Oreo cookie moon phases is how I assess whether or not they "got it" 
And they love doing it......

Cause & Effect

We will be learning about and practicing Cause & Effect relationships next week, and I happened to run across this fabulous idea from one of my favorite education bloggers, Teaching with a Mountain View, that uses the classic camp song Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah by Allan Sherman:

We are going to incorporate this into our Interactive ELA Notebooks, but since most of my students will not be familiar with this song (it is from 1964, after all), I found this adorable you tube video to go along with:

For once, I am actually excited about Monday!

Rounding to Any Place Value

Eureka Math: Module 1, Lesson 7:
I am not using the "tape diagram" method (from Eureka) to teach students how to round to any place value.
Instead, I taught them a little rhyme:

And here are the step-by-step directions we wrote in our Math Notebooks:

This may seem difficult at first, but this method will help them when rounding to any place value, not just the thousands place.
I hope this helps!

It's the beginning of a brand new school year! I am so excited to be teaching the Talented & Gifted class again this year!
Here are a few projects I've been working on this summer:

The S.T.A.R. binder will be the kids' lifeline this year - everything important will go in here. I also love that in incorporates students taking responsibility:

An outline of my classroom procedures, which will be the first page in the S.T.A.R. binder so students and parents can easily refer to it at any time during the school year:

Thanks to Adrienne Wiggins at Having Class for the inspiration! You can visit her website here: http://www.havingclassinthird.com/

Weekly report/Class newsletter:

Thanks to Meet Mrs. Parker for the free download, which I customized to make perfect for me.Get the free download here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Meet-Miss-Parker

I cannot even tell you how excited I am about this Beginning-of-Year Flip book!! Special thanks to Where The Wild Things Learn for creating a fun & interactive way to share information with parents!

You can find the B.O.Y. Flipbook here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Beginning-of-the-Year-Flipbooks-Editable-1369312