Jan'etta Hayden : March 2015

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Spring Break

I am on Spring Break but I'm not at the beach! Instead, I am propped up on the couch recovering from surgery. I am having melancholy feelings about my children being grown up and out of the nest. I miss them! I don't often have long periods of time alone and when do I make more TpT stuff. My husband won't let me do any work around the house until I am fully recovered. My lesson plans are reaping the rewards of this!! I am, as you can imagine, making more stuff for my classroom.

I am sure my second graders will come back from spring break raring to go. We were working on money before I went off to the hospital. Of course story problems aka word problems are always difficult for students to master. I've made a packet that includes 40 problems. Half of them are for addition and the other half are, of course, subtraction problems. All of them are about money!

Click HERE to download now.

There are 20 Addition Problems

There are 20 Subtraction Problems

Of Course this packet is completely NO PREP!

To download click here.

I have another week of my recovery time so I may be posting more than usual! Thank you for your time. I hope that you are having or have had or will have a wonderful Spring Break 2015! I am

Cordially yours,

Jan’etta

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Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Time is Relative

Sometimes a week at school feels like three. Do you know that feeling? And then at other times, a week at school flies by because you are so busy teaching and doing paperwork and conferencing and making lesson plans and grading papers and decorating bulletin boards and logging students onto computers and relogging students onto computers and dealing with lost teeth and broken shoelaces and principal's visits to your room and DRA and DSA and Dibels and Common Core and AR goals and Pajama Day and more paperwork and interims and report cards and more conferencing and RTI and character education and bus duty and copy machine issues and and and and.

However, this week has flown by for me. First of all, our son, Saul, is home from Florida for his Spring Break. I have missed him so much that it seems like he has just arrived when he is about to leave. This has been the fastest week that I can remember. I rush home everyday just to be in the same house with him!

In addition, I am having surgery on Monday and will be out of school for three weeks. Preparing four weeks worth of lesson plans is not a walk in the park. I'm planning for four weeks because you never know and because I don't want to arrive back at school with no plans. I also had to put in grades and prepare report cards because I won't be there when they go out.

Our daughter's car was hit from behind during all of the ice and snow and I have had to deal with the insurance company. I also had two root canals! So far this week, I haven't had a lot of sleep.
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However, I did manage to finish a couple of school things! Yes, I know, that is not a surprise to anyone.

I tutor several students after school three days a week. Although they are in the second grade, they aren't on second grade level for some things. Hence, the need for tutoring. The largest obstacle my little pupils have is reading. In math, word problems are of course an issue.

I have made a set of word or story problems with a cute Spring theme. The problems are considered first grade level. However, we all know that children learn and develop at different stages so the grade level is pretty arbitrary.

We've been working on story problems in my classroom and with my tutoring group using my Word Problems for March packet. You can see it HERE.

Anyway, here is the new math packet I put together for my classroom as well as my extra kiddos.
Although the theme is April, it is relevant for all of the spring months.

We have moved on to Two-Step Word Problems. Of course, the entire packet is NO PREP!

There are 20 addition Two step word problems featuring all of the a key words for addition.

There are also 20 subtraction two step word problems containing all of the subtraction key words.

You can head on over to my TpT store to download this 40 page packet.

The link is HERE!

Thank you for giving my blog a bit of your time. I appreciate it. I am

Cordially yours,

Jan’etta

I would love it if you would follow me on any or all of the following:

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Thursday, March 5, 2015

Snow Days in March

Hi Friends,
I can't believe the number of snow days we have had here in Arkansas. We usually have one or two. This year, however, we are on our sixth in my district. I'm in one of the largest districts in central Arkansas and I know that the rural districts have had even more snow days. The legislature
has passed a bill that we can go an extra hour each day for a week to make up one snow day. I don't know if my district will choose to do that and I'm sort of 'on the fence' about it. I don't want to
go to school until June 5 either. My feeling about snow days has always been a positive one.

When I was a little girl, if there was even a hint of snow (really we mostly get ice) my brothers and
I would be awake watching the news just waiting to see "Arkadelphia" fly across the bottom of the screen beside the stationery title "School Closings". Our bedtime was 8:30 pm but we could still barely get our eyes open at 6:30 am the next morning. But on a possible snow day, our eyes were wide open staring at the tv screen praying that we were going to be out of school. My mother made snow days fun (she made everything fun). We would play in the snow and break off icicles to munch on. When we came in, she might have homemade cookies or cake or some other delicacy. We might play board games, watch game shows, or play other things, or read. Anytime we wanted to go back outside, my mother was good with it. It was just a cozy day. For my own two children, I copied many of my mother's ideas. We would spend the day doing basically whatever they wanted. They would play outside in the snow. They especially liked jumping on the trampoline when it was covered with snow.

Now that my children are both in college and not living at home, I am not so excited about snow days. That is not to be confused with 'I don't like snow days". I still like them, I just liked them more when I got to spend them with my children.

Now, back to my original idea about when we should have the make-up days. I don't like going to school into the summer, but the students can have outdoor recess then! They are tired of being trapped inside and they need to run and play. On the other hand, staying an hour later has its own set of issues. For the upper grade teachers the extra hour would be helpful in preparing for testing. A colleague asked me this question. "If we all stay an hour late, what will the specialty teachers do?" My idea on that is that they can have extra classes. They won't want to hear that! Ha. I don't blame them, either. But I guess if we all are having an extra hour of work, that means ALL of us.

Well, whatever the district decides is what I will do. And as with anything, I'll do my best to make it work!

We moved into a new house recently. I have spent my snow days this year unpacking and organizing. Our son is coming home for his spring break so I want it to look like 'home' for him.

I did however find some time to make some new resources for my classroom. The one that is most relevant for now is a March pack. It is a set of word problems. There are 20 pages for addition and 20 pages for subtraction. It is absolutely NO PREP! Take a look at it and please let me know what you think. If you like it, even if it isn't right for your class, please post it on Pinterest or some other social media to share with other teachers.

Click HERE to go straight to the source

Although these word problems are on a Commom Core Standard for first grade, we, as educators know that it is appropriate for some second graders and some kindergarteners. It is also appropriate for RTI or enrichment. It is NO PREP! You just PRINT and GO!