Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Give Aways

Alissa & Theresa @ Primary Princesses are giving away a Stella and Dot Brooch & 4 packs of decorative printer paper to celebrate 50 followers.

Courtney @ Swimming into Second is having a wonderful giveaway for TPT. You have 3 chances to win.
Jenn from Finally in First is having a Scholastic News giveaway!


Friday, February 24, 2012

Measurement & a Linky Party

This week we sank our teeth into fractions. Tuesday we made small pizzas (circles) and discussed how different numbers of students could share the pizzas. YUM. Wednesday, students made their own pizza representations and each table had to create a tree map of fractions. Thursday, we did the same with Cosmic Brownies (square) and have plans to do Hershey Bars (rectangles) on Monday.





Jeannie over at Kindergarden Lifestyle is hosting a linking party called Kids Say the Darndest Things. Here is one I will never forget.




Thursday, February 16, 2012

Valentine Surprises

Look what I received in the mail! Okay, it was DAYS ago, but I never can seem to have the right camera with the right cord @ home. Laura Starnes over at Kinder Kraziness was my sweet & creative Secret Valentine. She created a Love Note box with blank notes inside for me to send to the special people in my life. Inside the box were gummies & chocolate, along with some new HOT PINK nail polish perfect for the 70 degree weather we are sporting in NC today. Thank you, Laura! I love it all!

How to Blow a Bubble



Who knew writing could be so fun and soooo cute! This lesson started out with students chewing, spitting, and sputtering with a mouth full of Hubba Bubba! Not many students could blow a bubble at first. The few students who could blow bubbles taught the rest of us. (I have cute pics of their attempts, but they just aren't as cute with their faces blurred out.)

Thursday, February 9, 2012

FREEBIE - Candy Hearts Graphing


If you would like a copy of the Candy Hearts Graphing just click on the link.

"How to Writing"


This week my kiddos have been trying their hand at "How to Writing." To introduce the idea of how to writing, I let them read a few books on Razkids.com like How to Make a Snowperson.
After a few examples, I modeled using sticky notes to show the steps of How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich. I thought this would be easier to move around/add to/edit than any other way. Then, students got to give it a try.


On Day 2, students watched the video, How to write a How To Essay on Brainpopjr.com. It reviewed the planning stage and went into using transition words and the actual writing part. After making an anchor chart of transition words, students added transition words above their stickies. Lastly, they began to write.


Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Sunday, February 5, 2012

My Valentine & "What I Love" Linky

This is my sweet Valentine. We met when I was 14 at the local skating rink where we met for a $ and a DARE. We got married when I was 21 (before graduating college) and 3 babies, 3 houses, and 20 years later we are still Happily Married. In October, we renewed our vows. It was sooo special. A friend who was in our first wedding actually performed the ceremony and our 3 children were in it. It was small. It was ALL US. We had special music, and little, romantic, unique parts mixed all in. It was truly a fairytale wedding.I love Diet Mountain Dew, chocolate, Mr. Sketch Markers, learning new things, technology, my job, photographs, scrapbooking, reality tv, and Of course, my FAMILY and FRIENDS!

Head on over to Funky First Grade Fun and join the What I Love Linky Party!

Friday, February 3, 2012

Penguins - Piles - Pleasant Surprise








My penguin unit has wrapped up and I wanted to share a few pictures. My kids were so excited during the entire unit and I was having a great time teaching and seeing their excitement. Many of the ideas came from the unit I bought from Deanna Jump.

One of the ideas I "harvested" from a blog is to measure the size of the Emperor Penguin so students could see how tall they are. Some of my kiddos are smaller than a penguin! (I am sorry I don't remember which blog. If it is yours please let me know so I can give you credit). Once we saw the size of the largest penguin I decided to have students work in groups of 3 to make 7 more penguins. Each group was given the name of a penguin, it's height in inches and photos of the penguin. They worked together to create the penguins. Afterwards we compared their heights and placed them in order from shortest to tallest. LOVED, LOVED how it turned out!

The bulletin board shows a few of the nonfiction penguin books we made.

Tonight has been the first night I have had time to blog and "play" on the web. I have been so covered up with paperwork, planning, and meetings that I feel like I have been missing in action. Not to mention - tired! So tired, my 16 year old and 10 year old made supper last night so I could take a power nap after working til 5:30. I have such sweet boys.

On a happier note:
I woke up last Tuesday with fever and strep. It just so happened to be the day I was supposed to go to the local college and meet my student teacher and her supervisor. Needless to say, I didn't make the meeting and wasn't sure when my student teacher would be starting. Pleasant Surprise - I showed up to work on Monday this week & my student teacher, Miss Crabb, was waiting at my door! I have a feeling she is going to be wonderful. After five days in... she is the bomb! She has worked with small groups on inferencing and began making our Valentine's with the kids for our Valentine Exchange.