Virginia Bloggers Blog Hop: Spring Edition!

Welcome to Virginia!

                     Virginia Bloggers Appreciate Y-O-U!!

A lovely group of Virginia bloggers would like to show our appreciation of you by extending a bit of southern hospitality.  You can follow along the blog hop to visit 10+ Virginia teacher blogs for terrific teaching tips and fun freebies to help get through the last couple of weeks before summer break.  Thanks to Andrea over at Reading Towards the Stars for the button! :)

The end of the year always brings review and end of year tests.  One thing my grade level does this time of year is a China/Egypt rotation.  It's one of my favorite units and there's so much to cover about these ancient civilizations!  So, each teacher takes an idea or concept and teaches it in a 25 minute block.  Each class rotates to each of our five teachers.  To motivate students to behave, listen, and participate in these fun activities (because face it, at this point in the year, they are "done"), we usually gave each an index card with their name on it and each teacher stamps it as they go out the door to the next classroom.

I am the teacher who, always always always forgets to do those darn index cards until the kids are lined up to start!  So, one thing I offered to do for my team this year was to make a passport for each child.  We could have it duplo'ed and it would be something more than an index card that at one point or another, got lost or left in another classroom.  I could add some cute clipart to it and make it more "fun" for the kids!

So, here is my Egypt/China one:  (pretend it's copied double sided)

Now, everyone doesn't do Egypt/China like good ol' VA (or teach 2nd grade).  So I made a "generic version" that we'll use at other times of the year.  This is the one I'd like to share with you.  While you are more than welcome to download the Egypt/China, you might be more interested in this one!

Knowing that each school is different with different numbers, the second page ("stamp page") varies, with anywhere from four to eight stars for stamps, depending on your number of rotations/classes. 

I hope you're able to use this for your reviews!  It could also be used for stations within your classroom as well.  Really, the possibilities are endless :)  I hope you enjoy and find it useful!

Be sure to hop on over to the next blogger for the next freebie/tip! :)

 

Virginia Blogger Meet Up!

I was so excited to be invited to a bloggy meet up!  I have to admit, I've been so jealous of other bloggers, where they're meeting in Texas and Chicago and such.  Earlier this year, I was proud to display the button to the side and link up with Fifth in the Middle as a VA blogger.  

Unlike the rest of the country, here in Virginia we are sticking hard to our SOLs.  (Yes, we get the joke and often retell it!).  While Virginia likes to brag that our standards were some of the basis for the Common Core, we are only an affiliate state - we support, but don't follow, in other words.

So, we have some weird ones out there - life cycle of the white-tailed deer in second grade, for example, in lieu of frogs - so I always love to get comments on TPT about following the standards. :)  

Anywho, thanks to Karen over at Mrs. Stamp's Kindergarten for inviting me!  If you are a VA blogger and would like to join us, it's going to be in Northern Virginia at Potomac Mills (of course!  I think there's a Lakeshore store somewhere up there as well, but that might be Fredericksburg....I'll have to look up more details on that.  Better start saving my money!).  I'm taking a buddy of mine, Valerie over at Enriching Kinders, and can't wait to meet up with others!  Even if you're an aspiring blogger and haven't quite gotten it started yet, please feel free to come!

Details: We're meeting at 1pm at Bahama Breeze (Potomac Mills, Woodbridge) on July 25th.  I hope to see you there!  Contact Karen for more details and to RSVP!