Some Easter fun coming your way!

I didn't realize that Easter was coming so soon! That's what happens to me when I am on break. Kinda like when you were in high school and ALWAYS forgot your locker combination when you came back from breaks! It happened to you, too, right? LOL!

With this holiday coming up, I had to get my behind in gear and get some centers together and ready! 

I have a confession: I love going to the Dollar Tree at this time of year (and on Valentine's, Halloween, Christmas, etc... any holiday!) and buying those plastic eggs!! Yes, it has become an obsession of mine but I especially love the eggs. So I went and bought some of these

They had other fancier ones but these were great for what I needed. 

This week we are working on the r-controlled sound of -ar so I put some word scramblers in my eggs. I usually have colored paper but this year decided to use foam sheets to make them more tactile and durable. 

Just cut them into strips, grab a few sharpies and you're set! 

I also number my letter tiles and eggs. Call me a neat freak but it's more like I don't want to hear that a word is not a word because the tiles are all messed up or missing! My class this year is not the neatest! 

I did the same thing for some easy rabbit sentence scramblers, too! Same idea. Although you might want to play around with it. I had a lots of trimming to do to make sure everything fit. 

You can download this FREEBIE from my Teacher Pay Teachers Store. 

I also made another word work activity for my kids. They really need help with making words. Every time I have put that in a center, it's like a whole new world to them. SO again, at the Dollar Tree, I saw some pool noodles and thought of Scrabble and BOOM! I made Word Makers. I cannot claim my fame on these. I have seen similar items at Lakeshore where they hold letter tiles like the game but this was my simple version. 

Cut the pool noodles with a serrated knife. I cut mine about 7 inches. 

Then slice them in half as best as you can. Mine were not perfect but it worked! 

Take a Sharpie and draw a line for where you will cut. It will also help students see where to place their letter cards. 

Then I just used my Xacto blade to cut. You do not have to cut all the way down-- I just used the length of the blade. 

I pinched it back to make sure the slit was open and deep enough. 

Since we are working on -ar words, that's what I made!

Then I bagged them up and yes! I numbered the letter cards. Had to-- OCD doesn't allow me to not number them! Now they are ready to roll out for Monday! 

Pretty easy and it took me about an hour to cut and get letter cards done. You can use these for any word making set. I am thinking about making a longer version for sentences but not sure how they would all fit at a center table! 

We will be making bunny baskets this week and I love that project! They come out so cute and it's simple! I'll try to post that for you tomorrow! 

Don't forget out The Primary Chalkboard's Picture Your Selfie in Vegas giveaway we have going on! 

It's got some SWEET prizes! I'd like to win but can't. You can get my Vegas Trip Tip and card number from my FB page.  Then head over to the Primary Chalkboard and enter (once you hop through and gather the tips and numbers) for your chance to win! 

Hope you all have a great week! 

Read Across America Week 2015

Happy Monday all!! Hope your week is off to a great start! If you are like me, you are probably celebrating Read Across America Week! We are geared for a whole week of fun! Look at what we have planned this week:

The kids were super excited to start our day! I LOVE The Lorax--- especially the new movie that came out a few years ago. I grew up with that 70's version I think. LOL! So today was all things Lorax and how to save the Earth.

I LOVE these hats! They are so cute! I saw that Little Birdie Secrets had done them and they were too cute not to do, too! I tweaked mine a bit but it still came out adorbs! Check out her post! 

We also talked about ways to save the Earth and how to conserve our resources. I created this little center...

This is a great little center for cause and effect! The kids were so creative in thinking of ways to also conserve. Some were quite enlightened by how much you can actually save when you turn off the water when brushing teeth or turning off the lights in a room! You can download this activity here. 

*** I do want to add a disclaimer to this file. It is a HOT MESS of files-- there are only a few pages! hahaha! It was one I intended for my team to use only so please don't judge on what you see in that file. There are some freebies for a story about a certain cat and a "wacky day of the week!"***  

I am sure you can find some use in those files! You can also see what we did last year here. 

I cannot wait for my kids to work on this tomorrow! They will be so excited! 

Hope you all enjoy this fantastic week of literacy with your class! 

Getting Artsy with Olivia

This week we are studying Olivia! That cute and adorable pig that is so precocious that it is almost endearing! We (ok, I am, too!) are loving being immersed in Olivia. We are studying how her character changes or acts from text to text. We are also studying how her character interacts with the other characters in the book and we are comparing her adventures. They are just really fabulous books to do a study on!

Of course, we had to make an Olivia! We have been working out of my Olivia Literacy Companion pack all week! It is one of my favourites! 

Working on Artsy Syllables

Olivia Character Comparison. How are you alike/different than Olivia?

You can check out the rest of my Olivia activities here:

Today, however, we took an artsy approach to the story, In the original story, Olivia visits and art museum and tries to create art in her bedroom! As seen in the story, this was not done with much success! In our classroom today, the students got to do a gallery walk of art and they were art critics. I first showed them a virtual tour of the National Art Gallery. You can click here to see what that is like. Just fair warning, some photos contain unclothed people! I previewed the gallery and tried to stay on one floor or one corner of a floor only to avoid that at all costs! We talked about colors, shapes, lines, why did the artist choose to paint this particular piece (the art term is called emphasis). Just look at my little artists!

To get these prints, I just asked our sweet art teacher for a few that would be appropriate for first grade and hung them up. I also put a sticky note with the name of the artwork as well as the name of the artist! They were in love!! I made a quick little mini-book for them to work on. It is not a part of my packet but one that this group needed. 

If you'd like to download this little mini art critics book (bonus writing prompt paper included! It is a writing paper that prompts how do children like to create art like Olivia.) click on the image below to grab it!

If that wasn't fun enough, Olivia has her own youtube channel AND some fun websites to add to your learning and fun! Click on the pictures to take you there.

In between all this fun, our class has really been into Go Noodle! Have you heard of it? It is a site that has all sorts of brain breaks (some Common Core aligned!!) for kids! It has been such a refreshing change in my classroom!

Sorry some of the pics are blurry! It's hard to get those action shots with your phone! 

This is us doing the hurdle jump!

The 400 meter run!

I have to tell you, it really wears them out! For every break, they earn points and each point is working towards a goal for them. I HIGHLY recommend it for your class! It's a free sign up but you can pay for more access to videos as such! So GO NOODLE today! LOL! We are seriously in love in with it. I have one of the kindergarten teachers hooked, too! LOL! 

Hope you all have a super duper rest of the week!