Happy Holidays!!

Happy Holidays everyone!! Hope that you all had a great holiday! As a teacher I must admit that I certainly love this perk! It's not the reason I became a teacher but I cannot say I do not enjoy having the time off!! My family and I had a great Christmas. Brian, my hubby, was actually home! That is rare for him to have any holiday off! We spent the day playing mahjong at my parents house!

Today is boxing day for my fellow native Canadians! My fellow Chalkies and I are having a Merry After Christmas sale! My store is 20% off! Stock up now for next year or grab some files for the upcoming weeks! Click on the poster below to take you to my store!

Happy shopping with no aggravation!!! I find that as I get older (next month I will turn 37!!!) I don't have patience for crowds. 

So, today was a PJ day! Sometimes, you just gotta have those days...or five. I really should get out but I was busy working on my new Penguins! Penguins! Penguins! unit! I just love penguins! There is something about those waddling cuties that I adore. It might be that I waddle or that I'm round, too, but every time I see them I cannot help but oohhh and ahhh!!! When we get back from break, we will be working on winter centers and then working on polar animals and penguins (I love teaching these topics!!) and plan on using my centers. Here is a peek of what is included:

I love the craftivity. It goes along with this book:

It is the cutest story of this penguin who is lost and this boy tries to return him only to find that the penguin is his friend! I love it. The illustrations are just too cute. So I made this craftivity to go with it:

It will take a good week to complete with all the pieces. Can't wait. Then in science I plan on using 

Here are two pages that are just examples from the book: 

These little books are great for comprehension, are rich in vocabulary and are high interest for our little ones. So excited for this! Although I can wait as I am enjoying vacation!! LOL! There is just so much in the pack that I cannot wait to use! Will post pics as soon as we work in it. You can grab this pack. It's on sale for $5.00. Just click on the collage pic above to take you to my store! If you'd like to win it... just go to my FB page to find out how (although time is limited!) Click on my button to take you to my FB page!

We are also working on non-standard measurement in math. This concept goes by pretty fast and I feel that most students earn mastery. Here are some great books that we will be reading:

Bookish Ways in Math and Science blogspot has some great links for websites to put on your students computers, too! Click on their name to take you to their link! You will be glad you did!!!

Additionally, I created a mini non-standard measurement pack to leave you with. These are all printables/activities that I will be using when I get back. Click on the pic to take you to my store to download:

Mid-Week Update!

It's Hump- Day!!! Just imagine the camel walking thru my classroom making such a ruckus!! LOL! We have been so very busy (as I am sure you all have been!). We just finished our 1st grading period and it was report card crunch time. I had to hurry and get last minute grades into our online grading system. Do you all have that? I have a love/hate relationship with it. It's nice because it calculates your grades for you BUT like all computer systems it gets glitchy! I'd love to know how you all keep track of your grades and how are you required to enter grades (formatives/summatives, how many of each, weights, do you do a total points system or do you have standards based grading?? I am sure I could open up a big can-o-worms with this one!) So, yeah... that kept my panties in a bunch last week. 

This week we worked on some fun and cute projects. I finally got my "The Biggest Pumpkin Ever" bulletin board up! Too cute!

We started by reading the story and then brainstormed ways to grow the biggest pumpkin ever.

My sweet friend and room mom, Shawna, did this for me! She had it perfectly set up for me and I was a dolt and didn't realize that she put the numbers ON THE BACK-- I had them write on the back! So she improvised my dumb mistake. I think it came out beautifully and I am eternally grateful for her!!!

And to keep my biggest pumpkin ever, my bloggy friend, Laura from Peace, Love, and First Grade had this adorable craft idea for a Jack-o-Lantern lantern! It is the cutest! Click on her name to get the directions on how to make this festive craft!

We also finished up our studies on nocturnal animals. We made our Owls in the moon and dissected our owl pellets. The looks on their faces were priceless when they saw and heard what they were but once they started digging in, they were totally engaged and in love! They couldn't wait to get home and share their bone findings with their families!

If you'd like to learn more about owl pellets, click on the pic above to see where I got them! 

Too cool! I love doing this project with them.

We are learning about Pumpkins this week to celebrate our field trip to the Pumpkin Patch next week. I plan on using my 

next week when we start my pumpkin math and science unit. It is always so much fun! If you downloaded it already, please go back and re-download it-- I added a circumference page to it! Just click on the picture to grab it at my store! 

We are also working on digraphs this week /sh/ and /th/ and I know that they will need extra practice with it, so I created a fun, pumpkin themed phonics game for this week to help them practice

If your kids like pick up sticks then they will LOVE this game. I just wrote /sh/ and /th/ words on Popsicle sticks and they had to drop them down and sort them for /sh/ or /th/ at the beginning or end of a word. 

Click on the graphic above to grab your FREEBIE today! 

And that's not all! I just couldn't let the creativity stop there! I guess I am just not a fan of phonics practice where you have to rainbow write words/write them 3 times each, bubble write your words-- sometimes those are great but it's fun to play a game and learn, too! I like to create phonics games for them and I was so tickled when my brain concocted this one:

The kids all flocked to this center! They were like ants all over my room looking and reading for clues:

I haven't quite polished it up yet-- I just had it classroom ready but as soon as its ready I will post it up! So as you can see, we have been pretty busy! We are working on Key Ideas as well in reading. I always theme my week and tie in the Common Core standard for the week. If you are working on Key Ideas, please check out my Key Ideas Pumpkins freebie as well (click on the pic)! It has helped my guided reading groups tremendously this week. 

Hope you all have a great rest of the week! Don't forget about the giveaway that ends Friday!! Click here to enter!

Love to you all!