Yee Haw!! Farm Time and a FREEBIE!

Ok y'all! I am FINNNALLLLYYY done with my farm units for math and literacy. I've been working on these for like 2 weeks. Life is just starting to get so busy! John (my husband) and I are moving on to the next phase of our almost married for 1 year life...we have just begun the great property hunt with hopes of building a house in a couple of years! He has actually been looking for about 2 years, but I'm getting anxious and want to start settling. There are so many things about our life that are up in the air, and it feels great to finally being tying some of those strings to the ground.

Anywaaaayyy, back to the unit...it's done and I must say, it's quite fabulous. I'll just let the preview speak for itself. you do need to know that I have put it in my tpt store as 3 separate items. There is a math pack, a literacy pack, and the combo pack for a little discount. I've just noticed that a lot of teachers really prefer purchasing JUST math or JUST literacy, so I'm trying to accommodate as many people as possible. So with all that being said simply click HERE to get a better look-see at these units. Oh! Don't forget to go get your farm themed pocket chart story FREEBIE!! (It's in my store too so you can grab it there)

Literacy Twist on "BUILD"

Okay, so shortly after Christmas I noticed that my smart little kiddos were getting done with their literacy centers rather quickly and moving on to play their tech game. They were playing their game (...or getting a little off task) for like 40 minutes of the entire hour for our center time. It wasn't that they weren't doing their work correctly, they were actually doing a great job, I guess they just needed some harder work or more work. SOOOO, I'm sure several of you have seen "BUILD" right? If not, I found the idea from Mrs. Thompson at Adventures In Teaching, you should definitely hop on over and take a look at that. BUILD is basically like "Daily 5" for literacy but it is all math based. I use the BUILD system for my enrichment group...they LOVE it!

Anyway, after pondering for several days about my literacy center issue, I came to this conclusion. I can't necessarily make my center game much harder because there are only a select few of my students who would do well, and that's obviously not what I want. So, I decided to go the "more work" route. I had a random thought one day to try and put a literacy twist on BUILD since my kids loved it so much, and ta da...I came up with WORDS...duh right??? So here is how it works in my classroom...my kids do their regular center work first and as soon as they finish they get whatever WORDS basket that is assigned to their group. From this basket they have to complete a very easy worksheet that deals very explicitly on some kind of reading skill...I use the worksheets that come from our reading series. Then there is some sort of literacy based game in the basket they can play until the last 20 minutes of center time. When this time rolls around, I ding a little bell, they clean up, and go play their tech game. It has taken them about 2 weeks to remember what to do and get the hang of things, but they are adjusting well. Hope all of this makes sense...maybe it will be something you can use!

W-Writing Words

O-Other Word Stuff 

(I usually put a game or activity that works on a skill my kids might be struggling with or need extra practice with)

R-Reading Words

D-Doing Word Work

S- Sight Word Stuff

GIVEAWAY!!

Don't forget about the giveaway I have going on with First Grade Blue Skies! It ENDS TONIGHT!! You can win some SuPeR cUtE stuff for spring time. Hop on over to her blog for contest entry details by clicking HERE!!

Terrific Transportation!!

Hey y'all! I can't begin to tell you how much fun we had last week learning all about transportation. It was a blast! Despite our super busy assessment schedule, we somehow managed to get everything done just in time for our transportation day on Friday. For Transportation Day, I didn't really know what to expect since this was my first, but it was such a blast!! The ENTIRE school participated in making a giant transportation mural...it turned out SOOOO cute. We got to visit and explore different types of transportation like a fire truck, police car, utility bucket truck (WHICH I GOT TO GO UP IN!!!!) an old fashioned car, a school bus, and we got to walk through a moving van. But wait, it gets better...we got to sit inside a hot air balloon that was partially blown up inside our gym! Crazy! This is definitely one of my favorite themes!

WE WERE UP SO HIGH!! It was a little scary but so much fun!

If you want to take a closer look at our math and literacy centers from this week you can hop on over to my tpt store and take a look at my "Honk Honk Rattle Rattle Crash Beep Beep" Unit. I know it's a mouthful, but if you need a transportation unit, this pack has all you need!

Jamie Chamblee, from Miss Chamblees Kinder Friends, and I have also put together a pack of transportation themed TLC activities for you and your kids. There are 9 different TLC activities with various writing options for the different levels of your kiddos, so take a look at that as well.

Spring Into A Giveaway!!

Hey y'all! So the best thing ever is about to happen to you!! Jennifer over at First Grade Blue Skies and I have teamed up to do a giveaway! What can you win??

2 AMAZING Springy packets. Spring on over to her blog to check out the giveaway rules! You don't want to miss this!!

Spring Has Sprung...

Well it has in my TPT Store. Yes, that's right, I have just posted my units for Plants and Insects. Now, I know a lot of people do these themes separately, but I think plants and insects go together like butter on a biscuit so I am teaching this unit as one! I did however post a literacy unit and a math unit separately mainly because I want to know what you all think...Do you like to purchase them together or separate?? AND do you like having both the color and the black and white images? Sometimes I feel like I am just taking up space with the color images, because I only use black and white, but if there are lovers of color images out there I will certainly keep them in! Let me know what y'all think by leaving a comment! Here are the previews for both of the units. Don't forget to stop by my store and take a closer look!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

As you allllll know, last week was Read Across America Week. Well we went all out in my class and at our school. We dressed like our favorite book character on Monday (and I forgot my camera of course :(  ) Tuesday was crazy sock day, we had wacky clothes Wednesday, hats off to Dr. Seuss on Thursday (my fave) and Friday was wear your favorite color. This was also our school's week for "Daddy Days" where everyone's dad can come and have muffins and juice first thing in the morning. OH! We also had to release school early on Friday for bad weather! Needless to say, it was a crazy week, so we didn't get to do everything we planned...like eat green eggs and ham on Friday...but we still had so much fun with Dr. Seuss! Check out the very few pictures I have from this week. Sometimes I wish there was a USB port to my brain so I can just upload images from there haha! I can't have my camera with me every waking moment.

Hat Day!

Cat In The Hat

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Truffula Trees!