Happy Easter Everyone!

Here is 5 random things for this week (Thanks Doodle Bugs for Hosting)

1. AWWWW...Look at this bunny! I am sorry, I swear can't help it, my five month old daughter makes the cutest bunny ever and I had to share! Oh the things we do to our children! I would have my older daughter in the picture too but she is in school today and I am off. My kinder daughter goes to school in a different district that is closer to our home and our days off don't always align :(

2. It is CRAZY but the end of the year will be here before we know it! (I am doing my happy dance) Each year I make these books and use them as my end of the year gift for the students in my class. By the time May comes, I have NO MORE MONEY to spend on my classroom so this is an affordable but incredibly meaningful gift!
The theme of my classroom is bees so the title of the book I make for them is "I Loved BEEing with you in First Grade!" We pick one student each day and everyone in the class writes two sentences about why they liked being in first grade with them.

 The kids do an AMAZING job writing these books and it is the most precious keepsake ever! (I still have the one that was made for me in second grade!) I write the last page in the book and students get really excited to read what special secret message I wrote just for them :)

I have created a BEE theme, Circus theme and Owl themed book but if you would like a different theme book for your class just let me know and I would be happy to create one for you! I just posted these on TpT for only $3 and each packet comes with a title page for Kinder, First and Second Grade and two different writing pages. Click on the pics below to link to the book!

 3. In honor of the holiday weekend I am going to put 5 of my favorite items from my store on sale. You will have to hunt to find them! Click on the pic above to link to my store!

4. Cathy from First Grade A La Carte is having a birthday giveaway week! She will be giving away my Ice Cream Unit soon so stop by and show her some love!

5. My newest discovery! Are you kiddin' me?

I am off to go spend some time with my new best friend! So sad....the poor little bunny never live to see Easter! HA! 

Have a wonderful weekend friends!

Ice Cream CRAZINESS!

My maternity leave came to an end and I went back to work this week :( It was really hard to leave my sweet little baby, there were several days this week of driving away from the babysitters house in tears. 

I had heard from my teammates that my class may need a little "help" with their behavior when I return so I pulled out my ice cream unit early. I usually use this unit at the very end of the year to keep those little kiddos behavior on track until the end of the year. But desperate times call for desperate measures! So here is a look at our ICE CREAM week!

To begin our week, the kiddos were given a Ice Cream Behavior Challenge page. In order to participate in our Ice Cream party at the end of the week students had to earn green and blue lights for the week. We used the writing lines on the right to review our classroom behavior expectations and explain the rules of the Ice Cream Behavior Challenge so parents could read all about it. 

When the kiddos came in on Monday there was a envelope taped to the whiteboard. It was addressed to Mrs. Neal's First Grade Class from Cold Cow Creamery.  The kids were given a planning sheet to brainstorm the ideas for their new ice cream flavor then they began writing. I love this time of year because their writing is amazing and you can totally see their personality coming out in the writing. I loved the use of the word "epic" in the picture below.

 

We did a guided art drawing of an ice cream cone and students painted their ice cream to display next to their new ice cream flavor.

 We LOVE Mo Willems so we also used an Elephant and Piggie book called "Should I Share My Ice Cream?" to complete a persuasive writing piece.

 

We also reviewed and learned about Fact and Opinion, ABC Order, Adjectives, Building Words, Fractions, Measurement, Fact Families, Addition, Subtraction, Graphing and Solving Word Problems. 

WHEW! What a CRAZY fun week! 

The kids had a blast and they were super motivated to behave and earn their ice cream party that I had a wonderful week too!

I put all of these activities into a packet for you, check it out here!  It is 74 pages of fun!