Memories, Like the Corners of My Mind

Does that song remind anyone else of BIG?! Because that’s all I think about when I hear it. That dang Tom Hanks and his cute movies!! Speaking of which, who else begged Santa for an oversized keyboard?! HA!

Okay, so the end of the year is rapidly approaching. For some of us it’s already happened {jealous!!!}. There’s nothing that gets me a little misty-eyed more than thinking about everything that’s happened over the course of the year and how much my firsties have grown. Y’all…I LOVE my kids. And in all honesty…even though right about now they’re *12 kinds of* crazy {thank you, Abby!}…I know I’m gonna miss ‘em like no other when they’re big 'ol 2nd graders. Dangit.

We have an “Autograph Afternoon” coming up next week. Just a little time carved out of our afternoon where we open up our doors, head to the hallways, and let the kids roam around signing each other’s yearbooks. A lot of our babies don’t always get the yearbooks, so it’s a must for us to have a little something for them so that they don’t feel left out. Enter the End of the Year Memory Book :)

Since it’s such a great little keepsake, I have ALL my kids fill one out. As a momma, this is something I know I’d just drool over and keep in a shoebox, staining it with tears as I pore over it’s contents when my boys are all grown up and moved away. Thank the Lord that’s YEARS away :) Anyhow, we’re in the process of working on these as we speak and I thought I’d just share it with you if you want it, too!

You can click on the pic to download your copy, or you can head on over to my little TpT shop and pick it up for FREE!

In other news,

GO MAVS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

32 Flavors & Then Some

Okay, so now y’all have me craving some ice cream!! According to the majority of comments, I really need to get on board with Mint Chocolate Chip. I’ve never had it. My husband insists on buying Cookies & Cream every dang time. I’m a Great Divide {Blue Bell} kinda girl, myself. Plain & simple. I also LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Cinnamon ice cream from Cold Stone. HEAVEN. One year, Blue Bell rolled out their Hot Chocolate ice cream and it was HEAVEN, too…marshmallows, chocolate shavings, fudge, caramel, chocolate…MY.WORD. That was YEARS ago & they haven’t rolled it out since!! I’m SAD!! I wish they’d bring it back! Speaking of Blue Bell, is it true that you can’t get Blue Bell up North or on the East & West Coast?? Was somebody lying to me or is that really true?!?!? If it’s true, then I’m SO SAD for y’all that can’t get it…y’all are missin’ out!!!!!

Anyway, here are the winners of my little Ice Cream Unit!! Thanks for all the flavor suggestions, sweet friends!!

Graphics courtesy of Scrappin' Doodles

Please email me at thefirstgradeparade{at}gmail{dot}com!!

Also…I’ve had lots of blog design inquiries the last few weeks and I’m SO sad, but I’m not taking any new orders right now. I’m still finishing up a few designs and life is just, well, BUSY! However, my darling beyond darling best friend is in the blog design business and her designs are absolutely ADORABLE!! Love her and love them! If you’re interested in a blog makeover, check her out at Sole 17 Designs! Her name is Tiffany and she’s the dang cutest thing. Tell her I sent you and she’ll take care of you :)

We’ve got BIG things planned at school this week and I can’t wait to share our end-of-year fun with you all :) Have a great week, friends!!!

Contractions

I remember one time…when I was pregnant with my first…I was teaching Kindergarten & someone in another grade level kept printing these contraction worksheets to our Kindergarten printer. I didn’t want them to go to waste, so to find the owner, I sent out a mass email to the school letting them know where they could find their missing papers. I titled the email, “Contractions” and within 2 minutes, my inbox was filled with about 12 different emails from different teachers *thinking* I was in labor!! HA! What a sight that would’ve been. A beached whale with swollen extremities and thankles huffing & puffing in front of her kids. Pretty sure that would’ve scarred them for life!! HA! Every time I look at that word, that’s all I can think about!!!

I *finally* posted my Crazy for Contractions Unit on TpT. I seem to be doing a lot of reviewing this time of year, so if you’re looking for some fun little, hands-on activities to reinforce contractions in your classroom, head on over and check it out!

And if you already purchased it…{THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!}…you might wanna head back over and re-download it. Apparently, I didn’t notice that the PDF conversion caused SEVERAL of the pages to be all scrambled. Dang. Now it’s all fixed up and ready!! Sorry for any inconveniences!!!

Here’s a fun little freebie for you! Just a little word work activity & recording sheet {cut & paste} that my kids just love!

Graphics courtesy of Scrappin' Doodles

In other news, I’m gonna go ahead and say that I’m *loving* Teacher Appreciation Week! Between the lunches, flowers, office supplies, & {tomorrow’s} gift cards, I could really get use to all this! HA!! A little spoiled, ya think?!?! Seriously though, I really do have the best room moms!! One of my moms brought me one of my favorite dishes from my favorite little Mexican restaurant yesterday and she went all out…

HA!!! When she delivered my tray of goodies, she was playing mariachi music on her iphone! Needless to say, my streak of *healthy* eating has taken a week-long pause and I’m spending extra time on the treadmill :)

We had our big dress rehearsal for our BUGZ play today and omiword…it.was.PRECIOUS!!!!!! These last few weeks of craziness and chaos paid off!! Can’t wait for our babies to show off for their parents tomorrow night!!! And for those of you who emailed me about getting a copy of the BUGZ play, I’ll need to figure out where you can get it!! It’s the dang biggest file I’ve ever seen and I don’t want to break any copyright laws ;)

Happy Hump Day, sweet friends!! Time to cheer on my girl, Lauren Alaina!

Ice Cream, You Scream!

The end of the year just hours away…{okay, more like 9 days, but who’s counting, right?!?!}…so that means it’s time for ice cream themed madness! I LOVE doing ice cream themed activities the last few weeks of school. Since I haven’t met a kid yet that doesn’t like ice cream…or some form of frozen treats…these activities always seem to keep them engaged when the chaos of the end-of-the-year is almost too much to handle :) Here’s a little sample of my new Ice Cream Unit {75 pages}…

And here’s a couple of activities for you!

I included a literacy & a math activity. The literacy activity is a high frequency word sort & match. Just cut the popsicles in half and have the kids match the scrambled letters to the correct high frequency word…then they can complete a little recording sheet to go with it! The math activity is a subtraction match. Just cut off the top of the fudgesicle and the kids will have to match the number sentence to the difference…then they can complete the recording sheet to go with it! Click on the pic below for your download :)

I’ll give this little unit to 3 sweet friends! Just leave me a comment telling me what your favorite flavor of ice cream is and I’ll randomly select three sweet friends tomorrow {Sunday}!

If you want to check out the Ice Cream Unit, just head over to my TpT shop for a peek!

HAPPY WEEKEND!!!

Just Stopping By…

If anyone is still reading this very, very neglected blog, I’m just stopping by to say “HI!”. When life slows down {AS IF!!!}, I *promise* I’ll be back with something fun :)

Almost ALL of our time at school has been spent getting our firsties ready for our big play this Thursday!! Have any of y’all ever put on the “BUGZ” play with your kids?!?! It’s absolutely PRECIOUS, but ohmiword. “Coaching” 100 first graders…teaching them sweet dance moves…practicing songs…rehearsing lines…is pretty dang intense! It’ll be precious as all get out, but wow…I’ll be happy to get back into a routine {is that even possible the last 3 weeks of school?!?!}

Is it terrible if I tell you that I haven’t been very motivated to do anything *new* and exciting these last few weeks…especially with all this play business?!?!?!. I’ve been pulling out lots of repeat station activities…for both math & literacy…just to make life a little easier. It’s been great review for the kids…especially since we’ve also been knee deep in state testing…but DANG!

This week *might* be my favorite week ever. We have parents bringing us lunch every day this week for our week-late Teacher Appreciation festivities. I enjoyed a yummy lunch from Jason’s Deli today and I’m getting a big fat fajita salad from Mi Cocina tomorrow…my mouth is watering just thinking about it!! HA!! Always thinking about food…probably why I have to wake up so dang early to get to the gym! HA!!

In other news, is anyone else watching the NBA Playoffs?!?! Sorry if any of you are Lakers fans {BOO!! I kid, I kid}, but I gotta give a little shout out to my boys in blue…GO MAVS!!!!! Hopin’ to watch my little Mavs bring home the championship this year!!!! Who’s with me?!?!?

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for everyone who’s stopped by my little TpT store to go shopping :) I seriously can’t thank you enough!! I’ll be posting a 50+ page contraction unit in the next couple of days and a “Ice Cream, You Scream” unit will be up for grabs, too! I LOVE ice cream themed activities this time of year!

Hope none of you woke up with a case of the Mondays this morning…only a few more to go!

We can do it!!!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Day!

Hope y'all have had a WONDERFUL day celebrating everything YOU!!!! Crazy enough, we don't celebrate Teacher Appreciation Day until NEXT week :) I'll live vicariously through you until then :) HA!

I'm sure you've all heard, but TpT is experiencing some technical difficulties right now, so unfortunately, no purchases can be made!! So sorry!! I feel your pain, girls...I had A TON of stuff in my cart and was waiting til tonight to click "buy". Sad!! So...incase you're still wanting some things to get you through these last few weeks of school, I'll be extending my sale through tomorrow :)

I'm also rolling out a couple of new units...contractions & amphibians {random?! yes!!!}...and I'm *hoping* to have them up and running by the weekend :) It's a busy week, so we'll see!!!

Happy {almost} Hump Day, sweet friends!!! Thanks for ALL you do!!!

May Already?! Can I Get An AMEN?!?!

Is it just me, or did May get here REALLY fast?! 5 more Mondays to go!! Woo hoo!!

I don’t have anything to share with you this week. Our 3rd-6th graders were knee deep in state testing and I was TOO busy planning for a wedding to come up with anything new and exciting for my class. Please tell me I wasn’t the only one up at 4:30 am watching Kate & William exchange vows, eating scones, and drinking Earl Gray tea…

I mean, wasn’t that was EVERYONE was doing Friday morning?! HA!! I swear this wasn’t a set-up for a party of 1. My sweet friend invited me over for a little sleepover and we watched together. I took my boys and, of course, my itty bitty woke up at 2am and didn’t go back to sleep until my alarm went off at 4:30!!! I only got two hours of sleep, but it was definitely worth it :) And I don’t know about you, but that wedding sure made me want a redo on mine! HA!!

While the *big kids* were testing, our firsties headed to the zoo. It was a beautiful day and the kids had a blast!! Does anyone else love field trips like me?!? The only thing I can’t stand is the bus ride to and from. SCARY.

We learned about the –or & –ar chunks last week and I used Abby’s fab craftivities to reinforce the sounds. We made the DARLING pirates {from her Pirate Mark unit} for our –ar words and the kids flipped. They LOVED ‘em!!! And I used her popcorn tub template {from her Let’s Get Poppin’ With Adjectives unit} to reinforce our –or words. SO much fun!!!

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Day, the girls over at Lesson Plan SOS thought it would be a great idea to host a big sale as “thank you” for everything that y’all do!! Lots of my favorite bloggers and I were invited to play along, too! SO…mark your calendars for Tuesday, May 3rd and get ready to shop {for a 40% savings!!!} my store or in any of the fun little shops listed below :)

Babbling Abby, Growing Kinders, One Extra Degree, Fabulous in First, Made for 1st Grade, Lesson Plan SOS Teachers, Crazy for 1st Grade, Primary Perspective Erica Bohrer, Cara Carroll