Freebie Friday…

Hellooooo everyone!  It has been a wonderful week for my family and I.  We spent most of the week at Disneyland (our family happy place).

I’m having a blast this summer so far and I’ll be honest with ya–its been really difficult to think about the beginning of the school year right now.  Don’t get me wrong–I’m super excited about meeting my new bunch of kiddos in the fall, but I’m loving all of my family time right now too.

This week’s freebie is a revised version of an oldie but goodie!  It’s my numbers 1-10 practice pages!

Each page has the opportunity for students to practice number formation, identification AND they are able to practice creating sets.  Oh I also forgot the number word is written on each page as well.

Just click the pictures to be taken to my TpT store to download your own copy.  If you love this free activity–I would appreciate it if you could leave feedback!  Thank you so much!

I hope all of you enjoy the weekend and soak up all the family time and relaxation you can get!

Hippity Hoppity…Spring Break is on its Way!

Whoa…it’s officially Spring Break!  I’m so excited, in fact, I just spent the last hour crafting some super cute chunky necklaces to match my little princesses Easter dresses and I’m watching Hart of Dixie on Netflix.  Life is good.  If you are interested in seeing my little crafty adventures, I’ll post some pics on my Instagram page later :).  Anywho, I guess that’s enough of my random ramblings, I did mean to post some pictures of some of the fun activities we finished in class last week.

We just finished a week of learning about oviparous animals and rabbits.  It was so fun!  We read one of my favorite Easter books, Max’s Chocolate Chicken by Rosemary Wells.  We made some bunnies, and I let students choose if they wanted it to look like a bunny, Max or Ruby.  I’ve also used this template in the past to make Peter Rabbits.  Here is a sample picture:

I didn’t get a picture, but one of my colleagues had her students do opinion writing with their Max and Ruby bunnies and there were absolutely adorable!  What a good idea for using this book to teach opinion writing :)!

I also found these adorable bunny shaped eggs at Dollar Tree and made a fun sight word review activity for my kids.  They loved it!

I actually made a couple of different versions, so if you are interested you can pick up the recording sheet and a few other things as a freebie from my TpT shop.  You can all get them here.

We also made this fun Bunny Peep snack from Pinterest:

We made this writing poster to sequence the steps for make the snack:

And after we taste tested, we made this simple graph:

This snack was easy peasie and super fun too!  My class really enjoyed it.  If you would like some fun sequencing activities I included them in my Hippity Hoppity Spring pack.  Just click the picture below to download a copy for yourself.

Happy Spring everyone!

 

Little Red Hen and more…

Happy Monday everyone!  It feels like forever since I was able to blog.  Honestly, I just don’t really feel like I have the time.  Now that I four little ones at home, they keep me pretty busy!  I’m back to teaching kindergarten this year and we are having so much fun!  I am so very proud o the progress that my little ones have made this school year, I can’t believe that there are only a few months of school left.

This last week, we read a few different versions of the little red hen.  We watched this fun video of the little red hen available from Speakaboos on You Tube  

We also did little red hen directed drawings and discussed text to self connections that they made to the little red hen.  We then brainstormed things that students can cook, like pizza, cake, toast, etc and completed the sentence on the sentence prompt.  I love how each hen looks so different.  They turned out adorable!

Here is a close up of one of their drawings and writing:

If you would like the writing prompt, you can download it from this previous blog post here.

We also learned about the life cycle of a chicken  I was inspired by this pin on pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/28499410118466365/

I slightly changed the pattern, but here is our version.

Well that’s about all that I have time for now…my three year old is getting into stuff :p–hopefully I’ll be back soon!

Teaching Major Events and Creature Reports…

The last month of school we worked on identifying major events in text and how they effect the characters (Common core standard RL 2.3). We reviewed what a character is and how we could identify what a major story event is. This standard is important because it helps to make connections to the text and understand the plot. We read Verdi by Janell Cannon and narrowed down the story to three major events. Students discussed with their partners what they felt was one major event from the story. We then worked on completing this worksheet together and created this poster about the story. He Here are some pictures of the graphic organizers that we used.  If you would like a FREE copy of this simply click one of the pictures below :).           Students also researched an animal and created reports. I made a little Amazon Creature Reports form for them to use to guide the process. I totally meant to take pictures of this to show you guys, but ran out of time at the end of the year. If you are interested, you can pick up a copy of my creature report organizer and writing papers by clicking any of  the pictures below.     Ok, I’ll admit that I may be been a tad inspired by the Octonauts when I created the creature reports :).  My kids love that show!  

What I’ve Been UP to…

Hellurrrr my bloggy friends!!!  I know that I’ve been MIA for a while and let me tell ya–it’s been one busy year so far!  Today is the first official day of my Thanksgiving vacation and I am thankful for some rest!  As many of you know, I am at a new school this year and teaching 26 lovely second graders!  I’m loving second grade and I have learned SO much in a short period of time.  Being back in the general education classroom is very different than teaching special ed.  My grade level team is great and I’m really enjoying getting to know so many of the staff members on campus.  I’m also coaching cheer again at my elementary site, but my squad is much larger (I have 31 girls!).  I’ve slowly been making things, but I’m just now starting to get into my “groove” I guess in the classroom.  Last week I posted a new fun Fall Literacy Center pack, which my kiddos just loved!  There are five literacy centers included.

These activities are also included in the pack, but I also wanted to sell some of the activities individually in case you were interested.

We also made Stone Soup last week!  One of my favorite activities to complete with my students!  Here is a picture of our yummy soup, which my kiddos loved!

I just uploaded these fun companion activities to my TpT store in case you are interested :).

Here’s a little free activity for you that we completed in class this week :).  We also made posters that featured the characters, setting, and B-M-E (beginning/middle/end) of the stories (sorry I forgot to take a pic of this :().  Click the venn diagram below to download the activity.

I hope that all of you have a nice and relaxing week!  I hope to post some more things this week, so come back and check often!  🙂

Classroom Photos 2012…

Hi everyone!  Now that I finally feel like I have rested up from the weekend, I would like to share some pictures that I took of my second grade classroom.  I apologize in advance for the picture quality–I took all of the pictures with my iPhone before school started a couple of weeks ago.  I have been so busy in the last couple of weeks that this literally feels like the first time that I actually have time to write a blog post.  I have missed you guys,  so I included some FREE things for you guys  in this post so make sure that you read the whole post  :)!

I have to tell ya–I’m loving my second graders!  They are so sweet!  We are starting to get into a routine and I am so looking forward to the rest of the year with them!

This pic was taken from the front door where students enter.

This picture is from the back of the room.  The boards are pretty much bare to save space for anchor charts that I will make with my kiddos.

This is the photo from the back door. My word wall is located on the cabinet doors.

Here is a close-up of the word wall cards.

Here is my classroom library.

I added some tissue paper pom-poms to my library area for a 3-D effect.

ABC cards that I made to coordinate with the colors in the classroom. I loved how they turned out!

Standards posters for the back cabinets. I added ribbon for some extra “cuteness”.

As many of you know, I spent most of the summer reading about the Daily 5 and I am planning on implementing many of these strategies in my classroom this year.  I have to tell you that I really contemplated how I wanted to set-up my classroom library.  I ended up purchasing bins from Dollar Tree and purchased Reagan Tunstall’s Classroom Library bin pack from Teachers pay Teachers.  This was a total time saver for me!  I still have to go through and label all of the AR levels, but my kiddos have done a great job keeping everything clean and organized.  If you are interested in checking out this product, then check out my pin on Pinterest.

Source: teacherspayteachers.com via Barbara on Pinterest

The following items are from my TpT store:

Now on to some FREE items!

There is one more FREEBIE because I think you guys are awesome :).

I hope that you guys have a great week!

Facebook Post Party!

It’s par-tay time!!!  I hope that many of you are enjoying your summer vacation!  I know that I am :).  Check out my new sweet puppy Coal sharing CJ’s doggie bed–too cute!  He’s been keeping me pretty busy the last couple of weeks, but I’m just enjoying him being little right now because I know that he is going to be humongous when he is all grown!

So tonight I was on Facebook and I saw this photo, and I noticed that some of my sweet bloggy friends were having a party!

I thought well that sounds like fun, so I’m joining in!  Here is a little freebie that goes along with the wonderful Daily 5 book that I’ve been reading.  Click the picture below to download the posters, which by the way are going to be the colors that I’m using in my classroom next year!!

I just finished reading chapter 2 and I can’t wait to read more about this wonderful approach to managing your literacy block with students.  I’m working on finishing up my answers to the blog book study for this chapter and will post my answers tomorrow.  I hope that you guys enjoy the posters!

Giddy Up! Wild West Unit…

Yee-Haw!  Howdy everyone!  Sorry that I haven’t been able to post very much lately, but I have  BIG surprise later in this post that I hope will help to make it up!  I’ve been busy working away on this lovely new unit I just posted to Teachers Pay Teachers.  Here are some sample pictures and click the pictures below to be taken to my store:

And now for the BIG SURPRISE…

I posted a FREE Wild West Mini-Unit for all of you!  I wanted to take the time to thank all of you for your support!  Here are some photos of some of the activities included in the free unit that my little kiddos completed last week:

Help the Cowboy Get to His Horse! Roll and Cover game

Giddy Up! Tally Mark Station activity

Cowboy graphing activity 

Cowboy Boots pocket chart worksheet 

So what are you waiting for?  Head on over to my Teachers Pay Teachers store to check it out!  Happy Monday y’all!

~Barb

St. Patty’s Day Fun!

It’s almost St. Patrick’s day!  I’m so excited!  I  really hope that leprechauns come to visit our classroom <ahem>…more like I will have fun pretending that a leprechaun came to our classroom!  I just finished and posted a fun new St. Patrick’s Day unit to my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Here are some sample pictures of the activities:

And of course I want to include some FREE items for you!  I just created this fun sight word recognition game to help my kiddos with reading the words like, the, is, want, friend & play.  Click the picture below to be taken to my TpT store to download a copy :).

I also wanted to give you this fun graphic organizer to use when writing about Leprechauns with your kiddos.  This activity is part of the writing activity from my St. Patrick’s day unit.

If you are looking for more St. Patrick’s day ideas, then check out my past posts for more links, pictures, and printables:

• Happy St. Patty’s Day post
• Mrs. Kilburn’s St. Patrick’s Day Fun post

I’d love to hear what festivities you have planned for next week!  Feel free to leave a link in the comments below :).

~Barb

Penguins, Polar Bears and Eskimo Fun!

This past week we started our Penguin and Arctic animal theme.  I love this theme!  It’s so much fun! I also posted a new math and literacy packet this week.  Here are some sample pictures from the unit, click the pictures  below to be taken to my store:

We also made some cute polar bears with our art buddies last week.  The pattern is from Heidi Song’s Blog.  You can see her post about these adorable polar bears here.

When I was looking through my penguins and polar animal stuff I found this cute little poem about 5 Little Eskimos.  I added some cute clip art so you can make a big book version of this counting poem or you can put the pieces into a pocket chart as well.  The clip art is from Scrappin Doodles and Digi Web Studio.  Click the picture below to download the book :).

I hope that you all have a great week!  Now I’m off to Craft Club with my friends (I totally ❤ making crafts with my friends)!  Feel free to leave a little note for me if you like the book  too :).

~Barb