Huge Giveaway!!!

I am joining some fabulous bloggers to celebrate Khrys from Keepin' It Kool In Kinderland. She is throwing a HUGE 100 follower giveaway! One lucky winner will win over 25 products and 3 winners will win a product of their choice from Khrys' TeachersPayTeachers store. I hope you will check it out!

 
 
 
 


 
 
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I hope you will enter this giveaway! This will end NEXT Wednesday February 6th when the clock strikes midnight. Can't wait to find out who the super lucky winner will be!

Last day for sale + a giveaway

Don't forget about the huge giveaway that Irene is having over at Learning with Mrs. Leeby. She has reached 200 followers and is offering up some great gift cards to TPT, Target and Starbucks. Head over there and enter because it's almost over!



I'll be darn if it isn't cold outside. I'm only in NC so it's normally in the 50s or so this time of year..but it didn't get out of the 30s today and tomorrow is a chance of a very messy day (sleet, freezing rain, snow). So----we are getting out of school 3 hours early tomorrow!!!!

I'll feel bad complaining b/c Irene at the above mentioned blog was at 9 degrees today with NO heat in her classroom. Hmm...I think I'll take the 30 degree weather any day.

Today is the last day for my sale over at TPT. Hope you can head over there and check it out.

Oh...have you downloaded their app yet for your smartphone?? I just did..and I love it. Great way to track and even more important...add awesome items to my wishlist.

I also really like how they've added transaction details and whatnot to the dashboard page on the website....makes it easier to see how things are moving within your store.

Hope to have a few more freebies for you tomorrow....maybe some new pics from the classroom (if I can remember!).

Off to watch Vampire Diaries (a little addicted to this show!!)

Stay warm!

Thankful Tuesday, Giveaway, and a Flash Sale!

So the morning started off uneventful...first day back since last Wednesday (two workdays, a weekend, and a holiday) and was going just fine. Until the phone call from the hubs--um, honey, I've had an accident at home and not sure if I need to go to the hospital. Ok, what kind of accident? Well---I caught myself on fire. I'M ON THE WAY!!!

Yes you read it right....he caught himself on fire. The hubs decided to stand too close to our little space heater and "whoosh" (his terms) went his shirt. So 3 hours later we are picking up burn cream and prescriptions after an ER visit. 1st and 2nd degree burns on his back. 

So yes---it's a very THANKFUL Tuesday. What an awesome God we serve who kept the hubs safe. He is doing fine...hurting, but just fine. 

So in honor of being so thankful....I'm having a Flash Sale over at my TPT store. Everything 20% off until Thursday. 

I've uploaded a few new things. 

The first is Groundhog, Groundhog What do you see? This is just a little booklet to help the teachers students remember what happens when the Groundhog sees his shadow or does not see his shadow. 
It also comes with the graph you can see in the picture for your students to ask others if the groundhog will see his shadow or not.

The next little number is Five Little Hearts. 

This set comes with the book that you see in the first two pictures. The blue heart said....The pink heart said....(click on the picture to take you to the store where there are some previews).

This set also includes the poster you see in the 3rd picture with pocket chart word cards included.

 And an Emergent Reader is included in this packet modeled after Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle. 

It begins...Red heart, red heart.....

I also completed a little Snowman book a couple of weeks ago and wasn't sure if I blogged about it.

It's a short little book about what a snowman needs. Click on the picture to see more previews. Also comes with an emergent reader modeled after the teacher version.

Now onto a giveaway. 

My bloggy friend Irene over at Learning With Mrs. Leeby has reached 200 followers! How awesome!!!! I'm so excited for her.

And she is having an amazing giveaway.

She is giving away a $50 giftcard to Target, a $25 giftcard to TPT, and a $15 giftcard to Starbucks.

Now I'm not sure about you...but ALL of those are wonderful! And I don't even like coffee---but Starbucks hot chocolate is to die for (in my opinion).

So make sure you head over to her blog and enter!!

It's another Manic Monday!!

Hope everyone is enjoying their day off today (if you are off!) to celebrate Dr. MLK's birthday. I know I am...very relaxing, blog hopping, posting new stuff, and eventually lesson planning.

I'm linking up over at Classroom Freebies for their most awesome Manic Mondays! I really enjoy giving away free stuff and I always like visiting new blogs. 
I hope you head over there and check out some other blogs as well. Great way to blog hop!



Here is my little freebie. It's Valentine Poem tags that you can add to your gift to your students OR have them add it to their gift to their parents. Click on the picture to take you to Google Docs.

It also comes with no hearts on the colored copy as well as two posters displaying the same poem in B&W and colored. Hope you like it!

Now I also have another freebie that isn't a part of Manic Monday but I wanted to tell you about it anyway. It's over at my TPT store and it's for Groundhog's day. 

It includes:

a bubble map about groundhogs

tree map

Graphing header for Will the Groundhog See His Shadow? 

Yes/No cards for graph

blank cards for students to write their predictions or their names for the graph

and a sheet of writing paper for students to write about what happened when the groundhog appeared!

Click on the picture to take you to my TPT store. 

Tell Me Something Good---and a hodgepodge of other stuff

First of all---what insane weather!!! Ok--Sunday--77 degrees, today--rainy, freezing, howling wind, and possibility of 1-3" of snow by the morning in surrounding areas!! I love NC but we have the strangest weather.

Hodgepodge of stuff----today was a workday! Woohoo and tomorrow (but tomorrow is Common Core meeting day all day) so today my IA and I worked hard to get a lot done that normally doesn't get done with 26 kiddos. And Monday is a holiday---so a nice little 3 day weekend.

Does anyone else find it really really hard to keep things organized when you are teaching? I found stuff I had just laid down once I was finished with it and didn't put it back in it's proper place. That needs to be a resolution---put things back right then once finished. Normally I'm pretty good about it but I get so caught up in paperwork teaching that I just don't worry with it. 

Last week and the three days we were in school this week have been focused primarily on DIBELS. Ugh..sometimes I loathe that word. But I was so proud of my kiddos on the growth that they have made. Of course, they've changed our benchmark levels because of Common Core, but still, growth has been made across the board. Happy dance!

And because of all this testing, penguins have taken a back seat. We have watched the most awesome penguin cam from Sea World at San Diego (found this through Kindergarten Smiles blog) and began working on some things for our All About Penguin books from Deanna Jump's penguin unit. But that's about as far as we have gotten. Pictures to come soon though from our penguin activities.

Oh, Monterey Bay Aquarium also has a wonderful Penguin cam and you can listen to the person who feeds the penguins. He/she will do an ask and answer session for those visiting the aquarium and you can hear it through their webcam. Pretty neat. 

We were able to do quite a bit for MLK, Jr.'s birthday though. We watched a couple of short videos and worked on the directed drawing from Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business. My kiddos did a wonderful job and they have received tons of comments on them from various people in the school (I posted them in the hallway).

Are they not the best!?!

Another random---we decided to really clean our tables yesterday---with shaving cream. This is the first time I've used this activity with this class (for various reasons--many of them to be--this is one tough group). But they loved it.

Here is a couple pics of students writing their names and numbers. 

Rowdy in First Grade is having an awesome Linky Party. 

This song runs through my head whenever I see this button. Is that just me or does it happen to anyone else?

Something personal: I just began my 4th semester of grad school. One more to go!! Wooohooo!!! Oh---and the hockey lockout is OVER! LOL now I can watch the 'Canes play! :)

Something at school: I think I said it above---so much growth from my kiddos this so far this year. I'm amazed b/c some days I don't feel as if I teach as well as I should because of all the "other" stuff that seems to get in the way. 

Hope that you have a wonderful rest of your Thursday!! Go over and Jennifer something good at Rowdy in First Grade!

Jeepers Creepers and Manic Monday

I love playing games with the students...especially games that make them think and practice having discussions. So last week I was pretty excited when my principal grabbed me and handed me this board game that she had won.

I'm not sure if you have ever since it (I know I hadn't seen this version before) but it's sooo much fun! It's called Jeepers Peepers and it's an ask and answer game. Click on the link to give you a better description.

                        This picture is from the website Super Duper Publications

This game includes 6 pairs of big glasses (as seen in the picture), 101 photo cards with topics such as: food, transportation, people, things, and animals. It also includes a bingo card, a spinner and counters to use for covering the board. 

I didn't use all of that, we just played whole group. I modeled first by placing the card in my glasses without seeing it. And just began asking questions. 

Asking specific questions is really hard for Kindergarten. They just want to ask questions such as: Is it a dog? Is it a fish? etc.

I modeled asking questions such as: Is it an animal? (yes/no) and depending on what they said, I continued with my questioning. So if the answer was yes, I said ok, does it swim?

This game is great because as we played I could continue to model appropriate questions. Even when some of the students were wearing the glasses, I discussed the types of questions they should always first, like "Is it an animal?" or "Is it a person?" 

We played a few rounds. Here is a picture of one of my girls with the card. So being that her card was a tree---I modeled asking the same questions as above, but when the others said no to an animal and no to a person, I asked  Is it a thing?" "Do you find it inside?" No. "Outside?" Yes. And the questioning went on and on.

This ask and answer game is awesome for my kiddos and goes right along with the CCSS for grades K-5. Kindergarten CCSS for this game is understanding question words, continuing a conversation through multiple exchanges, and followed agreed upon rules during discussions (such as listening). 

I liked this too because as much as my students like to talk this year...whew...this is the game for them. 

Now on to Manic Monday. I haven't linked up the past few Mondays because well....I forget!

We just began having classroom helpers in our room and so I thought I'd make this up for you guys when I saw the3amteacher's new clipart. So here you guys go...just a quick little something to use for classroom helpers in your room!

Happy Monday!!!