Here's What I Bought...and WON!

Hi Friends!

Did you shop 'til you dropped?  I thought I made all of my purchases until I started reading your blog posts from this linky party...

Hosted by Blog Hoppin'

and then I had to go back and shop a little more!

So now I'm joining in on the linky fun!

Here's what I bought for this year (I linked all of the titles to their product @ TPT):

Beginning of the Year Activities (1st Grade)~Friends in First by Lyndsey Kuster

Beginning of the Year Assessments~Let's Start at the Very Beginning by Lyndsey Kuster

Lyndsey is face behind the blog, "A Year of Many Firsts"...one of my many favorites!

Charlotte's Web~A Book Companion and Craft by Funky Fresh Firsties

She's another one of my favorite bloggers...

And then there are these diddys...

Alphabet Banner by Kelly McHaffie

Science Blasters! By Kim Adsit

She blogs with her daughter at:

My Data and Learning Portfolio by Reagan Tunstall

Maps, Mateys and Mischief~A Pirate Mini Unit by Michelle Oakes

Michelle blogs at:

And finally, a few more...

Quick Checks~1st Grade Common Core Assessments! By Susan Jones

Susan blogs at Thank God It's First Grade!

Back to School Literacy Pack~Back to Business by Sarah Paul

Reader's Theatre~Partner Plays for Beginning Readers (Back to School) by A Teeny Tiny Teacher

Everyone knows Kristin, right?  Pretty amazing teacher!

Math Printables and Assessments by All Students Can Shine

Here's her fantastic blog so you can start following her...

Listening Activities for the Common Core: Listen Up~the Bundle by Fluttering Through First Grade

Here's their awesome blog...

Whew!  That was some fun shopping!  I can't wait to use these in my classroom this year!

Oh!  I almost forgot! 
 I won something!  I actually WON!  
Kathy @ First Grade a la Carte is throwing her annual Back to School Bash! You should check her out if you don't follow her already!  She is one of the first bloggers I started following and she just seems so real, genuine and down to earth!  

She's giving away freebies each day!  I won her Back to School Bundle that has 6 beginning of the year activities and 2 new activities!  I'm super excited!

So!  There you go!  I'm busy juggling classroom time with pool time and trying to get everything finished...or at least make it look like I'm ready for the kids by the middle of next week.  That's my goal at least.  I'll post pictures once I'm presentable!  :)

Have a great day!

Valentine's Day Recap and a Freebie!

Hello Friends!

Well...we're home with another snow day today!  I believe this is #9 for my district.  We haven't had a normal full week of school since before Christmas!  It's hard to believe, but it's true!  No wonder we're all a little "off" lately!  Hopefully winter is just about done and we can try to get back to normal.  There's so much to do before our year end assessments (which are scheduled for the first week of April...)

I know it's late, but go ahead and file this for next year...I did Valentine's Day in my classroom a little different this year...and it was fun for all of us!

The first thing I found was Natasha Wing's The Night Before Valentine's Day for $1.00 at a discount store in my town called Ollie's.  I thought, why not and purchased a book for each of my kiddos.  They were so excited!  There's something about giving everyone the same book...it's their own, but they can still work with a friend and not have to argue over who holds the book or turns the pages.  :)

 I then decided to make up a few activities to go along with the story.  To be honest, I had fluency checks and progress monitoring to do and needed a few things that my children could work on quietly while I was doing 1:1 assessments.  Even though I developed these activities for my children to do with their own copy of the book, they would work well as a whole group activity too.

 

At the end of the book, the principal arrives to the classroom dressed as Cupid with a surprise for the class.  I made up a worksheet that the children could create a Cupid costume for our principal and draw what kind of surprise they would want from her.  Their drawings were super cute!

If you're interested, I uploaded a FREEBIE in my TPT shop that includes all of the activities we used to go along with The Night Before Valentine's Day!

A Little Fun with Natasha Wing's The Night Before Valentine's Day!

I also found some fun "Minute To Win It" games with a little Valentine flair on Pinterest!  These were so much fun!  You can just search for "Valentine Games" and a ton come up.

Heart-a-Stack...we used the Heart Marshmallows to see how many we could stack.  Definitely harder than what we thought!

Valentine Shoot-Out...We used the Heart Marshmallows and tried to toss as many as we could into a small bowl.  (I love this first picture...true teamwork...if you could have only heard them helping each other.)

The Cookie Shimmy...the children had to start with a cookie on their foreheads and shimmy it down to their mouths without using their hands...too fun!

And of course, our Valentines...I love watching them open their Valentines.

Hope you all survived your Valentine's Day!
Take care!

Pirate Literacy Centers and Snowy Ice Cream

Hi Friends!
We're in another deep freeze in my neck of the woods.  School was canceled again this past Friday and the weather isn't looking too promising for the beginning of this week.  I like snow, I love a white Christmas but I'm kind of over it…bring on the spring!  A nice warm spring!

A few weeks ago I posted my Pirate Literacy Centers in my TPT shop.  I was in need of some simple activities that my children could do in small groups while I was testing so I whipped a few up for us.  We were supposed to work on them this past week, but we only had 1 3/4 days of school…so they're now laminated and ready to go for this week.  I thought I'd give you a close up look at them so you know what we'll be working on.

Pirate Punctuation
The children will match the sentence to the correct punctuation.

Pirate Contractions
The children will match the cards to build contractions.

Pirate ABC Order
The children will will use the three sets of cards and put them in ABC order.

A Treasure of Compound Words
The children will match the cards to build compound words.

Pirate Rhymes
The children will match the words that rhyme.

Noun and Verb Sort
The children will sort the cards by nouns and verbs.

 They're pretty basic because I wanted the children to be able complete them with little help from me since I'll be testing each of them 1:1.  Each activity has a worksheet for the children to record their answers…and I can hold them accountable for their work.  
Click here to find my Pirate Literacy Centers in my TPT shop.

Being snowed in, has given my plenty of time to get lost on Pinterest…did you see this one?

I thought I better try it out on my own first...

and it's pretty tasty!  

The recipe above made about 2 cups of ice cream.  If we ever get back to school, I think I want to make this with my first graders.  They'll love making their own snow ice ream!

Keep warm!

Ta-Da!!!!

My tree is finished!

I totally had to delegate the leaf making to my mom....I just had so many other things that I needed to work on to get ready for my kiddos.  I told her I wanted the leaves to be whimsical...but not like the palm tree from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  I purchased about 4 1/2 yards of two different shades of green felt and she brought her needle and thread and went to town.  The grass is just that "fake" grass carpet you can get at Home Depot.  I love it!  I think the kids are going to be totally pumped!  Here's a couple of close-up pictures:

Mom folded the felt in half so that we could cut two leaves at the same time.  
She then stitched "some texture" onto the fold.

The leaves were super easy to drape onto my funky branches.  She also made a leaf to fit around/on top of the trunk of the tree so it would look more realistic.

View from my door.

Gosh I love those limbs!

As I was cleaning and going through piles this week, I found a little STUFFED mouse that I thought would look cute on one of the branches.  I also found a caterpillar...he's in there somewhere too!

While mom was working on the tree, I was still organizing and labeling things.  Every time I turn around there's something else that needs a label!  I worked hard and consolidated my seven piles of piles into one pile!

One table of things to be laminated...

And one area full of storage containers...

Which reminds me...I went to the Family Dollar store and found these awesome wired baskets with handles FOR A DOLLAR!

I am totally in love with them!  I bought four white ones to store my cassette and CD players for the kiddos to use when they're listening to stories and I bought four red ones to store...well just about anything else!

I'd love to post pictures of the rest of my classroom but it's just not ready yet!  I'm aiming to have everything finished by Monday evening so that I can enjoy my last day of summer on Tuesday.  Our district and building staff days start on Wednesday!!!  Summer flew!  Oh!  And my final two principalship classes start on Wednesday too!  Busy week ahead!