Helping Each Other To Help Our Kiddos

As promised, for this Friday's Favorite Find post, we will be doing one of my favorite things!  Considering that "Testing Season" is either newly here or right around the corner for many of us, we all know that the pressure's on - for us and for our students.  If there are ways that we can making preparing for our assessments a little more enjoyable, and therein make taking the tests a bit less stressful, let's share the love!

To start lending a helping hand, I am making everything available in my TpT and TN stores for 20% off  - and making my Common ELA Vocabulary Review Game Pack FREE in my TpT Store from now through this Monday, April 1st (No April Fool's joking going on here...I swear. Lol)!

**What Customers Are Saying**

"Useful tool."

"Another homerun!  Thank you!  I've also subscribed to your blog!  Great stuff!!!"

"Thanks for creating these fun and educational materials!"

Grab it for free while you can!

Please be sure to look around, grab a FREEBIE or two - and share with your colleagues, too!

For the following linky, create a blog post that shares an idea or tip that you've used or found that can help with content review or test taking strategies.  Are there things that you or your school district do to remove anxiety and motivate kids to try their best?  How do you use technology in your classroom to help prepare? Have you created products that make preparing for state assessments more enjoyable - games, activites, strategies and suggestions for home?  A free product, to start, would be awesome...then feel free to add links to a paid product or two as well.  Anything you are ready and willing to share will be greatly appreciated!

This Favorite Find Linky will start a little later this afternoon and be available to link to through April 6th, 2013 - so be sure to come back with a post that shares lots of helpful resources.  Then, look around for some new ideas to take back to your classroom!

To Link-up:

-Grab my Middle School Matters Blog graphic below to place in your blog.

(Please be sure to then attach a link back to this blog post using the above image.)

-Link up your post! :)

I can't wait to see all of the Favorite Finds we can share!  Thank you for trying this out with me.  I would truly love any feedback or suggestions for this Linky in the comments below.

New Puzzle for Suffixes

A few weeks ago I wrote a post titled Puzzle Me This...Prefixes that had some great response.  Many people asked if I would be making any more 12 Square Puzzles, and in fact, I have!  I have now combined the prefix puzzle with one for suffixes (for a total of two separate puzzles) and have them available for free in both of Teachers Pay Teachers and Teacher's Notebook stores.

Click here to download:

TpT

OR

TN

Hoping you like them! :)

A Quote for Short Response Practice

There's no better time than now, as we approach the marathon that is the test taking season, to not only practice strategies for success, but to inspire success as well.

Share this quote, one of my favorites, and use it to empower your students.  Give them time to reflect and make them think about how it could apply to their own lives while practicing RACE - a tried and true "formula" for answering short response questions:

Click HERE to download and print a copy.  Project the quote and use the question sheet (which also includes the quote) for your students' responses.  Share answers and discuss how powerful a positive attitude can be!

I hope that both you and your students find this freebie helpful.  I'm linking this post to Classroom Freebies' Manic Monday for February 11th.  Be sure to click on the link and check out all of the great resources available to you!

Enjoy!