Christmas Freebies

I love the holidays. It's a time to eat be with family, eat & drink yummy things (cookies & hot chocolate are my number one choices), and GIVE & GET presents! WOOT!

So in the spirit of giving, I have some of my favorite things to GIVE to you!

First up, a recipe for my favorite cookie bars.
Do you like Nutella?
Do you like S'mores?
Do you like things that taste amazing?
Oh, you do? Well then MAKE THESE -----> Nutella S'Mores Bars

Next, my favorite and EASY homemade hot chocolate.
It takes minutes, y'all.
And is sooooo worth the tiny bit of extra effort.
Make it-----> Homemade Hot Chocolate

Now, it's time to spread the love! What is more adorable than GNOMES? I can't think of many things. I just made this set for multiplication fact practice featuring some of the cutest-faced gnomes EVER!

It contains all sorts of multiplication awesomeness... 

You can find the set in my TPT store! 

Just click the link ----> DO YOU GNOME YOUR FACTS?

After making this set, one of my FAVORITE clipart sellers, Creating 4 The Classroom came out with CHRISTMAS GNOME clipart! I knew I had to use them. So I snagged them and made this FUN set of FREEEEEE Christmas gift tags! They're perfect to attach to the holiday gift for your homies I mean GNOMIES! 

These are NOT in my TPT store y'all, they're a BLOG EXCLUSIVE! 

Just click the link to be taken to the download! GNOMIES Christmas Gift Tags

Ok, just incase you haven't gotten enough GNOME awesomeness in your life... I'm going to share a secret.... I you sign up for my newsletter, you're going to get another WINTER GNOME freebie! But you have to sign up to get it. It WON'T be on my blog and it WON'T be in my TPT store! 

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Merry Christmas my friends! 

Daily Spiraled Math Skill Review

I've posted before about one of my best selling TPT products - Reading Morning Message. It's a 6 week spiraled review of reading skills including main idea, character traits, character changes, making inferences, theme, word meaning, text structures, and figurative language. Each set spirals different skills - check out all 4 editions & holiday editions here!

I recently started making a 6 week set for math! It's a great way to review and front load ESSENTIAL math skills. My math teammate and I are LOVING it. I recently went out on maternity leave, but my sub is continuing to use it. I love knowing my kids are hitting important math concepts EVERY DAY wether I'm there or not!

I have created two editions so far:
MATH Daily Message Edition One
MATH Daily Message Edition Two 
I plan on creating a total of 6 to last all school year!

Here's how the SIX WEEKS of spiraled skills work:
- Every Monday, students work on multiplication
- Every Tuesday, students work on division
- Every Wednesday, students complete a single or multi step word problem
- Every Thursday, students work on decimals in the form of tenths and hundredths
- Every Friday, students work on fractions

I LOVE reviewing skills my students already know & taking them further. This set is also great for front-loading topics we haven't hit yet. We're about to start our fraction unit, and my students already have a strong foundation on fraction skills we'll be learning perfecting.

Would you like to try a free week? Shoot me an email at katietexas82@gmail.com & let me know you'd like to try a FREE WEEK of math daily message! 

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. Fall is my favorite season for so many reasons - the colors are so warm and comforting, the food is PHENOM (candy on Halloween and home cookin' on Thanksgiving? YES PLEASE), and hellooooo everything pumpkin spice!! This year I've added even ANOTHER reason to love this season, my newest little pumpkin Mackenzie Jo! She was born 10-4 and I am sooooo in love.

Teachers love Thanksgiving too, because it's a time to TAKE A BREAK & REFRESH. I feel like the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving Break are some of the most exhausting. Our district takes the entire week off, but in the past it hasn't been that way. I LOVE HAVING THE ENTIRE WEEK. So do the teachers in my district because we vote for it every year! Lol.

I love to incorporate holiday themed lessons into my teaching, but I don't want it to be fluff work. I want fun and meaningful lessons and activities that keeps students engaged but allows them to have fun! That's why I created "What's On the Menu".

With this activity, students plan a Thanksgiving meal by looking at a store ad. Students pick out the foods to be served & calculate costs of multiple servings. They can also create an invite to Thanksgiving Dinner & draw what will be served on a plate. It's SO much fun and my students LOVE IT! They don't even realize they're adding, subtracting and multiplying decimals and using real world problem solving skills! They're just focused on FOOD!

We always seem to be working on fractions during Thanksgiving time, so I've created a couple fraction activities too - Pumpkin Pie Fractions & Thanksgiving Fractions. 

  

If you're looking for a reading activity, I've made a Thanksgiving themed edition of Morning Message. It's a week long review of essential reading skills - Monday focuses on Main Idea, Tuesday is Character Traits, Wednesday is Theme, Thursday is Inferences and Friday is word meaning. 

I hope you'll try out one of these activities! I LOVE FEEDBACK and I would love to see pictures of your students using these sets in action. Have a fabulous Thanksgiving, friends! 

Add some COLOR to your math instruction!

Y'all. Do you own a set of LEWO Stacking Blocks yet?? Well YOU SHOULD!

I love having old games & game boards around the classroom - you can always pair them with some task cards and create an instantly awesome station/ center.

So when I saw the LEWO Rainbow Stacking Blocks, I knew I HAD TO HAVE THEM. I had been meaning to paint a few old Jenga games I had collected and pair them with some task cards BUT could never find the time... Then I saw LEWO had done the messy work for me!

I wanted a math review game to go along with these blocks, so I created a multi-skill task card set that coordinates with the block colors. The cards cover addition and subtraction (red), multiplication and division (pink), word problems (yellow), decimals and fractions (green), measurement (blue) and geometry (purple). Check it out here ---> Rainbow Block Game Math Review

The set includes a color option (prints two sided task cards) OR a color saver option. I went with the color saver option and printed on card stock that matches all the blocks! I cannot WAIT to let my kiddos get a hold of this. I have a feeling I'll be needing more than one LEWO game!!

Below are links to the game AND the card stock colors I used. I'm not affiliated with LEWO or Astrobright, I'm just a fan of both! Haha!

Animated TPT Banner

Do you have an animated banner in your TPT store? I've tried to make several but they're always a big ol' fail: Either my product link is messed up or my pictures come out WAY smaller than I expected... But that's all changed now that I found this tutorial by Carolyn Wilhelm from the Wise Owl Factory!

Here are the images that I'm using...

I uploaded these gifmaker.me to make this: 

Thanks to the tutorial, I've made these into a GIF that looks AMAZING on my TPT store! Check it out here in my TPT store!! 

Testing = Lame.... Giveaways = NOT LAME!

Hey friends! 

I know it's been FIVE-ever since I last posted... It's been whirlwind year. My awesome fourth graders have done lots of learning, had lots of fun, given me lots of gray hairs, and now we start TEST PREP TIME. Ugh... 

Thankfully, I've gotten together with some AMAZING teacher sellers to bring you a big ol' TEST PREP GIVEAWAY! I'm so excited to be partnering up with these amazing ladies to offer you a giveaway for WRITING, SCIENCE, MATH and READING! Oh, and we're giving away TPT CASH! Woot! 

How do you enter? It's a CINCH! Just find your subject area below and enter! You can enter one giveaway... or two... or three... or four... OR ALL FIVE (go for the five!)!!

Winner announced Thursday! WOOT! 

·                Heather & Ashley Watson from Watson Works are giving away their STAAR WARS 4^th Grade Writing Bundle Sets 1-6 ($16.80 value).

·                Jacqueline Ortiz from The Little Ladybug Shop is giving away her Writing Unit 3^rd Grade & 4^th Grade [STAAR Writing Practice] ($4.50 value), as well as her STAAR Awards, which apply to any subject ($2.50 value).

·                Alyssa Roetheli from Teaching in the Fast Lane is giving away her Writing Test Smash a Test Prep Resource ($8 value). 

·                Jennifer Dowell from Love Teaching Kids is giving away her Writing Review Game ($5.50 value).

·                Layla Henry from Fancy Free in 4th is giving away her Writing Test Prep for Editing and Revising ($3.50 value).

·                Cassie Thomas is giving away her Grammar Spiral Review – STAAR Aligned ($8 value).

·                Rose Kasper from Rosie’s Resources is giving away her STAAR Test Prep ($3.25 value).

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·                Alyssa Roetheli from Teaching in the Fast Lane is giving away her Science Test Prep 5^th Grade: Test Smash ($8 value). 

·                Alicia Cobb from Elementary Ali – Teacher’s Workstation is giving away her 5th Grade Science STAAR Review Stations ($17 value), as well as her 5th Grade Science STAAR Review Activity Page Bundle ($7 value).

·                Melanie Ellsworth from Science and Math Doodles is giving away her Science Concepts TEST PREP BUNDLE STAAR Review ($7 value), as well as her STAAR Science Doodles Review Test Prep Sheets ($5 value).

·                Ari Mosquera from The Science Penguin is giving away her 5^th Grade Science STAAR Activity Board ($5 value).

·                Jacqueline Ortiz from The Little Ladybug Shop is giving away her STAAR Awards, which apply to any subject ($2.50 value).

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·                Heather & Ashley Watson from Watson Works are giving away their STAAR WARS 3^rd Grade Math Bundle Sets 1-6 ($16.80 value).

·                Katie Jefferies from Rock and Teach is giving away her STAAR Math Review ($14 value).

·                Kady Dupre from Teacher Trap is giving away her 3rd Grade Math Review Stations ($7.50 value).

·                Stephanie McConnell from Stephanie McConnell of Principal is giving away her Wrestle the STAAR like a PRO- Class Game ($6 value).

·                Layla Henry from Fancy Free in 4th is giving away her Head Bandits A Math Vocabulary Test Prep Game ($2 value).

·                Paula McClendon from Dazzle on a Dime is giving away her 3rd Grade Math STAAR Practice Review ($1.95 value), as well as her Math STAAR Test Prep Lapbook ($3 value)

·                Alyssa Roetheli from Teaching in the Fast Lane is giving away her Math Test Prep: Test Smash Multi-Grade Bundle [3^rd-5^th Grade] ($18 value). 

·                Jacqueline Ortiz from The Little Ladybug Shop is giving away her STAAR Awards, which apply to any subject ($2.50 value).

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·                Heather & Ashley Watson from Watson Works are giving away their STAAR WARS 5^th Grade Reading Bundle Sets 1-6 ($16.80 value).

·                Katie Jefferies from Rock and Teach is giving away her STAAR Reading: Morning Message Edition 3 ($15 value).

·                Kelcee Baker from Learning to Shine is giving away her STAAR Reading Vocabulary Test 5^th Grade ($3 value).

·                Kady Dupre from Teacher Trap is giving away her Reading Test Prep 101 ($5 value).

·                Jennifer Dowell from Love Teaching Kids is giving away her Poetry Comprehension Test Prep ($4.25 value).

·                Marcy Fair from Marcy’s Mayhem is giving away her Reading Comprehension Passages 4^th Grade & 5^th Grade STAAR Practice ($3 value), as well as her Poetry Reading Comprehension Passages 4^th Grade & 5^th Grade STAAR Test Prep ($3 value)

·                Rose Kasper from Rosie’s Resources is giving away her Paired Passages – Social Studies Topics ($5.95 value).

·                Cassie Thomas is giving away her STAAR Reading Review {Category 1,2,3 BUNDLE} ($24 value).

·                Jacqueline Ortiz from The Little Ladybug Shop is giving away her STAAR Awards, which apply to any subject ($2.50 value).

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All of the amazing teachers participating in the giveaway have gotten together to give away $80 to YOU! *heart eyes emoji* 

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