Telling Time Freebie!

Hello all! Even though I had very little downtime today (indoor recess, AND the computer aide was out today,) I was super productive! I made this little freebie to help my firsts with telling time to the hour and the half hour. I had lots of fun making this one with my new clock clipart from Little Red's Schoolhouse. Click the pictures to head on over to TpT and snatch it up!

Enjoy!

Luck of the Irish!

My St. Patrick's Day Centers are finally finished and up for grabs on TpT!  Check them out by clicking on the picture below:

This unit has ELEVEN math and literacy activities... First to comment with an email address will get a free copy!

Happy Tuesday!

Spread The Love!

First off, I feel the need to spread a little love... My AWESOME wife made me buttons to link to my facebook page, pinterest, AND TpT.  She's the best.

And since she took all the time to make the buttons, you might as well go LIKE my facebook page... Haha :-)

AND, without further ado... My Valentine centers are up for grabs on TpT!  Spread The Love contains 8 Valentine's themed centers activities (4 math and 4 literacy).

This unit includes the following activities:
Literacy...
-Cupid's Crazy Sentences - students arrange cards to form sentences
-Valentine Word Building - students build as many words as they can using the letters in VALENTINES DAY
-Sweet, Sweet Sound Sort - students sort cards by long and short vowel sounds
-February Word Sort - students will sort words into nouns and verbs

Math...
-Counting Valentines - addition facts to 15
-100's Chart Puzzles students will use cards to complete 6 100's chart puzzles
-Valentine Fact Families - students will use the 3 numbers on the cards to create fact families
-I <3 Place Value - students will recognize tens rods and ones cubes to determine each number

First one to comment with their email address gets a free copy!

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Nonsense Freebie!

My little firsts are taking their Winter DIBELS tests tomorrow morning and we've been hammering those short vowel sounds so they *should* blow those nonsense words out of the water.  But just in case, I made a quick little FREEBIE to help them practice!!

Click to download for FREE in my TpT store!

This game is very similar to my short vowel freebies on TpT.  Students pull cards that all contain CVC and short vowel nonsense words.  If they read it, they keep it!  If they pull a KA-POW card, they have to put all their cards back.  My kiddos LOVE playing these games!!  Enjoy!!

Christmas Trees And More

Greetings!  First off, don't forget that my entire TpT store is 20% off until Wednesday!  Head over and snag my Christmas centers!  My kids started them today and LOVE them!!

Thought I would share this fun little project I had my kids do at their seats during reading groups instead of centers the other day. They turned out much cooler than anticipated!  Decided to make little sight word trees to brighten up our hallway! I drew the outline of a tree on large paper and ran off enough copies for the class. Then, since I don't have any fancy scrap-booking circle makers, I folded construction paper a bunch of times and used the letter "i" on the die-cut to make a gazillion little ornaments for our trees! This was the most time consuming part of the project, but it honestly wasn't that bad. I let the students use the sight word wall to choose which words they needed the most practice with (mostly so they would get into the habit of using the sight word wall). I had them write 1 letter of each word onto an ornament then "string" them onto the trees.  Here's a picture of my example and a few of the ones the kids made. Love the way they turned out!

Also thought I'd share what our little elf on the shelf has been up to lately! Last Friday, since we had a spelling test, I decided to have him hang out on the whiteboard wishing the kids good luck. This worked out ESPECIALLY well because one of the kids had whispered to him where he should hide the day before. I, of course, took the opportunity to say "Ooo, that's fun!  Where did you tell him to hide?!" Imagine the look on his face when the elf really listened! Today our elf took one of the paper lanterns in my room and turned it into a hot-air balloon.  This was REALLY fun because I moved it around the room every time we left, so it was like he was floating all over the place!  Too funny.

Have a good night!

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas...

Heyo!  I don't know about the rest of you, but when I came back from Thanksgiving break, Christmas was in full swing! We had off school this past Monday for the first day of hunting season, which is AWESOME for people like me who've never shot a gun and would pass out if they had to gut a deer. I took the opportunity to decorate my room so it was all ready to rock and roll when the kids came back on Tuesday. I also spent some time making a set of Christmas themed math and literacy centers, which are now available on my TpT site!

Click to check it out in my TpT store

I was also SUPER excited to get started with my elf on the shelf. Last year, my students decided to name him Mistletoe, which I love love love. On Tuesday, I mentioned to my kiddos that I had an elf visit our room last year, but I was worried that he might not find my room, since I switched schools. I told them that he showed up right after Thanksgiving last year, so we should be on the lookout for him. Totally took the opportunity to talk about things that Mistletoe would be happy to see if he were watching... My favorite response: "We shouldn't pick our noses while he's here." Priceless. (I wrote don't be yucky).

He showed up in our room Wednesday morning, hiding in one of the cups on my amazing word wall. The kids were VERY excited to see him, and some of them even said they saw him blink or turn his head... I love how much they believe! I caught one of my students whispering to him at the end of the day once everyone else had left... Made my heart smile!

The MOST exciting part of the day was when we came back from lunch. They started saying that they saw him move. I, being the slightly overly dramatic person that I am, played along. I was COMPLETELY dumbfounded when I went into the room and saw that he really had moved. One of the teachers in my building, and I'm STILL not sure who, snuck in and moved him while we were at lunch. So here's little old me, JUST as excited as my first graders. He really is magical!  Today I decided to have him start a little mischief. He destroyed our calendar, and the kids thought it was the funniest thing.

If you use an elf in your classroom, what are some fun places that you hide it? I'm ALWAYS looking for silly things for Mistletoe to do!

Ahoy There!

Hey hey!  I was sitting in my room thinking about my centers for next week when I saw one of my kiddos reading How I Became a Pirate, which I LOVE. SOOO, I came up with these pirate themed centers activities to use.  Check them out on my TpT store :-)

Click to see in my TpT store!

This centers unit includes an addition activity, short/long vowel sort, noun sort, sentence scramble, word search AND writing prompt... I must admit, I'm pretty happy with the way this little baby turned out :-)  ENJOY!!

Frankenstorm

Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, I had the day off!  I decided to be SUPER productive and create my first centers unit.  This Thanksgiving themed centers unit contains 5 activities...

Click on the picture to visit my TpT store!


Counting Turkey Feathers:
Your students will choose cards containing a variety of addition sentences. They will group the problems according to the sums, then record them on the worksheet provided.

Thanksgiving Sentence Scramble:
Students will sort the cards depending on the picture.  Once sorted, the students must unscramble the words to form a Thanksgiving sentence.  When completed, they will record the sentence on the worksheet provided, and illustrate their work.

Thanksgiving ABC Order:
There are 8 cards containing different Thanksgiving themed words.  The cards must be put in order, then recorded on the worksheet and illustrated.

What's Missing?:
In this game, students will draw cards containing 2 letters of the alphabet and a missing letter.  They must first determine which letter is missing, then record it onto their worksheet.

Up Your Game:
Students will play this game in groups of 2 or 3.  They will each draw a card from the pile.  Whoever has the highest card may keep all of them.  Keep playing until there are no more cards in the pile.  The winner is the one with the most cards.

I hope you find these activities useful in your classroom - my students LOVE playing them!!