Ok...let me make a major confession...I am a closet professional wrestling fan. It is my guilty pleasure! J I love it because of its soap opera-like qualities, the drama, the fireworks...not the violence of the sport.



I have been so hard at work already getting materials ready for next school year. I want to share with you a multiplication game inspired by my secret love for wrestling that my students love and beg to play over and over! (Yes love and beg to multiply!)

I call it “Tag Team Multiplication”. This game helps students learn how to multiply using multi-digit numbers using the partial-product strategy. In the Common Core standards, this strategy for multiplying is referred to as “using a strategy based on place value and properties of operations.”

      

But the best part of Tag Team Wrestling is students are actively learning a strategy while they are playing a game...a strategy they can take right into other pencil/paper work! This game is so flexible you can use it in basically any instruction situation. The game changes and grows as students are ready to move into multiplying larger numbers. If you are required a certain number of grades in your gradebook like I am...you can easily grade the recording sheet for the Tag Team Multiplication. Plus it creates a memory trigger in students’ minds that you can refer them back to when they get stuck in solving!

 Click on your choice

     

to purchase a copy of this game to use with your students!

You probably thought I have fallen off the face of the earth.  I haven't...and I have no good excuse besides that I have done basically nothing since school got out!  Well...let me amend that I have done some stuff...I made the annual trek to the Scholastic Warehouse Sale...I watched my 20 month-old strep-py nephew.  We did bubbles, cornstarch chalk painting, watched a lot of Elmo, played trains, and I got thrown up on (...eeww!)  I am totally the best aunt ever!

 

But it is now time for...

Currently!

from

 

I have to thank any of you that have bought my products on TeachersPayTeachers for my iPad because all that you purchased from me last quarter allowed me to be able to afford my pretty new iPad4.  Now I am going to use a Christmas gift certificate to Etsy to purchase the perfect iPad cover to protect it.

 

This past school year, my principal wants us to have common plans in language arts and math.  Not entirely common like all classes on the same page, on the same day, at the same time, but more shared learning experiences across the grade level.  I am on the planning team, and we will be meeting next week to put together the first semester of school.  I have a couple ideas in mind, but it is a bit stressful to try to find lessons that six very different teachers will all enjoy doing.

 

I am in the process of trying to update my classroom website.  I am so proud of it!  I have put in a lot of work trying to create a resource for my parents and students, but it is still a major and ever growing work in progress.  Feel free to check it out...www.misscarltonsclass.com.

 

As far as vacay essentials--I won't be traveling out of town this summer, but, when I do, I do car trips.  I love to listen to audiobooks on long car rides whether I am the driver or not (can't read in the car...I get so carsick!).  Another fun car activity is car singing (and a little dancing) because I'm the next American Idol in the car.  Also when traveling, I like to have a plan...an extremely flexible plan...but some sort of plan of action.  This totally helps me prepare what I want to do or pack or see or shop! :)