Start Filling Up Your TPT Carts!

Hello Friends!
I'm sure you've heard about the big Teachers Pay Teachers sale on February 27 and 28!  All you have to do is enter the code, TPT3 when you checkout and you'll get 28% off!  I just emptied my cart the other day because I needed a few things right away, but my wish list is always growing, so I'll be purchasing some things I've had my eye on for the spring and end of the year!

Thanks to Meredith Anderson for the sale button!

My little shop will be on sale too, so if you haven't stopped by, go and take a peek!  I don't have a ton in there, but thanks to our snow days the past few months, it has grown a bit!  Here's a link to my shop:

My TPT Shop

Have fun shopping!

Book Bargains!

Hello friends!

I'm sure you've seen this, but just in case you missed it, I found some $1 STEALS at Scholastic's Teacher Store recently!

Our school mascot is a pirate, so I picked up a class set of Corinne Demas's Pirates Go To School to use as my "Welcome to First Grade" treat for next year's class at my Open House.  Now I just have to make sure I don't lose them or forget I bought them between now and August!

Pirates Go to School

 For literature circles next year I purchased a set of Felicia Bond's The Day It Rained Hearts:

The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond

And, then I found Robert Munsch's The Sand Castle Contest:

The Sand Castle Contest by Robert Munsch

Don't tell, but this is going to be the book I'll give to my children at the end of this year.  We usually do a Beach Day and this will be a perfect gift!  I actually bought several more copies to have on hand to use as literature circle books at the end of the year too.

I had to have a little self control (which is not my best quality when it comes to children's books)!  I picked up a few more $1 books for our classroom library too...the books are only priced like this until February 28 so go and take a peek!

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!