Winding Down

I can't believe the end of the year is less than a month away!  Friday we got a glimpse of the heat that is finally headed our way.  We've lucked out so far this year in that department.  It has been quite pleasant here in Maryland.  :)  I am very excited to start our end of the year fun activities!  Last year we "popped" our way through the last 15 days of school.  Finding that idea on Pinterest was a great way to spice up the end of the year.  See my post about the nifty activities we did here. 

Last year I made Summer Space Mission to help motivate my kiddos to keep their skills sharp during the summer.  I tweaked it this year to align it with the Common Core State Standards.  It's free this week in my TpT store!  Check out the preview below and see if it is something you can use for your kids!

Have a great week!  Let the countdown begin!

Rainforest Research and Upcoming TpT Sale!

One of the changes I have really enjoyed learning about when it comes to the Common Core Standards is the research component.  One of our stories, The Red Eyed Tree Frog, takes place in the rainforest and I decided to have our writing connection be a research project.  My awesome intern and I worked together to plan a lesson that collaborated with our technology integration teacher.  A flipchart was made that allowed students to click on their animal and be taken to various websites that were preselected to help them gather information on their animal.  Students worked in pairs in the lab to identify facts about their animal's habitat, diet, and appearance.  They were also encouraged to find other interesting facts that they read along the way.  The cool part about technology and the CCSS is that students are asked to gain information from readings as well as other sources such as videos.  This is a great extension for some of my struggling readers.  They are still able to collect information and it doesn't have to be watered down to their reading abilities.  They did the research in technology class (which made it much easier then taking turns on the 3 computers in the classroom) and we worked on putting it all together throughout the week in the classroom.

I will be adding the graphic organizers we used this week, but in the meantime, check out some of our finished projects!

Teachers Pay Teachers is having another big sale this week!  May 7th-8th you can get up to 28% off many items in different stores!  My store will be participating along with MANY others!  Be sure to check it out!  If you're a seller, I made some other banners that can be used to promote the sale!  Feel free to download and use!

Hope everyone has a great week! 

Earth Day, Main Idea, and a Freebie!

I simply LOVE Green Week at our school!  We have so many fun activities planned and each day we wear a different color to represent the focus of our day.  I wrote more about the things we do during the week here.  :)  We usually spend a lot of the week outside, but the weather isn't supposed to be quite as warm as it has been in the past.  We do not have ac at our school, so you won't find me complaining.  ;)

We will be working on summarizing and retelling key details about the main idea this week.  I will be using some of the activities in my Main Idea Unit that have a "green" focus.

Visit my TpT store to get your copy!

Don't forget to grab your free Earth Day freebie here!  It is my latest clipart collection of graphics, digital paper, and frames.  Hope you can put it to use.  :)

Have a great week!

Target Dollar Section and a Valentine's Freebie

I'll tell you what!  That dollar section at Target never lets me down.  Here are some of the goodies I found last night!

Check out these adorable little dry erase boards!  They are going to be great for small groups!

Heart dice!  With the countless dice games that I have and the fact that we are starting our next addition and subtraction unit on Monday, these puppies just made my day.  I am pretty sure my kiddos will be just as excited as I am.  The little things right?

When we took our pre-assessment, I noticed that many of my students are going to need more practice with the equations where the equals sign is not in its "normal" place.  We touched on it in our last unit, but there is a lot more of that in this unit.  I made a couple recording sheets to reinforce that concept with my new dice.  :)  Feel free to grab a copy here for your class if you can use it!

Recording Sheets

Then I treated myself to this awesome color ("more film") by Essie.  I live in Baltimore and we have a pretty big game this weekend.  Go Ravens!

Have a fabulous weekend!  Aren't three day weekends the best?

Back to School Activities

Holy moly!  I can't believe summer has gone by so fast.  I find myself saying that every August.  Hehe..  I'm getting a lil excited though.  :)  Every year I use the same books to go over behavior, rules, expectations, yada yada.  This year, thanks to Pinterest, I was inspired to switch it up.  There are so many new books that I find it hard to keep up, but I chose these three to try start spicing up my back to school collection.

Lacey Walker Nonstop Talker

You Get What You Get

My Mouth is a Volcano

I bought them all on Amazon and they are all super cute.  The illustrations are amazing and the stories are all focused on specific student behavior.  My favorite part about the stories are that they all depict the character learning a lesson about behavior in a humorous kid friendly way.  If you want to check them out, click on the title and it will take you to the Amazon site.  I am borderline obsessed with Amazon.  It makes my life so much easier on so many occasions.  

I made a couple printables to go with the stories.  Since I don't know my kiddos yet, I tried to make them all so they could be adjusted to what they are capable of.  Students can illustrate or write their responses.  Most of my students came in writing sentences last year (thanks to our fabulous kindergarten teachers) so I shall see what this new batch is like very soon.  Click on the title to download.  Leave me a comment if there are any other great stories I should check out!  I hope everyone enjoys their last little bit of summer!

Back to School Bundle

Illustrate an Idiom

Holy cow!  My kids are having a ball with idioms.  :)  I made this freebie to use in class tomorrow.  Click on the title to download if you can use it in your class too!

Illustrate an Idiom!

~Abby

Descriptive Writing Freebies

We just finished our descriptive writing pieces and I was tickled to death with how they turned out.  My class has been working all year on adding details and using our senses to describe various things, so I threw in a couple mini lessons on similes before we wrote our "official" descriptive composition for the year.  I introduced the concept using Crazy like a Fox: A Simile Story by Loreen Leedy.

We created a couple of our own using this freebie.  I am a big fan of half sheets.  :)

Simile Practice

This week I also came across the cutest simile freebie at The Learning Tree.  My students loved completing it.

I sent a note home and asked students to bring in their favorite toy or knickknack from home.  Then we used this organizer to brainstorm descriptive adjectives and similes that described our object.

Descriptive Organizer

Here is the writing paper we wrote our final drafts on.  

Writing Paper

Click on the titles to download anything you can use in your classroom.  :)  We just found out we are getting out June 8th!  That is the earliest since I've been a teacher.  Wahoo!

~Abby

Fonts used are by Kevin and Amanda and the border I used is from Scrappin Doodles.  If you haven't already, you should definitely sign up for their emails.  You get a freebie every Friday!

Slinky Sentences Freebie!

It was time to add a new writing center (one of my students kindly suggested), so here is what I came up with.  We have been working on adding details to our sentences all year. I always tell them they need to stretccchhh their sentences out by adding details....kind of like a slinky, hence the title. :) Someone along the way used that comparison once and I was a big fan.

The kids seem to be liking the idea so far.  I think I am going to make a couple more sets of the cards.  Check back if your lil ones end up liking the activity too!  Click on the title to download.

Slinky Sentences

~Abby

  Clipart by Scrappin Doodles and fonts by Kevin and Amanda.

Shooting for 100! Manic Monday!

I LOVE Manic Monday!  Check out my freebie for this week below!



This is a game I made as a challenge for our addition unit.  We worked on complimentary or “friendly” numbers and then built up to this game.  Click on the title to download the game as a freebie!  

Shoot for 100!

Here are some of the daily warm-ups and assessments I used throughout the unit.  Click on the title to download.  Hope everyone has a great week!

Addition Unit!

~Abby