Linky, Linky, Linky - I Love Linky Parties

Well it is Friday at last.  What a whirlwind of a week.  So I thought I could link up with THREE linky parties since I should have a lot to post about from this week.

The first linky party is from Amanda over at Teaching Maddness for the Fashback Friday.

Second over at Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday - what a cute name for a blog!

Then lastly and a little early (Sorry but I had to squeeze this one it because I am so proud of all the projects we did this week.) is Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It.

 

Here we go.... wheeeeee!

1.  On Monday we start the day finding out our art teacher has the flu so no art.  Quick on my feet  I jump on Pinterest to take a look at my boards for something crafty (I am so not an art teacher but crafts I love!) to do.  Hmmmmm  it has to be easy to pull together since I have 19 pairs of eyes waiting for something magical and something I can use in the hall for our New Family Open House which is on Sunday.  Ha!  Martin Luther King's birthday is on Monday so over at The Bubbly Blonde Teacher  I found an MKL project with a freebie from tpt.  Love it!

Here is some of my kids' work below the spheres (I will explain the spheres in a minute)....

2.  Then on Tuesday we found out our Spanish teacher had the flu, so no Spanish.  Ugh!  Well back to Pinterest and I found this adorable snowman door (There was no link so I could not give credit.) that I just had to put up for our open house on Sunday which went with our "Winter Wonderland"  theme.  The kids made the snowflakes for me to use.  You can't see what I wrote on the black bubble but it is "Baby, Its cold Outside."  The funny thing is I tried to make it a think bubble but one of my fifth graders told me it looked like the snowman was tooting black toots.  So I removed those quickly laughing my head off.  We ALL laughed our heads off! Laughter is suppose to boost immunity so we should be able to keep this yucky flu bug away with all our laughing about snowman toots.  Any little bit helps. 

3.  Last night was Science fair that I co-chair.  Oh Boy what a job.  It is hard enough getting my fourth and fifth graders to turn in their projects by the due dates but it is even harder to coordinate all the little things that make the event run smoothly.  I did have one amazing mom that was a true miracle The kids projects were AWESOME.  I was very proud to call them my students.  Here is a few... oooh are they blurry - sorry!

Acorn Germination

Geothermic Heat

4.  Then we finished up presenting our biome balls.  Biome Balls are a 12-sided sphere where each group of 3 students is assigned a biome to research the animals, plants, climate, location and fun facts of that biome.  The kids really enjoy this project and it is an easy way to wrap up the unit on biomes.

 

 

 

5. I also checked my fourth grade students' comprehension on multi-digit multiplication using partial products and the area model (Common Core) but over half bombed so I know what I am teaching or rather re-teaching next week.  Ugh!  Oh well not everything can go as smoothly as I like. 

 

How was your week?  Come link up with some great linky parties and take a look around.  I already found some great ideas for indoor recess on Collaboration Cuties.

 

Have a great weekend,

TPT or Teacher's Notebook Help!

I need to ask my blog followers who have a TPT or Teacher's Notebook store for some help.  I am trying to open either a TPT or Teacher's Notebook store but I have a strange question.  I have made a few things and want to make a few more but....

If you use Microsoft Office or Powerpoint to make your documents for your store can you use their (Microsoft) clip art or fonts?  I have tried to Google this question but have not really found a direct yes or no.   Also do I have to give Microsoft credit somewhere on my document?  I know if I download "free" clip art or fonts that say they can be used in commercial work I just have to give them acknowledgement in my document and link them back to their store or website. Right? Any help is very much appreciated. I have a tendency to be a rule follower.  Don't all teachers?

 I hope everyone is getting back into the groove of things.  This very long week was a tough one.  Christmas already seems like months ago not just a few short weeks.  I am now wondering how long until spring break?  Ha! 

Happy Friday!

Ewwww this is sooooooo.............. COOL!

The title was the exact response my fifth graders gave me when I told them we would be dissecting owl pellets or better yet owl puke!  When we were studying food chains and webs right before Christmas break (Gosh that seems like such a long time ago.) we wrapped up the unit with dissecting owl pellets.  The kids loved this activity.  I had one student tell me with a lot of enthusiasm this is the BEST thing we have done in fifth grade!  Here is some of the pictures....

Some wanted gloves some did not.  They glued the bones onto a black piece of paper.

They found a skull!

We were able to do this activity for 2 days, they were so in to it!

I used this really cute owl pellet packet (Pictured in the last picture.)  from Lapbook Lessons.  Plus it is free!!!!!

There is a problem with the link.  Scroll down to the Owl Pellet booklet and then click on the individual pages under the picture to print off.  Those still work.  Enjoy!!

Adding A Scroll to Button To Your Blog

I have been trying to figure out how to add a scroll to top button on my blog. I really like when other blogs or Pinterest have a button that all I have is click and the page scrolls to the top. Easy Peasy! Many of the other bloggers were helpful but..... they tell you to design a cute button first. Ugh! No designing yet for this girl I just want to add a button. Nothing fancy. So I found this blog Cheers to School where she gives you step by step with pictures how to add a button. Yahooooooo! Guess what? It worked, it worked! So I wanted to share my awesome find.

Here is a screen shot of my button.

Steps to adding a scroll to top button... if you need pictures here is the blog Cheers to School.

1. Go to your blogger dashboard, then Dashboard, then Edit HTML

2. Hit Ctr+F (command and find) the following code in your template: (This did not work for me so I scrolled down until I found what I needed) 

</body>

3. Under </body> copy and paste the following code:

<style type="text/css">

#w2b-StoTop {-moz-border-radius: 5px;-webkit-border-radius: 5px;border-radius: 5px; width:100px;background-color: #EEEEEE;background-color: rgba(238, 238, 238, 0.6);filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorStr='#99EEEEEE',EndColorStr='#99EEEEEE');text-align:center;padding:5px;position:fixed;bottom:10px;right:10px;cursor:pointer;color:#444;text-decoration:none;border:1px solid #C9C9C9;}

</style>

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<script type='text/javascript'>

$(function() {

$.fn.scrollToTop = function() {

$(this).hide().removeAttr("href");

if ($(window).scrollTop() != "0") {

$(this).fadeIn("slow")

}

var scrollDiv = $(this);

$(window).scroll(function() {

if ($(window).scrollTop() == "0") {

$(scrollDiv).fadeOut("slow")

} else {

$(scrollDiv).fadeIn("slow")

}

});

$(this).click(function() {

$("html, body").animate({

scrollTop: 0

}, "slow")

})

}

});

$(function() {

$("#w2b-StoTop").scrollToTop();

});

</script>

<a href='#' id='w2b-StoTop' style='display:none;'>Scroll to Top </a>

4. Click save your template and Ta Da!  You have a Scroll to the Top button!

 

Thanks again to Cheers to School.