End of the Year Gifts

Hi all!

Here's a quick little post on my end of the year gifts.

I did a gift for my Kiwanis reading volunteers (I adore them!). I had all the kiddos use their thumbs to put a print at the bottom of the jar. Then I turned their print into some kind of insect. When it was dry I put some cookies inside. E-A-S-Y!

And now for my kiddos gifts... We have been using dice all year for games and I found some at the Dollar Tree, so here we have it...

Inside are instructions for games to play with the dice! Now I only hope my students will use them... lol :) You can download the card below just in case you are still thinking about a kiddo gift!

Three days to go :)

The Winners, Some News, and Questions for you!

I'll drop the winners name first :)

Congrats to.....

Lori (Teaching With Love and Laughter)

 and

Sara S. (Smiling In Second Grade)

Lori check your email and Sara S. please email me yours ASAP

todayinfirstgradeblog@gmail.com :)

Onto the news...

Well, I'm leaving my school. Yep, not teaching, just my school. In fact I have already accepted a new position at a new school in a new district. It's even a 1st grade spot!! And to be honest I am SUPER excited. A little nervous (new demographic, WAY more parent involvement, etc...) but very excited.

I loved my school, but the district honestly drove me crazy. Do you all have the huge problem with teachers being kept as "temporary" for, what sees like FOREVER? I did. It was nuts! Every February I would begin my hunt for a new job and become continuously stressed, because the district was dragging their feet and wouldn't let temporary teachers know that they were being rehired until the last teacher work day (last year I had my whole room packed and back at my house... I mean EMPTY! When they let me know I could come back... arg!)

So I've had enough. I am a good teacher and I work my BUTT off for them. That should be recognized right? Not with more money or benefits, but just a little job security. So,  I applied to a bunch a different districts and found one that was offering PROBATIONARY! Unheard of for them to just outright give it up!!! I got the interview and the job offer :)

So I'm movin' on... I know that doesn't mean I have it all, but at least I am a step closer to finding my spot :)

If you read through, thanks :) I needed to share!

Onto the questions...

Does anyone know where to find a tutorial for these giant tissue paper balls from School Girl Style?
I searched her site, but I just can't find it and I tried Martha's tutorial.... yikes!

Have any of you tried white board paint or magnetic paint from Home Depot? How magnetic is magnetic? Does that white board paint work or should I go for the shower board?


A new room to decorate... so excited!Tons of ideas rolling around :)

We only have 3 days left and now I'm packing like a mad women, so there hasn't been a ton to take pics of, but next week is all F.U.N. and I'll fill you in with them pics soon enough!

See you soon!

250! Time for a give away!!

Well... it's been a long road, but I made it 250 followers :) You all rock and I am so excited that you follow my blog. So, to show my appreciation lets have a giveaway!

Here's what you could win:

 

$10 to KPM Doodles (one of my absolute faves!)

or

 

$10 to Scrappin doodles :)

How do you win? Well, you have 2 opportunities....

1) become a follow and leave a comment(just a comment if you already are!)

2) post about this give away on your blog :) (leave a comment with a link back to your post!)

and don't forget to leave your e-mail address!

You have until Friday night ... good luck!

Summer Bucket List

I'm linking up to tell you about my summer "hope to" plans...

make this handy tool box

craft a couple of banners in back to school fabric

redo my labels

visit my fave place

sneak in a week of this

we're heading to OR so I'd like to squeeze in this tour

And head to So Cal to hang with the family!

I could go on because there is so much I want to do this summer... maybe I'll keep adding as the break gets closer :)

non standard measurement freebie

Happy almost Friday! With only a few days left we are spending time brushing up on some old favorites from this year. This week we did a non-standard measurement refresher.

Since the kiddos mostly have this under their belts, we did a day of quick review and then a little fun :) I love any activity where the kids and get up and move or work in group, so we did a little of both!

I set up six stations: spider, penny, counter, cube, paperclip and bear. The kiddos used the sheet below to help guide them around the room. The only rules... 1) visit every station 2) measure something new at each station you visit ...  the kids were happy campers!

click to download... I hope you can use it, I know the spider is a little out there, but we had some left over from October

 They could choose to measure an anthology, book, glue bottle, marker, paintbrush,folder, pencil, or glue stick.

It was a fun activity to remind them all about non standard measurement :)

On a totally different note... Look what we saw on our field trip today

Honestly the ugliest fish I have ever seen... so ugly that he was actually cute!! :) I was enamored!

Have a great day!

Look What I Bought!

With just a few hours left in the Teacher's Appreciation sale I am linking up with Erica to share my TPT purchases! My wish list of forever long... but, I put a small dent in it and I was able to get some GREAT things :

Erica's center activities will go great with my pirate week next year

 

I have been eying this for months!So glad I got it

  

I'm planning a whole color week as we go back to school next year and this unit caught my eye...

 

and another one of Erica's :)

 

So... did you shop too? Link up with Erica Bohrer's First Grade and tell us all about it. There's still a couple of hours left... I might need what you bought too! :)

currently and a sale :)

Yea! I am linking up with Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade for some currently fun...

 

and because I appreciate all of you so much, let's have a sale! Starting tomorrow (5/6) you can get everything in my store at 20% off! Which means some things will be dirt cheap!! So check out these goodies and stock up!

summer themed centers

homophone fun

Magic Tree House #2 Book Study

making words center

contractions!

zoo unit (much, much more included ... make sure to check out the preview on TPT)

 

and don't forget to use the TPT code below to get an extra discount!

Have a great weekend!

This week in pictures!

Hi all! FYI, this is a long one, but there are a lot of pics...

This week as all about /ar/. HM has the artist card for /ar/ which is ... well... boring! So I was pumped when I saw Abby's Pirate Mark unit! Just what my kiddos needed to spice up the week. We did all of her fun activities.

Playing off her Pirate Mark idea I had the kids put together this poster to display in the hallway for Open House, each kiddo thought of 1-2 /ar/ words and printed them on some star cutouts I found at the dollar tree! Easy Peasy!

We finished our What Am I? Books from my zoo unit :) I love how they came out!

orangutang

Did you know what it was before you got to the end?? He was so stoked that he stumped his big brother :)

We also worked on synonyms. I introduced synonyms then made all of the center words "dead words"... my kids are EATING this up! They catch me saying these words ALL of the time and they love to call me on it! Oh first graders! I guess whatever keeps them thinking about the other word choices is fine with me, even I have to hear "That's a dead word Mrs. Hodson" ever so often!

Open house was last night so we did some prep work for that too...

This was our open house invite... and to match our zoo theme... a gator, of course!

I set up the sign in table with our tour bags, snacks and some pretty beautiful flowers

The tour bags are filled with about 8 strips of paper that say things like "show me your science journal" or "where is your zookeeper"... I teach the kids the day before open house how to give a tour to their parents. They ask their parents to pull the strips out and read it to them. Then the kiddo drags their parent all around the room showing them all of the important things we have been working on. The kids have a blast and the parents enjoy that their kids can really show and tell!  I do the open house tour bags every year because it works like a charm!

the kiddos giving their parents the official tour

And the big to-do at open house (other than visiting the room) was our Mexican Folklorico performance! The kids were AMAZING!!!! So cute!

ok... if you made it to the end you rock! and for your loyalty here is a freebie! With 9 days to go (yes I said NINE!) I am cramming in a unit on plants we are adding these to our science journals :) Click the pic to download the two worksheets and Enjoy!

thanks DJ Inkers for the cute flower :)

 Happy Thursday!