Month: July 2014

Classroom Hack–Use Zip Ties for Task Cards

Here I am, chugging along with back to school on my mind. I know we still have about 4 weeks left, but I’m sprinkling some teacher stuff into my demanding sleeping, swimming, and Netflixing schedule. There’s a LOT to do, and if I don’t start now it will just nag at me.

I am so excited to dig into task cards with my students this year. There are like a MILLION ways to use them and I’ve only scratched the surface. Back to the story. I’ve just cut out 72 cards, punched holes in the corners, and am ready to put them together…when I realize I don’t have any of these–

Photo from Staples.com–Yes. I am addicted to office supplies. Love them!

Time for a cliche. Necessity is the mother of invention, and I have a need. I need a way to bind my task cards together WITHOUT some of those ring things. Then, I remembered that I have a pile of zip ties sitting on the counter and decided to give it a try.

Classroom Hack Zip Ties for Task Cards from The Pensive Sloth

It worked! We had clear and yellow, but the yellow ones were huge and barely fit through the holes. Now, I’m off to search for zip ties on Amazon. Surely they have a rainbow colored pack???

–The Pensive Sloth

Teach Math With Me: Personal Financial Literacy and Taxes

School starts in about a month. Resistance is futile! I have a terrible time saying goodbye to napping and reading by the pool, but I always look forward to the start of the year. Shopping for school supplies and meeting your kiddos at back to school night–Love it! It is just around the corner…and so are those new personal financial literacy standards. Now, if you are like me, the first thing that came to mind is, “How will I fit THAT in?” Followed by, “And will that be on the STAAR test?” One of the new standards has 5th graders defining 4 kinds of taxes (income, payroll, sales, and property) and that sounds like a great way to integrate some social studies! So, here are a few ideas and a freebie!

5th Grade Personal Financial Literacy from The Pensive Sloth--social studies, math, and reading

Anchor chart to help students learn what the Constitution says about taxes in the US and about 4 kinds of taxes (income, payroll, sales, property). This addresses the NEW math TEKS 5.10A for personal financial literacy…and a little bit of social studies!

Math/Literacy/Social Studies station where students sort scenarios based on the tax being described–includes 16 scenarios to be sorted into 4 tax categories.

Vocabulary snip-it with terms for teaching personal financial literacy

5th Grade Personal Financial Literacy from The Pensive Sloth reading, math, social studies

Let your students be accountants and do taxes for two fictional characters based on their financial profiles! See below for a link to this page.

Enjoy those last few weeks of summer! Oh, and here’s a link to the free “Be an Accountant” activity!

–The Pensive Sloth

***Activities in this post can be found in my TPT store.***

From the Interactive Notebook Template Guru…A GIVEAWAY!

The Candy Class is hosting a giveaway of epic proportions. OK. That was a hyperbole, but it is pretty big. Five days of giveaways from over 60 teacher authors and clipartists–including a winner’s choice from Lovin’ Lit! The giveaways start Sunday, July 13th and run through Thursday, July 16th, 2014 with a chance to win resources from Kindergarten to 12th grade.

***If you are wondering, my stuff is on day 3–Pre-algebra Puzzle Task Cards. The images below show what you can win!***

Visit The Candy Class on Facebook or Blogspot for the Rafflecopter to enter.

May the odds be ever in your favor!

Teachers–It’s summer. Are you snoozing it away or working crazy hard?

I love taking those quizzes you find on Buzzfeed and Facebook and whatnot. I’ve always wanted to make one, and after lots of trial and error, here’s my first attempt using Playbuzz. It is certainly far from perfect, but it was a blast to create. Give the quiz a try to find out your summer teacher personality.

Oh…and the first 10 people to follow The Pensive Sloth on Facebook and leave a comment sharing their quiz results, get a freebie from my store. You choose which product you want.

Click the image and head over to Playbuzz to take the quiz. The first 10 people to take the quiz, follow The Pensive Sloth on Facebook and leave a comment sharing their results can choose a freebie from my store. Any one product. Your choice!

Want to make your own quiz? Try Playbuzz! It is easy and free, and if your blog accepts html, you can even embed your quiz!

–The Pensive Sloth

Shut Up and Take My Money Teacher Style: Circuit Scribe

There is a hilarious site called Shut Up and Take My Money that peddles unusual gadgets and such. Not all of which are suitable for work, so if you are reading this at school I suggest clicking on that link when you get home. Well, here’s the first in a series of a teacher-style version of classroom must-haves!

Somehow I happened upon this YouTube video for a product called Circuit Scribe.

Then promptly checked out their Kickstarter page. They raised almost $700,000 dollars!!! But… the product won’t ship until August. Boohoo! You can pre-order here. Basically, it allows you to draw circuits that work. Imagine the many ways you could use this in your science classroom. Talk about STEM!

You should know that I’m not patient, so I found something similar on Amazon that I can play with until I get my Circuit Scribe! I ordered this $10 pen that contains nickel instead of silver and I can not wait to give it a try. I should probably go buy some watch batteries and LED lights. I’ll come back and share the fun when it arrives.

–The Pensive Sloth

***NOTE–I was NOT paid and am not affiliated with any of the above groups. I’m just a teacher-consumer interested in new tools to make learning fun for my students!***

UPDATE: While this is a really cool product, I don’t see it being affordable enough for regular classroom use. After playing with it myself for an evening (I was very impressed), I realized that this could get costly with a group of 5th graders and opted to go with a different circuit activity at school. It required some major problem-solving on my part, with trial and error as I figured out how to fold the paper just right so the positive and negative sides of the batteries connected to my hand-drawn ‘wires.’ I could see middle and high-school students really thriving with this, but my little elementary guys would need to use a lot of ink for their trial/error sessions, and it’s a little pricey for my tastes because you’d have to replace the pens every year. Perhaps if you wrote a grant?

I love Pinterest. A lot. You might even say I’m a little bit addicted. I can’t possibly tell you how many little (and big) ways that Pinterest has impacted my classroom, and I currently have a running list of stuff I can’t wait to start in August. For example. making my assessment practices more visible. I LOVE this idea found on teachertrap’s blog. Here’s the pin. I also plan to add a bookmark to notebooks to save precious classroom minutes. I found this idea on Pinterest, too, through a pin from Kristen’s Kindergarten. I could go on forever, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Teacher bloggers on Pinterest have taught me so much! Lately, when I go to search for something on Pinterest, I’m seeing more advertisements than ideas, and it is frustrating. I’m planning to start some collaborative boards and needed a place to post my board rules, so here they are. We’ll see how it goes! Anyone interested in joining me?