The Teaching Oasis

The Teaching Oasis was started in 2010 after my father passed away. I started creating and selling resources as a way to cope with the grief I was experiencing. In January of 2013, I decided to turn it into a nonprofit and started offering all of my resources to teachers across the country for free.
Continuing to pay for a web domain and hosting was no longer feasible. But still wanting to share as much as I can, I decided to load everything from www.teachingoasis.com (now inactive) into folders on Google Drive (now inactive). 
Unfortunately, Google Drive has changed the way it shares documents. I get hundreds of requests every week for access to documents that, in the past, had a direct link where you could download it with no issues. I've done some research for a free database I could use to continue to share my work, however, I haven't been able to find a web document hosting platform that doesn't require a paid subscription.
Over the next few months... many months, I'll be transferring the documents over to Teachers Pay Teachers so that there can be a more reliable way to access the resources. Here's the link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/The-Teaching-Oasis. Feel free to bookmark it and share it with others!
 

Made it Monday: Summer Recap

Next Monday teachers in my district head back to school for Teacher Work Week. I've enjoyed not teaching summer school and allowing myself downtime to reflect on this past school year. I've also created some amazing memories with my family and friends. I've been blogging regularly during the summer and hope to continue once the school year starts. Let's take a look back at all the creations I've shared this summer...
6*20 SMORE Folder Insert- This week I shared the new design for my SMORE Folder's (Take Home Folders) this year. 

6*27- Long Range Plans- This week I shared my long range lesson plans for the upcoming school year. 

7*11 Hydration Station- This week I shared an idea about creating a Hydration Station in my classroom this year. Hop on over to this post for a copy of the sign. 

7*4 & 7*18- Brag Tags- Thanks to my great friend and coworker I jumped on the Brag Tag bandwagon and created tons to share... hop on over to this post for a wide variety tags to use in your own classroom. 

7*25 Student Welcome Gifts- This week I shared the gifts I created for my students. I can't believe I'll be meeting them in two short weeks!

8*1 Parent Resources- This week I talked about the Parent Flipbook and the Parent Handbook I'm sharing this school year. 

8*8 Student Birthdays- This last creation focused on how I want to celebrate my students birthdays this school year. I've got everything ready to go in their cute birthday bags. 

This blog as well as the Teaching Oasis website is supported by donations from readers like you. The website domain, monthly hosting and clip art can become quite an expense, please consider making a donation to keep all this possible. Thank you for your continued support and have a great school year!

Made It Monday 8*8*16

This week I decided to focus on student birthdays. This past year I gave students a card and a gift certificate to the local Sweet Frog frozen yogurt shop. It was pricey, but super easy... when I remembered to go buy them. This year I decided to scale back a bit.

Each student will receive a Happy Birthday Brag Tag to add to their chain.

I ordered these Happy Birthday Wristbands from Teacher Created Resources. Well technically I ordered it with my supply money from school.

I saw this class student birthday card from Teaching Maddeness. I decided to incorporate this idea into my classroom this year. I'll have a class set of these sheets run in color at the beginning of the school year. The day before a student birthday I'll have classmates sign the card so I can have it waiting on their desk the morning of.

This idea came from Doris Young at Third Grade Thinkers, she had cute Smile Treats waiting for her students during Open House. I already had my Welcome Gifts but thought this would be a great inexpensive birthday gift. You can find them at your local Wal-Mart.

In addition to the 1-Brag Tag, 2- Class Birthday Card, 3- Birthday Wristband and 4- Smile Fruit Snacks, we also do the Go Noodle Koo Koo Kangaroo Birthday Hooray during morning meeting.

That's how I'll be celebrating my students this year. We start school in September so I spend the 1st week recognizing August Birthdays. The last week of school I recognize July Birthdays. What do you do for your students on their birthdays?


For more Made It Monday ideas, hop on over to 4th Grade Frolics!

Word Work Drawers

 

My creativity has been in overdrive this summer. I had this idea while waking up this morning. I scored some great Word Work Activity Cards from Cassie Dahl on TpT yesterday. They are no-prep might I add. 25 different activities for students to do during word study. I've seen the large 10 drawer carts devoted to word work and I have one I could use for that purpose but to be honest I didn't need that much space for this activity. Then I thought about the Mini Drawer Labels from Learning in Wonderland and thought... I can use a mini drawer organizer for that purpose.  And so this idea was born...

 

Earlier this summer, while blogging about my Long Range Plans, I discussed how word study looked in my classroom.

 

"Word Study- This year I did something different thanks to my team BFF. Instead of 2 or 3 word study groups I had 5. The Monday Group, Tuesday Group, Wednesday Group... you get the picture. I only met with one word study group a day and all students were on a 6 day cycle. If I introduced the sort to the Monday group, they would take their test next Monday. So it took 2 weeks to introduce and assess all five groups. The Thursday Group's 6 day cycle looked like this:

• Day 1 (Thursday)- Sort Introduction with teacher, highlight features on word cards.
• Day 2 (Friday)- Cut words out, sort, record in Word Study Journal
• Day 3 (Monday)- Sort, record in Word Study Journal
• Day 4 (Tuesday)- Sort, record, word hunt (searching for words in literature that have the same spelling feature)
• Day 5 (Wednesday) Sort, glue
• Day 6 (Thursday)- Word Study assessment with teacher. "



 

I still intend for each group to be on a 6 Day Rotation, it's just now they'll have more word work options. As you can see my drawers are labeled Word Study, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4. I'll look through Cassie's packet and pick out 3-4 activities for each day, I'll run Day 1 activities on orange colored paper, laminate, cut and place in that drawer. Day 2 on yellow paper, Day 3 on green paper and Day 4 on blue paper. In the top drawer I'll keep miscellaneous activities for early finishers or any word work supplies they may need for an activity... haven't really decided yet. So the new schedule will look like this:

• Day 1- sort introduction with teacher, highlight features on word cards, choose activity card from day 1 drawer to work on
• Day 2- cut, sort, record, choose activity card from day 2 drawer to work on
• Day 3- sort, record, choose activity card from day 3 to work on
• Day 4- sort, record, choose activity card from day 4 to work on
• Day 5- sort, glue in journal
• Day 6- assessment with teacher

I've added links above for each resource I used. Cassie Dahl's No Prep Word Work Cards are only $3.00 and Learning in Wonderland's Organization Labels are only $4.00. Learning in Wonderland also included this information about the mini drawers. I purchased mine from Wal-Mart. The 3 Drawer Organizer was about $5 and the 5 Drawer Organizer was about $9.

Made it Monday 8*1*16

In last weeks Made It Monday post I shared about the welcome gifts I made for my students for Open House/Meet the Teacher. This week I want to focus on their parents.

After scouring Pinterest I ran across this cute idea from The Lemonade Stand. "Parents Like You Are So Refreshing!" All I need to do is get some mini water bottles, Country Time lemonade packets and string and they'll be ready to go. You can download a copy for yourself on her blog.

 Also waiting for the parents is the Parent Flipbook I made them. Last year I gave this to parents during Back to School Night, but this year since that night comes 3 weeks after school starts, I wanted parents to have a preview of our classroom from the very beginning. Most of this information is included on our classroom website but last year I found that very little of my parents actually took the time to read up about our classroom. They had many questions that could have been answered if they had just looked at the website!

If you haven't seen Learning in Wonderland's Back to School Flipbook Templates then you don't know what you're missing! This is the neatest little thing I've ever purchased. She even included a step by step video on how to customize it and print it. I created something like this in the past but it was "old school"... a lot of cutting and pasting and copying until it lined up right and even after all that... it still didn't!

Since I'm passing out the flipbook at Open House/Meet the Teacher this year, I needed something for Back to School Night. In comes the Parent Handbook. I got the idea from Primarily Speaking. She included a copy in her Back to School Forms, since I only needed the handbook portion, I created my own. In this handbook parents will find detailed information about:

• classroom communication
• behavior plan
• homework policy
• grading
• assessments
• cultivating leaders
• celebrations
• daily schedule

So what do you give your parents at Open House/Meet the Teacher and Back to School Night?

Looking for more Made it Monday ideas? Hop on over to 4th Grade Frolics!