1 Year Blogiversary Giveaway + St. Patrick's Day Freebie

First I want to share a little St. Patrick's Day freebie with you. Just something I put together with skills that my class is working on right now. Click the picture to get it for free. It includes contractions, parts of speech, and adding four 2-digit numbers.

I have been a member of the blogging world for a whole year now. WOW! Time sure does fly by when you're having fun. To celebrate I am hosting a giveaway this week. Enter below now through this Sunday. I will pick 3 winners. The first winner's name that is drawn will get to pick three items from my TPT shop for free. The second winner will get to pick 2 items and the third winner will get to select one item. The only item that is not included in my giveaway is my math common core for the whole year packet. So hurry and enter today. Several ways to enter!!


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Amazing Winter Writing Prompts

I recently teamed up with Jaime from Bright Concepts 4 Teachers to do our own little product swap. She reviewed my Morning Basket Work which you can read about here. She reviewed the Jan/Feb edition but I have recently uploaded the March/April edition.

The product I reviewed for Jaime is her Winter Writing Prompts packet. And let me tell you it has got it all. It is common core aligned and covers opinion, informative, and narrative writing.

 

In her packet you will find :

 

3 different versions of grade level appropriate writing checklists and 6 different graphic organizers.

 

 

6 writing prompts There are 2 choices for each type of writing which is one thing I and my kids LOVED.

 Student and class writing covers

 

3 different versions of grade level appropriate writing rubrics

 

 

 The paper to write the final draft is included along with the template for this adorable craftivity.

 

So why did I and my kids love this so much you ask.....well my kids loved the graphic organizers to help them get their ideas down on paper. They also loved that they had more than one choice when writing. After we had covered all three types of writing I let them pick their favorite piece and we added the hot cocoa craftivity to it. We were supposed to share today but we ran out of time and they all reminded me more than once that tomorrow morning the first thing we have to do is share. They are so excited about their writing. You know this makes for one happy teacher!!

 

Thank you so much Jaime for letting my class try your product!


ReadWorks.org and Morning Baskets for Spring

First, I wanted to tell you that I have uploaded my Morning Basket Work for March and April to my TPT store. It is the same as my January and February edition but for spring. If you missed the post about that and how I use it in my room click here.

The next thing on my list to tell you is that I stumbled upon this amazing site the other day called ReadWorks.org that has lesson plans for all kinds of reading topics. Just to name a few there is main idea, plot, setting, sequence, cause and effect, fact and opinion and the list keeps going. When you click on a topic it will take you to a page with lessons for each grade level. I loved this so I could differentiate. You pick the grade level you want and there are usually 3 lessons for each topic. It even has a tab so you can see which common core standard it aligns to. I LOVED it!!

Hope you can use it too! Have a great weekend!!

Sale and Addition Bridges

I went to a training this past week and was shown this adorable idea for centers or early finishers. The best thing about it is you can differentiate it. So all you need are 3 cut outs of something (I used hot chocolate mugs for January) and craft sticks and counters (I used white craft poms for marshmallows). Lay the 3 mugs out and take a handful of the poms and lay any amount on each mug. This tells you what numbers to write on your sticks. The numbers in the middle of the stick have to equal that amount when you add the poms. You also write A, B, and C on the sticks so they know how to lay them out. I feel like I did not explain that well so here is my example:

2 poms plus 5 poms equals 7 poms for A and C, 2 poms plus 7 poms equals 9 poms for B and C and so on. On the backs of the craft sticks you can write in a different color and make them harder. I just thought this was really neat. I made a template for some cuter mugs for January and set of for February. If you want to download these templates for free click here. In Feb. I was thinking of using the candy hearts instead of the poms. If you have any ideas for the other months let me know and I'll try to come up with a set for those as well. I was thinking clovers for March but not sure what to use for the counters. Hmmmmm???

Also, as if you didn't already know, there is a big sale going on at TPT (Feb. 3rd) and TN (Feb. 2-3). You can enjoy 20% off of my TPT shop and 25% off of my TN shop on these days. Plus if you use the code SUPER at TPT can you get another 10% off.

 

 

Were any of you lucky enough to get out for snow today??? I was!!!!!! Have a great weekend!!

 

Beginning, Middle, and End

Last week we focused on beginning, middle, and end. I'll share with you what we did each day last week. First, we read some books together and on chart paper wrote the BME as a class just so they could get the idea. On Monday we listened to Alligator Baby here. By the way, if you didn't know about this site you have been missing out. Robert Munsch reads all of his books online. The kids LOVE it. So we listened to that and then we used Amy Lemon's Teaching With Robert Munsch packet and wrote about the BME.

 

The next day we read Wemberly Worried and they wrote about the BME again. This time we made a cute little Wemberly to hang with our writing. You can get the template for Wemberly here.

 

 

On Wednesday we read Henry and Mudge and the Long Weekend. This idea came from Amy Lemons. I just made the templates for Mudge and as a class we wrote about the BME on big dog bones.

 

On the final day I read a story to them from our classroom library called Oink? and they wrote in their ELA spirals about the BME for a grade.  Well, that about covers our BME week. Hope you had a restful weekend!

 

What a Wonderful Winter Giveaway!

Just wanted to let you in on a little secret. I am part of a HUGE giveaway going on right now. Casey at Second Grade Math Maniac is having a What a Wonderful Winter Giveaway to celebrate 600 followers plus her blogiversary! Congrats to her by the way!!

I am giving away $15 to spend at my TPT store and here are some of the other wonderful prizes you could win:

 

1 free product from Kate's store @ Second Grade Sparkle

1 free product from Corinna's store@ Surfin' Through Second

Mystery Word of the Week #1 from

Jen @ Hello Mrs. Sykes

Math Problems and Math Brain Teaser Cards Set B

from Teresa @ Games 4 Learning

Winter Friends with the "Core" Math Stations and Activities from Krista @ Stellar Students

Learning in a Winter Wonderland from

Samantha @ Mrs. Kelly's Class

Winter is Snow Much Fun! from Heather @ Teach it Today

Here a Chick, There a Chick Literacy and Math Unit from

Teresa @ 2nd Grade Pig Pen

Menu Math Working Center from Realistic Teacher

Valentine's Day Math Centers from

Jessica @ What I Have Learned

Common Core Math Practice Posters (K-3) from

Ashley @ Primary Teacherhood

Monster Fact Families - Focus on Multiplication and Division from Brooke @ Teachable Moments

Winter Literacy Centers from Jamie Williams

Learning in a Winter Wonderland: 10 Literacy Centers from Heidi @ My (Not so) Elementary Life

Holiday Hoopla Math Centers from

Tara @ 4th Grade Frolics

Sensational Snowmen Math and Literacy Unit from

Lisa @ Learning is Something to Treasure

Emperor and Rockhopper Penguins - A Nonfiction Unit from Angelia @ Extra Special Teaching

 

So you really should head over to Casey's blog and make you enter this awesome giveaway!

 

Safari Adventure {Get It For Free}

Quick post today. Just wanted to tell any new readers to make sure you check out my previous post to find out how you can get my new unit, Safari Adventure, for free. Just read all the way to the bottom to find out how!

 

Safari Adventure

I have really wanted to start doing themes in my room, so I created a safari adventure for my class when we came back after winter break. I love doing crafts, so I included one with each reading lesson in the packet. This packet is now uploaded in my TPT shop.

 I just wanted to share some pictures from our week and tell a little about what we did. Monday we got in the safari mood by making little safari people with binoculars. We put them around our safari jeep that my hubby drew for me.

 

 

Also, on day 1 we read a story about a monkey and a crocodile and completed a page about the moral of the story. We made crocodiles to hang with our papers.

 

 

 

Day 2 we read Giraffes Can't Dance and Everyone Need a Friend and make a class Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the main ideas. We made these adorable giraffes to decorate our diagram.

 

On day 3 we read two stories about lions and the kiddos completed their own Venn Diagram to compare for a grade. Of course, we had to make cute lions to go with our work.

 

Day 4 we read a story about an elephant and highlighted adjectives. We wrote our own stories about an elephant with our own adjectives and made an elephant to go with the story.

 

 

Day 5 we read a story about a snake and found all of the plural nouns that were spelled wrong and highlighted them. Then we made a snake and put our own plural nouns along his body and hug them from the room.

 

Also throughout the week we worked on prefixes and suffixes and mental addition and subtraction. There are some center games in the packet for these skills too. Here are a couple of the pictures of those.

 

Throughout the whole week we worked in small groups on an animal research papers. Each group was assigned a different animal.

 

 

Sorry to overload you with pictures, but I was just so darn happy about how everything came out and how much fun we had. Go to my TPT shop and download the preview to see a full listing of what is included and how it aligns to each CCSS. All of the templates are included in the packet along with links to all of the stories online if you don't have the books.

Now here is a way for you to get it for free. I tried this a few weeks ago and want to give it a try again. The first 3 people to comment on this post can have the packet for free if you do one thing: use the packet in your class, take lots of pictures, and blog about it by the end of the first week in Feb. The only thing required is that you have at least 200 followers. Just comment with your email address and the link to your blog!

Happy Weekend!!