HURRY! THREE HOURS LEFT!

Celebrate Lessons from the Middle's first blog birthday!

A HUGE GIVEAWAY!!!!

$500.00 in Resources and Gift Certificates! 

Due to the blizzard, I'm sorry I'm late posting this! 

Click below to see this amazing giveaway 

There are only THREE hours left to participate! 

Keep scrolling down when you get there! There are many packets to choose from! 

I'm there! :)

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!

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! 

Sandy Hook Sadness

Sandy Hook Sadness

The day the tragedy happened in Sandy Hook, we were very ill with the flu. I posted the blog button that was scheduled with all other bloggers, that would appear on December 16th. We all agreed not to blog that day. 

Much to my dismay, it never appeared. Why? I'll never know. I checked my postings and there it was. Scheduled. I thought that I might have forgotten to schedule it because of the high fever I had that day. But no. It was scheduled.

I did my student teaching in Newtown. Sandy Hook is a section of Newtown, sort of like a village within a town. I remember being horrified when the news first broke. 

I thought I was in a delirious state of mind from fever, but when I woke up hours, later, it wasn't a bad dream. The quiet, beautiful town was headline news. How could something like this happen? 

What kind of monster could do something like this? My mind was reeling. Not in Connecticut, not where I spent formative time, teaching fourth graders under the guidance of one of the nicest, most capable teachers I've ever met. 

My neighbor called and was frantic. Two teachers from our town had taken positions in Newtown and she wasn't sure the names of the schools or where they are now. Later, we found out they were safe. One had been at Sandy Hook Elementary last year, but she had been transferred to another school, this year. The other teacher was in a school at the northern end of Newtown. What a relief.  

I'll end this post to say that the local news has been reporting that the town is overwhelmed with all of the teddy bears, gifts, and other things people from around the world are sending. They show updated pictures of it, on television and at this point, they're not sure what they're going to do with it. All of the biodegradable items, like flowers and the Christmas tree, wooden items may be turned into "sacred" soil and placed in a park as a memorial, but there is much more than can't be recycled. The news reports are saying as of today, that sending money, for the families, is better. 

God bless the little children and their families, the brave staff, the residents of Newtown and people of the world. God has wrapped those who were taken from us, in his loving arms, where they'll remain for eternity. When I was young, our minister always told us that God loves us and has a plan for each and everyone of us. His words have always been a source of comfort, especially now.

Snowball Synonyms

I'm having a great time creating my snowball lessons! I guess it's because Mother Nature opened her seasons door and winter entered like a bull. There never seems to be a gradual change in our area. One day it's in the 70's and the next ay, it's teeth chattering 30's. We had an unusual October Nor'Easter that set the pace for others to follow.

 I remember my cousins coming to visit from Mobile, Alabama, one winter. They were 10 and 7 years old and had NEVER seen snow. An over night snowstorm dropped 6 inches on us and when we woke up the next morning, it was truly a "winter wonderland".

What we didn't realize is our cousins had run out, grabbed our sleds and were flying down our back hill with reckless abandon. They didn't realize that you have to HOLD on to the sled and steer it, otherwise, a tree just might jump out in front of you. I pulled on my snowsuit and went flying out the door, waving my arms and yelling STOP STOP! 

They were too far away to hear me and before I knew it, they were flying down the hill, waving wildly back at me. They must have thought I was cheering them on. Fortunately, they made it to the bottom of the hill safely.

My Snowball Synonyms is a cut/paste activity. I love these kinds of activities because kids love hands on activities. Match up the synonyms, paste them in the snowballs, while thinking of snowball fights with friends and making snow forts with HUGE snowballs!

Have fun!

Ruth