New(ish) look!

Ok bloggy friends, I've been tinkering around with my blog header all day. I've made a few different ones and I think I've decided on this one {see above}. What do you think?!

I know it's super busy...I tend to over-decorate things sometimes, is it too much?? I'm new to working in Gimp, so a lot of this was just trial and error! I think I like it, but I might change my mind later (ha!)

On another note..eeeeeeee! I'm getting close to 200 followers! I can't believe it! I'm going to be posting a giveaway sooooon, so stay tuned! 

I made up this little decomposing to 20 unit today - I'm going to be using it this week in my Math small groups. It will be wonderful practice for my kinders! I really need to purchase a Scrappin' Doodles license so I can offer freebies with their graphics! {I'm going to wait for my next TpT payout...then my husband can't say anything about spending more money on clipart! hehe ;} He just doesn't understand I NEED the clipart! Who's with me?!

{click here to view on TpT}

 Hope your week is fabulous!

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Celebrations and Cinco de Mayo funtivities!

Hi friends!

This week we've been re-visiting USA celebrations - we focused on Independence Day by making these fun streamers and having a mini-parade around the classroom. {Just a straw with a couple of pieces of crepe paper taped to it} We chanted "Hooray, hooray, USA!" and talked about what it means to have freedom and how we celebrate. How fun!

 

This next week we're going to continue US celebrations and then bring in Cinco de Mayo to finish out the week. We're going to make these cute little flags and do a lot of writing, too!

I made up a cute little Cinco de Mayo unit if you are interested!

The flag from above is included, plus 5 Literacy and 5 Math stations. I included graphing your favorite Mexican food, an emergent reader, syllables, comparing numbers, and nonstandard measuring plus much more!

 {Click here to view on TpT!}

I hope you're having a fabulous Saturday!

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Wonderful Weather Watching Materials! {and a freebie!}

Whew! How about that alliteration?!

Our Reading units are almost over...we've got 2 more days of dinosaur fun before we go into full review mode for the rest of the year (22 days!!)! I can hardly believe it!

So, because we won't be  working on any formal unit, I'm going to incorporate our Science studies into everything else. We're going to be re-covering weather in a few weeks so I thought this would be a fun unit to make! Boy, did I get a little carried away with this one! It's 100 pages but could have easily been more - I had to make myself stop because I really want to make a Cinco de Mayo mini-unit this weekend to use next week. In Texas, this is something we ALL celebrate and I have a very large majority of Hispanic kids in my class so I think they will enjoy it and have a lot to share! I can't wait!

But back to weather... I made this super FUN and jam-packed weather Math and Literacy stations packet for my TpT store. There are 7 Math and 7 Literacy materials to use for stations or small group instruction. I would love you to check it out!

{Click here to view on TpT}

Ya'll...SPEAKING of weather...it is 103 degrees here today! Stinkin' hot outside!! Texas weather in the spring (ok, maybe all the time...) is a little crazy, but this is getting ridiculous! 

If you've stuck with my this far, I have a little freebie for you! Here are some super cute spinners and weather graphs that are part of my weather packet - let me know if you grab them!

{click on the picture to grab!}

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Earth Day fun!

Hi friends!

 I hope you all had a fabulous Earth Day yesterday! We spent ours playing with the family that lives behind us on the new swing set! They have kids EXACTLY the same age as ours - so much fun!!

Because we weren't actually at school on Earth day we started brainstorming about ways to keep our earth healthy last Friday. We watched Brainpopjr.com's "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" video - it's a free one if your school does not have an account. If they don't, I highly recommend looking into it! My kids LOVE Moby!! HERE is the link. 

After watching Brainpop and brainstorming some ways we could reduce, reuse, and recycle, each one of my kids got a sticky note to write a way that they could help - we discussed how any one at any age could help make a difference. 

Today when we got back to school we wrote in our journals about the ideas we brainstormed and then transferred onto this paper:

 Tomorrow we have STAAR testing all day - so I've planned this little craftivity to keep them quiet and busy so we don't bother the 3rd and 4th graders testing! I can't wait to get them all up - they'll be so cute! I got the hand "heart" idea from Pinterest. (I think it was a Mother's Day craft - it looks great on the Earth for Earth Day!)

 This is how I cut the hands -traced my kiddo's hand onto a folded sheet of paper. the pointer and thumb should be touching the folded edge so that when you open it there is a perfect little heart - adorable!

 Here is the finished project - I will post more pictures when I have the rest of them up!

If you'd like the writing sheet, you can grab it by clicking on the picture below. I'm linking this up to Classroom Freebies' Manic Monday - go check out all the other fabulous freebies by clicking on the button!

Oh! My friend Jessica over at A Turn to Learn is throwing a giveaway featuring some wonderful goodies ($50 worth!!!) from lots of blogging friends you might know (myself included! :) Hop on over and check it out- tell her I sent you!
 I hope you have a fabulous rest of the week!

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Giveaway!!

My super sweet friend Anna over at Kindergarten Khronicles asked me to be part of a giveaway - and of course I said yes!!  Arianne at Ketchen's Kindergarten is in on the giveaway, too, and Pam at Can Do Kinders is our wonderful host!! You really should take a look - there are some super awesome goodies to be won!! The giveaway ends at 12:00 EST Sunday night! 

Since Pam is the wonderful host of this giveaway, hop on over to Can Do Kinders to find the links for each entry option. Good luck!!! 

 

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Graphing fun!

Thank goodness it's ALMOST Friday!! Can I get an amen?!

This week has been a little nuts-o in my class, and overall its just been a crazy week! My parents bought us a new swing set for the kids (like, one of those monsters in the backyard- it's fabulous!!) and it was put in yesterday, so we were out there all night! Now I'm covered in a bajillion mosquito bites - and oh, did I mention my 16 month old son can climb all. the. way. up the slide by himself?! It's as tall as me! So scary! Obviously... there will be NO reading this summer while the kids play outside! I'm going to have to watch him like a hawk!

Anyway.....back to the topic at hand: graphing! I love to graph anything and everything - what a great way to teach so many different skills at one time?! Talk about comparative language! We graph our weather every day and I try to incorporate them into my math tubs to keep those kiddos on their toes, but it's been a few six weeks ago since we've officially "taught" them, so I was excited to see that it was a part of our curriculum this six weeks! {sorry for that run-on, whew!}

And...of course, we've all done it - M&M colors..favorite subject, hair color, etc... but because our unit right now is "Amazing Creatures" I thought I'd incorporate a little of everything into Math!

We tasted cinnamon, graham, and chocolate flavored Teddy Grahams and Pizza, Cheddar, and Pretzel Goldfish (I hadn't had the pretzel kind, yum!!)  They all were so excited to check out the different flavors they were perfect little angels the whole time! :)

 Yea... that bear's mouth is all wonky.. I was trying to make it look like the face on the front of Teddy Grahams: fail!

And...of course, I have the little graphing packet with recording sheets and graph labels for you!! Just click on the picture below to grab the freebie!

Have a fantastic week!

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Stations this week - and some advice needed!

I love seeing other teacher's stations and how they organize them - every one has their own unique way of doing them, so I love to share mine with ya'll! If you'd like to read the post I wrote about how mine are organized, you can read it here.

Before I begin - a question - HOW do you have your kids differentiate between syllables and phoneme segmentation?!?! My kids had syllables down pat until I introduced segmenting.  And they are great at segmenting, but when we switch back and forth it really confuses the little darlings! What are some techniques ya'll use to keep them separate?? I would love any tips!

Most of these stations are from my "Dinosaurs, Bugs, and Sea Creatures, Oh, My!" Packet.

Fishy syllables - they did great when I worked through this with them, but eesh! They kept on wanting to say that f-i-sh has 3 syllables (great segmentation, friends! but not quite what I'm looking for! :)

 Rainbow writing spelling words (I swear, that butcher paper is magic! I only pull this out every few weeks so they don't get tired of it it doesn't lose its magic!

 Sight word hunt from Mrs. Patton's Patch

 Dinosaur Scrambled sentences

 Sounding out sneaky E words

I would love to hear any advice ya'll have to share!!

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Giving you a tax break!

Psssst...

I'm throwing a one-day only sale to give you a little break after having to pay those taxes! I borrowed this from Jennifer over at First Grade Blue Skies and she got it from Dragonflies in First. Your favorite TpT sellers might be in on this, too, so go check it out!

I just finished a little Math stations packet - 

it is not themed, so you can use it ALL YEAR ROUND!

 This packet includes these skills:

-"Fill the Jar" counting mats up to 20 - use buttons, pom poms, candies, etc to fill the jars

-2 different activities to go along with the counting mats: 

- Numbers before and after

- Comparing sets

- Reading number words

- Putting numbers in order to 20

- One more and One less dice game

{click on the picture to view on TpT}

I'm really excited to use it with my kids and I hope you like it, too! Hop on over and get it 15% off today!

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Insects!

We've been learning ALL about insects this week - so much fun!

To begin the week we started by reading our big book "Beetles" and making a "can, have, are" chart together. We referred back to this chart during writing this week.

We finally finished our little ladybugs - they turned out so cute! We labeled their bug body parts and to bring in math we labeled the  "halves" and "whole". We wrote about the beetles to go along with the craftivity!

 If you'd like this writing sheet click here.The preview might look funny, but I promise it will print out with dotted lines!

Then to top it off we made some little ants with marshmallows and ants! They were SUPER excited about this and really did well remembering all of the parts of the ant. One of my teammates put together some pictures of the steps and I made a power point to share with ya'll! . This was perfect practice for following (pictorial) directions.

Click on the picture to get the directions!

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