Hey All! Happy Summer! Between pool time, going to the gym, art lessons with my oldest daughter, catching up on house stuff, enjoying playtime with my sweet baby, catching up on my Netflix and enjoying some lazy days - our summer has been just amazing! 

Of course, I have spent some time working. I have been working on Second Grade CORE Math Units and that is just exhausting! I had to give myself a little break from math to check out our newly adopted curriculum. Our district has adopted a new Language Arts curriculum and I am really excited about it (we have had Trophies FOR-EV-ER). We now have Journeys by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2014) and although I am just getting into the first few stories, so far so good :)

I am creating these packets because one of my favorite parts of the day is small-group reading time and that time will not be possible if I don't provide my kiddos with some fun and engaging station activities. I need students to know what to do and what I expect at each station so I try to keep the activities as consistent as possible so that my students are not interrupting my reading groups with the awful "What do I do?" question. 

I have created a Print and Go packet for the first few stories (more to come). These packets include Anchor Charts, Interactive Notebook Printables, 8 Literacy Stations for the spelling and high-frequency words, 5 Daily Edit pages (LOVE!), Grammar Printables and MORE! I am thrilled to have engaging, consistent station activities so I can start training my students right away. The best part is, no cutting and laminating endless games and pieces, simply Print and Go! 

This year I am most excited about diving into the world of Interactive Notebooks. I have seen some amazing ideas and I am so excited to begin these with my students. I am loving the idea that these notebooks provide students with a resource that they can use to review and practice. Having a tool that enables students to go back and refer to previously taught concepts is amazing. These notebooks will be a great way to show our mastery and learning of each of the CORE standards. 

You can check out these packets by clicking on the pictures below. Enjoy! 

If I am missing any spelling/sight word games that you would love to see included please don't hesitate to let me know. I am happy to add anything that will make our lives life easier :) 

You Will LOVE Beeing in First Grade!

It is so hard to believe that we have only 7 days left of school! This year has truly gone by SO quickly. I have a great group of kids and parents this year and I am going to be so sad to see them go. As we spend our final days together, I like to challenge students to really reflect of the growth they have made this year. One way I do this is by asking my current students write a little note for my future class and we display their notes on a bulletin board during Meet Your Teacher Night. 

 Here is a little peek at our completed bulletin board. 

Here are a few closeups:

I asked the kids to write two things that future students are going to be excited about and two rules that they must learn in first grade. 

I love having student work displayed and these letters are perfect for Meet Your Teacher Night because they really showcase for parents where we are headed with our writing. Students love looking at them since so many of them know the former students who wrote them and they get a little peek into first grade.

If you are interested in this project click here to check it out. The packet includes the poster, writing page and Bee Craftivity. 

Note: I printed the poster at Staples. During the month of May, they are having a great sale where posters are 50% off! So I only paid $10 for this cute poster. 

AND...

Don't forget to enter my Horrible Harry giveaway! A winner will be chosen on May 28th. Simply click on the picture below to enter the giveaway. Good luck! 

I am so looking forward to this week, on Tuesday my class and I will be smashing pies into my principals face and if that is not a reason to get out of bed, I don't know what is! Of course I will share pictures :) Have a wonderful week everyone! 

Horrible Harry Book Club and GIVEAWAY!

Oh how we love Horrible Harry!
During the month of May, my above-grade level students will be reading some of my favorite books from the Horrible Harry series during Book Club. 

Week 1- This week I am excited to start with the first book in the series, Horrible Harry in Room 2B. We will be using my newly created book guide to accompany the text. This 8-page Book Guide includes a cover page, one page of comprehension questions for each chapter, a space to record new vocabulary words, a story review and rating area and (just for a little fun) I have also included a word search. 

  Week 2 - We are going to work on our next Horrible Harry book - Horrible Harry and the Ant Invasion. You can click on the picture below to get a copy of this book guide. 

Week 3 - We are going to read Horrible Harry and the Green Slime. You can click on the picture below to get a copy of this book guide.

Week 4 - Last but not least, we are going to read Horrible Harry and the Scarlet Scissors. You can click on the picture below to get a copy of this book guide. 

To show my followers some LOVE during Teacher Appreciation Month I am having a little Horrible Harry GIVEAWAY! I am giving one lucky follower a copy of my Horrible Harry and the Scarlet Scissors Book Guide AND SIX Copies of the Book for FREE! 

Wanna Win? 

Simply comment below with your name and email address and you will be entered. I will pick a winner on May 28th. (Last day of School for us, YAY!)   

 Winner is... Jamie L. 

Thank you to everyone who entered! My next giveaway will be later this month. HINT: I love Ready Freddy! Follow my blog so you don't miss out :) 

Don't forget about the TpT Sale on May 6th and 7th! Everything in my store is on sale, including my new Horrible Harry book guides. Use the promo code to save even more!

Mother's Day

IT IS ALMOST MAY! The end of the school year is quickly approaching , YAY! But first we need to show our amazing moms some love. Here is a quick look at our Mother's Day books and Treat bags. I had MANY laughs reading what they wrote about their moms! I know that moms treasure these books forever, and I was so proud of what my students created for them. 

Here is a little peek at what our Mother's Day book looks like!

We did a guided drawing lesson to create the art for the front cover of our book. Here are a few samples of what that looks like.

The first page is titled "Meet My Mom"

 I put four blank writing pages in our book this year and we wrote the following prompts:

1. My mom likes to....

2. The best thing about my mom is...

3. My mom is happy when... My mom gets mad when...

4. My mom and I like to...

Then we finished our book up with a coupon page (I love getting these coupons!) and a treat bag full of Hershey Hugs and Kisses because what mom doesn't LOVE chocolate? 

 

I hope this little project can help you in your class! Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there!

Wow! Take a look at our week!

Exciting News! Doodle Bugs Teaching shared my Free Tooth Fairy Craftivity on her blog this week! I love Kacey and her awesome blog and was thrilled when I saw that yesterday. Her pictures were too cute, she used the project for teaching the phonics skill "TH". Many people have asked for a writing page to accompany this project and you can find that here in my Totally Teeth Printable Unit. 

We have been working so hard on writing our ZooPals Animal Reports this week. Before I set the kids loose to write their report we write a whole-group research report on the desert tortoise. I have a pet tortoise so he came to visit our class last week. This is little Shelldon meeting my students. 

(For the record he has had that name long before the TV show The Big Bang started)

We wrote our tortoise report last week to read more about our desert tortoise report click here. This week, I put my kids in small groups and they wrote their own research reports. Because I was really bad at remembering to take pictures this week I am going to recycle a picture from last year. To read more about this fun project click here. 

We took our projects one step further this year and created a large diagram for each animal. Here is the diagram and report that the giraffe, cheetah and elephant groups created. LOVE!  

On Monday, each group is going to present their Zoo Pals Animal Report to the class. To be sure kids are engaged during their peers presentations, I have created a little Wild About Animal Reports Book that students complete while their peers are presenting. This just revised my ZooPals Packet on TpT to include this book. Please re-download if you already own this packet.  

Y'all know I live in Arizona, right? Well there was a GroupOn for horseback riding and I couldn't resist because my oldest is six and has never been riding so this morning at 8 a.m. we were horseback riding! She had a blast and asked the guide if we could come back tomorrow. :) 

Next week is all about EARTH DAY! Have you read this book?!

I LOVE Todd Parr! His books are incredible! This is one of my all time favorite books for Earth Day. In this book, Todd writes about some of the small things that we can do to make a big difference for our EARTH. His kid-friendly language and art is so engaging to first grade students. 

After reading the book, I challenge the kids to give the earth a helping hand and make their own Earth Day Pledge. 

Here are a few picture from last year, click here to download the Writing Template for FREE! 

It is official - I registered for the July TpT conference in VEGAS this week! I am looking forward to meeting some other sellers and thrilled that I am going with two of my favorite colleagues at my school. I am sure it is going to be an amazing weekend!   

United States Symbols

Spring Break means that it is time to begin working on my TO DO List! I began today by making a few revision to my U.S. Symbols packet. 

I was asked by a few people to add a couple more stops into the U.S. Symbols Passport so now this packet includes: Mount Rushmore, White House, Liberty Bell, Bald Eagle, Statue of Liberty, American Flag and the Washington Monument. 

Here is a little preview of what is included:

To help learn facts all about the U.S. Symbols we used some really CHEAP but AMAZING books that I purchased from Scholastic. These books are by Lloyd G. Douglas and they are easy readers packed with information. 

    

This packet also includes a fun little torn art flag craftivity that I use to display above our completed passports. (Note: This picture was taken before I updated the cover of the unit.) 

Click here to check out this newly revised U.S. Symbols Unit!