Teacher Wish List Linky

I know for sure that I am not the only one, but let me tell you that I have never been so excited for summer break!  While I cant wait for the end of the year, I am getting excited to start all over again in the fall (please tell me I’m not alone) so, I am linking up with Megan from Mrs. Wheeler’s First Grade to tell you all about what is on my classroom wish list for the fall.

I am moving to a brand new school in August, and I have no clue what will be provided for me and what won’t, so I’m sure that my list will be a lot longer in the fall. That being said, here are a few things that I know I won’t be able to live without:

# 1 Flair Pens aka the BEST pen ever

These pens are bright and they write smooth and they just make everything so pretty!

#2 Reusable Dry Erase Pockets

These things are awesome! They are very durable and we are able to save a ton of paper just by using these for our recording sheets at reading centers. 

#3 Ticonderoga Pencils

The World’s Best Pencil …‘nuff said!

 #4 Magentic Tens Frames

I already have a few of these that I use for my small math groups, but in a perfect world I would love to have a class set- because well,  they are amazing! 

I'd love to see what you're wishing for! Head on over to Megan's linky party to check it out!

EGGcellent Fact Families

I love spring and it's a great time to add in some fun hands-on and interactive activities to get students moving. I created an egg hunt for my kids to do outside to review and reinforce fact families before Easter! {Of course, you can do this with any type of review questions, but for my students, I made up fact family problems}

Each egg had a group of numbers inside that made a fact family.  

My kids were broken into “teams” and each team had 12 eggs to find. They also had their own color to hunt for {this really helps with over competitive egg hunters}.

We did our hunt on the playground, but you could also do this in your classroom. Once their team found their 12 colored eggs, they came to me to get their recording sheet and they got to work!

The students solved their fact families on their recording sheet.  If you would like to try this idea with your students, you can download a copy of our recording sheet! 

 

Happy Easter Everyone!

Ya'll this is EPIC!

I wanted to do a quick post and link up with Tech with Jen for "Don't Worry Be Appy" Monday to tell you all about an app that I found and how I use it in my classroom! The app is called Epic! and currently I am using it on the ipad that I have in my listening center.

Epic! is a book streaming service that gives my students instant access to thousands of high quality, recognizable titles to choose from- its like Netflix for books! My students love the ability to choose books to read that they are interested in annddddd Epic! offers a huge selection of titles with audio that reads texts aloud, which makes it perfect for my beginning readers!

My kids especially love the nonfiction texts! My favorite part is that you can select books to download and save. Once the texts are downloaded, they stay on your device and can be read even when there is no wireless internet available!

Currently, Epic! can be used on iOS devices and on any web browser - and best of all, Epic! offers a free version of the app for teachers. You can sign up for a free account here!

(I was not paid or compensated in any way to write this blog post, I just really like this app and use it in my own classroom!)

I would love to hear if any of you are using this wonderful app in your classrooms and your great ideas for it!

Click here to head to the link up to see more "app-y" posts!

Snow Day Catch Up!

There is no day better than a snow day to catch up on some blogging! We had President’s Day off and we have had snow days ever since. My laundry and cleaning is almost caught up on and I am starting to catch a little bit of cabin fever! Although, truth be told I have LOVED just hanging out in my comfy clothes and just spending time with my husband this week!

I didn’t get a chance to post a picture of the valentines that I made for my class last week so here it is!  Better late than never – am I right??

 

I used the google eye rings that I found in the party section of Target and the monster clipart from KPM Doodles to make them! And I just stuck the rings on using large glue dots…easy peezy! I think they turned out great for doing them at10 o'clock the night before! I have posted the cards here for free just in case anyone wants them…for NEXT year of course!!

Last week, we worked on homophones in language. We read the book, "Dear/Deer" and we watched the Brainpop Jr. video on homophones to introduce the skill.

My kids loved homophones and although they thought that they were super fun, many of them seemed to really struggle with choosing the correct homophone to complete a sentence…I mean they sound the same so without visual cues, they had a hard time! It reminded me of this...

So, I whipped up some worksheets and activities that included the words AND the pictures to help my low babies and they seemed to catch right on -YAY!!! Here are a few examples:

cut & paste printable from my Homophones Activity Pack

another printable from my Homophone Activity Pack

My kids loved these! We used dab markers for the one worksheet, but you could just as easily use crayons!

If you think your students would benefit from these activities, go check out my Homophone Activity Pack that was designed with K-2 in mind!

Stay warm friends!

Christmas Linky

I love this time of the year and I cannot get enough of the Christmas season. While I am sitting here counting down the days until our Christmas Break, I also cannot help but think about how fast the holidays seem to pass by each year. Today I am linking up with Abby at The Inspired Apple to share some of my favorite Christmas things.

November Recap and TPT Sale!

Hi friends!
It has been forEVER since I have posted- this keeping up with blogging stuff is hard- I mean the struggle is real ya'll. We had a busy November in first grade that seemed to fly right by us! I have been enjoying the time off with my family and friends. We were blessed to be able to go home to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving and I even had my 10 year high school reunion!

We also got a head start on our holiday shopping and enjoyed a little bit of black Friday action this weekend. Speaking of shopping - I am so excited for the BIG Cyber Monday sale TPT is having! I have my cart full of Winter and Christmas activities that I have been waiting to buy! If you have been eying up some goodies for your classroom, now is the time to shop!

Adorable button created by Amy Groesbeck

Happy Shopping Ya'll!!

Ninjas, Spiders and Pumpkins, Oh My!

So we all know that Halloween is at the end of the week…I mean how could I forget? My kids talk about it like 57398234 times a day! No matter what we are working on or discussing, they seem to find a way to include dressing up like a ninja into the conversation! Well you know what they say, if you can’t beat them, join them right? Well, I have to get a little creative when trying to incorporate “Halloween” into my teaching. (My school does not celebrate Halloween, and we do not teach in themes either…major bummer, I know!) So, I have been trying to squeeze in “Halloween” related material wherever I can!  Last week, we were working on fact and opinion. We spent some time reading books on spiders, and we watched the PebbleGo on “All About Spiders” to build some background. Then, we completed a fact and opinion sort on SPIDERS! They loved it, and more importantly, they did really well on it! If you would like to use our spider fact and opinion sort, just click the photo below!

We also started working on fact families last week. We talked all about how the fact family is related and, how they live in the fact family house. Well, this year – it just happens to be a fact family HAUNTED house! We did this little activity in our math journals. They got to pick a fact family and complete the facts inside, and then color the haunted house on the outside!

 

We also got to learn about the lifecycle of a pumpkin last week. We only spent a day on this, so we did not get to do much. We did read the book, From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer and completed a pumpkin lifecycle cut and paste that can be found in my Lifecycle of a Pumpkin Set. Finally, we read a small reader from my set that reviewed the stages of the pumpkin lifecycle!

Have a Happy Halloween everyone!!