Back to School and a Sale!

I can't believe the summer flew by like it did!  After Summer School in June, I had about a week to relax before meetings, moving schools and setting up my room.  The last week has been a flurry, with my class list growing and changing several times a day sometimes.  I finally ended up with 26(!!) little kiddos and they are a very interesting bunch!

Just wanted to remind all ya'll about the Teachers Pay Teachers big Back to School sale this Sunday and Monday, August 18 and 19. My entire store is 20% off and if you use the promo code BTS13 you will get an additional 10% off for a total of 28% (I can't do the math, but they say that's what it works out to).  Click the button below to go to my store. I did manage to get some new items posted this summer.  Check them out!

PANIC MODE!!

It happens every year.  I give myself one week after Summer School is over to be "lazy"...not that I do it, but I just want to give myself some down time.  Then it hits...the panic.  I have 3 weeks?!?! 

The panic happened so innocently.  I was out to lunch with a few of my co-workers and the conversation casually turned to next year.  All of the sudden, my mind was racing, I was jotting down notes and lists on anything I could write on and I went nuts.  Needless to say, this morning has been very productive.  Let me share my busy-ness with you!

I can't stand for the house to be quiet while I'm working.  These were my choices for background noise this weekend.  I have to admit I watched a bit of Fast Five.  Oh la la la...Vin Disel and The Rock are so yummy!!

This was the scene this morning at my table.  Just me, my coffee, laptop, printer and laminator.  I started out with about 200 sheets of cardstock and a full package of laminating pouches.

About 4 hours later I had this stack, no more cardstock and about 10 sheet of laminating left.  I think I'm seeing blisters in my future!

That humongous stack included 2 sets of popcorn words I made, 4 sets of Marsha McGuire's Top Banana letter cards, Kaci Hoffer's Vroom Vroom alphabet cards for my building center, Kathleen Pederson's Fun in the Kitchen pack, some freebies I picked up from Kinderland's Facebook Freebie Hop and my new center signs.  My principal told us in order for us to have centers this year, we needed to tie them to Common Core.  Well, I took it a bit further and made a sign that lists the standards for each center.  I may be posting these to my TpT store before school starts!

I also have to confess something to you.  Hi, my name is Erica and I am addicted to Pinterest.  Shocking, I know.  It's how I've been spending my evenings after Little Miss goes to bed.  It's going to be the death of me!  But, I did finally get around to making a few of the things I've pinned. 

First was this easy-peasy counting game I found.  I've decided to make some "I'm Done!" bags for kids to use when they are finished with their work and this is going in one.  Just takes some clothes pins and some paint chip cards from Wal-Mart. 

Next was something I found and pinned after looking at Little Miss Hypothesis' blog for ideas for a science center.  I have always wanted to do one, but just never got around to it.  Well, thanks to Laral's blog, I'm doing it!  This is a magnetic discovery tin I made.  It's a muffin tin from the Dollar Tree (seriously, what did we do before the Dollar Tree?), wedding favor tins from Hobby Lobby (50% off!) and random stuff I scrounged from around the house.  This tin has a birthday candle, screws, a cotton ball, staples, a penny and some buttons.  My kiddos will predict whether or not the items are magnetic and test their theories with a magnet wand that I will tie to the hole at the end of the tin.  I've got another muffin tin and plenty of favor tins so I'll make at least one more, maybe two. :-)

Tomorrow is our big moving day at school, so I'm sure I won't be making such a big mess at home.  I'll post again when I've whipped up a few more items!

Sunday, June 30 is a BIG day!!

Wow! I haven't posted in so long...please forgive me! Last year was a very intense, stressful year at school up to the very end and while Summer School wasn't too bad, personal issues made blogging difficult. Now that my summer has finally started, I realized that two very big events were about to occur. What are they?? First...unless you have been in isolation, you have heard that Google Reader will disappear after tomorrow. So, don't panic and just click the button at the top of the right hand column to follow me on Bloglovin. Super easy and I set my own account up in less time than it takes to blink an eye! Just click a button and they will import all your blogs from Google Reader!

 

Second...my wonderful Kinderland friends and I are having a flash sale, tomorrow, June 30, for one day only!  Click the sale picture to go directly to my TpT store.  I've just uploaded a few back to school decorating packs as well as a couple of games perfect for the beginning of the year!

 

 

Here's the list of all the wonderful stores that are participating!

 





Happenings...and a sale!

Life is 100% certifiable nuttiness around here!  I basically go from home to school to home then crash these last few weeks.  The end of the year is like this for everyone, right??

I promise that in the next week or so, I will post about all the goings on lately in Eagle Land.  My kinders are so ready for summer!

But, just as a reminder of how much we as teachers, and you as one of my readers and TpT watchers, are appreciated, TpT is throwing their annual Teacher Appreciation Sale! 

 I'll be participating in the sale, along with thousands of other buyers.  Everything in my store is up to 20% off and if you use the extra TAD13 code at the check out, you'll get an additional 10% the sale price, which, people who are WAY better at math than me tell me, makes the total discount up to 28%.  It's one of those times I say "sure" with a smile and a nod of my head.  :-)

Because it's been so busy around here, I haven't had a chance to create as much as I would like to, but here are a few things that I've posted to my store recently you may want to check out!  Click each cover to go to my store. 

First off, my chicken, frog, plant and butterfly life cycle mini packs sold so well, I bundled them so that you can use them all during your life cycle studies. 

For a fun Math Write the Room that will be sure to get your students counting and seeing spots, I created a composing/decomposing teen numbers game. 

 

The end of year is near, but the learning is not over!  Have a little summer fun in your classroom with my newest pack, complete with 2 literacy and 2 math games.

 

And these are not new, but they are some HOT sellers in my store.  They are great for any time of the year.  Why don't you check these out?

 



 

 

Here's a direct link to my store if you'd like to browse :)

 

 

And I'm linking up at Lanier's Lions so you can see other great Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers are participating!

 

 

If you want them to learn, you have to bait the hook! (with a FREEBIE!!)

I {big puffy heart} Spring!  Not only does it mean ice, snow and cold are gone, but I get to teach some of my all time favorite units--weather, insects, frogs and for the last two weeks-plants, seeds and worms!  We have had so much fun learning about the needs of a seed, parts and functions of a plant and worms. 

Our week starts with a poem:

Then we started learning about the parts and functions of a plant using the one thing I saved from my college days:

The students made their own version:

They turn out so adorable!!

We also wrote about growing our own garden:

We also sequenced this life cycle of a plant using my Plant Life Cycle pack.  Click here to see it for yourself!





The next week we learned about a plant's helper, the wiggly worm!  Here's a few highlights!

Gummy Worm addition and subtraction game:

Apples and Worms ending sound review:

And my NUMBER ONE!!, absolute favorite activity all year....a "wormology" lesson!

Observation:

Measurement:

Recording our findings:

And the release!

Click here for my wormology sheet!

 

Up next...insects!













Art Feeds

Art Feeds is a non-profit group that comes to our school once a week for 30 minutes.  It was created after the May 22, 2011 tornado as a form of therapy through creative expression.  Our kids L-O-V-E it!  Today, my kiddos were learning about how record album covers gave you an idea about the music within.  (Hmmm...possible Writer's Workshop mini-lesson....)

They listened to the Beach Boys' "California Girls" and talked about how they thought it should have waves and people in bathing suits on the cover.  Then with The Jackson Five's "ABC", it made them think about school and learning.  The Art Feeds ladies then had the students think about their favorite song and draw a picture of what it made them think of.  Here are a few of my favorites...

 

 Blak I pez (Black Eye Peas)

 

 

The River (sorry, I couldn't get it to rotate!)

 

 

And my favorite...

Sexy and I Know It

He told me he was so hot he was on fire!  Note the people in the flames!

 

 

Here's mine. 

 

I will pick one name from those who guess it correctly, song and artist, and they will win my newest pack, my Frog Life Cycle Emergent Reader and Retelling cards.  You have until tomorrow night at 9 CST.  Good luck!!

 

For more information on Art Feeds, visit www.artfeeds.org.



Egg-stra egg-citing!

Last week was a blur! Not only was it the week after our Spring Break, but it was a short week due to Easter. We spent the week beginning our life cycle studies with a look at oviparous and viviparous animals. One of our SpEd para was extremely impressed with the fact that not only could my Kinder kiddos define those words, they could say them correctly!

Our poem for the week came from Deedee Wills' March Poetry pack titled "Eggs! Eggs! Eggs!".  The kids loved reading it and naming different oviparous animals that would fit each description.  The only problem is....I forgot to click a picture of it!  Just go here and buy it yourself.  A truly awesome resource!

 While you're there, check out her egg math stations.  My kids are loving her Alligator Babies and The Oviparous 10 games in our Math stations!

 We used a lot of literature in our studies.  Here are some my favorites!

We began our discussion of life cycles.  The students used the retelling cards from my Chicken Life Cycle Pack to recreate the life cycle.  

 Afterward they read the coordinating emergent reader.

 Click on the picture to check this pack out for yourself!

When I was a kid, my grandma used to call jelly beans 'jelly bird eggs'.  It's kinda stuck with me so I always make sure to include some jelly bean activities during the week.  First we read this book.  I LOVE IT!  It always cracks me up!

 We did the usual sort and graph...

 ...with a twist!  I added a Jelly Bean Addition sheet that the students completed after they finished their graph.  They used their sorting sheet and added together two colors.

What's an egg unit with a few hundred Easter eggs floating around your room?  We played my Cracked! game.  

You should have heard the groans when someone got the Easter Bunny card and they had to give up an egg!  My kids are very competitive!

Ok, imagine this scenario.  It's the day before Easter Break.  It's rained for two days.  We are going to have our Easter egg hunt that afternoon and my desk is PILED with candy that I wasn't going to use.  Every 5 seconds I hear "When's our hunt?"  Then we go to our monthly SOAR (school expectations) assembly where we get this surprise...

the high school mascot, Eddie the Eagle, and our Bright Futures Sunshine Squad brought every student in our school an Easter basket!  Well, let's just say, we lost everyone after that and it was 8:30 in the morning.  Can you say extra long recess?

While we were in the assembly, our Kindergarten Early Lit teacher was gracious enough to hide (and by hide I mean throw on the ground randomly) our eggs for our hunt.

Such a doll!
So we grabbed our bags...

 headed out...

and chaos began!

             

If you look closely, the little guy in the picture has a strip of paper in his hand.  I couldn't just let it be just an egg hunt.  Each student had a strip with a number of eggs on it.  On each egg was a color word that let the student know what eggs to gather!  Fun, yet still (a bit) educational!

Our week was short, but jam packed with some egg-ceptional learning!