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Double Down Dice Game for Near Doubles Addition Strategy - Freebie

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Make practicing math facts fun with this double down dice game for the near doubles addition strategy.  Click on the image below to receive your copy of the game for free! This math game helps students practice their near doubles facts. An example of a near doubles fact is 5+6.  They need to use 5+5=10 so 5+5+1=11.  That needs to translate to 5+6=11.   When we played, I had 16 students in class.  This worked out perfectly for rotating partners. I had 4 tables of 4 students.  I paired them up with a partner and let them play for 5 minutes.   After 5 minutes, the students added their sums.  The partner with the highest total was the winner.  He/she became partners with the winner of the other pair at the table.   The non-winners (I didn't call them losers) paired up and played another round.  I continued this until math was over.   We had a short math period this day, so the students really only played for about 25 minutes or so.  They were engaged the whole time and were so sad when

New Site

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I have moved my content over to techieturtleteacher.com .  Please visit my new site instead of here!

Classroom Reveal

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I'm so excited to be joining the #2getherwearebetter classroom reveal party today!  My students went back to school last week, so I've had plenty of time to take some pictures. This is what my room looked like when I walked in for the first time near the end of summer.  All the furniture was in the front of the room where I left it! I spent a little time in my room before I officially had to go back.  All I did that day was set up the desks and move the furniture into place.  I didn't want to spend too much time there because I wanted to soak up my last few days of summer. Look how neat everything looks! And then I spent time setting up my room.  Here is my door - I love turtles and have tried to incorporate it into my room as best as I can!  Each turtle has a name of a student on it. Right inside the door is my attendance graph.  It is on the filing cabinet and in a perfect place for my students to sign in as soon as they walk in the room.

Tech Tip - Desktop Organizer Freebie

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If you want to join the linky, grab the Tech Tip Tuesday button.  Post about a technology tip.  Then link up below! Click { here } to fill out my form if you are interested in helping me improve my tech tips. If you give me an idea of what to write as a tech tip and I actually write about it, you will get to choose a product from my store for me to send to you for free as a thank you present. ***************************** I'm back!  At least for this week!  I've definitely neglected my blog, store, etc due to my wedding.  I still have 4 days to go, but I'm so prepared, I can take some time for blogging. Anyway, remember when I blogged about using on screen sticky notes ?  In that post, you can see my desktop organizer.  Well, I've updated my desktop organizer to make it brighter and more helpful with all the different social media accounts I use now. Here is what it looks like now: I love how bright it is and the different fonts really make it

Tips for Mentoring a Student Teacher - Thanking

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I hope you enjoyed  part 9  of this series about giving feedback to your student teacher.  If you missed it, you can click on the picture above to see all the posts in this series! After your student teacher has spent time in your classroom, it is a good idea to thank him/her for his/her hard work. You can do this with a gift from your students and a gift from you. Your students can create cards, a book, etc for the student teacher.  You can give him/her a personalized gift or you can just give him/her a basket of school supplies. Whatever you choose, make it special for your student teacher. To go along with these blog posts, I have created a  guide .  This guide will be for sale in my TpT store.  It is currently $6.50 in my store!  I am finished adding to this guide for now.  I plan to add more tips to it in the future and you'll be able to get all the updates for free if you purchase it now. What other tips for thanking your s

Tips for Mentoring a Student Teacher - Reflect on Lessons

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I hope you enjoyed  part 8  of this series about giving feedback to your student teacher.  If you missed it, you can click on the picture above to see all the posts in this series! It is very important for your student teacher to learn how to reflect on his/her lessons.  You can help with this process by asking him/her to think about what went well and what didn't go so well.  Your student teacher should think about why things went well and why things did not go well.  He/she should try to keep track of the things that went well in order to do the same thing in the future.  Your student teacher should also think about what he/she can do differently in the future. Your student teacher doesn't need to formally reflect on every single lesson that is taught, but he/she should try to reflect on at least one lesson a day.  You can set up a reflection schedule to make sure that he/she is reflecting on different subjects or just reflect on lessons based on

Tips for Mentoring a Student Teacher - Grading Tips

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I hope you enjoyed part 7 of this series about giving feedback to your student teacher.  If you missed it, you can click on the picture above to see all the posts in this series! Once your student teacher starts teaching lessons, it is important for him/her to learn how to grade.  Make sure you discuss your grading scale.  Do your students receive letter grades, number grades, codes, etc?  Whatever you use, make sure your student teacher understands. Show your student teacher how you keep track of grades.  Where is your grade book?  Is it electronic?  Is it on a website or is it just a program on your computer?  Is it a paper copy?   Once your student teacher begins grading, where do you want him/her to record the grades?  Do you even want him/her to input it directly?  Do you want the grades to be written out on a spreadsheet for you to input the grades later?  Do you just want the graded papers back in a pile for you to record? To go along with th