Let the Second Nine Weeks Begin!

Our first nine weeks has come to an end, and we are ready for what the second nine weeks will bring.  We have tried something new this year.  We decided to group our students and to switch groups for both math and language arts.  We were a little nervous about it because it was something new for both of us, but it has been a HUGE success!  We are able to give students what they need and better individualize instruction.  We are going to tweak a few things for the second nine week period and keep moving forward.  Now that we have tried it, I wouldn't want to do it any other way.  

We had our parent teacher conferences and discussed switching with our parents as well and they were all on board and said the students were all very positive about it.  Don't you love it when good ideas come together full circle?  Speaking of good ideas...check out these adorable photos.  For our conferences this year, we had our students make a replica of themselves and we taped them to their chair at conferences.  They were absolutely adorable and were a surprise for each parent walking in!

I hope your year has been as successful as ours has been!   Keep up the good work and remember to help your fellow teachers.  New studies are showing our profession is the third most stressful.  Be sure to lift one another up and don't forget ALWAYS to take care of yourself!

Fall Learning Fun

It is finally fall! Can you feel it? Are your students excited/crazy/wild/hyper due to the change in the weather?  Do you love having recess duty (only when it's nice outside!), have you tasted or smelled the pumpkin flavored anything that seems to be everywhere you turn?  Well, we have answered answered yes to all of the questions.

It isn't fall without cute decorations, right?!

In honor of this beautiful season we have created print-and-go pages to assess your students in both Math and ELA. There is a packet perfect for grades 1-2 and another great for 3-4. Each is on SALE for $1 for the next three days! 



The Fall Learning Fun packet for grades 1 & 2 includes skills sheets with a cutesy fall and Thanksgiving theme. Students will work on sight words, word families, vowel sounds, nouns, alphabetical order, parts of speech, contractions, fact/opinion, main idea, sequencing, even/odd, fact families, calendar math, expanded form, ten more/ten less, making ten, identifying coins,
adding, and number ordering.

The Fall Learning Fun packet for grades 3 & 4 includes skill sheets with the same fall and Thanksgiving theme. Skills include vowel sounds, alphabetical order, parts of speech, types of literature, silent letters, addition, subtraction with regrouping, five multiplication bump games, rounding, syllables, reading a recipe, synonyms, antonyms, writing, number values, and place value. No wasted pages! The skills are great for third and fourth grade students and can even be used for I-Read 3 practice!

We hope you have lovely fall weather every time you have recess duty! We also hope you love our Fall Learning Fun Packets! Head to our TPT store (Two Teacher Friends) to get them while they are only $1! Be sure to check the Teacher Deals and Dollar Steals page for more great products from some of our teacher friends!





    

   Happy Fall!     Love,
        Your Two Teacher Friends

It is a month into school and we are still loving the way we pass out pencils. In past school years there has been a problem with students' pencils always breaking, or being los,t or not having any sharp pencils---at all!! (We are still trying to figure out how there are just no pencils in a desk...really, guys?!)

Over the summer, Memaw, Mrs. Patterson's Grandma, helped us sew 68 pencils bags. All the bags were made out of a thick fabric~we used duck cloth. It was very inexpensive at Jo-Anne's Fabric. We even got it on sale! We used ribbon from Walmart to keep the pencils from falling out, and to make it look a little cuter! Students simply tuck the top into the ribbon to shut the bag. No buttons, no snaps, easy to use!

Memaw sewing the bags!

Each child received their own bag with their cubby number on it (we used a black paint pen to paint the numbers on). Each bag holds 8 sharpened pencils. On Friday students turn in their pencil bags. The dull/broken pencils get replaced with new, freshly sharpened pencils. On Monday the bags are returned to students ready to go.

(Don't worry, this is no more 'extra' for the teacher! We have students sharpen pencils all week long, in the morning, and after school before they head to the bus. Student helpers fill and replace the pencils in the bag too.)

Sharp pencils, ready to be bagged!

Our student helpers can easily grab pencils that need to be sharpened

Students are not allowed to take these bags home. They stay at school All. The. Time. When our student helpers check pencils Friday afternoon they are making sure each bag has 8 pencils. If it does not, the owner of the bag gets an X by their name. If it does have all 8 pencils (even if it is just a small bit or broken) the owner gets a check mark by their name. After one month of checking pencils all students with all check marks will get a pencil/piece of candy/free time at computer lab/stickers/homework pass or anything the teachers want to pass out!






Here is how our bags look. We love them. Our students love them. It's a beautiful thing. In all, we spent $33 on fabric and ribbon. Since there are 2 of us that means $16.50 each!  #thrifty

Pencil bags in use

A Sequencing Review

It is day #2!

We are loving our newly decorated classrooms, and our students! We have decided to change things up this year and rotate students according to level to better accommodate our ESL students. To go along with reviewing, reviewing, reviewing during the start of school we are offering our Sequencing Review pages for $1 for the next 3 days. (that is a savings of $2.50!)


This Sequencing Review is perfect for primary grades. It includes sequencing posters, hidden words, cut/pasting in order, reading passages to sequence, picture sorting, and sequencing short films.

The first story in our Reading Street books is an excerpt from Because of Winn Dixie. This sequencing review has a reading passage to go along with the story. In our classrooms this week we will be using this to review. Even though your Two Teacher Friends teach 4th grade, this is a great review to start the year off. It is excellent to use as a teaching tool to see where each child stands. The sheets included can be taken as a formal or informal assessments and students have fun completing them.

Another part of this Sequencing Review packet our students loooove (they think it is so fun) is the short film sequencing pages. We have included 2 different Pixar short films for students to watch and put into sequence order. The best part of it is they are short and sweet. Long enough to assess your students, yet short enough to keep all students interested.
Hop on over to our TPT store to grab our Sequencing Review packet for primary grades.

Happy Back To School!