Back to School "What are YOUR Favorites"?

I can remember one of my elementary teachers asking us what our favorite ice cream was the first week of fifth grade. Hands went up! Most yelled Chocolate! Many said Vanilla! Two who said strawberry were almost run out of the classroom.  "Ewwwww, how can you like strawberry ice cream?" one classmate whispered.

When I was growing up we didn't have fancy dancy ice cream. No Ben and Jerry's. Only chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, oh! and chocolate mint and chocolate fudge.

When I walk into ice cream stores today, the choices are mind boggling and I really WANT to try a new flavor, but always end up with a chocolate ice cream cone, dipped in chocolate piled to the ceiling on a sugary wafer cone. YUM!!

This is why I created my "What's Your Favorite" activity. I guess I really created it to see if kids still love plain ol' chocolate or vanilla ice cream. But honestly, I really like to get to know what other things my students really like.

Another sheet asks them to list adjectives to describe some of their favorite things. It's a great way to introduce adjectives the first week of school.

Click on my free Favorites pages but before you do, tell me... what's YOUR favorite ice cream??

Have fun!

Ruth

Kids' Favorites!

If you have already downloaded this, please download it again. The packet has been updated! It's FREE!

Your students will have fun filling out this sheet of their favorites.  

It's a great activity for the beginning of a new school year. 

Save them and hand the sheets back to your students at the end of the year.

You'll be surprised when they tell you their favorites have changed!

Back to School with the BlogLovin Blog Hop

I LOVE BLOG HOPS!

Bloggers share lessons, teaching ideas and more, then link up and travel on blog hops to see what other teachers are offering. 

What I really like is that each blog is very uniquely designed. Reading the posts provides me with new ideas. The best part of all, is you can easily move from one blog to another with just a click of your mouse. 

The most recent blog hop I joined was a Back to School blog hop. There are so many wonderful back to school lessons created by very talented teachers who love sharing their ideas. 

Take a minute to hop from one blog to another to see what's being offered. I guarantee you'll find many things you'll want to start the new school year!

260 Journal Prompts

I'm so excited to let everyone know that this packet of free journal prompts has been modified. I've added MANY more prompts! 
~~~~~~

Ever pass out a writing prompt and hear a student say "I don't like that topic!" or "I don't like to write!" or "I'm not going to write!"??? I remember feeling the same way in school because I sometimes couldn't relate to the topic; it just didn't interest me. 

You talk with those students, plead, beg and practically stand on your head to get them to write at least one or two sentences. Sound familiar? 

When I was in school, the "back to school" prompt was always..... ready? I'm sure you know what it is.. 

WrIte an essay on what you did over the summer vacation. 

Should I really write about the time I told my mother I was bored one hot summer day. She told me to go fry and egg. And I did! On the driveway! The white of the lovely fried egg left a permanent mark on our driveway. Needless to say, my father wasn't particularly happy about it. It was a new driveway! Uh oh

At the time, I doubted it would go over big with my teacher, so I wrote about going to Girl Scout camp. Whoop dee doo. She probably had to read 20 essays about Girl Scout camp. 

Over the years I've collected many prompts and I asked the kids what types of prompts they'd like. 


 These prompt really get the pencils moving! They're also good for lively discussion topics! 

Best part is, they're free :)

Good grief! My blog buttons are everywhere! Hmmm... Don't worry. I'll fix it :)


I've been posting on my blog for a couple of days now and decided that, today, I'd share some of my TpT lessons with you. 

Here's a sampling of what I offer on TeachersPayTeachers. 

This packet of geometric shapes includes posters for the basic geometric colored shapes of a triangle, square, rectangle and circle. Print on heavier stock paper. laminate, and they can be used year to year as a display while teaching the basic shapes.

Geometric Basic Shapes - Ruth S. - TeachersPayTeachers.com

Print out these FREE homework passes and have them handy!  Use them for good citizenship, good work and behavior! These are a great "pat on the back" reward at the beginning of school!

HOMEWORK PASSES FREE - Ruth S. - TeachersPayTeachers.com

Kids love choices. At the beginning of the year, give them these 210 journal response cards that they can cut out and paste in their journals.

Journal Prompts FREE - Ruth S. - TeachersPayTeachers.com

Back to school is a time that you want to get to know your students and also assess how well they write. The pages of this fun questionnaire enables you to learn about your students' study habits, subjects they like, their feelings about certain topics and issues, their opinions, the place they're most comfortable doing homework, if they do their homework, if they like to read, their favorites and much more. They're also asked to assess how well they completed the questionnaire. Teacher tips are included.

STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE FUN - Ruth S. - TeachersPayTeachers.com

Back to School Night is often stressful! Even seasoned teachers are anxious when they have to meet new parents for the first time.This packet of handouts and teacher tips makes less work for you and the preparation for Back to School Night less stressful. Some of the pages included are: refrigerator reminders, tips about when to communicate with the teacher, homework tips, movie waiver forms to send parents, late homework assignments and more.

BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT HANDOUTS AND TIPS - Ruth S. - TeachersPayTeachers.com

Teachers often think that ABC books are only for primary grades. I've successfully used ABC templates with middle school students for many different projects including science, social studies, geography, creative writing, poetry, math word problems, book reports and more.
Included are templates for each letter of the alphabet, an alphabet grid that's a great brainstorming tool and a cover page template. Templates are in black and white due to cut backs in schools, however, student artwork adds the color needed.

ABC Book Templates for All Ages - Ruth S. - TeachersPayTeachers.com

Use this grammar assessment as a diagnostic or end of the year assessment, as a teaching tool or practice for mandatory state tests. Included are: Nouns, verbs and verb tenses, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, synonyms, antonyms, plural and singular nouns, alphabetical order, pronouns, prefixes, contractions, syllables, types of sentences (exclamatory, declarative, interrogative, imperative), punctuation, subjects, predicates, context clues, prepositions, direct objects, complete or incomplete sentences, capitalization, editing and revising sentences.
There are 35 questions with some having multiple examples to answer. Answers are included.

Grammar Assessment - Ruth S. - TeachersPayTeachers.com

Your students will love this states and capitals activity. I've modified this to be a more fun type of activity that kids become totally engrossed in. They color the states according to the directions on the sheets that are included in this packet. For example, all states that begin with the letter N, might be colored with purple polka dots. Those states that begin with the letter O, might be be colored with green stripes. One map is for coloring the states, another is for coloring the state capitals. This activity helps students to learn the states, capitals, and become familiar with their shapes. Display these colorful maps around your classroom. 

COLOR THE STATES - Ruth S. - TeachersPayTeachers.com

WISE OWL FACTORY!

If you'd like to see some adorable. extremely well planned lessons, check out the Wise Owl Factory. Carolyn has created wonderful lessons in all kinds of formats.  Her inspiration and dedication to teaching is admirable.  If it wasn't for her tremendous assistance, my blog wouldn't be up and running. 

$1 and Low Priced Lessons | BookaDay

Free online lessons | BookaDay

Carolyn is an avid nature lover and observer. Take a look at this video of a moose that she has on her site that can be used with the book "Agate, What Good is a Moose?" by Dey and Johnson. What a perfect video for kids to get an up close view of a young moose eating river plants! I really don't know if I could hold my breath that long! 


I could barely stop oooo'ing and awwww'ing when I saw the baby polar baby video. I just wanted to hug him to pieces. The book is a true story called Knut, How One Little Polar Bear Captured the World by Hatkoff, Gerald R. Uhlich, Craig Hatkoff, Craig Hatkoff, Isabella Hatkoff.

Book 105: Knut How One Little Polar Bear Captured the World | BookaDay

This brings back fond memories of when I saw Klondike and Snow, the baby polar bears who were abandoned by their mother, at the Denver Zoo. They were taken to Sea World in FL when they were about a year old.  I had my picture taken with them as the nudged the glass where I was sitting!  I bought the Denver Zoo's book called "Klondike and Snow" published by the Denver Zoological Foundation in 1995 and read it to the kids every year since then. I'd show the following video to them too! 
Klondike & Snow - 2 Baby Polar Bears - YouTube

Take a look at Carolyn's TeachersPayTeachers site too!!

Store: Wise Owl Factory - TeachersPayTeachers.com




FONTS FONTS FONTS!!!!!


YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO FIND...


Ever end up somewhere on the Web, and not know how you got there???
It happens to me all the time.
I found these font sites as I was looking for something or another...


Check these out...


A word of caution! You might be on these sites for hours!!

http://www.kevinandamanda.com/fonts/ 

http://www.1001freefonts.com/

http://www.fontgarden.com/archive/index.html

http://openfontlibrary.org/