Teacher Hackin'

You would think with a long summer at home I would be

bloggin', bloggin', bloggin'.

But nope, I got busy with stuff around the house...

... visiting with family...

... meeting celebs...

... celebrating birthdays...

...and eating donuts.  Lots and lots of donuts.

But a friend gave me a nudge, and here's a quick and easy

teacher hack I came up with and wanted to share:

the part-part-whole tray for manipulatives.

I started with the Ziploc little square thingies and the longer ones. 

(No pic of the packages, because I went delete-crazy with my files.

But, look! They even have those dang little Box Top coupons on them!)

I turned the lids over, put tape to hold them in place...

.... put a piece of duct tape sticky side up, so there wouldn't be a sticky bit

to catch fuzz and stuff...

... made a duct tape cross...

... and reinforced it with more duct tape.

I hot-glued a square of felt to make it a little more fancy...

... flipped it over,

 and voi-freakin'-la,

a little tray for kids to use when learning about

the part-part-whole math strategy!

(The paper mat can be found for free here.)

The containers nest nicely in the lids, but aren't glued down,

so they can be easily stored.

So.  Back on the blogging horse.

Let's see if I can keep it going.

Gettin' My (Teacher) Craft On

It is a truth universally acknowledged that upper grade teachers

 have a lot of correcting to do, 

and lower grade teachers have a lot of fiddly prep work to do.

Which is great, 

because I loooove fiddly prep work!

A recent lesson began, as many do,

 with a find in Bullseye's Playground (formerly the Dollar Spot) at Target.

Hmmm... what could I do with these cute but cheap li'l clothespins?

Well, I could do a matching idea on a piece of paper...

but is there something even more engaging I could do?

Bingo!

I printed out six hedgehog drawings found on the internets, 

laminated them, and wrote uppercase letters on the hedgehog with a Sharpie.

 On the clips, I wrote the corresponding lowercase letters,

 so kids could practice matching them.

Is this as adorable as all get out, or what?

But, I can hear you say,

 "Dang It Minnie, isn't that a lot of work for one fifteen minute lesson?"

Yes, it is.  But fortunately, a sister teacher taught me a neat MacGyver trick.

To remove Sharpie marker from a slick surface,

 just write over it with a dry erase marker...

... and it will wipe right off.

Now I can use these hedgehogs for number matching, word completion, etc. 

Who knows? 

 Maybe if I get transferred to middle school,

 I can even use them for Periodic Table practice.