Find Your Pot of Gold Giveaway

Spring is just around the corner!  That means it is time to plan for all of the fun spring themed units. My friend, Fern and I thought it would be helpful to start off your spring planning with a $50 shopping trip.  The lucky winner can choose $25 of lessons from Fern's TPT store and $25 from my store.

Fern will choose a winner from the entries on her blog and I will choose a winner from the entries on my blog.  Enter on both blogs and increase your chances of winning!

Here are a few of our spring themed lessons you might want to check out:

Listen & Draw: Spring	Morning Messages:April	Spring Fluency Center
Easter Arrays Concentration, Go Fish & Old Maid Center Games	Easter Fraction Benchmarks Center Game	The Biggest Easter Basket Ever Writing Center

I have some freebies that you can include with your plans.  Click on the pictures below:

FREE: Color by Code:  Addition & Subtraction	FREE: Earth Day Task Cards	FREE: Listen & Draw
FREE: Figurative Language	FREE: Rhyming - Fun with the Cat	FREE: Reading Highway - Reading Log

The winners will be announced on our Facebook pages on Saturday, March 21st.  Make sure you follow our Facebook pages!

Teach123's Facebook 

Fern's Facebook

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sources to make my blog post graphics can be found HERE. Click HERE to read my blog's disclosure statement.

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FREE ST. Patrick's Day Idioms and Test Prep Fun

Are you ready for some St. Patrick's Day fun that also helps with test prep?  Best of all it is FREE!

Hats off to Figurative Language can be used as seat work or set up with a center with the directions sign above.  

There are 3 different hats about a pot like the one above.

There are 3 green themed idioms like the one above.  Students will write the meaning, use it in a sentence, and illustrate the sentence.  

There are also 2 hat themed interactive journal printables included.  One has hat themed idioms written on the hats.  Students will write the definition under the hats.

The other hat is open-ended so you can personalize it to fit your students' needs.

This is your lucky day!  These activities are FREE!

Click HERE to download this.

These activities are a sample of:

Click HERE to visit my TPT store.

Click HERE to check out my post about this packet which also includes a freebie.

Need more tips?  Check out my March Pinterest board.  Click on the picture below.

Fern has a few tips to share with you, too.  Be sure to hop over to her blog!

Each week, Fern and I will share a teacher tip. We love to read teacher blogs and the latest teacher idea books and hope you do, too!  Stop by Fern's blog and my blog each week for our latest tips.  We hope you will share your ideas, too.  

What do you do to make St. Patrick's Day fun in your classroom?

Looking for more ideas?  Click on the pictures below.

An InLinkz Link-up

Sources to make my blog post graphics can be found HERE. Click HERE to read my blog's disclosure statement.

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St. Patrick's Day Treat for you!

Fern and I thought it would be fun to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with Dynamic Duo treats for you.  You get double treats!  Visit both of our blogs to get St. Patrick's Day themed treats.

Click HERE to download your freebie.

This is only free on Thursday, March 13th.

Now go visit Fern to get your second freebie.

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Faculty Social Committee

Does your school have a social committee?  Sometimes it is called a sunshine committee.  This is the committee that sends flowers when someone is in the hospital or has a death in the family.  I thought it would be fun if we share activities our committees have organized.

Luncheons


If you are planning a luncheon, remember the teachers with the last lunch period.  Many times it is "slim pickings" for those poor people.  We tried two different things to solve this problem.  We asked for at least 3 different foods of each category (if you have 3 lunch periods).  We numbered the bowls/containers #1, #2, #3 with post-it notes.  Those bowls were taken out of the frig during those lunch periods.  We also held the luncheons on our early release days.  Everyone could eat at the same time which was a nice bonus.

Another problem we had with luncheons was people who came to the luncheon but didn't bring any food to share.   We found a compromise.  People had a choice of donating $5 or bringing a side dish or dessert.  The money was used to purchase paper goods, drinks, or the main course.  We ordered food like pizza or 3 inch sandwiches from Subway for the main course.

Sometimes we had themes for the luncheons.  We had a baked potato bar for St. Patrick's Day.  This is one of the easiest luncheon to plan and cheapest, too!  Read more about it HERE.

Activities


We organized activities such as:
***Secret Santa
***"You've Been Booed"
***Christmas cookie exchange

Expressions of Support

How does your school show support when a faculty member falls on hard times?  Have you heard the story The Bundle of Sticks? Read about it here:

click

You can show support different ways.  We organized meals on a schedule when a faculty or staff member (or their family member)  was in the hospital. Example:  Kindergarten team provided the meal on Monday, First grade provided the meal on Tuesday, and so on and so forth.  Sometimes teams collected money and gave the family a gift card to a restaurant that delivered instead of home cooked meals.


I asked the teachers on my facebook page if they had suggestions for this post.  Here are a few suggestions:

Tabitha Opio:
*Breakfast with a theme each month
*Cookie exchange at Christmas
*During testing season they brainstorm different ways they can stump the students.
*Teachers get birthday bags, too.

Denise Dormer Dauphin:
*Teams take turns to host a payday breakfast.

HoJo's Teaching Adventures:
*Tree of thanks - each teacher filled out a leaf when they wanted to recognize another staff member.
*She had a principal who gave everyone apples on their birthday.  Another principal gave everyone enough money to buy a pop/juice/water with a little note of thanks.

Kris Weimer Cruzen:
*Faculty and staff members are divided into 8 groups.  Each group is responsible for organizing activities for one quarter.  So, each group is responsible for 9 weeks every 2 years.
*Pot luck breakfast
*Happy hour
*Chili cookoff
*Dinner prior to conference
*Christmas party
*Secret Santa
*Bowling after school
*Trip to winery after school
****Usually has 2-3 activities each quarter

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