6th Grade Homework Strips! Save on Copies and Save Trees!!! :)

I've made something I am REALLY proud of, so, I am linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for:

I know it's not Monday, but I am just so excited early because.....Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I finished it!!!!! :)  I blogged a bit about this on Friday, and I have worked really hard to get the FIRST set up!!!  I only have one Monday Made It (well, I've made more things, but I don't want to clog the link up. :)  I just want to put what I am most proud of!).

and only :)

I am SO PROUD of this set!  I started this system of homework strips this year in my classroom.  This is my first year with a COPY LIMIT (AHHHHHHHH!!!!).  My problems:  I do not have enough text books for my 6th graders, and I also can't write down problems on the board every day for them to copy for homework (such as word problems!) so I had to come up with some sort of system to save paper, and here it is!  HOMEWORK STRIPS! :)  This also lets me differentiate, too.  Normally questions 6-10 are harder, so if I have struggling students I can just assign 1-5.

I have fit at least 4 different nightly assignments onto one sheet (not in this case, but all of the rest have 4 :)):

Then I copy ONE sheet for my students every Monday-and tah-dah I am DONE with my copies for the week, and I have saved HUNDREDS on my copy count, paper, and saved trees!  

I then pass out ONE strip to students each day, and they complete them in their homework notebook:

In the morning as part of their warm ups, they compare answers with the students in their groups.  This gets them talking, discussing, collaborating, and peer tutoring.  I LOVE it!  Then as a class we discuss any that they had trouble with. This saves ME time, too because I am not wasting class time going over MILLIONS of homework problems while the students sit there NOT engaged with what I am doing.  It also saves time because I do not have PILES of their homework to review!!  It keeps THEM more organized because they don't have homework papers shoved EVERYWHERE!!!  It also allows the students to be creative. I personally don't mind if the students make it colorful, do their work in pen, etc.  Whatever makes them want to make sure to do their homework. :)

This has been one of the best systems I have ever integrated into my classroom.  You personally wouldn't have to use the strips for homework...you could use them in a variety of ways!

-exit tickets

-enrichment/review

-quick quizzes

-bell work

-independent practice

-in their interactive notebooks as a reflection

I hope that you enjoy this idea, and if you're a 6th-8th grade teacher I hope that you can use these in your classroom!  Just click HERE to find it in my TPT store! Be SURE to follow me while you're there also, as I will be continuing to put out the rest of the CCSS in homework strip form for 6th grade.  If I get ambitious I will start to put out other grade levels as well.  If you do not use the CCSS, this packet includes things like:

*GCF/LCM

*Absolute Value

*Add, Subtract, Multiply, Divide Multi-digit Numbers

*Positive & Negative Integers

*Coordinate Graphing

Also, don't forget to stop by Simone's Math Resources for a great giveaway!!!  I'm one of the shopping sprees for tomorrow (9/15), so stop by to enter!!! :)

Five for Friday! Games, Science Labs and More!

Happy Saturday (this is become my new trend!)!!  Maybe someday I will link up again with Doodle Bugs on a Friday. :)  I hope that you all had a great week!  I am still in LOVE with teaching middle school!  We have been having SOOOOOOO much fun!  I can't wait to share my Five for Friday with you!

 The first thing that we did this week to reinforce our understanding of finding the difference between positive and negative integers was to play a little game that I made for them.  They HONESTLY had a BLAST with it!  It also gave the students a lot of practice with adding and subtracting on to either positive or negative integers.  They almost forgot they were doing math! :)

 The class honestly kept asking to play this game every day ALL week long...no joke!!!  They thought it was HILARIOUS when their money total was in the negative (I guess I have more to teach them ;) ).  You can grab the game HERE!

If you are currently doing positive and negative integers in your classroom, you might also like:

 The second thing that we did this week that was a TON of fun was our flower dissection lab in science!!  I did it twice with two different classes, and when we did it, I used two different flowers for each class.  One class a student even brought a flower from home.

Before this lesson we had learned about the different parts of the flower, the students drew their own flower and labeled the parts to put in their science interactive notebooks.  We also completed Case 4 of the Great Plant Escape with their Chromebooks.  The students used their notebooks during the lab to help them identify the parts and sort them onto their sheets.

We used roses AND lilies for the lab, and had a local flower shop donate them! :)  Personally I liked the lilies better because they could see the parts a lot better...however, I learned an important lesson about lilies from flower shops...and taught my kids when I learned, too.  When the flower shops first get the lilies they take the anthers off to keep them blooming longer.  The sepals are also off, so we had to do some improvisation when we sorted the parts. :)

Either way, the students had a GREAT time, and they are all ready now to take the parts of a flower quiz on Monday!!!

If you're interested in this lab you can find it HERE.

 I teach two sections of math, and one section of science each day.  It works out well, because for my first class I make an anchor chart for their interactive notebooks (which they create in their own notebook), and then for my second math class we create the anchor chart in my example interactive notebook.

We had fun this week with the checkbook activity deciding what to buy and spend money on.  We also had fun making up our own absolute value word problems (bottom left).  After we designed our anchor chart, we broke off into pairs, and the students wrote and presented their own story problems.  I told them NOT to worry about the realistic part of the question (if you want to jump out of a plane and land in the water 45 feet below sea level--that was fine!) because I was more concerned that they knew it was more about each situations distance from zero than anything.  They turned out really cute!!  I should have taken some pictures of their finished products.  They are already teasing me about how I take pictures of EVERYTHING. :)

 My teammate this year and I work so well together!!!  We are on the same page with a lot of our beliefs in education, and we both work hard to make sure that our students feel cared for and know that we believe in them.  I couldn't have been paired better this year, and I am very blessed.  

We do this behavior baseball program on our team, and when students have less than three strike outs for the week, we reward them during our enrichment time on Fridays.  This Friday we played a Minute to Win it game. :) I meant to take pictures, but we were so caught up in FUN, I didn't. :(

Just a reminder if you don't already follow me on Instagram, please do:  @immixingitupinmiddle.  I post often on their during the week with what we are doing in our classroom, then on Fridays or sometimes in between I will write up a summary of our week.  I always follow back.  I do have my account set to private (just because I teach middle school! :)) Don't forget to check out the You Oughta Know Blog Hop this week, too!!!  Lots of GREAT ideas!  I wrote about how to SAVE ON MAKING COPIES!!!!! :)

You Oughta Know About...SAVING ON COPIES!!!!!

Happy Saturday!  I am so excited to link up with Jasmine from Buzzing with Mrs. McClain for a You Oughta Know Blog Hop!!!

Ok, so this is my FIRST year since I have been teaching (11 years!!!) that I have a COPY LIMIT!!! This is ALSO the first year that I am teaching middle school (math AND science), and I have 27 MORE students than I am used to...so needless to say I've been STRESSING about the amounts of copies I can make (interactive notebook, classwork, homework....) that could equate to hundreds of copies a WEEK.  However, I have come up with a few ideas this year that are saving me on a LOT of copies!  I thought that you all "oughta know" about them!!

First, all of my bell work, some classwork, and ALL formative assessments are done on students personal dry erase boards:

I love being able to quick check classwork, and they LOVE using their markers to make it colorful and fun!!!  All I did was use a sheet protector that the students clip into their binders.  I let them pick what color paper they want as their "board", and they keep a little tissue and their marker in their binder so they are ready to go when needed! :)

The second thing this year that I LOVE is my homework!!!!!  I was stressing before school even STARTED about how I was going to NOT go over my copy limit, yet still be able to assign homework!  That's when I thought of a solution!  Homework NOTEBOOKS!!!!  I had the students decorate them all cute (it's amazing what kids can do with duct tape now!), and then each day they post a STRIP into their notebooks to do that night for homework!  

 I encourage them to make it fun, colorful, etc.  I don't care if they do it in marker, pen, etc.  I want them to ENJOY their homework, and whatever it takes to keep them engaged I'm game.  :)  

Essentially, I can fit 4 days worth of homework on one sheet, so in the course of a week, I only make the 60 or so copies that I need for the week ONCE.  I just cut the strips as  I go each day, and they just glue them into the notebook that day.  Here is ONE example of a strip for the week:

I love this because I can use story problems, differentiate, etc.  I have put these strips in one bundle for SUPER cheap! 

It would work well for grades 6-8 (as a spiral review or as a new concept).  You could use this as your bell work, classwork, quizzes OR homework! Remember you can print ONE sheet/student/week!!!! :)  I'll continue to grow the units as the year progresses, so if you're a 6th grade math teacher, this could be the idea for YOU!  I will post them by standard group, starting with part of Number Systems first. :)

This is 15 letter sized worksheets worth of work condensed onto 5 pages!  So instead of making one copy for one student, you are essentially making one copy for one students ONCE A WEEK!

I am in the process of adding some Number Systems spiral review strips (50 more questions-5 strips) into this packet, so be sure to get it while the price is LOW, and then you can upload the file again when new strips are added! :)

I also have a Interactive Notebook Practice Strips for Ratios and Proportions, too! :)

 The third thing that I do to save on copies is to do a LOT of group work/pair work.  I can thank my Kagan training for this one! :)  I use Rally Coach a LOT, and my students know if their name is on a paper with another students, they BETTER agree with the answer that is on that paper.  If not, they need to talk to out and figure out what they agree on.  This took some practice, and MODELING to get it they way I want it, and with a new class and a new grade it is still a work in progress, but you need to stay persistent to what your expectations are. :)  I used this recently with my marshmallow lab & flower dissection lab (which I will blog about sometime this weekend!):

Students had ONE paper for the group to make their recordings, but they ALL needed to agree on the answers.  

If you like THIS Oughta Know tip, you will LOVE the tips from my other bloggy friends!!!!  Head on over and check them out!!! :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Sunday Scoop

Happy Sunday!  Ready to link up today with a brand new linky from The Teaching Trio.

What are YOU up to this Sunday?

Five for Friday on a Saturday! :)

Whew!!  It's the weekend!!!!  This back to school stuff makes it a lot harder to keep up with the blogging!  Yikes!  I need to get with the program. :)  So...better late than never I guess with my Five for Friday link up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching!

First, I am still LOVING my decision to move to middle school!!!!!!!  LOOOVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

I really also LOVE my principal!  She is AH-MAY-ZING!  Just working for her alone will make me a better teacher (and no I am not just saying that because she could read this someday if she ever finds out I'm a teacher blogger!  ha ha). 

 It is so nice to teach two subjects, and it makes it a lot easier to "go all out" with two as opposed to teaching EVERYTHING.  I still stand by my initial observation of that 6th graders are not that much different than 4th graders.  So, if you have ever wanted or thought about giving it a try, I HIGHLY recommend giving it a shot!!!! :)

Friday, after our quiz we played my FAVORITE game.  I received a class set of this game as a gift from a wonderful parent a few years ago, and I LOVE it.  It makes the perfect emergency sub plan, too!!  It's called Equate!  It's like Scrabble only for math!   They have it on Amazon if you want to check it out! :)  I used it with my 4th graders, too!

My class has also been really enjoying their science lab, and I am also enjoying teaching it!!!!! :)  This week we are doing a parts of a flower dissection lab, so I created our lab materials for Monday!

I'm super excited to use it, so if you are interested in using it, too, check it out! :)  I'll be posting pictures of how it goes this week!!! :)

I don't know if anyone else out there has a COPY LIMIT, but this year is my first year with one, and I am FREEEEEEAAAKKKKIINNNGGG out!!  

I'm used to making anything I want, but now I'm stressing.

So, this year I am thinking of ways to save on my copies (and also saving trees in the process!!!).  

With middle school I have been doing a lot of bell ringer activities.  I used to use Accelerated Math as my activity, but we do not have that anymore, so I had to get creative.

Sooo...I put about 5 math questions on the board, and in the first week of school I gave ALL of my students a clear sheet protector and a piece of their choice colored paper.  I asked them to also have a dry erase marker.  This goes into their binder.  So, now instead of making copies of work for the students to do, they can do it on their boards!

I also now can use these for another way to do formative assessment or classwork! :)  Hooray for saving trees (and paper!).  I am also VERYYYYYYY excited about the way I am doing my homework this year, too!!  I'll be blogging soon about that, so stay tuned!

I FINALLLLLYYY used my sticky note exit board this week!!!!

My class had a ball with this.  They commented on how we needed more different colors of sticky notes!  ha ha.  Plus this was yet ANOTHER way for me to use formative assessment in my classroom!

First Week as a Middle School Teacher with a FREEBIE!

Well, I have officially completed my FIRST week as a 6th grade math/science teacher!!!!  WAHOOO!  If I had any doubts about my decision...they were squashed! :)  I love it!  I learned something this week that were a bit of an epiphany for me:  There was really NO HUGE difference between 4th graders and 6th graders!  They are still sweet, talkative, and hard working. If anything middle school kids get my jokes more. :)  LOVE IT!  If you follow me on Instagram (@immixingitupinmiddle) you saw that I even treated myself to a pumpkin iced coffee on Friday to celebrate!

I thought I would take a moment to blog about what we did our first week of school.  I was really worried about what I was going to do for ice breakers, so I had to come up with some new ones (some of my elementary ones were a little cheesy).  So, I hope that this gives some of you some new ideas for YOUR first week of school. :)

I used some GREAT math brain teasers from Stella's Stunners.  These were GREAT, and the students LOVED them!  We did the toothpick one, and the students had a blast.  Here is a picture of one of the genius ways one of my groups tried to figure it out...

These got my students up and moving around while working with other students.  You have to check that site out if you haven't yet!!! :)

We did some other ice breakers, like my 4 Corner Power Point get to know you activity:

They had a BLAST going to "their" corner of the room and mingling with the other students there to talk about WHY they chose the choice they did.  Here is an example slide:

We also put together our classroom puzzle for each class period!  This was a lot of fun, too!!

I copied all four sheets on different colored paper so that each puzzle could be four different colors.  The students filled out the pieces as a group, then mingled around the room looking for the different pieces to their puzzle. Once they found their group, they glued it together and presented it to the class!

 You can get this activity for FREE in my TPT Store!!!!

The last activity that we did that was SOOOO much fun was our Marshmallow Tower Introduction to the Scientific Method for our first science lab!

This went AMAZINGLY (aside from the sticky hands from the marshmallows!!!).  The students worked together really well, and had some amazing team work in the process.

Our tallest tower was 32.5 inches tall!!  Can your class beat that? :)

Last weekend I had a contest to have one lucky follower win a BUNDLE of my back to school goodies!!!  The winner is...
a Rafflecopter giveaway 

Congrats, and be sure to e-mail me so I can send you your prize!!! :)

September Currently

September 1 already!!!!  CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY!  So, I'm linking up with Farley over at Oh Boy 4th grade for her AWESOME Currently linky!!! :)

Listening:  "Make Way for Noddy" has become a staple in our house ever since Baby B was a baby!  We happened upon it accidentally when he was in his exersaucer, and I went to the other room to grab something.  He was crying, it came on TV, and he IMMEDIATELY stopped (we have it on video!).  It has worked like a charm ever since, and sometimes we have it on in the background while he naps (as in right now).

Loving:  My decision to move to middle school.  It was a hard one, and I successfully survived my first week, and I LOVE it so far!!!!!!!!!!!

Thinking:  I have SOOOOO much to do. Like a TON. It's one of those days where I'm wondering if I will EVER get it all done.

Wanting:  To be done with it all!  That way I can enjoy my Labor Day with my family!

Needing:  To get all the above mentioned DONE, and then to get caught up on my blogging.  I'm all ready to talk about my first week in middle school, so look for that later today! :)

3 Trips:  Ok, if I could go ANYWHERE, I would first choose Australia.  I have ALWAYS wanted to go there!  I would then choose to go back to Italy.  I loved it there!  Lastly, I would love to go to the Galapagos Islands!!!!  Every time I watch a show about them, it makes me want to go there so badly!  That's the science/nature person in me!!

What are you CURRENTLY up to??