Gingerbread

Check out my new Gingerbread Galore unit on tpt! I love doing Gingerbread the last two weeks before Winter Break.  The grand finale is making gingerbread/candy houses!  What a mess!  What a blast!  Our first grade team  has the kiddos make their houses on the last day before the break.  It makes a fun party and it doesn't have a Christmas theme.  

I hope to get my CGI Problem Solving Packet up tomorrow!  Come back and check it out.

Thanksgiving Stuff

Woohoo!  Got the week off!  Unfortunately three of the days are furlough days so no pay:(.  My son comes home from college tomorrow night!  Woohoo for that too!  
I did some directed drawing for art last week that you might like to do if you still have school this week.  Here's the pics.

How cute is that guy!!!????  He is done with black ink and a chalk stain.  If you haven't done a chalk stain here's how:  Don't let the piece of chalk touch the art.  Use a scrap piece of paper and rub the chalk on it to make dust.  Wrap a tissue around your finger and dip it in the dust.  Rub the color onto the picture to stain.  First graders are AMAZED!  He look great matted on black:-)  Here's a little peek at how the display looks with some of the little guys and a big scarecrow pal.  The display is out in the hall and I keep hearing peeps say they make them smile.  Awwww!  That makes me smile!

Have your read Tomie dePaola's "The Artist"?  It's all about him drawing as a kids.  Super cute!  At the end of the book he draws a Pilgrim man and woman with a turkey.  My class did tried it too.  Here's how they look:-)  

This is a super easy one to do just using crayons.  Some years I get out the colored pencils and that's always a treat:-)  

Moving right along.....
Have your read the book "Who Will Carve the Thanksgiving Turkey" by Jerry Pallotta and David Biedrzycki?  Totally cute book:-)  After reading it my kiddos wrote their own ideas about who could carve the turkey at their house.  Check these out!

Super animals and dogs carving turkeys!  How cute

 is that!  By the way...Faith is the little author's sister:-)

And even more fun was had last week!  We dove into my popcorn unit (available at my tpt store of course).  Favorite activity was popcorn tasting!  We tasted four kinds of popcorn and then interviewed 12 classmates to see what their favorites were.  Here's a sample of the tally chart, bar graph, and data sheet.

We also did a fuuuuun rhyming activity.  Lots of my little struggling readers are still lost when it comes to rhyming.  After doing the activity, we made these fabulous popcorn boxes with rhyming words.  It was another fan favorite!

Stop by my tpt store and check out the popcorn unit.  It works well in October, which is National Popcorn Month, or I like to use it the week before Thanksgiving. "The Popcorn Book" by Tomie dePaola is a great read aloud!  I also like "The Popcorn Shop" by Alice Low.  

OMG! I need to stop talking and let you move on;-)  Thanks so much for stopping by!  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Parent/Teacher Conferences Scheduling the Easy Way!!

Here's the link to the web site I'm using to schedule my Parent/Teacher conferences.  It's awesome:-)  On Tuesday I'll be sending notes home to parents to give them the link and a code that leads them to my scheduling page.  If I have any problems come up I'll let you know.


http://ptcfast.com/

Hooray for three day weekends!!  

Popcorn Party!!

WHAT!  It's November??  How did that happen?  Check out my new little goody on tpt.  It's a popcorn unit:-)  I love doing this the week before Thanksgiving break.  I pulled out my date book today and realized that is next week!

I love the popcorn graphics.  Who knew popcorn could be so cute??  My favorite part of the packet is the colorful popcorn box rhyming craftivity.  

Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE Daily 5 and CAFE??  How did I ever teach without it??  We had a visitor from the School Board and she was crazy about it as well.  She wrote notes as fast I could talk to explain the awesomeness of the whole thing:-)  I'm hoping my team can inspire other grade levels to jump on the D5/CAFE train.

Speaking of love....CGI!!  Holy Cow!  Amazing!!  I adore listening to my kiddos explain their thinking into the microphone while they demo under the doc cam.  It's breathtaking!  I have a November packet of CGI word problems available in my store.  Check it out!  

I'm trying something else new this year.  Our AP showed us a web site we can use to have parents sign up for Parent/Teacher conferences.  Soooo cooooool!  I put the schedule in, send home a letter to the struggling/at-risk kiddos, parents use the code from the letter to access the schedule online and sign up for the spot they want.  Hooray!!  No phone calls!  No notes back and forth!!  I will post the web address after I get mine up and going and make sure it is as easy to use as I think it is going to be:-)  

Stir it in my witches' brew!

Fun to be had tomorrow!  I'm exhausted just thinking about it!  We are making witches' brew in the morning and doing the fun activities to go with it from Rachel!  Love it to death!!  

Join the Give Away

Hey All!  Corinna over at O Fish-ally a First Grader is having a give away!  Congrats to her for reaching 100+ followers!  Woohoo!  Head on over for a chance to win one of 58 products!  Wow! 

 I am giving away my spider unit.

CGI!

CGI is alive and well in Room 203!  I'm loving it!  Kiddos are workin, kiddos are talkin about numbers, kiddos are makin their teacher a happy camper!  Here's some pics of student work (and some play with the manipulatives).

We used word problems from my 

Common Core Word Problems for Cognitively Guided Instruction-Halloween Theme.  That's available in my Tpt store of course;).

Boo!

So I've been boo'd at my house before when my kids were little.  Leave it to a teacher blogger to figure out how to do it online!  
I've been boo'd by Corrina over at Officially a First Grader.  Make sure you go visit her and grab her "Book of Seasons" freebie!  

Cynthia over at 2nd Grade Pad got the booing going.

Link up at her blog and then blog about 3 fellow bloggers:

one who has more followers than you,

one who has about the same followers as you, and

one who has less followers than you.

Highlight their blogs with links, so others will check them out.

Don't forget to let your fellow bloggers know that you shared about them.

Lastly, leave them a goody from your store as a "treat"!


Now it's my honor to pass "Boo" a few of my blogger friends!

Amy from The Resource Room

Gotta love a special ed. teacher!  Kudos!  Check out her site  and her freebie super cute monthly binder covers!

KellNell from Owl Inspire You

Has a cutie blog!  That little owl is adorable!  Kell has some awesome freebies for Kinders:-)

And finally...here's a brand new kid on the block!  

Visit Stacy at Teacher Take Out

She has some great freebies for ya and she needs some followers!  

Wow, that took for-ev-er!  It was fun checkin out these sites and I hope you'll check them out too.  

So here's a little treat for ya! Head over to my Tpt store and grab this "Pirates Say Arrrrr" freebie!

Pumpkin Hanging Day

It was pumpkin hanging day today:-)  Got the hubby to go into school with me to hang the splatter painted pumpkins we did last week.  L-O-V-E it! So colorful!  Here are some pics of him using the "Bulletin Board Hanging Hero" that is for sale in my tpt store.  There's a level in the middle to help ya get everything even steven.  Each arm is 1" so all the papers are evenly spaced.  By the way...hubby is my hero (blushing, sighing).  Haha!

Have a fantastic week!  My spider unit will be up soon.  Deana

Daily 5

Holy Cow!  Made a little chango to D5 today.  Yikes!  I have introduced and practiced doing "read to self", "work on writing", and "word work".  I tried "read with someone" and my class was sooo not ready for that! Anyway, today I had my 31 kiddos divided up into three groups.  I showed them where to put their clip on the choices cards (not a choice yet).  Then we went to work.  AWESOME!  They got down to business!  The trouble arose in the transition when it was time to move clips.  I'm thinking a magnet board would be easier and I think I saw that on Pinterest.  We'll see how tomorrow goes:-)  For now, I'm a happy camper:-)  And did I mention how much I LOVE the CAFE????  Woohoo!  My team is totally digging it as is our new principal.  She visited one of my team mates today and had the pleasure of having a first grader explain "check for understanding" to her while holding her big ol' plastic check mark:-)  Wowee!

I am soooo excited about this product!  My firsties are all about problem solving and this fun Halloween themed problem solving book is just right for them!  How fun is problem solving the CGI way when you are figuring out how many pumpkins Jack carved or how many kids were frightened by the friendly ghost?  You're gonna love this little treat:-)

Not much time for blogging today but I wanted to share this linky I'm participating in.

Watermelon and a Giveaway!

Congratulations to Wendy at Teacher's Toolkit!  She reached 100 followers and is having a giveaway!  Head over for a chance to win one of the prizes donated by 14 TpT sellers, including me:-)  I'm giving away my "Going Batty for Bats" unit.

Friday was the last day of summer and we had a big day with watermelon activities!  We read "Down By the Bay", sang "Down By the Bay", ate watermelon, and wrote about watermelon on a cutie watermelon writing craftivity!  Did you know that watermelon tastes better when it is eaten with your friends at school during a time when you would usually be working??  Just ask my kiddos:-)  I find the my firsties really need a lot of practice rhyming.  What ever happened to little kids learning nursery rhymes from their parents and grandparents???  Anyway, after reading "Down By the Bay", we came up with our own rhymes to make a class book.  I love class books!!  Here are a few samples that my cuties did.  Notice the underlining of "warin" and "chaseg"!  Thank you Daily 5 and Cafe!!

I love that they added detail like butterflies.  There is a reason for the added details:-)  One of my teammates was blog hoppin' one day and came across the suggestion to get your kiddos to use more colors.  If you are 6...you have to use at least 6 colors!  If you are 7...you have to use at least 7 colors!  How simple is that!!!  

We are heading into Johnny Appleseed week!  I LOVE IT!  We're making applesauce and Johnny hats on Wednesday.  I always ask my hubby if he celebrates Johnny Appleseed's birthday at work;-)  It must be a bummer working with adults all day!  

My daughter is coming over tonight!  HOORAY!  She is creative and can make some anchor charts for me!  Shhhhh!  I don't want her to know about this fun activity I have planned for her until she is here so she can't change her mind about coming over.  

Enough chatter for now.  Gotta get some art matted so a wonderful parent I had last year can hang it up for me tomorrow:-)  Have a super week!  Happy Bday Johnny A.!

My Going Batty About Bats Unit  is a freebie for the next hour!  Fly over to my store to snatch yours!

THE HAPPY TEACHER is having a give away:-)  Go visit for a chance to win a $25 Target gift card!

Here's what's happening!

Click on the pic to get this freebie.  It includes a cover for a class book and a page for students to write their own rhyme and draw a picture.  I do this activity on the last day of summer, which is this coming Friday.  We also eat watermelon and write about it:-)  Fun day!  







I'm joining in a a linky party that Rowdy in First Grade is having!  It's a good one!

Here we go!

My Something Good From School

My fabulous team is doing an amazing job taking care of me.  I had knee surgery in the summer and it actually made my knee worse! I'm limping around school.  It's pathetic:-(  One of the aides even offered to take my recess duty. It's nice to know that your peeps are there when you need them:-)

My Something Good From Home

My hubby and daughter are starting a new business.  Things are going really well!  I'm so happy for them. 

I hope you join in the linky.  I'd love to read what's going good for you!  

And another chance to win:-)

Heather over at Sensational Seconds is also giving away a laminater!  I'm feeling lucky!  Head over to her blog and check it out!