SALE!!!!!!

EVERYTHING in my store will be 20% off for New Years Day.  Enjoy!!!!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all of my blogger and teacher friends.

 

And my furry "child"...

Christmas Around the World

During the cyber Monday sale I bought a fanastic unit from Christina Bainbridge on Christmas Around the World.  I used this, partnered with Teachwithmecom's Christmas Around the World Unit to create a mega project for my school's literacy fair.

We used Christina's wonderful powerpoints to gain knowledge about each country and the students worked in pairs to complete a new sheet that I created.  After all of the countries were completed, students made a venn diagram comparing two of the countries together.

When everything was completed, we put the projects into ADORABLE travel suitcase from Teachwithme.com's website.  The suitcase was made from an empty cereal box.


We decorated the front with stickers and decorations from Teachwithme.com.  We added a cute Class 307 tag to the front.

Next, we added file folders to the front to make it look like the suitcase opened.  We added a passport, boarding pass and a map of all the countries we visited through the powerpoints.  (all of these materials and directions are on Teachwithme.com)

The next few pages had the worksheet that we used to write about our countries and how they celebrate Christmas.  Each page asked the students to draw the flag of the country, special facts about their holiday and when it is celebrated. 

The last page had a venn diagram comparing and contrasting two countries to each other.   We learned that some countries used fireworks to celebrate or had special desserts.  Many countries also celebrated the 3 Wise Men.

Hope you enjoyed our project and I highly recommend both of the sites we used to make our project.

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

Need some gift ideas???

I am linking up with Erica Bohrer's First Grade  and Fabulous in First to give a few ideas for the holidays and a peak into my Christmas bag. 

For my 1 year old who is a daredevil:
Yes, it is a power wheel for 1 year olds, but it only goes 2 mph by pressing a button.  HE WILL LOVE IT!!!

 

 

 

 

My my nephew (1.5 years old) who is obsessed with food:

For my dad (who is also obsessed with food):

For my mom who lost her laundry room and basement in the hurricane and is currently rebuilding:

A new, cute sign from Etsy.

Tell Me Something Good- linky

Tonight I am joining up with Rowdy in First Grade for a linky party. 

Something good from school:  We have been enjoying our current Storytown passage about Schools Around the World.  We branched out to learn about Holidays Around the World and schools in the past.  I am hoping to find great pen pals for us.  Since we are in NYC, I was hoping to find a school in a rural community to write to us.  If you know of anyone, let me know. 

Something good from home:  I have finally chosen a holiday card!!!  I am still living at my parents house, due to Hurricane Sandy, so I have not had the chance to set up a photo shoot for my baby.  We recently went to the farm to see Santa, and one of the pictures was sooooo cute, that I decided to put it on my card.  Here is a preview of Owen at the farm:


Gifts purchased:  (background) I have a 21 month old nephew that loves to go to Mommy and me.  Each week he (mostly my SIL and he holds the glue stick) creates a craft to bring home.  Recently he made a circus picture, a large dog and a spooky ghost.  Each time you go over to visit him, he runs over to find a craft and runs full speed towards you saying, "OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH".  He loves to show off every picture he has.  SOOO, for Christmas I bought him a very cute, personalized art portfolio to put all of his projects in.  He will love it!!

Loooove our current math unit

My class has been having a blast with our current math unit- multiplication.  I pinterested math word walls and charts and found some great things.   I also purchased Amy Lemon's Multiplication Situations and have used some projects from there. 

Here is a current picture of our Math Word Wall:

Notice the egg carton on the bottom-  one of my students brought it in and was so excited that he found a "real life array".   A lot of the charts on the word wall come from TPT.  The properties charts are freebies and the multiplication charts are from Amy Lemon's unit.  The rounding rollercoaster chart is FREE and from my store and can also be found in my 3rd grade, 1 page assessment pack for all Common Core standards


We have also been having a blast preparing for our MULTIPLICATION PARTY!  Everyday, we have been taking speed tests starting with 0s and 1s.  After mastering that, students moved to 2s, 5s and 10s.  Next, they moved to 3s, 4s and 6s.  Lastly, to move to the party, students mastered 7s, 8s and 9s.  This can be done through memorization, skip counting, groups (circles and stars), breaking apart arrays/friendly facts or drawing arrays.

Here is a picture of our multiplication chart:

 

Each student has their own "star" that moves with them as they master the next level of multiplication facts.  Blue is 0s and 1s, green is 2s, 5s, and 10s,  yellow is 3s, 4s and 6s  and red is 7s, 8s and 9s.  I have become inspired to create a new multiplication unit- coming soon. 

Crazy Christmas Science

Woah! The holidays are hectic! I still cannot return home for another month!!! We are making the best of the holiday time thanks to the best friends and family!!!

My class is also another source of great happiness!!! I made this especially for them because they love science!! Enjoy!

Crazy Christmas Science

Blog Hoppin': Purchases

I had a blast participating in the TPT Cyber Monday and Bonus Tuesday sale.  I bought a few products myself that I can't wait to use!!!!

Blog Hoppin'

1.  I LOOOOOVE this purchase.  It might be my favorite of all of my purchases EVER!!!  It is from Ashleigh and it is perfect for my next unit or nonfiction reading and writing.  I DEFINTELY recommend this product

 

2.  I also bought Amy Lemon's multiplication situations unit and already used it for an observation.  It went so well.  The principal absolutely loved her "in each hand" multiplication by 2s project.  The lesson I had was for 2s and 5s, so I used this project along with a project about 5 baskets.  I will post if for free this week. 

 

 

3.  I purchased Christina Bainbridge's Christmas Around the World for additional support on a literacy fair project I was currently working on.  The students LOVED the powerpoints and flippy books.  I paired it with a free unit I found on teachwithme.com and created a VERY CUTE suitcase for our project.  I will be writing a new blog post for this, so look out for it later this week (with pictures)

4.  Lastly, I was looking for cute decorations for Chinese New Year (I know, its early) and came across this really cute lantern project.  It comes with all the paterns you could possible need WITH photos to show you how they come out.  They are from Bernadette Zabrouski, so check them out!!!  The picture is really small, check them out here.

 

AND....I have recently added new holiday products to my store for Hanukkah, New Years, Valentine's Day, Winter (no holidays mentioned), Christmas and Polar Express. 

 

 

 

 

A look at our recent art projects

I have a VERY artsy co-teacher who loves coming up with cute and educational ideas.  I thought I would show you some pictures from our last 2 projects.

We learned about Paul Cezanne and how he uses "patches" of paint to create his still lifes.  Using the smartboard, we viewed paintings by Cezanne and learned about his life as a painter.  The students then used pastels to "paint" their still lifes based on a bowl of fruit.  This opened up a great discussion on views and angles.

 

 

Next, we learned about scarecrows.  We viewed exampled of different scarecrows and what they are used for.  We then wrote haikus about scarecrows to attach to our craft.  We used brown lunch bags, stuffed them with newspaper and added our own hair, cheeks, eyes, nose, mouth and hair. 

 

 

Gingerbread Love and a sale!!

My class has been having a blast celebrating Christmas and Winter early.  We are learning all about Christmas Around the World, courtesy of Christina Bainbridge and her excellent PPTs from TPT. 

Also, we are completing an entire unit on my favorite- GINGERBREAD!  My students read Gingerbread Man and Gingerbread Baby and compared and contrasted the stories.   Instead of using a venn diagram, we used gingerbread connected with a heart. 

Here is my anchor chart:

Here is an example of a student's work. 

 

 

 

 

More gingerbread activities (math and literacy) can be found in my Celebrate Winter pack with gingerbread craft and math and literacy activities

 

 

My store is also 28% off tomorrow- Tuesday, so check it out!!!

Update and a sale

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes and support.  I am still not back in my home.  It might be another 2 weeks before we can go home again, however, we are enjoying our time with my parents.

TPT is having a Cyber Monday Sale (and Bonus Tuesday).  ALL of my products will be 28% off both days.  Happy Shopping!!!

I have been working constantly, trying to put together new products that my classroom needs.  I teach 3rd grade inclusion, so I have 18 general education students and 12 special education students.  I am ALWAYS in search of a great assessment tool for them but could never find what I needed, so I decided to make my own.  I had made a 3rd grade, 1 page assessment for every math standard.  You can find the assessment pack here.

Check out some holiday/seasonal items that I recently posted:

Celebrate Winter: Math, Literacy and craftivity

Polar Express Math and Literacy Packet

 

Christmas Literacy and Math Packet with craftivity

 

 

New Years packet

Thanks for the Support

I am still without power and not back in my house. Thank you again for all of your support. Check out the new free items I created. Hope to write a better post soon.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Free-Holiday-Poetry-Paper-and-ING-ED-endings-worksheet

Hurricane- Without a Home for a while......

I have not posted in a while because of hurricane Sandy. The good news is that my family is safe. The bad news is that I am out of my house for a while.......TBD. My house was on the water and the area in unlivable for now. I have been staying in a few different places since so many people I know also had hardships. My son, Owen is fine but confused why we have not been home in a while. I hope and keep my fingers crossed that only good things will come my way soon. I will continue to post and keep you updated when I can get electricity and a computer.

Thank you for all of your support.

Pumpkin Scientfic Lab w/Freebie

My class had a blast this week.  We began our discussion of the Scientific Method with a beginner lab. 

I recently went to the farm with my little boy, Owen.  I bought 3 pumpkins- 1 for Owen, 1 for my house and 1 for my class.  We had a great time carving our pumpkin at home that I thought it  would be fun to carve in school. 

First(observation)-We observed the pumpkin without opening it. Students drew a picture of the pumpkin and came up with 5 describing words about it.

Next (Hypothesis and Prediction)- Using the hypothesis "What is inside a pumpkin?", students drew a picture of what they thought it looked like inside and predicted how many seeds were inside.  Their guesses were great- anything from 2 seeds to 1,000,000!!!!  For step 3 (experimentation)- students watched the pumpkin being carved and drew what was actually inside. 

Then (Experimentation)- Students used their 5 senses to inspect a plate with the pulp and seeds on it.  We used magnifying glasses and were able to tch and dissect it.  We even brought in a hot plate to make the pumpkin seeds for them to taste.  Some LOVED them, some not-so-much.  BUT, everyone had a blast!

You can find these sheets in my TPT store for FREE!!!  CLICK HERE FOR MY TPT STORE   Just leave me feedback if you like them.  ENJOY!!! and let me know how your students liked the pumpkin experiment. 

Case of The Mondays!

Today my class did a really cool science investigation. We used the template from my Mega Bundle. It was awesome! First, I got a pumpkin at the patch with Owen! I brought one into class!!!

I was shocked how many students in my class NEVER saw a pumpkin before!!!!!!!

We (the teachers) opened the pumpkin with a safety child carver that we got at the dollar store! We read a book about how a pumpkin grows. Each group of students got a plate full of seeds and pieces of pumpkin. Then the students used their 4 senses to describe what was inside the pumpkin. It was so much fun!!!

Coming Soon:

We are going to write a sequencing book about how a pumpkin grows.
We are also going to use our 5th sense of taste to try pumpkin seeds later in the week!

Keep you updated. What activities are you doing in your room for Halloween?

Very busy week

This week has been BUSY!! I am studying the different boroughs of New York. My students found maps and color coated them. We also found an amazing powerpoint about the smells of New York City! 

When researching for these lessons I stumbled upon the best website called We Give Books!!! It puts a book on the smartboard! I am so excited to use it! This link will take you to all the books you can read for free on Halloween!
wegivebooks.org

In science my class has been learning about how the earth changes. We decided on Friday afternoons to make science experiment centers. This week we used sand and water to show erosion. The students had to blow it, tilt it and pour water on it! They had so much fun!!!!

On Fridays for having a great week and doing all their homework I give prizes. I found that my students LOVE LOVE LOVE glow bracelets. They are inexpensive too! I get them for 1 dollar for 15 bracelets at target or micheals!! I spend about 5 dollars and make my life so much easier. The change I have seen in my students because they want the prize is unreal!!!

Here is my very cute prize box (from Ikea)

Any other great prize ideas?

I've been BOO'ed!!!

I'd like to thank Melissa at First Grade Smiles

 

 

So, 3 October activities I love are:

 

1.  My son Owen's Halloween costume.  He is only 1 year old and will be participating in a Ragamuffin parade in town.  My nephew, Mikey, will also be in it- he is dressing as Mickey Mouse.  Owen will be going as a hamburger.  This is his costume, but this is NOT Owen.  However, it does look like him a bit (the blond hair).

 

2.  My Halloween MEGA pack, including Math, Literacy, Science and Writing (word choice)- Common Core aligned.

I LOVE this packet and it is receiving rave reviews on the separate pieces.  ALL of the following items are included.

 

check out the MEGA pack here

 

 

 

 

 Halloween math and Halloween literacy, science and Said is Dead available separately in my store. Here is a few pictures of what is included.

 

 

3.  The movie Hocus Pocus!  My mom and I would warch this movie EVERY year.  She still calls me whenever she sees it on.  I admit that it is not the best movie, but there is something about it that I love.  If you have not seen it, RUN AND RENT IT!!

 

 

 

Bloggers I  BOO'ed:

The Peanut Gallery
Tanya Rae Designs
Fun in 1st Grade
Adventures in Teaching
Creation Castle