Holiday Gifts! Simple and Reasonable!

I cannot believe the school year is halfway through! WOW, how times flies! Well, I have been thinking about a little holiday gift for my firsties and found these babies at the dollar tree! 

They are travel mugs that have a double layer thing going on! So I made a template, added some hot cocoa and a marshmallow stick and VIOLA! Happy Holidays to my kiddos!

If you would like the template I created it will be up on TpT soon! 

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

Cyber Monday Sale starting NOW!

I am sure that many of you have already been shopping and snagged some great deals at the stores for the holidays, I know I have! Now, it's time to shop teacher style! My store will be on sale, 20% off, starting now until Tuesday night at midnight! Go grab up some of my best selling items! Don't forget to enter CMT12 to get up to an additional 10% off from TpT!

(Graphic courtesy of The School Supply Addict!)

Happy shopping to all, and to all a Goodnight!

Word Work ideas and a Great Find!

It has been a crazy two weeks! I had my very first picture day! Had one of those "I want to go home and never come back here" days. My school had a fall festival on Friday! Today, I had my first formal evaluation. And, today one of my cuties gave me the cutest little gifts!

Every Friday we wear out school shirts! Every Friday one of my cuties comes in with the cutest red and white (our school colors) bows on her head! Every Friday I tell her to be careful because I just might want to take one and wear it! So this is what I received this morning when she walked into the room! I cannot wait until Friday! I may be an "adult," but I am still a total child at heart!

Anyone else out there have troubles coming up with fun activities for word work each week? I sure do! This week it took me a while to come up with enough ideas, but this week my kiddos are so excited! I found three old keyboards in the cabinets in my room so Type your Words came to be! I was at the dollar tree this weekend and found those bingo dot markers, TOTAL HIT! My teammate had these wonderful construction paper crayons! 

They show up so bright and colorful on black construction paper! Those are the kiddos favorites this week! I also did the activity Trash or Treasure for nonsense words! Hop on over to Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten to check that out!

I have also been needing to start read to someone! I have been trying to figure out partners and reminding kiddos who reads when and all that! At the dollar tree this weekend I found these beauties! Are they not the most adorable things ever? 

These definitely saved me time from printing and cutting! All I did was laminate and cut! I hope the kiddos love them as much as I do!

I cannot wait for Halloween! I am at a small school so K-1 is doing a group costume! Here is a sneak peak at what I will be wearing on Wednesday! Some old white vans...turned PINK and SPARKLY!

I hope you all have a great Halloween, come back to check out our awesome K-1 costume! 

We have winners! & a Monday Made it!

Oh my! I am so excited to finally be announcing winners of my week of giveaways!

The Fall Bats - Delighted & Casie S.
The Pet Vet - Rachel M & Yvonnee G.
Pig's Pit Crew - Sum D. & Jen L.
The Cop's Dog - Lori R. & Sum D.
Bumbling Bugs - Lori R. & Ellen Y.

My goal is to email you all by tomorrow or earlier! Congrats and thank you for your continued support!

In other news, I created a Super Pack of all of my short vowel games! It will be on sale until tomorrow at midnight! Click here to snatch it up before this deal is gone! Total savings 50%!

And a Monday Made it! I have had the crates since this summer, My honey cut the wood like 2 months ago, and they are finally completed and in the classroom! My jungle themed crate seats!

The "blue" crates are actually teal, but thank you iPhone for making the color a little funky! =] I hope you all have a wonderful Monday night! 

Week of Giveaways! Short Vowel U!

It is the very last item up for grabs! This is my personal favorite....Bumbling Bugs! Click here to check it out in my TpT store!

You have a little over 1 day to enter all of the rafflecopter giveaways! The Fall Bats, The Pet Vet, Pig's Pit Crew, The Cop's Dog, and Bumbling Bugs! Make sure to scroll down to enter!

I also create a super pack where I combined all of the activities into one pack for a cheaper price then if you were to buy each activity separately! You can check that out by clicking here!

Please enter this rafflecopter to have the chance to win Bumbling Bugs! REMEMBER I do check and make sure you actually complete the task I am asking!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Week of Giveaways! Short Vowel O!

I am having a blast creating a new resources! Doing this week of giveaways has really helped me get things done! So today I have made The Cop's Dog! You can check it out by clicking here!

Enter the rafflecopter below! I will be giving away 2 copies of this on Monday! DO NOT FORGET to scroll down and enter to win The Fall Bats, The Pet Vet, and Pig's Pit Crew! I will also be giving away 2 of each of these on Monday as well!

Good luck and have a wonderful Friday! Be sure to check back tomorrow to see my last creation!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway Week! Short Vowel I!

I am back again with another activity! Today's vowel is short i and so I introduce to you Pig's Pit Crew!  You can check it out by clicking here!

I will be giving away 2 of these beauties on Monday along with my other mini units The Fall Bats and The Pet Vet! Be sure to scroll down to enter those and be sure to come back tomorrow to see what I come up with next! 

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Giveaway Week! Short Vowel E!

Hi all! I hope you are having a great day! I thought I was going to be super productive and go into school today for a few hours...FAIL! Just so happens electrical people were there today and just happened to turn off the power for about an hour or more while I was there. Totally working in the dark, but I made the best of it!

Back to my week of giveaways!

Today I have for you a pack on short e! The Pet Vet! It is very similar to the short a pack just with a few changes! It still has the two games, a recording sheet, and three printables! Check it out in my TpT here!

I will be giving away 2 of these come Monday! Enter the rafflecopter below for a chance to win! Don't forget to scroll down and enter to win The Fall Bats! 

I also had a giveaway the other day for my Which Witch Homophones. The winners are...Ellen, Teacher Kirra, and Lori R. I will be sending you all an email soon so keep an eye out!

I hope you are all having a great week! Be back tomorrow for another short vowel!

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Short Vowel A and a week of giveaways!

It feels like months since I have created a resource! Since I am on fall break I figured this would be the perfect time to start! Most of my kiddos are beginning to master the short vowels, but practicing is always important! So, I started with short a cvc words. Here is what I came up with!

In this pack there are two games, a card game and a board game. There is a recording sheet that can be used with both games. There are also three printables to help work on short a word families and rhyming. Click here to check out the product in my TpT store.

(Image with graphics from Graphics From the Pond and Scrappin Doodles!)

I will be giving away two copies of this on Sunday night! Check back tomorrow to see what I have come up with next and continue with the week of giveaways! Enter to win The Fall Bats with rafflecopter below! 

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Math Ideas & a Giveaway

Yay! It is fall break! I know why people invented fall break, parent-teacher conferences can really wear a girl out! It was well worth it though! I really enjoyed meeting all my kiddos parents! With parent teacher conferences each day Tu-F was early release. I wanted to review a bunch of math concepts before break and do it in a fun way! So here is Tu-F in math!

Last week I was teaching the rule boxes in math, a simple version of input/output. So I made this beauty! Rule Machine generation2! I made one during student teaching and because I had no where to store it at the time and told my cooperating teacher I was going to throw it out she kept it! Here are my kiddos loving our Rule Machine!

They kept asking my when we could use the "math box" again? Too cute! And grading their math tests it seems like it helped a ton on them understand! Yay!

I took a simple home depot moving box and used some wrapping paper! Wallah! Super easy and really kept the kiddos engaged!

This week we did w few fun things! My favorite was our number line practice. We took chalk and went to the basketball courts!

Each student made their own number line and I would write a math problem on a whiteboard and hold it up! All of the kiddos would solve the addition problem by using their number line! It was a fun way to get us outside (which in AZ can't happen all too often, until like Oct/Nov)!

Another thing we did was practice our doubles facts! I do these in the morning with calendar, but I really wanted the kiddos to get more practice with them! I used the common doubles rap and the kiddos loved getting up and singing! Sorry I don't have a picture of this! We also made iPod's for them to keep their flashcards in. You can find the idea here over at First Grade Fresh! My kiddos loved the rap and making the iPods! 

Lots of hands on math this week in my class! What are some of your favorite ways to teach math? 

Now, many of you have been giving away awesome things for Fall/Halloween! I kept thinking I need to make something! Well, I already have and forgot about it! My Which Witch Homophones activities. Click here to check it out!

I am going to be giving away 3 copies to my wonderful followers. The giveaway begins now and will end on Wednesday! Good luck! 

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Subs, Conferences, and Kiddos OH MY!

Hi All! This week has been a blur so far for me. There are so many new things happening and so many firsts for me. To start off I was at a training on Monday so I had my first sub! Ahhh, I had never written sub plans and the whole day at the training I was worried if the sub had enough to do, how were my kiddos doing, what were they doing AHHHH! I hope this is normal! From the notes she left the kiddos did great! Yay!

Then on Tuesday I had my first conferences back to back to back! They are not as scary as I had thought (or had nightmares dreams about!) Thanks to my very supportive colleagues who are keeping my spirits up/giving me advice/letting me vent! I am really starting to feel like a part of the team at my school! Two days done and two more to go! Then fall break!

I hope you all are having a great week! Here is a piece of work from one of my kiddos from the day I had a sub! When I read it today I seriously laughed out loud! Too cute!

(Translation: I did not like Oh No because the pictures were ugly the author would be fired.)

I hop to post soon about all of the fun math activities we have been doing this week! The kiddos and I are having so much fun! Our rule machine, number lines, doubles rap! So much to share very soon! Have a great night!

Sub Plans and Word Work!

I cannot believe how fast time goes! Days just fly by...well most of them! Some days can be brutal! Overall, most have been great and each day just gets better! I had to write my first set of sub plans and I hope they are okay! I do so much on the smart board, my calendar, word work, my mini lessons, my math, my writing...that is almost my entire day! With that being said writing sub plans were difficult because I am not going to assume that he/she knows how to use a smartboard. What do you all have students do when you are out and have a sub?

I really thought back about what we have been learning and did a lot of worksheets that correlated to those concepts. We have been doing tons of work on sums to 10! So the lovely Kathy Law over at First Grade a la Carte did a color by the code with sums to 10! Thank you Kathy there is my math time for tomorrow!

Fingers crossed that my plans are detailed enough and he/she doesn't hate me for not leaving enough details!

On another note Daily 2 has been progressing well in my class. The kiddos Reading Muscles (stamina) is keeps teetering around 18-19 minutes! That is almost 20 so I am very proud! We have also started word work! Yes I know this is out of order, but being a new teacher I was having a hard time getting my students into good fit books! Luckily, my school just got a huge order of leveled books to go along with Houghton Mifflin! Yahoo! I hope to start read to someone after fall break!

Back to word work! I was freaking out last time I posted and you fellow bloggers are so supportive! The lovely Miss Cosby over at You Might be a First Grader... helped me add a station to my word work! Nonsense Word Fluency Mini Unit! Yay!

I have fell in love and so have my kiddos! With the DIBELS Next nonsense word fluency is a huge component and this unit is so helpful with nonsense words!

So far their favorite game is Real or Make-Believe.

I had some foam blocks I got at the dollar store over the summer and I made letter dice. So I had two dice that were the same color and then one that is red. The two dice have consonants and the red one has vowels! It is so funny to see what words they think are make believe and hear little giggles coming from that station during word work! If your kiddos could use help with nonsense words I would definitely recommend this mini-unit! Click here to pick up the unit or here to stop by Miss Cosby's blog!

I hope you are all having a great Sunday! Hope to get back into the swing of blogging and I get more in the groove with teaching!

Wonderful Find for Word Work!

So I have been trying to implement the Daily 5 in my class! We are at the Daily 1 right now doing read to self! Being a new teacher I am having a hard time having enough "just right" books for my kiddos so our stamina was stuck at 7-8 minutes. Then I was told of old Harcourt decodables in the bookroom at my school and picked those up! Yesterday and today my kiddos read for 10 and 10 1/2 minutes! I was so proud of them! I am thinking that the same thing is going to happen with our time going up until we flatten out again. So, I was talking with my teammate and she began word work with her class this week. HOLD ON...first year teacher problem...I have not accumulated all these wonderful materials like stamps and wiki-sticks and so on to have word work stations!

TARGET TO THE RESCUE! Target just put out their new dollar spot items yesterday! I was checking it out and WALLAH! I found sets of alphabet stamps for $1! I grabbed 3 and wish I would have grabbed a few more. They are small, but for a 1st year teacher on a budget I am thrilled with the find! I ran next door to Michaels and grabbed some ink stamps, also for $1. Here is how my sets turned out!

The tub is from Pei Wei. Yes, I still eat like my firsties! I rock the kids meal! When my honey and I order to-go we ask for extra sauce and it comes in these beauties! I keep each one! They always come in handy!

Now I just have to get all of my other stations/centers ready for the start of next week! What are some of your kiddos favorite word work stations? That colorful 10-drawer caddy is sure coming in handy for organization!

Have a wonderful evening and a great rest of the week!

Wow! 1 month down!

Hi all! I am so sorry for being completely MIA for the past month. Being a first year teacher I feel like I have NO time! I am always thinking about something and have feeling like I am always a step behind. This is hard because I like to be 5 steps ahead. I have been on a total roller coaster. I will feel great one day and then come home and cry for like 2 hours some days. So again I apologize for being MIA, I have just been engulfed with my classroom and school.

Anyways...I did have a giveaway winner for my Classroom Friendly Supplies Giveaway! I will be contacting Nichole C. soon!

Also, I need to review the wonderful pencil sharpener!

Good things:
-It is QUIET! I mean any pencil sharpener makes noise, but when I am on opposite side of the room and a student is sharpening their pencil I can't hear it! AmAzIng!
-It makes the pencils really sharp! Luckily my kiddos don't write super hard so pencils are not always breaking, but they stay sharp for days! It is wonderful to not have kids always needing to sharpen pencils!
-It is pretty simple to use. I had not explained pencil sharpening rules yet and one of my kiddos decided to use it anyways! The student figured it out!

The only thing that sometimes is a pain is the piece that anchors it to a desk, doesn't always work. It tilts and the kiddos sometimes make a mess with spilt pencil shavings! No worries! Simple solution: head to local hardware store and pick up a longer anchor!

Thank you so much Classroom Friendly Supplies for making such a wonderful product!

Wow okay I need to get back into the routine of blogging. I miss seeing all of the wonderful ideas and sharing my ideas! Have a great weekend! We all deserve it!

Back to School!

I hope everyone is having a great weekend! I am definitely taking me time and doing lots of thinking. The past two days have been filled with a billion emotions and quite a few roller coasters. Realizing that I am a grown up is scary! 

Anyways...I have been seeing that many teachers are participating in a back to school sale and I figured I should join! 

Thanks Amy for the graphic. 

Click here to head on over to my TpT store to grab up some activities for a deal!

Also, my giveaway for a pencil sharpener is almost finished! Click here to enter my giveaway before it ends!

Have a wonderful weekend!

 

My Classroom!

MY GOODNESS! Tomorrow is my first day! It came too quickly! I am nervous, excited and a million other emotions! WOW! Okay...now to show you how I decorated my very first room! I am so excited with how it came out! Think pink, green, blue and jungle!

View from front door

View from back of the room (I am asking for a new rug for christmas! I want the colors of nature rug from lakeshore!)

My desk area

Happy Helpers board

Up Close of one of my poms

Class library (a work in progress)

Book Bins

Calendar Area (boxes and boxes of books..AHH) 

I am happy with how it turned out! It definitely needed color! The books are so overwhelming! Seriously, I never would have thought that have 20 boxes of books left from the teacher before would be good, wonderful, amazing and drive me nuts! Luckily an amazing woman at my school has offered to help me! Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! If you have any last minute tips for first day please share! Have a great night!

Classroom Friendly Supplies Pencil Sharpener Giveaway!

Who hasn't seen those wonderful sharpeners around the internet? I know I see them all the time! As a new teacher I thought why not check it out! Boy-oh-boy, am I glad I did! The sharpener is wonderful! It is really easy to use and sharpens each pencil perfectly! It is also pretty fun to use!

With that being said I would love to announce that I am hosting a giveaway to win one of these amazing sharpeners courtesy of Classroom Friendly Supplies! Head on over to www.classroomfriendlysupplies.com to check out these amazing sharpeners that you have the chance to win right now! The giveaway will run from today until Monday, August 13, 2013.

Classroom Friendly Supplies

Rules! You cannot forgot about those! You MUST like Classroom Friendly Supplies on Facebook! Troy will be checking to make sure that you have done this before someone is sent a sharpener! You also must have a US mailing address so that the sharpener can be shipped to you! Last, but not least, you get to pick your own color! Good luck and I hope you are all getting as excited, nervous and a million other emotions, as I am!

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Monday Made it #5

Hi all! I know it is late, but I just couldn't miss out on Monday Made it! I feel like I have done a lot of DIY stuff, but I am blanking! I am sure some of it has made its way to my classroom, so I have two simple projects for tonight! Both are pinterest inspired with my own twist of course!

1. Book Hospital!

I have seen many different red containers, but I knew I wanted this book box kind! I have been stalking the Target Dollar Spot and finally found a red one! Yay! I had the scrapbook stickers already and picked up the ambulance at Hobby Lobby a couple weeks ago! LOVE how it turned out! Simple and cute!

2. Hall Pass sign!

Okay, so honestly, I am not so sure how often this will be used considering I have a bathroom in my classroom and I can see the office from my lovely BIG window (basically a window wall)! I just couldn't pass up the sign that I got at Hobby Lobby for a whoopin' $0.60! I already had the wood letters left over from another project and the monkey was from Michaels! Project for less than $2! Score! Now I need to add the clothespins!

Head on over to 4th Grade Frolics to share your Monday Made it!