Hello Mrs Sykes

Spring is a wonderful reminder to freshen up and begin anew.  At home, I'm working on closets...  My closet, my kiddos' closets, and the dreaded hall closet.  {{Why does everything end up in the closet??  I found a jump rope next to the paperwork for the refinance of our house...  both in the hall closet for some reason!  Uggggggh.}}   To avoid dusting, scrubbing, and putting stuff where it belongs, I am also "Spring Cleaning" my computer.  My graphics files needed some attention, so I spent 30 minutes reorganizing.  Love how it turned out!!  It's so much easier for me to find the clip art I need when they are organized by artist!  :) Also, I'm making sure I left feedback on my Teachers Pay Teachers purchases to earn my TPT credits.  They add up quickly, and are easy to redeem for free resources!!  Log in to TPT, click on the "My TPT" tab, then select "My Purchases."  It will show you a list of all of the purcha...

By popular request, the Academic Vocabulary Word Walls are together in a discounted bundle!  As a special thank you for followers who already bought one of the Academic Word Walls, this set is available for an additional discount - only $8 for the set through March 31!   Had an ice day last week, and began printing/laminating small copies of my new Academic Word Wall Bundle (grades 2-6) .  I printed them with 2 pages per page (one of the options you can choose when printing), to create smaller cards to use during word work activities with my 4th graders - decoding multi-syllabic words. ***Confession time:  I actually finished this bundle last week on a crazy ice day... and fully intended to post the Bundle last week... and then the weather became beautiful again, so I went outside instead.  :)  I'm sure y'all understand...   Want a freebie to try in your classroom?   Here's the link on Teachers Pay Teachers:

Here's a round-up of some more of the best free resources online for teachers and their students.  Enjoy!! Google Scholar - Quick!  Need a quick bit of research about why kids need to limit their time watching TV?  Want to find relevant articles for your Graduate Studies class?  Google Scholar is a fabulous resource to do a quick search for articles, citations, and even case law! NewsELA.com - daily news content for students to hone their critical thinking skills using current events!  I truly can't say enough good things about this site!! Time For Kids - They aren't just for classroom magazines...  Check out their website for free informational texts, and be sure to visit their mini-sites page - tons of resources organized around a single topic! Science In the News Archive from www.ScienceA-Z.com  -  I love the rigorous vocabulary and high-interest passages in the Science in the News!  I used to use these as an occasiona...

Time for another Bright Idea!  We all know that teachers are consistently short on time, so this hop is perfect for the busy teacher - chock full of effective, short, and classroom tested Bright Ideas! Since I have 53 kiddos this year coming in and out of my classroom throughout the day, I have a lot of clutter! Today I'd like to tell you about my favorite cheap "tool" to tame the clutter... Actually, they you can use any kind of removable label or even blue painter's tape.  As long as you can switch out the labels easily, you're good.  I label binder clips with the time for the kiddos who use the resources in the clip.  You could label them by subject, to be graded, writing samples, Tier II documentation, etc...  Then set them on the shelf.  Look how easy it is to find the materials you need!  Here's a larger view of my mess   pigsty  reading groups shelf.  I clip together their notebooks, then set them in a stack with th...

It's a bit of an epidemic, but low staff morale is spreading across many schools and districts.  When I was asked who I wanted to send a card to, I immediately thought of the teachers I work with!  I went back and forth for a bit, and I had a revelation - let's use the art from their kiddos!  As anyone who has worked with kids before knows, the things we treasure from our students are creative and come from their heart.  I used the online service www.Treat.com  to create these cards... I let the kiddos in on my plan - we were each going to decorate a small slip of construction paper, and I would piece them together to share in a card with their teachers.  Look how amazing their art turned out! Next step - scan the pics.  (OK - really, I was in a hurry.  I took the pics with my phone and uploaded the pics to Treat.com ... Then I started browsing.  {{swoon}}  This was tricky, since I had a *ton* of cards on my "favorites" list....

The range of strengths and weaknesses in a typical classroom can be quite difficult.  If you aren't careful, your students will generate so much paper (to grade and file!) that you won't be able to manage it.  Here's my suggestion:  Have an ELA Notebook for each child.  Nothing fancy - I'm currently using "fast-teacher-made-special" notebooks, consisting of a long piece of bright construction paper folded in half and stapled as the cover for 20-ish pieces of notebook paper.  When I taught 2nd grade, we used handwriting paper for the first quarter as a support/transition from 1st grade, and this was a fast way to help keep track of the loose papers for each subject. Credits: Mr. Magician , KG Fonts , Hello Fonts I know... it's really not going to hold a lot, so I encourage the kiddos to draw a line, date the entry, and then do their work, which can run over (neatly) to the page after that.  Typically, these journals last everyone for a month or so, and...

Wowza!  I'm exhausted.  Since we had so many snow days recently, we have make up days... on Saturdays!  (I know - it sounds really strange, but I'm a teacher in a year round school.  For more info on this odd schedule, check out this post .)  Since I wasn't sure what kind of attendance we would have at our first Saturday make up day, I needed to plan an engaging lesson that worked on a core concept.  I chose Vocabulary Development, since this is crucial to future scholastic success for my ELLs and struggling readers alike. I've always been vocal about the use of games for word work.  They promote critical thinking skills, an understanding of group dynamics, and vocabulary development.  Games can also promote competition, but I try to downplay that aspect.  I. Don't. Keep. Score.  When my goal is vocabulary development, fluency, comprehension, or an understanding of how words work, I think that the competitive aspect undermines my inten...

Today, I’d like to share how I use Pinterest for transition time… We all know that teachers are consistently short on time, so this hop is perfect for the busy teacher - chock full of effective, short, and focused Bright Ideas! In my classrooms, I tend to "hold tight" to each moment, squeezing in as much content as I can throughout the day.  When I was in a classroom with an LCD Projector, I used interesting pins from my Pinterest boards to help us refocus on our task.  My students always have a writing notebook, and it is a handy way to have students do a "quick write" to transition back from recess/lunch/random fire drill/etc.  I project the picture, they get 30 seconds to (quietly) discuss the picture with a partner, then they have a quick write, which takes about 2-4 minutes.  Grammar and spelling are not a priority during a quick write, and each quick write does not need to be shared.  It just helps ease the transition back into the classroom. ...