Economics Resources & some giveaways!!

Just found out a few hours ago that my county has a 3 hour delay tomorrow. 3 hours?! What is the point people?  Oh well.. my butt will be at school around normal time to get some de-cluttering done!  I guess this makes up for the 3 hours I lost on the early release we were supposed to have Feb 6, but is now taken away because of Friday's freezing rain early release. {Holy Cow, did that even make sense?}

Oh yeah, and I CANNOT believe I have reached 100 followers. Yippee!  I will be hosting a nice celebratory giveaway next week after the superbowl, so be sure to check back.  I love all my lovely followers.  It's like I have a little virtual family :)

Onto the reason of this post... S.S. If you're like me it's the "dreaded" S.S. time.  Yep, S.S. is not my strong point.  Growing up, I really disliked it.  I was never any good at it no matter how hard I studied or how hard I worked.  All those dates and people and laws and blah blah blah blah.   I don't even know why I was so terrible at it.  Starting in 9th grade I had GREAT teachers and I loved them so much.  My world history teacher was actually in the movie, Meatballs!! Peter Hume, he was the Stomach, remember that movie?  Yup, he was my teacher, and he was basically awesome. {R.I.P}.. Anyway, maybe it was my previous awful teachers that just contributed to my hatred of history.  I don't know.. all I know is, I'm not a big fan, and I'm not very good at it.

Lucky for me, second graders don't need to know dates or laws or a whole bunch of people.. I've been warming up to this idea of S.S. being fun!  Pretty much thanks to all you lovely bloggers.  The unit we are currently working on is Economics (yuck!)  I was really dreading this until I found a great unit on TPT by Amy over at Teacher Chick.  It's an Economics Carnival! How fun is that?  Oh and you get to eat donuts during one of your lessons.  Whaaat!? How could I ever say S.S. was not fun? Check out her blog here...

Well- I will tell you guys more about that once we actually get to it.  We just started so we're barely into it but I wanted to share a resource that I made for our unit that is a great assessment tool/study guide.  I wanted to get an idea of what they knew, if anything ..& have something for them to use to practice the vocab. So, one of the upper grades teachers that works with Justin has these great mats that she makes.  You can visit Tammy's Store Here if you are an upper grade teacher and want to check out her mats! I promise you, her products will not disappoint you.  I think I need to stop babbling.. 

Stealing her idea, I made a mat for our own studies!  It looks like this...

It has a second page of definitions for each word they need to know when it comes to economics!!  So basically this is what you can use these mats for.

1.) Pre-Asses: For some units and grades, this is not really necessary because they aren't going to know much at all.  But to preassess, you would give students the 3 column sheet and have them categorize the words into one of the 3 columns.. 1. I've never seen this word before 2. I've seen this word before but I don't know what it means or 3. I've seen this word and I know what it means.  Especially for units of study that are built on in grades before, this is a great way to see what they remember or what may not have been hit.  This is great copying practice too!

2.) Study Mat!  Finish your lesson early or want to leave a little extra time? Early Finishers?? Give students the word mat and have them cut out the definitions on the second mat.  Students just read the definition and match it to the correct word.  Instant easy study activity!

3.) Post-Assessment: You could give students the definition cards and ask them to tell the word or vice versa.  

There are so many things you could do with this mat!  I'm looking forward to using them in my room for many things that aren't just S.S.!!  If you want to give this a try in your classroom... click on the image below to head on over to my TPT store!  Maybe put it on your wish list for the big superbowl sale!  The mat also comes with essential questions that help you focus your instruction! 

If you have a unit coming up that you would want one of these mats for, I would be happy to make one for you.  I would just need the words and definitions you want on the mat! :)

I'll be making more to go along with other units of study.  So if you like it, be sure to check back for more.

LASTLY- Onto some giveaways I was lucky enough to be able to participate in!

Olivia over at Liv2Teach is having a 1000 TPT Followers giveaway!  She's got a ton of different prize packs.

And there are also a ton of prize packs to win over at What I have Learned... You definitely don't want to miss out on an entry for one of those infamous Classroom Friendly quietest pencil sharpeners!! I know I need to get myself one of these!

Alright, y'all.. I hope you've stuck through all my rambling!  If you've made it here, I'll give my economics mat to the first 3 people to comment telling me their most favoritest thing about S.S.!! :)