Treat yourself!!!

6 kid days left... We think we can, we think we can...

After a fantastic long weekend, we are back and trying to finish up the year. Our little kiddos are assessing our hearts out, and are really trying to keep their heads in the game. We had a fantastic field trip to the zoo last week, and we have a little freebie to share. But first. Don't you think it's time we all give ourselves a little pat on the back? We've (almost) made it through another year. So we have a way for you to do just that. Have you heard of Silpada Jewelry? It's definitely a favorite of ours, and we wanted to make sure to share it with all of you!

 

Erin is hosting a catalog party right now, and we knew you'd want in on the action! So click on over {HERE} and shop away. The fantastic thing about this jewelry is that it's all sterling silver, and life time guaranteed, and it's all FABULOUS!  And don't forget to put it Erin's name  (Erin Scott) when you place an order. Then, send us an email and we will send you our amazing new First Grade Common Core Math Assessment for free! It's quickly turning into one of our best sellers, and we'd love to help you get it for free! Make sure to take a minute and treat yourself, but hurry up, the party is closing at the end of the week.

We also mentioned that we went to the zoo last week, and we have a quick activity to share with you if you're still looking for some last minute classroom ideas. We started with the book One Night in the Zoo. 

We read this sweet story, and then the kids did a piece of writing on their own. We had them imagine what they thought happens at the zoo at night. They had the cutest ideas, but dang it! We forgot to pull out the camera!  So go ahead and do this in your class, and see what great ideas your students have. 

 Click {HERE} for your copy.

Need more zoo activities? Make sure to check out our Zoo Map Pack and our It's a Zoo Day Game pack.

We have a few more freebies to share during this crazy busy week, so check back later. Happy Tuesday!

And the countdown begins

Well we have about 12 more days left with our students and A LOT of things to get done! 

Along with assessments and all of the other end of the year items on our lists, we've got a field trip coming up, school wide jog-a thon, and field day.   Although there is a lot on our minds we're still trying to keep some normalcy and consistency in our classrooms as much as possible!

 We've been incorporating pieces of Treasures (our new reading program) into our Daily 5 and we're excited to fully implement Treasures with our first graders in the fall.  We've been creating new word work activities that relate to the weekly sound focus.  Last week we focused on the long i sound (igh, i, y, i-e) and this week our sound focus has been on the long e sound (y).  Below our a few word work items we created for our kiddos.  Just click below the picture and you can get your copies!

Click {HERE} 

Our latest focus in math has been shapes.  Along with a new reading program, our first grade team has been piloting a new math program, My Math, and WE LOVE IT! 

Here's a fun shape activity that we created to use while teaching our kiddos about two dimensional shapes.  Just click below the picture for your copy!

Click {HERE}

And speaking of math, we've just uploaded a First Grade Math Assessment based on the new Common Core State State Standards.  We've have been working on this assessment for quite some time and it's FINALLY done!  

Skills included, but are not limited to:

*Addition and Subtraction within 20

*Fact Families

*Addition/Subtraction Strategies

*Understanding the equal sign

*Number sense to 120

*Place Value

*Greater Than and Less Than

*Addition and Subtraction of 2 digit numbers

*Measurement

*Telling Time to Hour and Half-Hour

*Graphing

*2 and 3 Dimensional Shapes

*Halves and Fourths

Not interested in standards based on the common core standards.  Our First Grade Math Assessment is another great assessment tool and can also be found in our TpT store!

Click {here} to check it out!

Still need an idea for Mother's Day?

Hope you are all having a fantastic start to the week!  We're having FANTASTIC weather here so we can't complain.  Great weather really helps make a great start to the work week!  

We thought we'd share a few Mother's Day ideas that we are doing in our classrooms.

Fingerprint Bookmark

Here's a cute fingerprint bookmark that could be a gift itself or added to a gift.  

The idea is all over Pinterest, but the link no longer works to the site.  If you search Mother's Day bookmark on Pinterest you should be able to see a picture of how these turn out.  We promise to get a picture up tomorrow of a few that our kiddos created.  

We laminated them and they turned out ADORABLE!

We loved the idea so much and recreated the bookmark.

You can get a 2016 updated copy {HERE}

You might not be able to see the outline of the stem and leaves, until you print.  It is very light in color.

One of our parent favorites is our pen holders that we do every year. Every kid brings in  a jar from home. We then use small tissue paper pieces and attach them with glue. We then have the kids paint over the tissue paper with glue again, before we spray them with a clear gloss. We then attach these sweet little flower tags with ribbons. They aren't quite finished yet, but will try to share pics when they are. They are turning out so sweet!

The last activity we do when we can get kids to bring in their recipes is a class cookbook. We've also done this as a fathers day present at the end of the year, which is quite possibly what it's looking like will happen this year. Friday is coming awfully quick...

We uploaded a template using a simple font, and only Office graphics so that you can change it to fit your needs. You can find it {HERE}. 

 

Here is a template for the poem if you'd like to use it. Grab it {HERE}.

Hopefully you have all found some things you can use at our TpT Store as well! If you haven't grabbed all of your goodies yet, better get on it! The sale ends at midnight...

Have a great rest of the week!

Everybody loves a sale!!!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! 

In honor of all of you fantastic teachers we are having a 20% off sale at our entire Teachers Pay Teachers Store May 6-8, plus Teachers Pay Teachers is also offering and additional 10% off!!!!. Here are the details:

1. Visit our store and receive 20% off everything including our newest addition, our Zoo Map Pack.

2. Enter TAD12 at checkout for an additional 10% off.

Here are some of our newest additions:

Zoo Map Pack

Miss Fact & Mr. Opinion

Syllable Sort

And here are a few items that are great for spring and summer:

May Math Journal Prompts

Summer Game Pack

Ice Cream Addition Timed Test Pack

First Grade Math Assessment 

It's a Zoo Day Game Pack

And don't forget to check out our Memory Books.  Happy shopping!

Our Mothers Day stuff will be up soon!

What we've been up to... and LOTS OF FREEBIES!

We're back... for now anyway. So as we mentioned before, we are now just about done with week 3 of implementing Treasures. Since we've been so busy with that, on top of working on other units, and updating some of our current stuff, not to mention gearing up for the end of the year, we haven't had a ton of time to work on word work for Treasures. We have managed to come up with a few quick things, so you can take a look. We haven't managed to get in many pictures lately, but hopefully you'll get the idea. These activities help to reinforce the vowel sounds of the week. And just in case you're wondering, we started at unit 4 so we may seem off on our time line for the year. We know. :) Click on the links below to get your copies.

Long E Word Work

Stamping OA Words

Read, Write, Create
Long O Cover Page

Long A Word Sort

Long A Build-A-Word

We've also been doing a whirlwind week of studying the earth, and it's different layers. We have some great freebies for these as well, so make sure to check them out too!

{CLICK HERE} for Earth Activities

We are also starting to plan out our last month {GASP} of school. One thing that we love to do every year is our End of the Year Memory Book. Love it? Don't worry, we have it up at out sweet little store! Make sure to check it out. The kids may love this more than anything else we do all year!

Teach Kindergarten or Second Grade? We've got versions for you too!

Check back this weekend for our Mothers Day Activities! Happy Friday!

Umm, it's almost May!!!

In case you haven't noticed yet, IT IS ALMOST MAY!!! As terribly exciting as that sounds, and how ready we are for summer, we have A LOT to do before schools out. So, hopefully you can understand our absenteeism on our little old blog. We are just about to head into our 3rd week of trying out our new reading series for next year, Treasures. We only had a tiny little bit of training, but they wanted us to play with it, and try to teach a unit. Holy cow!!! We are loving having a new adoption, but to just throw ourselves in the middle of it is kind of overwhelming. We've made some quick and easy centers that reinforce the sounds/vowel patterns that we are working on to use during Daily 5 that we promise to share {FOR FREE!!!} later this week. We also have some fun ideas for Mother's Day presents, as well as a great layout for making a class cookbook. We promise to share it all with you very soon! But while we are trying really hard to keep our heads above water, we wanted to share our May Math Journal Prompts with you. We've had several people ask for them, so we wanted you to know they are up. With one day to spare! :) We will be adding June, July and August for those of ya'll who keep on truckin' throughout the summer. So head on over to our store and check them out. We'll be back soon... xoxo

Thunder and Lightning Oh My!

We just finished our water cycle/weather theme unit that we've incorporated into our classrooms and we wanted to share a few thunder and lightning activities that we did last week with our first graders.

Click {HERE} for a great resource that has "kid friendly" info about thunder and lightning.

Here's a great non fiction book. There is quite a bit of information, so we read bits and pieces to our first graders.

Since we've been talking a lot about author's purpose, we discussed with our kids that the author wrote the above book to inform.

We also read the book below and talked about how the author wrote this book to entertain.

After reading and discussing thunder and lightning we showed our students pictures of lightning Click the picture below if you would like a PDF of lightning pics!

Just in case some of our students hadn't heard thunder, and to remind them of the sound it makes, we downloaded thunder sounds and saved them to our laptops to listen to after we displayed the lightning pictures.

Finally after watching and listening to thunder and lightning, we made lists on our whiteboards of adjectives that describe thunder and lightning. Then our first graders filled out the worksheet below by writing an adjective in each box that describes thunder and/or lightning. Just click the worksheet below if you'd like a copy!

We ended the week discussing the different types of weather that we've learned about and our first graders completed the writing below. They wrote what type of weather they liked and why it was their favorite. Example, "I like sunny weather because I can play outside with my friends." Just click the worksheet below if you'd like a copy!

We've also added our newest addition to our TpT store. It's a new weather themed math and literacy game pack that includes a nonfiction printable weather book too!

Included in this game pack are:

*48 addition equation cards (double digits 10-20 plus a single digit number)

*48 subtraction equation cards (minuends 10-20 minus a single digit number)

*24 telling time (hour and half hour) cards

*24 counting coins (pennies, nickels, & dimes) cards

*36 spring phrase cards

*198 sight word cards.

*Weather themed special cards are included as well!

If you'd like to check out our Weather Themed Math and Literacy Game Pack, just click the picture below!

Have a great week!