TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS BLACK FRIDAY BUNDLE BASH!!

I am so excited to be participating in the Black Friday BUNDLE Bash! 

A huge group of teacher-authors at Teachers Pay Teachers 

are discounting up to FOUR bundles on Black Friday only. 

You can pick up my best selling bundles 

at a discount I've never offered before - 

even further beyond the regularly discounted BUNDLE price.

Click on each one for the details!

 

 

To see all the products being offered at DEEP DISCOUNTS

type blackfriday14 into the search bar at the Teachers Pay Teachers site.

Stop back and let us know what product was your BEST deal of the day!

Before you go....

check out this list of terrific TEACHER AUTHORS 

who are participating in the BLACK FRIDAY BUNDLE BASH!

Illumismart	KB3Teach	Meredith Anderson	The Candy Class
Crockett's Classroom	Comprehension Connection	Sandy's Spot	KinderLit
Strawberry Shake	Shelly Rees	Emily Ames	AZSunsetwoman
Kacie Travis	Sandra Farrell	The Teacher's Post	Joyful Explorations
Carol's Garden	Jill Bell	Amy Mezni	Teaching Momster
Yara ESL World	Yara Sea of Knowledge	The Lone Wolfe	Cara Taylor
Creations by Kim Parker	Jungle Learners	Teaching Superkids	Can't Stop Smiling
The Knitted Apple	The Teaching Treehouse	Curriculum Castle	Rick's Resources
JB Creations	Triple the Love in Grade 1	Angie S	Rainbow City Learning
OCBeachTeacher	Mrs M's Learning Resources	The World Language Cafe

HAPPY SHOPPING!!

Using Logic Puzzles to Improve Students' Thinking

My kids LOVE puzzles and games.  Any kind of puzzles, really.  And I love to get my kids to turn OFF their screens for a little while and actually think their own creative and logical thoughts.

That's why I LOVE logic puzzles.

Logic puzzles test students’ critical thinking in a fun way. They challenge students to read, organize and analyze information to solve an interesting problem.
 As soon as a kid is able to read, he can start to read simple clues for beginner logic puzzles. Then they learn how to think about the sentences they read in a new way. The answers to the puzzle questions never explicitly appear in the clues, so they must be inferred. The student concludes that something is true because something else is true, not because it is directly stated.

Solving logic puzzles helps develop critical thinking skills important in all subjects and helps students learn to rely upon their own ability to reason. Students who can solve logic problems have greater confidence in being able to tackle problems to which the answers are not immediately evident.

The inferential thinking needed to solve logic puzzles is so heavily relied upon that it is used in all sorts of important tasks. Entrance exams for college, law school and graduate programs, including the LSAT and GRE, routinely include examples of inferential thinking, even directly presenting logic puzzles to solve.



Logic puzzles can be suitable for young children as soon as they are able to read the clues. By including more variables, puzzles can be challenging for older or more experienced solvers.


I use puzzles frequently in my classroom.  The students LOVE them.  They work hard to finish their class assignments so that they can have the time to solve a puzzle.

I often provide puzzles at several levels of difficulty for my students to complete. They can choose on their own which puzzle is right for their abilities. Sometimes the puzzles are related to the academic information we’re working on in class, but often not. The puzzles are their own lesson – training for the students’ brains.

If you'd like to try logic puzzles with your own students, but aren't sure where - or how - to begin, check out this free instruction guide from my TPT store.  It's got a puzzle included inside too, and step-by-step instructions on how to solve it.

And for more experienced puzzle solvers, try these original puzzles in several degrees of difficulty:

  

Please stop back and let us know how your students like these puzzles.

Fun new social media platform!

Tsu is a brand new social media platform that actually allows you to earn a percentage of the ad revenue it generates. But even better than that is the community that's building there to help teachers with creative ideas, advice, and commiserations. 

Come join me on tsu for fun and inspiring teacher tips, giveaways, and so much more!

http://tsu.co/StrawberryShake

Huge Science Product Sale! Happy MOLE Day!!

What's better than a sale??

A HUGE mole day extravaganza!!

This sale comes to you from a group of dedicated and talented science teacher-authors at Teachers Pay Teachers.  

Thanks to Mrs. Lau for putting this sale together!

Check out some of the creative and inspiring lessons 

and activities you'll find on sale 20% off at my store:

 

  

Let's Get Outside!!

Happy Autumn!! Fall is my favorite time of year - from the start of school to the trick-or-treat of Halloween!

I love SIGHTS of the fall – the vibrant colors, the longer shadows, countless pumpkins and mums on display.  I love the SOUNDS of the fall – the rustle of the trees in the wind, the laughter of children playing in the leaves, the distant honks of geese flying by in formation.  I love the SMELLS of the fall, too – pumpkin bread baking in the oven, the seeds and guts of a soon-to-be jack o’lantern, a nearby neighbor’s fire burning.  I even love the FEEL of the fall – cozy flannel shirts and warm socks, the first night with the heat on in the house, the cool crisp air on my face.


Love. It. All.

There ain’t nothin’ I wouldn’t do to get myself (and my students!) outside in the fall. It’s a pretty easy thing for a science teacher to do. We just plan a day for observation, grab some ziploc bags and our magnifying glasses and head for the fields outside our school.


 I’m pretty fortunate that the high school where I work is surrounded by beautiful grounds with fields, forest trails, and ponds right outside our walls. But you can even do a fairly good outdoor experience in a schoolyard, near a playground, even in the big city if that’s what you’ve got available.


Everyone loves to get outside and explore. It reaches into our souls, almost, and brings us back to the wonders of discovering our surroundings as a child. Even my high school SENIORS have loved getting outside.  They enjoy spending the time together and forming new friendships or sharing fresh experiences with old friends.  and after this fall observation activity they were begging me to run it again with each season. The comments from the students are interesting and motivating.

One student told me, “I never really LOOKED at a leaf before!” And she was seventeen years old. Sometimes we need to just slow down and LOOK.  That's the TRICK of this post.  Get outside and love the fall.


Now, for the treat....

I know I have a lot of elementary school teachers that read my blog.  I love having you here!!  This activity is perfect for ANY age group and at a SUPER LOW PRICE!  Stop by my Teachers Pay Teachers store to pick it up.