five for friday (feb. 20)

long time, no see!
I've been insanely crazy lately, but I am so thrilled with all the great feedback I am getting about the VIP Table and how y'all are tweaking it to fit your needs! That is what this blog land is all about! I love it!
We've had quite the week here in NC as far as weather goes.
Mon-early dismissal at 12:30
Tues-no school (icy conditions)
Wed-No school (cold day)
Thurs- 3 hour delay
today-3 hour delay
I know people up north think we're crazy for cancelling school at the thought of snow, but we seriously do not get snow! We get ICE! and that's about it!  I personally love that our district calls school by dinnertime the night before. It gives time for families to plan. We used to have it called after a "special driver team" drove the roads in our county and school wouldn't be called off until 6 or 7 in the morning! that sucked! So there's my soapbox defending NC!

Anywho, I'm linking up with Kacey for Five for Friday to get back into the swing of things!

We got so much done on Monday, Thursday, and Friday. I think having less hours in the day leaves much less down time for me! I'm like a drill sergeant! And boy we got everything done I had planned for the whole week!

I posted this on Instagram Monday! So true!

We didn't do anything for Presidents' Day, but here's a few blog posts I have done in the past.

Monday we finished up time, introduced graphing and surveys with my Penguin Hunt, and wrapped up our Saint Valentine unit!

Both of these are fairly rigorous for my kids. I LOVE this penguin hunt! I know it doesn't look like much, but it is and then some! There are 20 grammar/language questions (all aligned to CC) for students to answer. But they ALSO have to put a tally on which penguin in on each card. Then we gather at the rug, check our work, and make a tally chart of the types of penguins we found. Next, students complete a bar graph (which they are already familiar with) and then I introduce a line plot. It's so much goodness rolled into literally two sheets of paper! I like to give you a bang for your buck! (or three bucks as it is!)

and this baby is loaded with history, nonfiction, character traits, locating evidence, and recall with a fun quiz! I included a flap book, powerpoint that matches the text and is beautiful thanks for some amazing ladies who made clipart just for this unit!, as well as lots of follow up comprehension activities! and there's also a Saint Patrick version!! 

haha, choice B...#starwarsreference

Happy Friday!!

five for friday! You won't believe what happened!

This week I'm letting the pictures speak for themselves! Other than letting you know we missed Valentine's Day due to snow...just in case you're wondering why we are doing V-Day games {from Sarah Cooley by the way}...

 

 

 

 

this is the only picture I will give an explanation for! Ok, my eyes look crazy and I have a double chin thing happening, but isn't that tee adorbs! It's from Flaunt Boutique on Instagram! Which happens to be how I shop these days! 

you're jealous of that mystery box...right?!?!?

But you shall surely reap the benefits of those 10 Melonheadz bundles I won!

Happy Friday!! and go link up with Kacey!

Valentines Plans {freebies too!}

I'm linking up with DeeDee to share my plans for the week!

Last week I tried something new. I focused on one picture book during ELA. We have a very very short time for anything whole group. like 20 minutes when you really get down to it. So I used Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs to coincide with our weather unit. Each day we did a different activity with the book. I used several activities from Traci's pack. It's really great!
This week we will use Love, Splat! I love Splat...and Pete, and Pigeon, and any other silly little animal I suppose! The books are simple, but the content is still rich!
So here goes our week

all products used will be linked at the bottom!

We will focus on character-a review actually!

we are finishing up subtraction with regrouping Friday...can I get an AMEN!

featured ELA products...

CC Morning Work from Second Story Window

Love, Splat ELA unit from Michelle @ fabulous in first

Love, Splat mini unit from Cara @the first grade parade

Character Traits from Amanda @ One Extra degree

Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum, I love you from Alisha @ the bubbly blonde

Long A and Long O units from Jen @ the teachers cauldron

Math products

Candy Store Capers activities and centers from me

Temperature freebie from me! a great idea from Amy Lemons!

click to download

Holiday Sctuff

Sweetheart Snack from Sarah Cooley

all you need is love from the teacher wife

St. Valentine freebie from me

One SA-Weeeet Giveaway!

I am teaming up with a couple friends to make your Valentine's even sweeter!

Teri, from A Cupcake for the Teacher

Alisha, from The Bubbly Blonde Teacher

and me!

You'll be set for the whole holiday with ELA, Math, and Writing Craftivities! 

We are giving away our sweetest products!

But hurry! It ends Monday at midnight! (technically Tuesday am)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Valentine Mix Up! and some freebies!

Do you ever have an idea, start working on it, then it morphs into something no even related to the original idea...? Please tell me yes, cause I do it all.the.time. Which probably explains the half dozen products going on all at once on my laptop!

This started as a candy shop mapping activity...

and now it's a valentine card mix up!

ain't she a doll! I am loving Mel's 100 kids set! There's something for everything!

So, this is just like my Christmas Unwrap an Inference and was actually suggested from a buyer on tpt! It was a  lot of fun too! I love using my students' names in these and they eat it up! 

So here's how it works...

read the bios

then show the cards

and let the inferences begin! 

I provided center directions as well as a whole group background story so this could be used with varying levels of classes. 

Would you like to win it?

Sure you would! Hop on over to my facebook page (link at the top of the blog) and let me know what your fav valentine treat is! 

and also go a grab some Valentine cards I made for my little Minecrafters at home while you are there!

and also go to blog hoppin' and enter our 100th Day Giveaway! You'll see why I have no need to create a product for the 100th day!!

five for friday linky Feb 15 edition

It's Friday...can we say Thank the Lord?!
It's not just me, is it??
Phew, action packed week!
So here goes.
I'm linking up with DBT again for Five for Friday.

On Tuesday we made our monster v-day pockets. Last year I put them on bags, but I didn't have time or want to go pick some up...so we improvised. I love the colors! Check out Lindsay's All you need is love pack for these! And I may have spent 30 minutes writing their names on them...

 

today took the cake...right out of me! We had our annual Itty Bitty City event. You can read more about it here and see tons of pictures from years past here, but here's a shot of one of my kiddos doing nails. See her "smock". Her mom let her put paint on it the night before so she'd look professional! And yes, a pack to purchase is on the way...just a few peeps have asked!

On Wednesday night, Little Lamb and I prepped the Minute to Win It games from Sarah Cooley's pack. They LOVED it to say the least! I loved that the same ol' kids didn't win! It was a hoot! I found it funny my 4-year old could do them and some 8-year olds could not...

below is the straw blowing game

 I'm moving in reverse this week. Here's a part of our Chinese New Year festivities on Monday. I snatched up 2 12-packs of fortune cookies at the Dollar Tree {holla} and knew we could come up with something educational! I decided to introduce our graphing unit with a tally chart and convert to this pictograph. I'm on the NO side... We also used our lucky numbers to practice addition and had lots of fun trying to infer what the fortunes meant!
We also did our math hunt (and some still aren't finished!), watched Ruby's Wish on Tumblebooks and did a comparison with GWC, and learned some fast facts about China.

and we are getting really close to 1000 followers on this little blog! I've got a treasure trove of fabulous bloggers ready to give the goods to you soon! So make sure you are a follower so you'll know!

presidential fun recap {and a few valentine freebies}

I wanted to repost last year's post about our fun on President's Day.
I loved how things turned out and in case you did not see the post, here goes!
There's a NEW Valentine Freebie at the bottom!

Last Year

Monday when the kids came in, they had huge funny money bills on their desks. {Dollar Tree!!}I had actually bought them to use for the 100th Day, but time was not on my side.
Needless to say they were ecstatic

Our strategy/skill lesson for the day was an adaptation of Amanda Nickerson’s Character Traits pack.
After I gave them examples of each about myself-short, spunky, stubborn, shy, and pale…they decided which were inner traits and which were outer traits-and they added bossy and best teacher ever to the list…those go hand-in-hand!

Next, I read What Presidents are Made of…oh my! What a great on the whim purchase this was! The illustrations are amazing. I love that the do-dads used represent something about the person. Ah-Ma-zing!

Then we made a circle map of presidential character traits we thought were important to have

and the kids chose one {some did 2} traits they possessed and wrote why that was important. They turned out a-dorable. Here are some favs.

If you want to do the same-here are the signs and writing papers!
Just click below {they are 2 separate files}

We also made Amy Lemons’ little Lincoln craftivity today! And did I mention this is another FREEBIE! Oh, precious! We read Abe Lincoln’s Hat then the kids wrote what they would keep in their hat.

Here they are! You gotta read the one below. A child of my own heart.

SO there you go! I plan on the same for this year-at least for the most part. We do have Monday off, our Itty Bitty City economics day is this friday, not to mention Valentine's Day!
I have a new freebie to share from my blogless teammie! She's on TpT though! We She recently made vocabulary jars for word work and made this one as a freebie for you! Be a doll and leave these awesome girlies some feedback!

I hope you enjoyed these freebies! You can find February freebies galore on Corkboard Connections!!