Target Finds

Yesterday school let out at 1:30 because (wait, you’ll never guess?!) SNOW was heading our way.  Sure enough right around 3:30 it started.  As much as I hated to see it, it was so pretty.  It was the steady, medium sized flake kind that doesn’t go away very quickly.  It snowed a good 4-5 hours and the ground and roads were covered.  I prayed for a delay, but to no avail school was cancelled.  Most of the time we would say YAY! but this means Saturday school and my Saturdays are already pack with softball tournaments. So that either means no school or no softball, unless the Saturday they pick just happens to be the ONE Saturday we have off between now and the end of school!

Well after an amazing appointment with the chiropractor, I headed into Target for 1. water and 2. Dt. Dr. Pepper. Did I go directly to the beverage section…. NO!  I walked around that entire store! I did get the drinks but also some pretty awesome stuff for my room.  I’ll be turning this receipt in to PTO!  Thank goodness for them.

These are all of my finds:

My favorite Valentine’s Snack is red and pink funfetti cake mix.  I will be whipping up a batch for Monday’s “Special Snack!”

Also for Monday I bought the necessary Conversation Hearts, but they are the Sweetheart kind and they are Sparkly. YAY!  Maybe they will taste a little better than the chalk kind.

   

These little gems were in the dollar section for $2.50.  Not only will they help decorate my cupcakes, but they will be Brain Sprinkles for my kiddos. This idea cam from Sarah at First Grader… At Last.  She uses confetti, which I love but right now we are loving to eat our brain sprinkles when we are Super Thinkers. I love the different colors and the kids will be excited for some new sprinkles.

{note: I realize, a photographer I am not!}

I bought 2 packs of these blank note cards.  I’ve got an awesome project in store for these that I will post after V-Day. I didn’t want to get snowed in without the necessities so I picked up a new pack of markers and crayons. Is there anything better?  

PAPER, PAPER, PAPER!!!

I found the clip board in the dollar section …. it was the only one.  I bet some other teacher gobbled those up in a heartbeat. The scrapbooking paper was also a $1.  I picked up a pack of cardstock… and my FAVORITE find of the day was: The HOTTEST pink notebook ever and inside………………………………………………..>

GRAPH PAPER!  AMAZING! It serves soo many purposes. I love how neat it keeps your handwriting and how your drawings always look so much better.

We just started learning about money, so I picked up these bowls for a whopping $1.99 for 6 for students to store their play coins in during lessons.  Its so much cuter than a baggie.

Another find I was super excited about were these plates:

Are they not perfect for place value? Ones, Tens, Hundreds? and then the big slot would be for putting the number back together or to break it apart!  I can’t wait to incorporate these into my math stations.  Of course I had to get one for the girls and one for the boys. These were around 2.50.

I thought it was a extremely successful random shopping trip. Its amazing what you can find when you are thinking out of the box.

Happy Snow Day Y’all!

I will prob. be posting a LLLLOOOONNNNGGGG overdue wedding update where in a bit.

Laura

Reading Street Review Week

PRINTABLE UPDATED…silly contractions…I forget all the time. I am not sure how I expect my firsties to remember.  I will fix the poster tomorrow at school.

After six stories in our reading series, we have a Theme Launch/Review Week.  It is also a week to test benchmarks, sight words, and skills that were taught in the unit.  We reviewed –dge words today with this badge activity.  I made a poster and we found all of the –dge words together.  EAch student got a chance to underline one of the words.  Next I passed out individual “invitations” and we read it by using the strategy, “I DO! WE DO! YOU DO!”  After reading, students took highlighters and highlighted all of the –dge words. Then they sorted them by vowels and recorded on the sort sheet.

{Click to Download}

{Click to Download}

The Very Grouchy Ladybug Time Activity

We read Eric Carle’s The Very Grouchy Ladybug which I am sure is a staple for every teacher that is introducing time.  Students had an individual Judy Clock to use during the story and different tables showed different times on their clocks throughout the story.  After reading the book I made this poster:

The students had a recording sheet that I just whipped up with some cute clip art from scrappin doodles. We did the first line together and then the kids did the next line with their groups and the last two lines own their own. I also incorporated the poster and the printable in centers this week!  {Click on the picture for the printable.}

Easy Peasy

Telling Time

We have telling time to the hour and the half hour down pat, but telling what time of day it is …is a WHOLE different story.  We started with what time school starts and ends. 8 and 3 for us.  Today I asked one of my lower kids what time school ends and he said 11:30…WhAt?????? I know that I have mentioned that a time or two much less the class schedule that we refer to several times a day! So needless to say that is what we need work on.  I sent home a digital clock from a mailbox magazine and asked students to record what time they went to bed.  When they brought them back we graphed the results on the board and talked about various times we ate supper, played, did homework, and finally when we went to bed.  Today the students graphed the data and answered some questions that went with the graph.  Click on the pictures below for two downloads. 

Realia from Last Week

So I am pretty sure that realia is a made up word since when you type it the red squiggly lines show up underneath it!  But if you went to The University of North Alabama and had Dr. Goodnite for Social Studies (undergrad and grad) then you KNOW what realia is.  It’s a word that she made up that means artifacts or examples and if you save her notes from undergrad then you won’t have to take them over in grad school because it’s the EXACT same class!  I digress…. so this past week has been so productive.  I have had several absent and I have missed them but it is amazing how much more you can get done with four absent. Together with Abby’s penguin 5 five day planner and Deanna Jump’s Penguin unit on TpT my kids were in penguin heaven! Please don’t judge the drawings haha!

    

and my absolute FAVORITE activity was the one from Abby and DeepSpaceSparkle.  I only had 13 students one day and I thought if I am gonna do it TODAY IS THE DAY! and we DID IT!  We painted…. not water paints, but real paint with real paint brushes.  I was a BRAVE girl!  I wish that I would have taken pictures of the kids with their bowls of paint and all of the different paintbrushes.  Better yet I wish that I could capture the kids behavior during this activity, put it in a jar and bring it out when the weather starts to make them go APES! I never heard, I can’t do it…mines ugly…can I start over… all things that I hear when we draw or use markers.  EVERY single student loved their art and I loved it too!  It was sooooo satisfying to see how happy the kids were.  They were sighting facts about penguins and their habitats while we were painting and it was one of “those moments” when you know that teaching is what you were made for!

 

Two more activities: time and Abby’s contraction kids.

The clock is a paper plate with yard sale dots and arrows from Word. * pre measure the arrows…. I did not so that’s why they look kinda off.  I was EXTREMELY specific on modeling where the dots should go.  We did 12 and 6 first and then 3 and 9 and then filled in between.  Students had to label the hour and minute hand.  The square piece of paper says My clock says it is _______________.  Later in the week the pieces of paper came off and were replaced with a letter and students had to record the times in a center. Good fun practice!  We did hour and half hour even though the ones in the picture are all hours.

CONTRACTIONS!

I loved Babbling Abby’s contraction kids but I added my on little spin to it.  My kids love to play a game we call Mix and Match.  I am sure that you do a variation of it in your classroom.  I print off cards for each kid so in this instance one child will have a card that has: is not and a child that has : isn’t.  I’ve also done it with –er and –est words.  I play music and the kids mix their cards by trading with each other. The rules are NO running and you have to trade even if you have already traded “a million” times. After the music stops the pairs find each other. We did it about five times and the last time the pairs got to sit beside each other and USE MARKERS whooo… to decorate their kids.  Then they glued the pair together and we hung them up!  Great involvement activity.

Y’all keep checking back this week.  Lots of printables for time and Unit three review for Reading Street.

Have a Happy Week! Laura

Meet the Teacher

   

Cara, over at First Grade Parade is having a Blog Party so that teachers can find other teacher blogs that we will L.O.V.E.  I can’t wait to learn from and use the ideas from all of these other great teacher.

 

A little bit about me:

That’s me on the left in the blue!  I have been teaching four years.  I started out in 5th grade and then moved to 6th {Yuck!}  Last year I taught Kindergarten and thought I had died and gone to heaven, until I moved to first grade… AAAHHMMMAAAZZZIIINNGGGG the difference a year makes.  I love love love first grade!

I am getting married to this super cute guy this summer and yall I CAN NOT wait!  We have been together foreva and I love him.

 

 

 

{Q & A}

Q: What would you be doing if you weren’t a teacher?
A:  I would definitely go back to school, be an intern for Martha Stewart, and make LOTS of money doing all things crafty!
Q: What are your hobbies?
A:  I coach softball and volleyball. I also help my good friend on the weekends doing flowers for weddings.  Along with teaching I guess you could say that all of my “hobbies” are jobs!  lol I love to read but it consumes me until I get the book finished, so reading is usually a summer only hobby.                                                                   
Q: When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A:  Im that kid that “Always wanted to be a teacher.”  I used to doodle newsletters. I never would have thought at 8 years old I could make a Miss Hill’s Highlights on the computer!                     Q: What are your guilty pleasures?
A: Bubble Pop App on my phone, sleeping for as long as I can whenever I get the chance, oreos and milk, and TJMaxx              Q: What is your biggest fear?!
A: Spiders, snakes, and crunchy bugs.  ew!

Sadness is also really scary for me!

Q: When you’re on vacation, where do you like to go?
A: Beach Bound!  Being from Bama it is just so close and I HATE being cold.  I never want to go anywhere cold. Ever.

Q: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
A:  Have confidence.  Nobody likes somebody who’s cocky, but nobody likes the whiner either.  I am still working on the no whining, but hopefully I will get there one day.

Q: What do you value most in others?
A:  Realness.  Please Stop. The. Fakeness.

Q: If you could choose one of your personality traits to pass down to your kids, what would it be?
A: No kids yet, I’m gonna try to perfect some of my personality traits before kids!  Hopefully, I will pass down the importance of knowing Jesus and being a good Southern Lady!    
Q: If you could have lunch with anyone in the world….living or dead…who would it be?
A:  The girls from Southern Wedding Magazine, Dixie Carter, and Emily Post! Southern and Classy at its best!  Of course we would all drink sweet tea from a mason jar and wear a wide brim hat with a down right cute sundress!

Now tell us one random thing about yourself:

My claim to fame is that when I was little I won a gold medal for LEvel 4 State Gymnastics on Beam, two years in a row!  RaNdOM!

It’s the Love Month

Since it is the Love month I wanted to post a few of my favorite things that I LOVE and CAN NOT live without:

STORAGE TUBS!  This is just one of the walls in my classroom…. LOTS and LOTs and LOTs of storage tubs in LOTS of colors…. LOVE

Sharpies and Bic Markers

  

They make my posters AMAZING eye candy!

Pocket Charts and Organizational Holders… in every size and color! 

                

Archer Farms Cinnamon Vanilla Nut Coffee…  This stuff is Heaven in a Cup! 

Along with this cup of joe I have to have a Dt. Mt. Dew every morning!

 

 

 

Dry Erase Markers:

Again, in every color.  Right now my favorite thing to do with these right now is to get a plastic plate and let the kids make words during reading, practice their spelling words during reading seatwork or free time.  The kids are loving “Playing Teacher” with their markers and plates.

 

There is more on the list of love, but I’ll leave some for later. What I am having is a love/hate relationship with Google Documents!

I am going to leave you a little surprise at the end of the post!  Hopefully you will see a printable for a badge I used with our decodable today.  The kids read the decodable, circle the –dge words, and then write the words.

What can you not live without?