Graduation Books

It is hard to believe the year is almost over and Alex will be headed on to first grade! I had seen this idea on pinterest of having all the your child's teachers write notes in a book for them, that you then give to your child on graduation day. Then I had the opportunity to write in one last year and realized how much I loved the idea. 

There are lots of great books to choose from, but I settled on Only One You by Linda Kranz! It is a sweet book filled will lots of beautiful advice. 

I made an attempt at some rhyming ;) and added a letter to the envelope that holds the book.
Click on the picture to grab a copy. There is a girl version and boy version! :)

Five for Friday: Last Days of Summer

My mind is definitely starting to gear up for school again! My to do list is getting longer and I am ready to start lesson planning! Will started orientation yesterday and he is officially in school mode, but the boys and I still have another week and we are going to enjoy it! :)

{one}

The beginning of the week I wrote about some of my favorite wordless books and how they can build inquiry into your writing block! Click on the picture to check out the post!

{two}

My parents came over from Georgia and we went to Charleston for the day! It was great to be in the ocean. The water was perfect. The boys loved it, but Liam comments a lot on how his eyes hurt at the beach! ;) 

Doesn't this look capture it all! Total JOY!

{three}

This has been the summer of games! Games are great for building number sense, building problem solving skills and using lots of social skills to learn that losing is OKAY! The last two years we spent a lot of friday afternoons playing games to help my first graders learn those skills too! Sorry is Alex's favorite, but we were taking a break from that game to play candyland!

{four}

Alex was disappointed that the summer reading challenge was over, so I made him a new chart using his favorite number-100! I have no idea what the end prize will be, but I thought it was a fun way to build in some number concepts too.

Liam wanted his own chart, but he is not quite as organized as his brother! First he had to fill up the stars. That is totally his personality though. Alex is much more structured and Liam has more of a free spirit! ;)

{five}

Everyone needs some freebies to help them as they get back to school! This is a fun measuring activity using nonstandard units. It is simple enough that kids can work at it independently, but it still provides lots of formative assessment! I have found that when setting up my workshops it is best if the kids have activities that they can work at independently and take up some time so that they understand what the process looks like without having to come up and ask a ton of questions. BUT I don't like busy work and lots of worksheets either! This is the perfect activity to keep them engaged with a hands on activity! Click on the picture to download it!

Hope you all enjoy your last day of July!
Head over to Kacey's blog for more Five for Friday fun!

Happy Valentine's Day!

My district did a great job on the calendar this year! Halloween was a half day. And we had a half day and long weekend for Valentine's Day!

We had a great {SHORT} day celebrating! 

Candy Heart Graphing was a huge success! 

I have this as a growing freebie at my facebook page if you want to check it out! We did the M&M graphing earlier in the week. It was a great assessment for graphing. 

Since I was passing out candy in our graphing activities I went with non-candy items for valentine's gifts this year. These were not only perfect as Alex's valentines for his teachers and classmates, but it was perfect for my students and teammates! Alex loves glow sticks and I think I got enough for his class and mine for about $3! Buy extras because I accidentally broke quite a few! ;)

I found the ideas on pinterest, but made my own printables. I didn't want to have to open up the EOS lip balms so made a card that I could keep them in their original package... it seemed more clean that way! ;)

I was on for snack for Alex's class, so I made some ziploc bag toppers too!

You can find those printables here!

New Freebie for Valentine's Day!

Thankfully we have a short week coming up! The kids have a half day on Thursday and no school Friday or Monday. I am looking forward to the break too! 

I was at Target today getting some stuff for Valentine's day and decided to pick up a couple bags of candy for some graphing activities. I got some tiny bags of candy hearts and m&ms. I know the kids are going to be a little excited about the short week and Valentine's Day so I am going to be a step ahead of them! ;) Doing anything with candy makes learning much more interesting! 

If you haven't already liked my facebook page head there now and grab my graphing freebie!

I have a couple graphing activities for Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day!

I will be adding more throughout the year, so be sure to like my page to know where there will be updates! :)

Hope you have a wonderful Valentine's week!

2015 Focus: Conferencing and a Freebie!

I don't know if it is the fact that there was the sweetest hum of working in reading workshop this morning, that we actually got through a math lesson today {and workshop!}, that the medicine is finally starting to work on my cold, I had 3 meetings canceled today, or that tomorrow is Friday... but I have had a burst of energy this evening. Hopefully it sticks around for the weekend! :)

Hard at work during workshop! (you can get those word building cards here!)

I was thankfully able to attend our literacy conversations session after school today! I love talking literacy with other teachers! {if only I could find the same passion about math}

We talked today about conferencing, which was perfect because that was my next area to work on for my 2015 focus. As I have moved into conferencing more about comprehension with some of my budding readers, I am always a little stuck about what take away to leave them with. Some comprehension skills are deep and I don't know if they are going to remember what we talked about. When I discuss reading strategies I usually leave them with a strategy card, but even then strategy name is simple so they don't have trouble remembering when I leave, but it is not the same with comprehension. I had been thinking about making some bookmarks to match my comprehension posters, but had not found the time. I knew it could help, but wasn't sure if it was the missing piece...

Then, today as we were talking about some different types of conferencing based on Jennifer's Serravallo's book The Literacy Teacher's Playbook : research, decide, teach  or coaching. (brilliant!) Both types of conferencing talked about the importance of the Link-- and leaving a tangible note, bookmark, etc with the kids to help them keep thinking about the teaching point. 

So, my frustration with conferences was linked to something real... I was missing the LINK! :)

That was my motivation to go ahead and make my bookmarks for my kids. At this point, most kids entering the comprehension phase of conferencing are working on retelling and reading for meaning, so I decided that in the long run it would save me some time to make some bookmarks that linked to the visuals in our comprehension posters (that I have yet to print, I just display them on the smartboard). 

And guess what.... Its FREE! Click on any of the pictures to head to the freebie!

They go along great with my posters and response sheets!

There are 7 different bookmarks, but 12 posters and response sheets. 

I picked the skills that are most common to use for the bookmarks.

If you like the bookmarks be sure to check those out too! :)

(click on the pictures to head to my store)

 I'm looking forward to using some of the conferencing strategies we discussed in my independent reading time

{TOMORROW}

that is what is great about meaningful professional development... 

you can put it into practice right away!

and I can't wait to see if the tangible reminder of the bookmarks will help too!

Happy Almost Friday!

Number Bonds and Fact Families FREEBIE!!

We were talking about how we needed to practice fact families so I decided to make little activity to help my kids practice fact families using a number bond. 

We use number bonds a lot and I hope this will help them keep making the connection between addition, subtraction, and how they can see it all on the number bond!

I included 12 number bonds that are complete and 12 that have a missing part for varying levels of difficultly. Plus one blank page so you can make your own number bonds if you want to go above 20!

You can put a page in a sheet protector and have the kids use dry erase markers or there is a recording sheet that allows them to record 3 number bond and fact families!

Head over to my facebook page to grab this FREEBIE and like my page while you are at it! ;)
Click on the picture to grab it!

Enjoy! Hope it helps ease your way back to school!

December Currently!

It's December!!

Listening: So happy to get the new Chris Tomlin CD on a great black friday deal!

Loving: We got our tree on Saturday and had fun decorating it! Last year we switched to a real tree and it is the most wonderful thing in the world! Why did we not do it sooner?

Thinking: I had a huge to do list over Thanksgiving break and didn't even make a dent in it! There is not enough time in the day to get it all done!

Wanting: My house needs some serious TLC after thanksgiving! We had a full house and it needs a good clean up, but that will probably mostly wait until the weekend.

Needing: Half the reason my house is a mess is because not all the Christmas decorations have been put in their rightful spot yet! And none of the decorations are staying in their spots thanks to Alex and Liam!

Giving: For the next two days you can get my Measuring Snowman Center free! I put it out today and my kids really enjoyed it and it kept them busy at their station! Click on the picture to grab a copy!

I'm linking up with Farley's Currently!

Currently: October Edition

This is my first time linking up to Oh' Boy 4th Grade's Currently Linky!

Listening... to Parks and Rec, well watching I guess. I can't ever keep up with current seasons of shows so I love watching Netflix on the weekends!

Loving... Fall is back in South Carolina! Hoping the weather stays cool like this. We had a nice little fall weather week and then it got hot again.... That does not make me happy! 

Thinking... My boys are napping I really should be getting something done around the house, but its the weekend. I love just being able to do what I want for a couple of minutes! 

Wanting... Naptime sounds really nice... ;)

Needing... My lesson plans are done, but my school to-do list is full of random things that need to get done... not to mention my cleaning to-do list! I can't keep up!

Treat! For the last couple of years we have done a fun pumpkin measuring activity in class! For this month you can find it as a freebie in my TPT store! Thanks for leaving some feedback! :)

Dice Game Freebie!

You know you are a teacher when you play Bunco...

and think about how it would make a fun game for your first graders! :) 

A game night with the ladies at my church last night had me make this little freebie last night! 

Not exactly Bunco... but something to help them keep practicing those addition facts!

The kids can stick their target number in the stars and they want to roll the two dice and write down the equations that make that number. 

All the other equations get put in the not equal side, so it helps them learn the equal/not equal vocabulary too! 

I stuck the paper in a handy sheet protector so we can reuse it over and over in a center, 

but if we play it whole group I will probably print each child a copy to use as a formative assessment!

I one time got some dice at the dollar tree that had the numbers 7-12 on them, so I might pull those out when I want the kids to practice making 10s! And because it has the number printed on it, they can practice counting on by using one numbered dice and one dice with the 1-6 dots too!

Head over to my TPT store to grab a copy!

Teamwork Time #2 and a Freebie!!

Life is BUSY!! But here are some of the team building activities we have done the last two weeks!

Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig

Have you read this book yet?? It was such a sweet story about a boy who feels invisible and the new kid that helps others to include the boy! We were learning our class discussion rules and this book led to a great class discussion about how we treat other people. We did have to clear up some misconceptions about whether he was really invisible and if he actually wanted to be! ;)

Self Control Bubbles

I saw this on Pinterest and knew it would be a great activity for my kids! I first blew some bubbles and the kids of course started popping them right away. Then we talked about what self control meant and I told the kids that they could not pop the bubbles. It was humorous to watch a couple scoot as close as they could to the bubbles, then they started blowing the bubbles back up because at least they weren't popping them (their words, not mine!)! Then we took a couple of turns popping and not popping bubbles and thinking about self control!

Cup Stacking

This was our big team building activity last week! I split the kids up in two groups and they tried to build the biggest tower with cups!

It was fun to watch the kids work together and use self control (to not knock down the tower). I also switched up the groups and timed them one time. It was interesting to see the different groups cooperate and how they worked to get the job done!

When I feel... I can... chart

In order for kids to work together well, they need to understand how to deal with their feelings. After reading When Sophie Gets Angry, Really, Really Angry we talked about appropriate ways to deal with our feelings. Spur of the moment I realized that this would be a great anchor chart, so over the next several days we added to it! After seeing some common elements come up, we talked about where we wanted our quiet spot to be in our classroom.

We are Awesome

Alex is really into the Lego Movie so after watching it a million times one weekend, it turned into a little mini lesson! We started off listening to Kid President's Pep Talk and then we talked about how we are awesome. Then we danced to Everything is Awesome on Go Noodle and talked about how we are the most awesome when we work together as a team! The kids colored a picture of their awesome selves and wrote about some things that made them awesome. You can download the freebie here!

Teamwork and community building is all about helping the kids understand themselves, so they can better relate to others! I feel like for every team building activity we do, we also need to take time to reflect about ourselves. It has been really neat to see the kids come together and interact!

The next couple of weeks, my focus will really be on our Learner Profile and Attitudes. We have touched on a lot of them as we have talked about teamwork, but I want to make sure that they really understand what the terminology means and how it should impact their lives at home and school!