Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Hoppy Leap Day!

Hoppy Leap Day, sweet friends! Today was a CUH-razy day! Did anyone else feel like that?! I know I can’t be the only one :) We started out our day with a little Leap Day calendar fun and the kids couldn’t wait to learn more about our special day. Since Leap Day is sorta synonymous with frogs, we incorporated lots of frog type activities into our day which is sorta perfect considering we’re right in the midst of our camping theme!

We learned some fun little facts about Leap Day from a few different websites and I kept up this anchor{ish} chart throughout the day so that the kids would have a resource to use in their writing.

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We made these hoppy little fellas for a little writing craftivity. Did y’all know that Leap Day babies are called “leapers” or “leaplings”?! I had the kids write about what life would be like if THEY were leapers/leaplings! Their answers were hilarious!

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We also completed the cutest little Leap Day fact book from Miss Davis’ Desk. PRECIOUS!!! Absolutely loved ALL the activities in this little packet!! FULL of fun stuff!!!!!!!

We finished our day with a game of leap frog…kind of. I tricked it up just a bit :) I divided the kids into teams….Team Leap & Team Day :) One player from each team got to go head to head to find the word with the correct sound on the lily pads. Our spelling patterns this week are /oa/ & /ow/. When I introduced the /ow/ pattern, I explained that it can make two sounds. I wrote /ow/ words on the lily pads…each lily pad had a word either /ow/ sound. When I called out a sound to the teams, the players had to LEAP to a word with the correct sound. Such a FUN way to reinforce the different sounds & spelling pattern!!! Some of them were SO excited to be first to land on a lily pad, but they were bummed to find out the word they chose didn’t have the right sound :) They LOVED it!!! We’ll be doing MANY more of these little games with our spelling patterns…the kids were SO engaged!!!!

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We also played this little game with numbers, too!! I wrote the numbers 1-28 on each lily pad and the kids had to practice skip counting by 4 by jumping from one lily pad to the next. After that, I called each student up and had them pick out a number. Then I asked them to either move to a number that was 4 more or 4 less than the number they chose. Then they had to give me a number sentence that matched. LOVED IT!!!!!

It was a busy, BUSY day in first grade for sure!! Now I’m at home nursing a very sick little 2-year-old. I picked him up from the sitter this afternoon and he was running a big fever. Our sitter said one of the little girls she watches is at home with the flu which means little mister was definitely exposed. YUCK. We’re about to head out for a night out at our favorite little after hours pediatric care clinic. Boo.

And before I sign off, let’s just take a moment to stop and remember my favorite Monkee, Davy Jones.

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What a Daydream Believer. God rest his sweet soul. He was always my most favorite!!!!!!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

A Sale, A Freebie, & An Anchor Chart

I’m sure y’all have heard the news by now, but just incase you haven’t, a few of us bloggers {and SO many more!!!} are throwing a sale tomorrow…in honor of Leap Day! 20% off in our stores plus an additional 10% from TpT using the code L2P9Y.

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If you’re in the mood to shop tomorrow {and who’s not?!?!}, visit my TpT store and the rest of these fabulous sellers!!! Here are a few things in my shop that we’ll be using over the next few months…

March Madness Mega Pack TpT ice cream you scream crazy for contractions

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Are you celebrating Seuss’ birthday on Friday?! If you are, you should celebrate with Seuss Juice! An equal mix of red Hawaiian Punch and Sprite…super simple. IF you wanna get a little fancy, toss in some food colored ice cubes and watch the fun transpire :) We’ll be enjoying indoor s’mores and Seuss Juice on Friday & then we’ll follow up with these printables…{click on the pics for your copy}.

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We’ve been camping out in our classroom the last couple of days. We started out our little adventure with a graph…

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I honestly thought more kids had camped out before! Wrong. So….we needed some non-fiction books to help me teach the kids more about camping. We started out with our fiction/non-fiction anchor charts to help us differentiate between the two different types of text.

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We read a few different non-fiction books about camping and mixed in a few cute little fiction books, too.

We’re still knee deep in our camping adventure. Today was skunk day :) I can’t wait to share the rest of our adventures with you!! And for those of you who’ve asked about my camping unit, I promise to have it up by the end of the weekend! I’ll keep everything in my store on sale until it’s uploaded :)

HAPPY Leap Day Eve, sweet friends!!! And happy leap day birthday {tomorrow} to Sarah Cooley!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Meeting Two of My Favorites :)

A few weeks ago, sweet Diane from Made for 1st Grade emailed me to say she & Kelly would be visiting my old stomping grounds…Denton…for a weekend full of softball games and wanted to know if I’d want to meet up for lunch. A chance to meet two of my teaching heroes?! Of course, I was all over it! I couldn’t wait!! We met at my favorite little restaurant and spent several hours talking a million miles a minute…they are amazing!!! And just as sweet as could be!!! After lunch, the girls let me tag-a-long with them to go shopping. While we were out, we texted Abby to let her know we found this cute little number we thought she should add to her unitard collection :)

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Our day started at 1 and ended around 7:30 and I’m pretty sure we could’ve shopped…and talked…a lot longer! As we were ending our day of fun, we grabbed a guy at a kiosk to take our picture and laughed that we should’ve snapped a shot earlier in the day when we were “fresh” :)

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I can’t tell you how much I admire these women! Their materials and ideas literally SAVED my life this year as I was struggling to adapt to a very spirited class and limited on the time I had to create new things to fit the WIDE range of learning needs in my room. I would email them a million ridiculous questions about all sorts of different things and they always took the time out to email me such detailed and thoughtful answers. They completely changed the way I do my literacy rotations, too!! I just adore them!!!! And they were so sweet to bring me the most creative little sussy, too! Love it!!

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Such a fabulous weekend with two of my favorites :) I can’t wait to do it again!!

Saturday, February 25, 2012

They Like Me! They Really Do!

My {school} kids, that is. Well, most of them do anyway. 17 out of 23 to be exact. We had a mock election today and the votes were tallied…Mrs. Carroll by a landslide :) This week we learned about our country & state and threw in some fun activities from my little Pint-Sized Presidential Fun Unit. The kids had a blast!

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We read these books….one a day…and filled out some fun little graphic organizers.

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The kids got to choose one of the characters from each book…Grace, Duck, or {ahem} Mrs. Carroll, y’know, from My Teacher for President :) …to campaign for. We made little campaign posters and hung them all over our room.

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For our culminating activity, we held a little mock election today and the kids got to vote for either Grace, Duck, or me!! 17 of my little friends voted for me. Those are the 17 I said can stay with me til the end of the year :) HA! Just kidding. Duck got 1 vote, Grace got 2, and one little friend turned in an empty ballot. I guess none of us seemed like good options!!! HA!! 2 of my little friends were at home fighting the flu…BOO.

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As the kids were coming up to vote, they had to show me their Voter’s Registration Cards. Hilarious. I was the voting deputy and I sent them “home” {to their desks} if they forgot to bring their cards.

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They got little “I voted” buttons to decorate when they were finished and then we tallied and graphed the results.

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Earlier in the week, my kids wrote about what it would be like if they were President. I got some hilarious answers!!! They did this fun little craftivity from the same unit to go with their writing…

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Such a fun week!!!

Next week we’re going camping. Oh, yes friends. CAMPING. In the classroom. And I can’t wait to share our fun with you!!! Stay tuned to see WHOOOOO will be hanging out in our classroom next week :)

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We’ll be learning about lots of woodlands mammals…life cycles, habitats, and more. We’ll be using lots of fiction & non-fiction books to use with some pretty stinkin’ cute craftivities that I’ll be sharing with y’all. This past week, I introduced the difference between fact & opinion with some activities from my Fact & Opinion Fun Unit and we’ll continue that as we move into our fiction & non-fiction fun next week.


We’re also starting fractions!!!! Last year I was TERRIFIED to teach fractions, but it turned out to be SO much fun!!! We’re bustin’ out a lot of the activities from my Fraction Action Unit and I can’t wait to get started!! I’ve got my Domino’s pizza boxes waiting in the wings for some fun pizza style fraction activities next week. We’ll also be making our little “fractionpillars” which will fit in great with the little camping unit we’re doing!

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Yeeks!! I can’t wait!!! S’mores, tents, campfires…I’m getting’ a little excited people!!

Why are the short weeks always the longest?! For real?!?! I couldn’t be happier it’s the weekend & I’m SO excited about my little lunch date today with two of my teaching heroes…Kelly & Diane from Made for 1st Grade!!!! They’re here in the Metroplex and I can’t wait to spend an afternoon with them at my favorite little Mexican restaurant! Good food & teacher talk?! Sounds like a perfectly perfect Saturday to me!!! SO pumped!!!

Hope y’all have a WONDERFUL weekend!!! Only 2 more full weeks of school until Spring Break, but who’s counting?!?!?!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

After the Sugar High Sets In...

I hosted a little Valentine playgroup party at our house on Monday. My oldest is part of the sweetest little playgroup...8 boys...ALL the EXACT.SAME.AGE!!!!! Their mommas are some of my favorite people in the world!!! Love them!! There were about 12 kids under the age of 4 running around my house that night. We consumed way too much sugar, played our little hearts out, and made these PRECIOUS Valentine bags courtesy of The Teacher Wife. If you don't have her Valentine unit, you MUST!!! It's darling...even for the littles!!!


My boys handed out these Valentines {thank God for Pinterest ;)} I ended up giving my kids the little "love bugs", too!!!

Yesterday, I was WAY too tired to think about a dang thing after school. My.word. That party took it right outta me. It was a CRAZY day full of WAY too much candy. When I got home, I had two VERY excited boys and slipped right into my sweats. Elastic is SO forgiving :)



We had the most fun little chocolate fondue bar at our party yesterday. Yes...I had a few servings.


The kids had the absolute BEST time and ohmiword. Things got crazy. My parents coordinated this cute little Minute to Win It game where the kids had to transfer Skittles from one plate to another using a straw. SO fun!!! The winning team got bragging rights and even MORE candy to add to their stash!


I picked up my boys and took them out for a little date right after school. Usually, our little family of 4 goes to Snuffer's every Valentine's Day. We started this tradition while I was pregnant with Landon. Who doesn't love hot dogs, cheese fries, and milkshakes on Valentines?! Well..Mr. Spouse had to work last night and he specifically requested we wait for him to continue our tradition. SO...I've absolutely got my elastic pants on today ready to devour even more fattening food tonight :) Instead of our favorite little restaurant, I took my boys to McDonald's for 2 hours of playtime and ice cream last night. BRING.IT.ON. Not a soul in the entire place!!! Best date ever!


I knew my little itties at school would be suffering from a serious candy hangover today. What better way to treat a hangover than with the exact same thing that made you feel all fuzzy in the first place?!?!? I pulled out the leftover kisses and hugs this morning and we started out our day with a taste test. The kids had to try both candies and decide which they liked best. We graphed the results when we were all finished.





Seriously, as nervous as I was to start the day with more candy, this little activity couldn't have been better!! They were SO excited AND they rocked their little graphing skills. Turns out we love kisses WAY better than hugs :) If you're looking for a way to get rid of all of that extra chocolate, you can grab a copy to download by clicking the pic below.


I wanted to do a little literacy piece that tied in to what we were doing in math, so I had the kids write about which they liked better...{people} hugs or {people} kisses. Then they got to create their own little candy hugs and kisses to match :) They thought this was hysterical! I found this idea on Pinterest, but I don't think I pinned it. If you know where this idea originated, can you let me know?!?!? I'd love to give a shout out and link back!!! For this little craftivity, I just cut out a class set of construction paper kisses and had the kids cover them in foil. They glued on googly eyes and then added some glitter squeeze paint for the smile. Love it!!!




I wanted to put more of my leftover candy to good use, so we did Abby's Sweetheart Snatcher activities today and OHMIWORD...AMAZING!!!! I was going to do this for my formal observation last week, but I ended up doing something not as exciting instead. Honestly, I'm so glad I waited til today because this was the PERFECT after-the-sugar-high-sets-in activity. They LOVED it!!!! SO much fun and SO engaging!! This is another "must have" in your arsenal of Valentine goodies!!!!



I'm STILL without a computer and it's driving me absolutely CRAZY!!! I'm dying to catch up!!! However, I gotta say that it's pretty nice going to bed at a normal hour instead of staying up and playing around on Pinterest :) Now it's off to stuff my face full of cheese fries and fried pickles. Nothing says "love" like a heart attack ;)

Oh, and for those of you who have recently emailed me to ask if I've ever gotten any not-so-nice comments and how I handle them, well, I found the perfect post for you to read!!!


You can read more about it at Home Stories A to Z.

TOO funny!!!

Happy hump day, sweet friends!!! Friday's almost here!!



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