Polar Pals on TPT!

I just posted my Polar Pals Math Activities unit on TPT. I hope you check it out!

 

I'll be back soon with a great holiday activity! 

It's Bud's Day Out!

This week we read Bud's Day Out in HM. I LOVE this story. Most weeks I could live without the anthology story provided by HM, but not this one. It is cute, easy to follow, has a great pictures and the kids can totally relate to the main character. So, this story gets a little "extra love" in my class.

I made theses story summary cards (inspired by Mrs. Bainbridge) and worked through a story retell...for the first time the kids did surprisingly well and we will definitely use these cards more. Click the pick to get them too!

the cards are: somebody, wanted, but, so, and

First the story's background... Bud gets away. Ben and his mom find him causing trouble in the pet shop. They get Bud, help clean up and apologize to the shop owner. The shop owner gives Ben a book titled, The 10 Rules for Dogs, to read to Bud.

So we talked rules for dogs and made a long list. The kids came up with everything from "always give me kisses to don't potty in the house"! Then they set off to write down the 4 most important rules for their dog.

1. don't fight 2. keep your leash on 3. do not bark at other dogs 4. listen to me

After, we put together my replica of Bud and had him hold the rules. I think they came out precious.

loving the ring around the eye!

Could you use this pattern too? I hope so... if not now...maybe at Easter? (run him on white and have the ears pointing up!) Click the pic to get the patten and the writing page :)

Have a happy Saturday! I will be shopping and decorating our Christmas tree. Hooray!

Fact Familes Freebies!

Happy Monday!

We started fact families right before we went on Thanksgiving break, and I should have known my kiddos would come back not remembering A THING!

So we will be spending a LOT of time with fact families in the next few weeks. I usually teach fact families with two different frames for building the facts.

We start with the house. The kids LOVE this one... don't ask me why... maybe its the roof? We slide it into page protectors and use dry erase markers to make fact families, after I give them the family numbers.

click the pic to download

Later, after they have gotten better at building the families on their own, we use this really simple frame. Not as fancy, but it does the job!

click for this one too!

And now for the good stuff! I made a fun holiday themed fact family matching game/center, and it can be yours for the low price of FREE! Happy cyber Monday :) Just click the pic so that you can download the fun!

*** Update 11/30/2011: Since cyber Monday is officially over, you can now find this cute little  fact family activity for sale on my TPT page! I hope you check it out! ***

Sharing my Thanks!

Today I am linking up with What the Teacher Wants for an I'm Thankful Party! Let me tell you first that I am thankful for many things, a long list that would inevitably take forever to read, so to keep it short and sweet here are the highlights...

1. What are you thankful for in your classroom?


First off, I am thankful to have a classroom! After a year of being the "laid off" teacher and many months as a substitute I am thankful to be in my second year in the same room at the same school. It has been truly amazing, and I am forever thankful.  More superficially... my document camera and projector! I literally could not live a day with out it!

2. What person are you most thankful for?

My Mr., who  makes each day brighter! Live, laugh, love!

3. What 3 blogs are you most thankful for?

This is SO hard! I am thankful for all of the blogs that I have come across in the past months. They have encouraged me to think bigger and better! To pick three...

  * The First Grade Parade-  If she can do it, I can too, right? That's how I feel each time I read this blog. So creative and inventive. I am thankful that I can have a place to read an be inspired!

  * The Inspired Apple- So genuinely helpful! I have revived a million ideas that have impacted my classroom this year! Plus, reading this blog is like knowing the class! I am thankful to have this blog at my fingertips.

  * Finally In First- Hello Inspiration! A new idea sparks each time I read this blog.Thank you!

4. What guilty pleasure are you most thankful for?

Ok... to be honest... Christmas Music. Not just at this time of the year, but all year round! I love it!! Don't tell the Mr., he thinks I wait till AFTER Thanksgiving for the festive tunes...
 

5. What are you most thankful for?

I am thankful to be happy and that is amazing! 


 Link up and share your thanks! And enjoy your Thanksgiving Day!

Hello Nouns! Freebie

I am so excited to have this week to relax! It has been a busy and crazy past week, so the holiday week is much needed!

I have been working on a noun unit that I will be using with my ELD class the week we get back from break. Do you do ELD? We break our kids up based on the CELDT testing and language acquisition in class. This year I have the middle group. I wanted to do a noun focus because its great for vocabulary (and my ELDers need that so badly) and reinforces what we have been working on in HM during homeroom LA time.

So long story short... here is my noun unit, minus the computer lab activity that we will be doing (I'll post about that when we do it). It is all free, but you have to PROMISE to comment if you take any part of it. I need the feedback since it is the first time I am posting a mini unit on my blog! Click on the pics to download and have fun with the nouns :)

Have a noun poster!

Noun sorting cards and recording sheet!

noun cards to place about the room and recording sheet

Nouns in scrambled sentences

a possible assessment activity (it will be for me!)

And a game of course! Noun Bingo!

Have a Happy Weekend!

oh, and of course... thank you Scrappin Doodles and DJ Inkers for the fabulous clip art and fonts!

Let's Make a Turkey! Pattern Freebie

Here is the pattern for the turkey we made last week. Click the pic to download. I hope you enjoy making it too!

Happy Sunday!

Hello Turkeys!

This week was turkey week!

We started off by reading about turkeys. Can I just say is tough to find grade level appropriate non-fiction book about turkeys. I have fiction stories up the wazoo (I especially love Turkey Surprise which sneaks in a few turkey facts) but zero non-fiction. So the hunt was on. Three bookstores and a libraries later, I still had no books, and then I stumbled onto kidzone.ws.It was full of great info that I put into a little book to read to my kids complete with pictures! If you are in need click the pic below!

Then we put all of our turkey facts into a circle map. I have been easing them into expository writing the past few weeks, so this was their first stab at writing from the circle map alone.
 

And today we finished up turkeys with a turkey of course! 

The glue was still drying as I left school today, so they will make their way onto the windows Monday morning!If you are interested in the turkey pattern, comment and I'll post it!


Enjoy your long weekend... I know I will!

Update: Here is the Turkey Pattern! Enjoy!