the 12 Days of Christmas Posts. I was fortunate enough to connect with the founder of this idea and joined her, along with other bloggers, writing about different Christmas topics to get in the holiday mood. I copied and pasted the rules to the bottom of this post if you want to join in with the fun! Speaking as someone who LOVES and is OBSESSED with Christmas, this is a super fun thing to do!

Day 1 – Wintery Breakfast

When I think about December (or anything in the winter) and breakfast together the first thing that comes to my mind is a nice large hot cinnamon roll! Growing up, my mom was a teacher, so over Christmas break from school she would always be home with us. During those 8-12 days of break, my sister and I woke up every morning to the smell of cinnamon rolls in the oven.

My mom is not the best cook/chef so these were just your run of the mill Pillsbury rolls but they always added something special to our wintery mornings when we were home on break.

Christmas morning was always extra special because with our cinnamon rolls, our mom would also provide us with peppermint hot chocolate with a candy cane on the side of the mug. This was usually our Saturday night treat in the winter, but on Christmas morning we got to add it to our breakfast.

My mouth is watering just thinking about those cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate. When I think of a wintery breakfast, that is immediately where my mind goes.

Want to participate in Blogmas 2019? Check out the following guidelines!

Last year you might have followed along with the 12 Days that I did with some of the gals listed above and we had such a good time that we decided to celebrate again together this year! So without further ado here are the guidelines for my 12 Days of Christmas.

use the image provided in each post, so that way anyone who might jump in later can see what the plan is for the month.
for sure link back to me, Abbey@ThreeCatsandaGirl, so that way I can celebrate your Christmas with you and maybe get some ideas of how to create festive enjoyment!
spread Christmas cheer in the way you know best!

Kindness Month Begins

Last December I shared with all of my teacher friends my projects and activities I like to do in December. I love to have the theme of kindness during the month of December because it’s always good to teach kiddos about being kind and generous but it’s also the time of the year when they start to act up. Having daily kindness activities keep them in check with who they are and their behaviors.

On Friday morning we did one of my absolute FAVORITE projects of the year! We made our kindness light bulbs to hang on my whiteboard.

Each light bulb has the sentence starter “I can light up the world with kindness by…” and then they share their ideas on what they can do. I LOVE doing this activity and so do the kids. It brightens up everyone’s day and their ideas are so adorable and sweet.

For more day to day action and activities, go follow my teacher instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher!

Happy Thanksgiving From 4th Grade

November 28, 2019November 28, 2019Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged 4th Grade Life, Life of the Rookie Teacher, Love My Job, Math Stations, School Life, School Projects, Teacher, Teacher Blog, Teacher Blogs, Teacher Life, Teacher Love, TeachersPayTeachers, Teaching Blog, Teaching Blogs, Thankful, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Crafts, Why are you thankful, WritingLeave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving blog friends. It has been a wonderful day for my family and myself, so I really hope your day has been fantastic too. Even though we are on Thanksgiving break, and when we get back to school on Monday the holiday festivities will begin, I still wanted to share with all of you the fun things we did at school and the great resources I found.

For our school, we only had classes on Monday and Tuesday this week, so it was a quick couple of days. Because it was such a short week, I didn’t really want to start anything new in reading or math so I had 2 days to fill.

On Monday we spent our reading time working on our letter writing skills. I wanted to implement the theme of thankfulness into the week so my plan was to write thank you letters to our Scholastic book sponsors. Every month, Scholastic book clubs have $1.00 books. This past summer I was looking for anyone who would be willing to donate $9.00 so one student in my class could get a free book every month. I was fortunate enough to find 24 sponsors so each of my kiddos have the chance to get a free book every month this whole school year. The kiddos were all super excited to give their thanks and share a little about themselves to their sponsors. The writing took most of our reading time and the rest of our “down time” during the day but it was so worth it! I’ve sent out a few of the letters so far and the response from my friends and family is amazing. They think it’s super sweet that these kids wrote to them to thank them for their kindness.

For math Monday (and Tuesday) I wanted to do something fun. We finished our 2nd math unit last week so I didn’t want to start anything new when the kids won’t be back for almost a week. I decided to search TPT for Thanksgiving math activities and created 8 different Thanksgiving themed math stations for them to do throughout the 2 days. I had small groups of 3 and gave them 15 minutes at each station. They got to 4 on Monday and 4 on Tuesday. I wanted to review the skills we’ve learned so far this year so my activities ranged from multiplication to place value.

The best part about all of these activities is that they are all FREE!! The first activity I found was from Elementary Excellence’s page. The students did 2 different Thanksgiving Math Problem Solving sheets. They had calculate how much food they would need in order to serve dinner to 40 people.

The 2nd activity was a multiplication game called Thanksgiving Multiplication 5-in-a-row I found on Teacher’s Planet‘s page.

Activity 3 was a super fun and cute craft called the Turkey Craftivity from More Time 2 Teach. Students solved math problems that were written on turkey feathers. They then got to color a turkey and the feathers to make a math turkey!

The 4th activity was a perimeter and area problem solving sheet called the Turkey Farm made my Mr Frasier. The students were given different perimeter and area problems while they drew out the dimensions of an ideal turkey farm.

The next activity was a multiples/skip counting activity. Students connected dots that were numbered with multiples of 3 to create a turkey. It was super cute and fun and who doesn’t love connecting dots? I found this activity called Skip Count by 3 Thanksgiving Turkey on Mister Reed’s store.

Activity 6 was non other than missing factor Thanksgiving task cards. I LOVE task cards and use them all the time! Students worked together to solve 24 different multiplication and division problems that had missing factors. I got this activity from Renee B – City Girl in Third.

The 7th activity was a problem solving sheet with a variety of 4th grade math problems. The fun part to this activity was that they gave 2 options for the answer for each problem. Each of the 2 answers had a different color. Based on what answer the student got, they used the color correlated on the sheet to color by number a turkey. If they got all of the answers correct the turkey would look like the picture below. If they got an answer wrong, something would be colored incorrectly. The activity was called 4th Grade Thanksgiving Math Color by Number and can be found on Mathmatic Fanatic’s page.

Finally, my last station was multiplication bingo with me, because who doesn’t love bingo?

They did super well both days on these activities and had a blast.

Tuesday morning, before our math stations, we worked on writing again. I handed out a fun writing template that had the words “I am thankful for…..” in the center of the page. I shared with the students what I’m thankful for. One of my teacher friends gave me this AMAZING idea for a poster. I hung it up for them all to read. They felt so special to see their name and I had so much fun watching them react.

I then had them watch a Kid President Youtube video on things to be thankful for. They then spent the next 25 minutes writing out everything they’re thankful for! I told them that I wasn’t going to collect or grade their writing. Their job would be to bring it home and share their writing with their friends and family. They worked so hard on these and were super excited to bring them home to share.

After our second day of math stations, we finished our afternoon with both Charlie Brown Thanksgiving cartoons. It was a great ending to a fun short week.

I am exhausted (and I’m really sorry if some of this doesn’t make any sense) and ready to get a nap in before the fun of Black Friday shopping begins! Happy Thanksgiving everyone, I hope you had a wonderful day. It’s this day that makes me remember how thankful I am for my life and for my job. I love being a teacher and love being able to share our class with you.

For more day to day action, go follow our class Instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher

Turkey Trouble

November 20, 2019November 20, 2019Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged 4th Grade Life, 4th Grade Teacher, Art, Art Project, Creative Writing, Creativity, Life of the Rookie Teacher, Love Teaching, November, Teacher Life, Teaching Life, Thanksgiving, Turkey Trouble, WritingLeave a comment

Today and yesterday we did one of my FAVORITE activities of the year (and my favorite Thanksgiving activity!)

Yesterday, I read the book Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano. The book is about a turkey who doesn’t want to be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner so he dresses up in different animal disguises to hide the fact that he’s a turkey. When I finished reading the story I asked them to think of what they would disguise their turkey as so it wouldn’t be eaten for dinner.

They then took those ideas and wrote a short story about what their turkey dressed up as so they wouldn’t be eaten. They were SUPER creative! I told them they had to write at least a 5 sentence paragraph and I had kids writing 5-8 page stories! We have spent so much time working on our writing skills so it was nice to see that they were able to put our lessons to good use.

Today, we did part 2 of the project (AKA the part that I LOVE!) I gave each student a picture of a turkey on a white piece of card stock and told them to disguise their turkey just like they did in their stories. I put out construction paper, glue, and scissors and set them to work. I didn’t give any direction because I wanted to see their most creative work. They did amazing and the turkeys turned out so cute!!

These are all awesome but here are some of my favorites!

Harry Potter

A Clock

Stefon Diggs

Thing 1

Remi from Ratatouille

An iPad

Mario

These were all super fun but my top 3 favorites were Groot, a grandma, and me! Ha, yep one of my students disguised their turkey as me!! It was hilarious!

It was a fun couple days! I love this project so much because they always turn out so adorable and it puts everyone in the Thanksgiving mood. The only down side to the past few days has been the smell of my students…..my boys have begun to think that it’s fun to have farting contests throughout the day. I had to have a fun talk with them about bodily functions and self control. Oh 10 year old boys can be fun.

For more day to day action and lessons, go follow my teacher instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher!! You won’t regret it!

Book Clubs, Tug-a-War, and M&M’s

October 11, 2019October 11, 2019Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged 4th Grade Life, 4th Grade Teacher, Activities, Andrew Clements, Bar Graphs, Books, Creativity, Donation, Donations, Elementary School Teacher, Free, Free Books, Frindle, Graphing, Hands on Learning, Instagram, Life of the Rookie Teacher, Love Teaching, M&M's, Math, Reading, Runner's up, Scholastic, Scholastic Book Club, Scholastic Book Order, Sponsor, Sponsors, Teacher Life, Teacher Love, Teacher Resources, TeachersPayTeachers, Teaching Life, Teaching Techniques, Tradition, Tug-a-war1 Comment

I went into this week thinking it’d be a normal week, but I forgot, normal weeks don’t exist as a teacher. We did some fun activities that I thought would be fun to share!

Tuesday our first Scholastic book orders came in the mail. I’m trying something new this year. The Scholastic Book Club has a book a month for specific grade levels that are only $1.00. Last year, a bunch of teachers in my area were asking for donations from friends and family on Facebook to sponsor a child in their class. They were asking for individuals to donate $9.00 so they could buy a student in their class 1 $1.00 book a month for the whole year. I was apprehensive because I HATE asking anyone for money so I didn’t participate. I saw how much of a success it was for the classes that participated last year and thought I would give it a try this year to see what would happen. My friends and family were AMAZING. I got a full class worth of donations within a day.

This past Tuesday our first $1.00 book set came in. Each student got the book Frindle by Andrew Clements with a note inside saying who their sponsor is for the year and how they are connected to me. It was so adorable to see how grateful they were when they found out a stranger donated enough money for them to each receive a free book every month. It was also super cute to hear, “My sponsor is Miss Nygaard’s mom!” or “My sponsor is Miss Nygaard’s favorite cousin!” It made my day! My friends and family LOVED to see this picture and LOVED to hear how excited they were!

Last week we had our annual grade level race (that is usually a Homecoming Friday activity but was postponed due to poor weather.) The sad part was that by the time we ran (on the makeup day), it was cold and raining so we had to cut the afternoon fun short. What we usually do as a grade level after the race is have a grade level class tug-a-war tournament. Each class plays tug-a-war against every other class in their grade. Last year, when I taught 3rd grade, my class literally lost EVERY round but one, (and they only won that round because the PE teachers joined their team) it was tragic. This year, my class DOMINATED! We won every round except for 1. We only lost to the class that got 1st place who won every round. I went from having a class that was dead last, to a class that ended up being the runners up! It was awesome! They were so into it and I LOVED it! It was just as much fun for me as it was for them!

Today I wanted to end the week with something fun. It’s Friday, who doesn’t want to do something fun? For math, we had to end our first unit reviewing bar graphs. They’ve been working with bar graphs since kindergarten so I wanted to make it fun for them. I pulled an activity I did with my 3rd graders last year (when I also taught bar graphs) that was all about graphing M&M colors. They were so excited when they found out we were working with M&M’s. You’ve probably either heard of this activity, or have done this activity before but it’s fun nonetheless. Some even said they have done this activity before with M&M’s or Skittles but they were hyped to do it again!

Yep, this kid is eating his M&M’s with no hands…..

I found this awesome (free) TPT worksheet from Thomas Teachable Moments‘ shop that guides them through everything! Once they finished the activity, they made their own bar graphs (as their assignment.)

Yesterday we talked about frequency tables. Students went around and found data on a question of their choosing to create their own frequency table. Today, they took that data to make their own bar graph. They thought it was awesome. It was a little chaotic but my kiddos are resilient and did a phenomenal job. Seriously, these kids are awesome.

It was a fun week but I’m exhausted. To make it even more exhausting, it’s been raining and cloudy the past few days and then today, we saw our first snow flakes of the season. I’m now sitting on my couch (drinking some wine) with candles lit and the snow falling. It feels like it’s the middle of the winter but it’s only October….only in Minnesota.

For more day to day action and live videos (which got featured in the #teacherlife’s story on Instagram today) go follow my teacher Instagram page @lifeoftherookieteacher! Today I posted on my story an ADORABLE writing response one of my kiddos wrote about when the prompt was “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and he wrote he wanted to be a teacher. His response will make you smile! Go check it out!!