Greg here - aka fan girl. More on that in a minute. I am sure everyone is extremely busy with lessons, grading, etc., so I will do my best to keep this short. 
On the recommendation of a departing faculty member, I began writing on desks this year. Many would consider this blatant vandalism, but thankfully it involves a thin tip expo marker and a microfiber cloth. The students quickly followed suit.

For my students, this goes in the face of everything students have been told since kindergarden - and they love it! I've been working on cause/effect mind mapping with students (Chronological Reasoning). I thought it was a perfect time for them to work at their desks.

Students quickly grasped their markers and worked together to create some impressive connections that clearly demonstrated their contextual understanding of the issues. 
In the examples above, we were discussing the contributing factors leading up to the War of 1812. I followed it up with a modification of Jeff Mummert's game jam concept. (Full Disclosure: Jeff is a friend and colleague at a neighboring school.) Students needed to take a movie, utilize its characters, and modify the plot to represent the history.

I tweeted the board work to the writers of The Lego Movie - Chris Miller & Phil Lord. My students were blown away when Phil Lord retweeted their work! 

I was rather enthusiastic when I shared the news with the students. Although they were extremely impressed, it earned me a new name: fan girl.

Best,
Greg

P.S. Don't forget to enterBecky's giveaway! 

Hi everyone, it's Becky! Some of you may know that I love to sew in my free time (what's that?!).  Yes, it has been hard to come by lately, but I actually found some time this weekend while Urban was napping and Greg and Grayson were working on Gray's Halloween costume. So I pulled out my sewing machine and whipped up two cute pairs of Halloween baby legs! One of the pairs will be going to the newest (and cutest) member of our extended family. So while that one is being shipped to Oregon, the other pair is just waiting to be shipped somewhere! 

For those of you unfamiliar with baby legs, they are little baby legwarmers. Great for keeping in the diaper bag for cold restaurants, layering on cold outings, or to put on to look cute with a onesie! (Or as Greg says: when you don't feel like putting pants back on the baby!)

And since babylegs aren't really "teachery" (just super cute), we are also giving away a $10 TPT gift card! All you have to do is enter using the Rafflecopter below! The giveaway ends October 3rd, at 12AM! Good luck!
~Becky

Hi everyone, it's Becky! I wanted to share my newest product that was inspired by this cutie!

Gray had noticed all of the Journeys High Frequency Word Parking Lots I was creating for my first graders and asked if he could play one of them. Knowing that he wasn't quite ready for those words, I started thinking about the skills he is working on with his daycare teacher to prepare him for kindergarten next year. Although he is solid with his capital letters, he is still a bit shaky with his lowercase letter recognition. He also needs more work on his numbers, so I decided to create a set of parking lots geared towards the Pre-K, K, and 1st grade intervention audience. 

I wanted the game to be able to grow with Grayson and other students, so the playing cards not only have the matching letters, they also include picture cards so the kiddos can identify the beginning sound in the picture, and drive their car to the letter that makes that sound. This allows for differentiation in the classroom for your various ability levels. The playing cards for the number game board include numbers, number words, and pictures using ten frames.

Greg and I sat down and played the lowercase game with Grayson this weekend while Urban was napping, and Gray loved it! The best part was that he didn't even know he was practicing his letters! He loved picking the cards and reading the letters for us so we knew where to drive our cars! He even got fancy and started doing three point turns to back out his car! After we finished our first game, he immediately asked to play again. He also thought it was pretty cool to have a game at home like I have at school! I have a feeling that these game boards will be going to school with him sometime soon!

Be sure to check out this product in our Wim's Winners TPT store!
Until next time, let the Chuck Trucks roll!
~Becky