Hundred Chart Galore and Giveaways and Permission to Pin

We are currently working on adding and subtracting up to 40. Unfortunately our number lines do not go that high so we are busy working with 100 charts in preparation. I bought a classroom one that is huge and magnetic. I absolutely love it! I can write on it with dry erase markers to model and it works SO well. I could not find exactly what I need new hundred charts for all my students and some charts with missing numbers to help students understand the number relationships. Since I could not find it I went and created it. Here is a copy for you if you would like.

Also Kelley at Buggy for Second Grade is having a giveaway for getting 300 followers and her birthday. Head there to enter to win a $25.00 gift certificate to TpT. Perfect for the all the sales going on!

Also you have my permission to pin!

Another Linky Party

It has been a loooonngg week even with Monday off. Today ended with school being dismissed at noon due to snow. Craziness I must say.
I am busy preparing for the madness of March and will share what I am working on soon. In the mean time I am joining the fun over at Kindergarten Lifestyle.

Michigan Meet Up and Giveaways Galore

So yesterday was the Michigan Meet Up with my new blog friends because I know they are really human. :) It was fantastic and all such an inspiration for a new teacher like me!! Love hearing all the stories and about technology and classrooms and books and pencil sharpeners and our "secret" blogs, and a little geography lesson on Michigan. (Yup we did pull out our hands and point where we are from.) :) It is a Michigan thing! I am borrowing these pictures for Rachel as my camera was dead.

Kara, Andrea, Rachel, Christina, and me

Holly, Beth, Lisa, and Amy (the organizer of this great lunch/dinner)

My new blog/teacher friends can be found here: 

Holly at Criss-Cross Applesauce in First Grade She is just as sweet in person as you would think from her blog!

Beth & Lisa at Made in the Shade Second Grade These ladies are fantastic and funny! Great stories and they do amazing work! 

Amy at The Resource(ful) Room She is an inspiration in how she creates so many cute centers out of her great finds. 

Andrea at Stepping Into First Grade Loved when she starts to take notes of all of us. It was so wonderful to meet her!

Kara at Spedventures Between her and Rachel we heard some wonderful stories. 

Rachel at Ms. Rachel's Room You can tell she loves what she does! So great to get to know her. And she doesn't live that near to a Target either, which makes me feel a little bit better. 

Christina at Mrs. Bainbridge's Class So cool to meet her! She is sweet and an inspiration to me the young one.
What an amazing group of people!! Can't wait for further meet ups...which will be soon right?!?

Here are some giveaways that are going on! First I just discovered Lisa at First Grade Bloomabilities She is giveaway a chapter book set...that SHE WROTE. How cool is that!!

Ashley at Flying High in First Grade is having a giveaway for reaching 50 followers! You can enter to win at $15 iTunes card.

Keri at Teach, Play, Smile is giving away 2 $10 gift certificates to TpT. So go check it out!!

February Celebrations

I feel like I have been running a marathon and have finally finished. But not a fun marathon...Is there such a thing? A marathon that involves constant sickness...both mine and students and celebrations... 100s day and Valentines Day.... and all because we have had no snow days and these crazy weather seems to be throwing everyone off. Tomorrow will be glorious as I have Presidents Day off!!! Woohoo!  I am going to savor it like not get out of pajamas kinda of savor.
Here are some of our activities from this week...I didn't realized how much we did until I started to putting it all up. We were SO busy!

From hundreds day we create our bucket lists for what we want to do by the time we are 100. I got this idea from Kristin at Little Miss Glamour goes to Kindergarten. Staying up late is a BIG deal for first graders.


We also made Abraham Lincoln inspired by Traci from Dragonflies in First. They were only suppose to make the face and hat. I had a guest teacher that day and my students went a little over board. Along with their creations they had to write why they would and wouldn't want to be president after reading as a class So You Want To Be President?

My students mainly don't want to be president because they would have to work or they will die.

But I totally forgot my camera at school....I know there is a word for this. So pictures will be coming soon I promise!
I have been loving all the Dr. Seuss stuff! Thanks to everyone who has been sharing and creating. Some day I will do the same but that will require me to find time which I seem to loose more than anything. Can't wait to use it in my classroom.

And I feel so out of the loop...The Lorax is one of my favorite books. I just learned that they made a movie for it yesterday. Where have I been? Possibly buried under the piles that keep growing on my desk or lost in my never ending, never shortened to-do list. I am not sure how I feel about this movie. I am sure I will enjoy it,but it takes so of the magic away from the book.

Does anyone else use OCR? I am looking for ways to adjust some of the lessons to differentiate for all my students and wanted to see what others were doing.

Also as you might of noticed I changed by blog look. I am admitting right now I have a problem. I really want to get one look and make a commitment, but can't seem to find a place to go. Any suggestions of places or people that work well? I don't want to be the freak and keep changing my blog look all the time. I have tried everything but I can't figure out how to get rid of my double title. So I got to change it soon.

Michigan Blogger meet up today! Can't wait!! :)

Authors As Mentors and You're A Teacher When...

We started our new writing unit Authors as Mentors two weeks ago. Since our whole school teaches writing workshop and the same books and authors like Angela Johnson are used as our writing mentors from kindergarten through second grade I decided to change it up a bit to help make the students excited about the unit. 

Enter Patricia Polacco. I love everything about her books and her illustrations. We have read a few of her books throughout the year which were enjoyed. Since she is also a Michigan author, I thought this would be a point of interest and it has been. Love when things work out that way. 

To start the unit we read Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco.

 I chose this book of hers because it has a great deal of talking, many details, small moment story, has dashes, ellipses, and words written all in capitals with many o's ...as my students would say. It has worked out perfect for us studying her writing this past week. Also she writes stories that are true stories about herself. 

After our reading, we had a discussion about big watermelon and tiny seed book ideas and how we can turn a tiny seed into a story. Students received their own tiny seed notebook. I am glad to say they understood how tiny seed ideas need details to go with it.  I don't have a picture of the actual notebooks students are using, but here are the pages that are in their notebooks and the cover. I cut them out and assembled the books with a wide strip of construction paper. I had students glue on their title page. 

Click on the pictures if you would like a copy or here.

 Maybe what I am even more excited about is how I am going to tie in Thunder Cake to our author celebration in a couple weeks. 

We are going to start working on many moment stories this week. I plan on using Polacco's Some Birthday...because what first grader can't relate to a birthday story. I should also say that I still tie in Angela Johnson's books for some of the writing techniques she uses, but Polacco is our primary mentor author. 

Now for some linky fun...Jeannie at Kindergarten Lifestyle has this super fun linky party going on and here is what I am adding to You Know You're A Teacher When...

This happens to me all the time. The worst is when I don't realize it until I am already out in public.

Seriously, we had a snow day then the staff got together soon after and most of us said we were up at 4:00 a.m. checking the weather and news then were so excited we got a snow day we didn't go back to sleep. 

Valentine Exchanges!

I was so excited to see this package arrive because really who doesn't love to get mail. :)

I was even  more delighted to find what was inside. Thank you to Briana at frommymixedupfiles

Also I signed my class up for the classroom exchange. Anyone else do this? I have been loving it so far. Inspired by pinterest and the fact we have so many tiny pieces of crayons just hanging out in our room we made our own crayons. (I made these once before and it did not work as smoothly as this.) I oiled my mini muffin tin and had students pick out 4-6 pieces of crayons to put in a tin. I took it home and put in the oven for 15 minutes and voola, brand new crayons for our new classroom friends. We have enough little crayon pieces I think we will be making some for ourselves too. We also received these awesome valentines from our friends.

Our Valentines Day went really well, but I am just pooped. Things seem to be crraaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzzzzzy right now....super jealous some have a week off in February. With all the sickness floating around a break would be great for all. Here are some of the activities we did during our Valentines day inspired by some amazing bloggers.

For reading we read Kindness is Cooler Mrs. Ruler. I learned about this book from Lisa and Beth at Made in the Shade Second Grade. Love this books!! My class definitely needed this as a reminder. I was inspired by what they came up with but put my only little twist on it. Each student finished the sentence "I will be kinder by...." that was on a heart. We cut out the hearts and created a poster. Ta-Da!!

This one got me. It sums it all up!!

Glad some are figuring this out!

Before the party we made valentine monsters...with a class that is mostly boys I figured that was the best route.... I used the monster templates Amber from Adventures of Third Grade Teacher had as a freebie. They turned out awesome!

I like how some students had their monsters actually "eating" their valentines.

I used Lindsey from The Teacher Wife valentine idea. That looked fabulous!

Anyone use animoto for videos about the classroom? The teacher I exchange with send our classroom a video that was super cute. My class is now wants to learn all about penguins. I am just worried about having pictures of students and if I will come back to haunt me.

I get to meet many of the awesome and amazing fellow Michigan bloggers this weekend. So so so excited!! That is something to really look forward to after this crazy February.

Vowel Outerwear

So I am taking two master classes right now and everything I have read so far is that worksheets are not effective (one of this key important teacher words) when teaching phonics. Yet I have a worksheet in three different version for every lesson I teach.

In my blog stalking, I found these wonderful double oo glasses from The Teacher's Wife. We did the sound on Monday and my students were thrilled that
a) they didn't have a typical worksheet
b) that could decorate it
c) had something to wear

They turned out great and we had more conversation about the sounds then usual. So we finished the week by working on the ow sound both as -ow and -ou.

I loved how class went with the glasses so I cooked up this little crown -- The Cloud Crown

Once again we had more conversation and students were so engaged with their crowns. First we created a list of ow words and ou words and students used the list to fill their crowns with these words and more that they came up with it. Our word list started with wow and loud and grew to shower, power, chowder, sour, louder. We added a strip of paper to complete our crowns.

You can get your copy here or click on the picture.

I am mad I didn't have my camera on Friday to take pictures, but they were cute!

Currently...

I feel like I have been away forever so I am just getting around to doing my Currently February.

I have been reading about bad and unhelpful trainings. I got my fill on this week. It was this bad... we were given manipulatives- straws, base ten blocks, money- the basics and proceed to learn how to model and teach our students how to use them for place value. The whole training was filled with kindergarten, first grade, special education, and title teachers. We know all this. I use manipulatives just about every day. Can't wait until I have to attend another day like this because oh yes it is a two parter... (And on a side note why is manipulatives also underlined that it is spelled wrong...can't spell checker finally get it)

The one bright spot was in the pack of worksheets we can use was a beautiful worksheet where students express a number eight different ways and I couldn't help but smile because I recognized the Scrappin' Doodles clip art right away and knew that some great blogger made this. If only our presenters knew what was out there. 

So thank you to however made this. You made my day! :) 

What Do I Love? Linky Party

I  love a linky party especially when I have the time...which I do this weekend. So I am joining up with Kimberly at Funky First Grade Fun for What Do I Love?

And for some more fun...

 here is one of my favorite hey girl. Go check it out if you haven't here. 

 Some days this just helps. Enjoy!

and the latest ones from today...which are equally amazing

Hope you all are having a great weekend! Thank you for all the feel better comments!! I am starting to slowly. I promise I will have something teacher related to share next week we have been working on some new projects that I am excited to share. 

Couch Queen and a Freebie

Like many of you I have been battling sickness and finally caved and got a guest teacher this afternoon so I could go to the doctors... not my favorite place in the world. Result my doctor told me to be a "couch queen" so that is how I am spending my weekend. I will actually have time to blog stalk. 

Here is the hundred chart I talked about earlier this week. You can click on the picture to download it or here.

Also there are so many giveaways going on here are just a few you should check out

Kelley at Buggy for Second Grade reached 200 followers and is giving away this adorable magnet board.

Amy at The Resource(ful) Room reached 300 followers and having a giveaway inspired by women facing cancer. They are items for you and your classroom. 

and...

Heather at Heather's Heart is having a giveaway to win a CD to go with Family Circle Time and a shirt from Sassy Sew. 

Also Kimberly at Funky First Grade Fun is having a linky party of What Do you Love? I am going to join this soon...maybe even later tonight. I am blaming it on the couch queen my doctor imposed on me.