Homophones, D*I*B*E*L*S, freebie and more, Oh my!

This last week we started working on reviewing/learning about homophones.  They're a lot of silly fun.  I can't wait to use this new unit I created!  I'll give it away FREE to any follower who follows my blog, TN & TPT store AND can guess my middle name. Good luck!  Also, my prepositions unit is still up for grabs... some lucky person just needs to guess my favorite number! Click the image above to grab it on TPT and click the image below to grab it on TN. 

Does your school use DIBELS?  Mine does, and I might just be a tad-bit more invested in my students performance/progress this time since the scores are going to be reported in my Masters Project.  Eek! So, since our DIBELS testing is this week, I created this quick practice pack for nonsense word fluency. NWF seems like it always throws a few kids off. Hopefully with some practice they won't be thrown off. Now lets keep our fingers crossed that they do their BEST reading on the fluency passages, and remember a lot about the story for the retell!  Haha.  Click the picture if you want to pick up the pack.

 Here are some photos of the craftivity we started on Friday.  I was feeling a little ambitious when I decided to have the kids paint BOTH sides of BOTH halves of their plates AND let them choose up to four different colors.  I mean, come on, what was I thinking?  26 first graders + 1 me + 8 colors of paint = ?  What do you think the answer is?

But at least they turned out pretty cute!

 

 And now for more freebies!  We've still been learning all about early U.S. History.  Samuel Adams, the Father of the Revolution helped organize the Boston Tea Party, then he addressed the continental congress and helped them write a Petition to the King.  So did Mrs. Bell's Class!  Then Paul Revere just rode by and warned us all that the British were coming to capture Sam...

(click HeRe to download the blank Petition template)

May*flowers (hehehe:)

Surprise! They're not flowers, they're Mayflowers!  Plus, it's not May yet.  But have your kids had the SpRiNg FeVeR? Because mine sure have!  Can you say CrAzY?!

Amidst all of the warm-weather-craziness I found time (@7pm last night...after I met with my Masters Project Committee Chairperson on campus, don't ask me why) to put together this cute display of our Mayflowers.  The clouds contain the words to one of the Pilgrims songs we sing... "The pilgrims boarded the Mayflower, September 1620...."  wish you could hear. 

Anyway, I just wanted to share!

Em

(See the previous post for Pilgrim freebies)

Thanksgiving in April? Freebie*

 

It's true... we have been learning all about Thanksgiving IN April, but it sure has been a lot of fun.  My school teaches the Core Knowledge Sequence, and we just finished a unit on Settlers & Explorers. Our next unit is From Colonies to Independence.  The kids and I have learned SO much.  Do you know the story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke?  What's YOUR theory? 

Anyway, we reviewed Christopher Columbus, then focused on the English settlements of Roanoke, Jamestown, Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay.  My little ones (boys especially) just soak history right up!  They love it.  Our school has a history emphasis too, so I love that it's such a big part of the Core Knowledge Curriculum. 

I made a few resources to go along with the unit and I wanted to share them with you!  I use a TON of music in my classroom, and I couldn't live without my CDs from Classroom Classics.  I usually make a PowerPoint with pictures and lyrics to accompany whatever song I'm teaching  (Next week we'll be doing one on The Ride of Paul Revere)! It's great for integrating reading practice and vocabulary.  The kids get practice using the words through singing, it increases their retention, and reinforces their reading and spelling. Plus the kids are always asking PLEASE, can we sing it one more time?! Please!!! I also let a student point to the words with my pointer, and another student is the designated clicker.  Oh how they love it. I just can't say enough about how great I think it is (obviously)!

....However, without further ado, here are two FREE worksheets I created for the unit.

 Here are the title pages of the PowerPoints. They are wonderful for telling the story of Jamestown the The Pilgrims.  Click the images to grab them on TN or find them in my TPT store! 

Mother's & Father's Day Craftivity Freebie

They're not quite dry in this picture, so the colors aren't as bright & vibrant as when finished,
 plus my lighting was terrible. :(

 Every year I have this dilemma about what to have my students give their moms for Mother's Day.  I always want something sentimental, but also not something tacky that parents will want to throw away but feel obligated to keep.  I want something that they'll want to display.  In past years I've had my kiddos make bead bracelets, or paint miniature birdhouses, but I taught at a private school which provided a fund alloting a few dollars per child specifically for Mother's day, so this year it was the same gig just on a tighter budget.  I had a student give me these magnets for Valentines Day this year, and they were easily my favorite gift.

 It got me to thinking, "We could make magnets for Mother's Day!"  And they're SO cheap to make.  My dad and nephew had a birthday recently, so I did a trial run.  Here's what I did:

1. Purchased:

• glass beads at the Dollar Store (~30-40/package/$1) 

• mini cellophane bags (40/$1)

• magnets from the local craft store using a 40% off coupon (55 magnets/$3 w/ coupon). 

• I already had Modge Podge.

Total cost to make 150 magnets (~5 or 6/student): $12.  Talk about a deal!

2.  Typed up this template - good for Moms & Dads, Mother's & Father's Day (Get it for FREE HeRe!)

3. Colored the Background and letters (I used colored colored pens and pencils on the first one, and highlighters on the 2nd)

4. Traced the beads onto the words/pictures that I chose to use, then cut them out.


5. Painted Modge Podge onto the back of the bead, then stuck the paper on, and painted over the back of it too.  Then I let them dry for a while (couple of hours) before adhering the magnets.

I have magnetic sheets, and they hold up the magnets, but you cannot use the magnets to hang anything, so I recommend buying the round magnets.  Also, I just free-handed the Jackson letters with a Sharpie for my recently-turned-six year old nephew. He LOVED rearranging the letters to make other words out of his name, and putting them in order. A great literacy activity for young kids!  I think sometime I might make an alphabet!


I haven't quite decided if I'm going to have my students use the template or just write the letters and draw pictures like my student did for Valentines Day, but now if you want to, you can do it too!  I think they're pretty darn cute.

One more thing... I work with the Youth/Young Women at my church, and on Sunday I taught a lesson about loving/respecting/supporting our Fathers.  At the end of the lesson I had each girl make a card for their dad.  I usually make these with my students for Father's Day with my students during summer school.  They're super cute and easy to make.  I know father's day is a few months away still, but now you have a couple of ideas!

Powerful Prepositions! and g...i...v...e...a..w..a....... you know what!

Am I silly to be super excited to use this new unit I created with my students?  Hopefully there are others out there like me... Anyway... I am super excited. The gameboard is my fAvoRitE!  Here's a preview of the unit.  It includes:
1 poster of common Prepositions
1 cut and paste worksheet to identify and practice using prepositions
1 worksheet to practice recognizing prepositional phrases
2 worksheets to practice writing prepositions & prepositional phrases in sentences
2 prepositon grammar review word sorts (1 color, 1 cut & paste)
1 write-the-room game reviewing alphabetical order & prepositions (can be used for a literacy center)
2 other preposition games (perfect for literacy centers)
1 prepositions quiz
Preposition Flash Cards & Game cards

You can get it here (TN) or here (TPT)  Plus, you can get it tonight or tomorrow for 20% off because I'm so excited to be done with another semester of graduate school and SO close to having my masters degree.  Yay!

And since I love a giveaway, there are 3 different ways you can get it for FREE.... 1) I'll give the unit to the first person to guess my favorite number 2) anyone who follows my TN & TPT stores, and blog, and blogs about it, and 3) simply enter this giveaway here.
I will give you a clue, since no one would ever guess this part - my favorite number is negative  :)  Good luck!

Back 2 School SALE and Field Trip Freebies...

I joined the Teachers Notebook and since I'm new I decided to throw a sale.  Everything in my shop is 50% off!  That means there are actually items for $0.25. One quarter! Wahoo!  Click my Teachers Notebook link above to view my products. 

Also, we went on a fieldtrip to the Museum of Natural History of Utah today.  The kids had a BLAST!  And I was thinking we were crazy since it was the VERY first day back from Spring Break, but it turned out pretty well.  Phew!  I created this scavenge hunt type activity

 You can download it for free here. 

 When we returned from the Field Trip we had a lovely picnic out in the warm spring weather and did a few fun activities.  We read

 We talked about similarities & differences to our field trip, then we wrote a letter to the staff thanking them for letting us come on the field trip.  Afterwards we reviewed the exhibits and talked about our favorites.  We made this graph of our favorite exhibits:

It was a great day back to school.  Field Trips are fun.  What field trips do you do?  What are you student's favorites?

Hoppy Easter

Preface: This is a totally vain post, completely unrelated to teaching.  :)  

So as it turns out, I'm a terrible wife.  My husband fooled me into thinking he didn't get me anything for Easter, so after deliberating about what to get/do all week I ended up getting him NOTHING by default.  Boy did I feel terrible when he surprised me with a shirt, dress, and leggings that I had been wanting.  :( 

So... I set out to try to make it up to him... somehow.  So I made this card, and (obviously) I was pretty proud of myself.  I thought it turned out pretty cute.  Each egg hidden in the grass is a mini card that can be opened and reveals a 'coupon' i.e. "This egg is good for one 1-hour back rub."  Maybe I was a little extra proud because other than a peek to get ideas on how to draw a bunny, the card was 100% my own creative inspiration.  No Pintrest help here.  (Actually I thought of it all in the shower :)  

Anyway, I hope you like it too. 

Anybunny want a carrot?

Earlier this week I posted pictures of our class Fiesta last Friday (sniff, sniff, it's hard to believe my Spring Break is almost over!) including our mini red pepper pinatas. They were so cute.  So I got to thinking... "Carrots are cone-ish shaped... it's Easter... rabbits eat carrots... hey!  You could make a carrot mini-pinata for Easter."  So I did. Just because. If you want to make one (or anything cone shaped for that matter) here's how to do it:

 First cut a toilet paper roll in half.  Then roll it into a cone shape and tape it secure.  Cut off the excess top.

 Fill it with candy - jelly beans, eggs, whatever you want/have!

 Wrap it with green tissue paper, taping the ends in place.  Twist the top, or tie with rafia or ribbon. 

Get orange streamers (crepe paper) - of if you, like me, don't have any, use orange paper.  Cut two paper-length strips about the width of crepe paper (~2inches). Fray the paper.Wrap the pinata, gluing the top edge as you go and viola, you're done!

One mini carrot pinata ready for an Easter bunny.

Also, a reminder, that you can get my paragraph writing unit and the Spelling and Phonogram test forms for FREE (click the links or see details below!)

Also, I wanted to give a little shout out for Heather at http://secondgradeperks.blogspot.com/. She is doing a grammar packet giveaway and I would sure like to win.  You should check it out!

sPeLliNg! bzzz bzzz freebie!

I don't really love the spelling test paper that I've been using this year, so with my Spring Break downtime (yeah!) I decided to create some practical spelling and phonogram test forms.  (My school teaches phonograms and we test on them each week - you can get some AWESOME phonograms cards on Amy's blog).  I included a couple of different forms & formats and you can get them for FREE by following my blog and my TPT store.  (Just click the link in the very top left that says follow and click on my TPT button to go to my store and follow me.)  Or you can purchase the bundle HeRe!

FieStA!

 

My school teaches the Core Knowledge Sequence and over the past few months we've been studying Ancient World Civilizations. The kids and I have loved it!  We have learned so much.  We started with Mesopotamia and Egypt, then we learned about Ancient American Civilizations including the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas, plus a little bit on the Conquistadors and Columbus.  We finished up by learning about Mexico past and present and culminated with a big Fiesta on Friday.  (You can get the FIESTA sign pictured above, plus another one, and the MEXICO letters below for FREE HeRe). It was a blast!  And a ton of work, but fortunately this whole week is Spring Break (Yeah!) and I have awesome parent volunteers who helped a ton.

The kids made these adorable serapes to wear for the fiesta, (thanks to my team-members for the idea)!  I pre-cut the strips and a parent pre-cut all the grocery bags.  The kids were SO cute wearing them.

 For one of the activities the kids wove these colorful placemats.

And painted these festive sombreros. They looked super cute trying to balance them on their heads. They loved wearing mine too!

One of their favorite craftivities (and mine too) was this mini, personal-size pinata.  They were SO simple and SO cute.  Essentially it's a toilet paper roll, cut in half then rolled into a cone shape, filled with candy (M&Ms in our case), wrapped in green tissue paper, then twirled with frayed red crepe paper.  I think the original idea came from Family Fun.  Check it out! 

 

They also made these pretty tissue paper flowers and craft foam tacos. Both super easy to make.We also made little easter egg maracas, but I forgot to take a picture of those.

And as if all the activities weren't fun enough we had TWO pinatas full of candy and toys that we broke open once all of our craftivities were done.  Needless to say, the kids were ecstatic. 

 And with the help of the blindfold and a few dizzying turns, all the kids got three cracks at the pinata!  For the second one we opted out of the blindfold to speed things up. :) 

 

 And of course, just for fun I couldn't resist making this mini paper parasol wreath to hang (Inspiration: Pintrest - Thank you!).

We finished the Fiesta with a big Mexican feast of tacos, quesedillas, empanadas, chips, salsa, guacamole, etc, etc. then we had a Spanish-speaking father and his employee from Mexico come and speak to us.  The kids were enamored to hear the father translating in Spanish and relaying our special guest speaker's message.  It was a real treat!  Happy Fiesta!  

Hasta Luego!

Here are a few more things we did in class before our Fiesta: