SUPER SALE SUNDAY!

This is an amazing sale! 

SUNDAY!

Stop by and see my whole store on sale. I have MANY free lessons too. 

My Common Core generic student worksheets can be used with any book or story. 

I have several of them. 

Click to see a listing of them

Store: Ruth-S - TeachersPayTeachers.com

Nonfiction 

Store: Ruth-S - TeachersPayTeachers.com

Novel Packets and Activities with ready to print student worksheets.

Makes life so much easier!

Bloom Ball Reports

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visible on Firefox. :) 

CHECK OUT MY NEW TEACHERSPAYTEACHERS WIDGET!! YAY

Click on the arrows to see my other lessons! 

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE hands on projects!  

As I've said in many of my posts, we have to really encourage creativity in our

classrooms these days, even if it means a ten minute group brainstorming, problem solving

topic that makes the kids THINK. 

I know that with all the mandated test preparation it's often difficult to break away 

BUT

it's important that students remember their teachers and school experiences

for reasons other than 

just preparing for tests. 

I run into many of my former students who are have graduated from college

and are starting new phases of their lives. Their greeting is always the same..

  "I'll never forget the GeoBear project you did with us.

I still have my GeoBear and all the postcards and letters he sent me when he

was traveling around the world."

OR

"You made school so much fun. I'll never forget when I was a Senator and wrote

a bill that said kids 12 years old should be allowed to have driver licenses. 

I remember how hard we worked on that bill, but the House of Representatives, sent it back to us and we had to amend it. 

Then it was approved by the House and YOU vetoed it."  (HAHA! I was the President!)

By the way, those kids almost ran me out of the room when I vetoed their bill. 

They had told me that 12 year old kids should drive 

because they have 16 year old siblings and they're not responsible, but 12 year old kids are! 

The House kids said that 12 year olds wouldn't be able to reach the gas pedals or see over the steering wheels.

The bill was amended to read: 12 year old kids will strap blocks of wood to their shoes 

so they can reach the gas pedals and sit on pillows  so they can see over the steering wheels.

 (I tried my best to keep a straight face throughout the proceedings) :)

To prepare for Congress, they chose a state they'd represent, made name tags, and even came to school dressed UP! I was soooo impressed. AND they kept their name badges on ALL day.. 

Senator Smith from New York, Representative Brown from Massachusetts. It was GREAT!

THESE are the things kids remember. Interactive, creative, collaborative, fun projects! 

This is one of those unforgettable types of projects 

where creativity walks hand in hand with academics. 

This update of my Bloom Balls packet has the latest verbiage of Bloom's Taxonomy. 

Included is everything needed to create colorful displays for your classroom

 while encouraging higher level thinking. 

Students will have fun working in groups to create their reports. 

There are instructions/rubrics for a fiction book report as well as a bio report.

Templates included are two sizes, in black and white and in color. 

Detailed instructions demonstrate how to put these displays together. 

Use for ELA, science and social studies reports.

 High school teachers are using them for literature reports, science and history reports! 

I suggest playing some soft background music as the kids work on these reports. 

It creates a nice atmosphere for learning!

Best for grades 4 and up. 

Fun!

My poster of the new Bloom verbiage that's included in the packet. 

Mid Winter Mad Money Giveaway

Sometimes you need to just get a little crazy and go shopping in the winter to chase away those winter blues!  I am so excited to team up with these amazing bloggers to bring you the Mid Winter Mad Money Giveaway.  We are giving away 2 gift certificates of $75 each to 2 lucky winners!

All you have to do is use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter.  If the widget won't work for you, please email me at:  thetutorhouse@hotmail.com and let me know you would like to enter.

This giveaway starts right now from 

January 18th and goes until 11:59 PM CST January 21st.

Take a minute and visit all of these outstanding bloggers!  I have really enjoyed getting to know all of them and I know you will too. 

Please use widget below to enter the contest.  If you need help with this contest, please email Adrianne at thetutorhouse@hotmail.com
a Rafflecopter giveaway

COMING SOON! Mid Winter Mad Money Giveaway

I'm soooooooo excited about the Mid Winter Mad Money Giveaway! What's really driving me crazy is I can't tell you about it until January 18th. I'll give you a hint.. If you like to shop 'til you drop, this is one giveaway you'll want to be part of.

So if you want to feel like a STAR, check back here on January 18th for the surprise I can't tell you about ................YET!!

Common Core Figurative Language

Do you remember walking out of workshops, your bag overflowing with papers and handouts, feeling a bit overwhelmed, wondering what you're going to have for dinner and trying to align your schedule with your kids' soccer schedule? Oh and the following day are parent conferences and you wish the workshop hadn't been held the day before conferences? 

When it was announced that the Common Core had been adopted in a majority of the states, teachers sat up and took notice. On top of all their other responsibilities, which could be possible grade level changes or moving to another school, this was just more mashed potatoes heaped on their already full plate. 

Some teachers in my district were concerned because our state and district curricula had been worked over with a fine tooth comb for years and we had it just where we thought it should be. The age old question came to mind. "If something's not broken, why fix it?" Our test scores were high. Sure, there are areas that needed attention, but overall, they were tops in national rankings. 

Teachers buzzed among themselves. Would the Common Core be watered down? Would it fit our students' needs? Would we be supplied with the who, what, why, where, when and how's of the Core so that we could easily implement it?  Or would the Common Core workshops be overviews and hand outs filled with charts, graphs and other "file in the round basket" paperwork that really wouldn't help teachers implement it? I wonder how many other teachers, like me, file all the paperwork, six months later, in the recycle bin.  ????

Don't get me wrong. Yes, teachers need to know details about the Common Core, but they also require practical and ready to print student worksheets to save time.

When I ran teacher workshops at the NELMS (New England League of Middle Schools) convention in Providence, RI, for four years, I was a hands on workshop leader who gave teachers student worksheets and other things that would make life easier for them. The conventions were huge. Middle and high school teachers from New England, Canada and some from other countries attended. The average number of teachers, in attendance, was 6,000 each year.

One of my presentations was to introduce educators to my Geobear project I created when I was the Connecticut representative for the Weekly Reader National Teachers Advisory Board. The purpose was to demonstrate how teachers could integrate all subjects into geography.

My students sent their teddy bears around the world. Over a ten year period their 900 teddy bears traveled with human companions, television stars, companies, grandmothers, relatives, ESPN of Asia and to places we never dreamed they'd visit. I loved it because I integrated all the subjects... reading, writing, social studies, science and math.

I was amazed that high school teachers attended my workshops. Never did I think high school kids would be interested in traveling teddy bears! Even more surprising is that I received fantastic feedback  from them, explaining in detail, their experiences with the bears.

Each workshop session I ran, I handed the attendees all the ready to print sheets they'd need to do this exciting project. No lengthy paperwork with theories about how GeoBears would affect my students in later years LOL or how it aligned with our curriculum. Teachers, who have spent years, learning how to become teachers, don't need all the theory thrown at them when they attend a workshop for something they have to implement. They need student worksheets!

Let me get to the point. (I bet you were waiting for that! :) 

I know how long it can take to develop lessons and activities for changes in curriculum, so I created worksheets, that align with the Common Core. These sheets can be used with any book or story.

This packet includes worksheets for similes, metaphors, personification and three posters to display in your classroom. 

Students are asked to find examples in books they're reading or in other text. Also included is a student friendly rubric. Yes, student friendly! How many of you have piles of rubrics that kids wouldn't be able to understand or relate to? I probably have hundreds!

Check out my Common Core ready to print student worksheets that will save you time! If you look under my custom categories under Common Core in my TeacherspayTeachers store you'll see many more of my Common Core products to help save you time!