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Friday, January 18, 2013

It's Friday, Friday, Gotta Be Five For Friday

T.G.I.F! I've never been so happy for it to be Friday in my life! This was such a long week! Being sick makes days seem so much longer.

I'm linking up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five For Friday.
Here's five random moments from my week.

1. This was my last week of vacation. School starts back up next week and I am very excited to see what this semester has in store! I received my textbooks in the mail this week and one book was Math Work Stations by Debbie Diller.
I am so excited to learn all about math centers this semester! Math is my favorite subject to teach and Debbie's book looks amazing! It is filled with so many great ideas and it is spiral bound so it is perfect for copying! I'm sure this is a favorite book of yours too!

2. I've been working with Christi of Design by Christi for my custom blog design this week. Getting a custom blog design might be more exciting than a child opening presents on Christmas. I am so excited to be able to unveil it to you very soon!

3. A classroom I was in this week was all about penguins! Penguins are my favorite so I was so excited to be able to see all they had going on in their room. One of the activities they had was this penguin game.
It's called Penguin Pile Up by Ravensburger. Let me just tell you this game is no joke! You evenly divide the penguins up among the players and the goal is to be the first one to stack all your penguins on a balancing iceberg that moves with every touch. What you don't realize is that this goal is virtually impossible. Every time you get about 4 penguins on the iceberg, the next move you make causes every single penguin to slip off the ice and you have to start over. I have no idea how they expect 24 penguins to be stacked up there! I played this game with the children and I couldn't even get more than three penguins stacked. It is a frustrating game for children and adults alike but it makes for some amazing fine motor practice and logic skills as to where the best place to balance a penguin next would be. Have any of you played this game before? I'd love to hear how it went for you!

4. I am not, let me repeat not a techy person I have discovered. However, I have made some techy advancements this week! I finally figured out how to post to other peoples pages as my fan page! Click HERE to check out my page. I also figured out how to add an instagram feed on my blog (see to the right) so you can see the pictures from my week. Finally, I added the Pinterest button to each of my pictures from Charity's tutorial from Classroom Freebies. I just have to get the whole Facebook blogger widget working and I will be golden! And if someone could tell me what the whole Google+ thing is all about or direct me to a tutorial I would really appreciate it. I just don't understand what the point of it is.

5. It's not technically from this week but I'm squeezing it in here to let you all know of a great deal if you don't already know. Tomorrow, Lakeshore is having a Science Fair at their stores from 11am-3pm.
They are having hands on activities and experiments for children. Maybe you can find a new idea to use in the classroom. If that doesn't make you want to stop by, maybe this will! With any in-store purchase, you get a FREE science quiz game show computer/smartboard game! It's a $20 value free! Now I know most of you will not have any problems buying something at the store but the best part is you can buy anything to get the item. Even one of the mini erasers at the register for 40 cents or a foot of lamination for 29 cents. It's such a great deal! I'm stopping over to my local Lakeshore and I hope you are too!

Hurry on over to Kacey's blog to link up and share about your week too!

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Storytelling Tuesday: The Missing Mitten Mystery

I am feeling so much better today. It's amazing to be able to breathe and smell again! It's the little things right?

Today I am showcasing The Missing Mitten Mystery by Steven Kellogg.
(Click to purchase on Amazon)

I just love this book (and the children do too)! I own multiple copies because every time I see a copy I have to snag it. It is a great book to teach skills such as predicting. It fits in perfectly with the theme this week. 

After reading, we did a couple of activities focusing on color words since the book focuses on the little girl's red mitten and we still need practice with these.

Here's the first activity: practicing writing our color words
(some littles are still struggling with letters too)




 Here is the second activity: unscrambling our color words

Here is a quick sample of what the activity looked like since my camera battery died in class. 

Each child was given a piece of paper with scrambled color words. Each row had a number on it. When we called out a number, the children were to color in the circle to signify what word they were unscrambling.


On the reverse side, the children then took the same colored crayon as they colored in the circle and drew a line through the row so if the letters got mixed up when cutting, they knew what color mitten it belonged to.  


We then had the kiddos cut apart each letter and put them in the correct order on each mitten. Once we checked to make sure they had the word spelled correctly, the letters were glued down.




The children had lots of fun with these activities and they were so simple to make!  I hope you enjoyed them!

P.S. Did you notice the new Pinterest icon when you hover over any image on my blog? With this you can easily pin any picture directly from my blog! It's fantastic! I learned how to do this from a great video by Charity at Classroom Freebies. Head on over to see how to add this trick yourself! Best news, it only takes a few clicks and you're done! Click HERE to watch the video now!

I'm linking up this post for Sunny Days in Second Grade's Show & Tell Tuesday. Hurry on over to find some more great Winter ideas for the classroom!



Monday, January 14, 2013

100 Days of School Freebie

Another Monday rolls around meaning another freebie for you. I am going to keep this short and sweet. I had plans for something else, but coming down with the flu made those plans change. 

 Here's a quick little freebie I whipped up for you to celebrate the 100th day of school. The 100th day of school is a huge celebration in early childhood classrooms. With this freebie, the kids can write what they would wear for their special 100th day of school outfit and draw a picture of it. 

Frame by Krista Wallden
Clip Art by My Cute Graphics

Hope you enjoy! Happy 100 days!

I'm linking up for Manic Monday. Click on the image to see other great freebies! 

Now added for Freebie Friday for those who haven't already celebrated 100 days yet!


Sunday, January 13, 2013

Shopping Sunday and an Update

I have been MIA for a few days here because of the dreaded flu. Yup my immune system just couldn't keep it away any longer. I have been down for the count sleeping, drinking orange juice, going through entire tissue boxes in a day and taking lots of medicine. I am still not 100% better but I am feeling like a functional human again. I even ventured out into the world today to get a little shopping done. I really have been wanting those Valentine's dice from Target that I missed last weekend. Well I went to Target and bought them plus a ton of other stuff because you can't walk out with just the one thing you went looking for.

Exhibit A:



This is absolutely true of any Target trip! Never come out of Target empty handed. It's always a full cart trip! 

Here's what I snagged at the Dollar Spot today: 

Leap Frog game mats that will be perfect for centers
They have a back side too! 
 4 absolutely adorable plates that will be great for some center work
Frog bag to put -og words inside
No spill paint cups
Leap Frog equation building cards
Leap Frog sight word cards
Mini ice cream erasers
Apple pencil topper erasers used as manipulatives
Heart garland
Conversation heart erasers wrapped like a cupcake
Love dry erase heart board
Valentines day heart dice
Valentines day pink dice
100 days smarter certificates
100 days smarter stickers 
100 days smarter bookmarks

Then I hit up Walmart to see what they had left in their Christmas section. 

They didn't have much left but here's what I managed to find for 75% off.

 These cute little "gift card" holders that I am going to use to hold Christmas themed cards for centers
 Holiday magnifying glasses for those i spy sight word activities
Santa "gift card" tin to hold Christmas cards for centers
Merry Christmas streamers
Little paper containers to use for counting and sorting
Snowflake coasters to use for the fantastic activity as seen on The First Grade Parade


I cannot wait to put these to use in the classroom! I know the kiddos will have so much fun! 

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