Measuring with Snow Flakes

We did some fun measuring last week!!  A big thanks to Deanna Jump for this wonderful idea!  They had a great time seeing how many snowflakes tall they were!!  The best part was watching them complete the response sheet with their partner.  It was interesting to see who really worked together and helped each other, and who just pretty much worked on their own even though they were allowed to talk and work with a partner.  :)

How cute are they???

Busy working... :)

Valentine Literacy Games

So here is attempt number 2 at posting something on Teachers Pay Teachers!  It has some games that I like to play during small group time and eventually let them play on their own.  It has been up there for a while but I just keep forgetting to let y'all know!! :)

Just for my blog readers...

Here is one of the games that is included in the pack.

Broken Hearts

You can find the entire pack HERE.  :)

Enjoy!!

 

Snowfall Sentences

This week we are continuing our Snow Unit.  Our real snow/ice week off has gotten us a little behind. :) In one of our small groups, my co-teacher is using this Snowfall Sentences activity I made with her groups.  The more practice they have at creating sentences and working with words, the better they will get!  You can easily differentiate this by reducing the number of words or modeling sentences and having the children make the sentences you make.  You can also add more difficult words for your higher students or have them create a story with the words and give them some of the blank cards so they can add their own words.  :)  My kiddo's really like this activity and I love to see them have fun while they are learning!!

Click below for your own copy to try in your small groups!!

Snowfall Sentences

Snowmen at Night

This is one of my all time favorite books!!  We have read it everyday this week!!  Today we brainstormed what else snowmen could do at night.  They alway surprise me at how creative they can be!!

Remember those super cute snowmen the children made on Tuesday???   Well, they used them today to write and illustrate what their snowman would do at night!  I used the writing prompt from Deanna Jumps Snowman Unit.  Again, it is amazing what they can do when they are given a little creative freedom!!

My snowman eats pizza at night.

My snowman colors the color books at night.

My snowman makes snow angels at night.

My snowman jumps rope at night.

My snowman plays hopscotch at night.

My snowman throws snowballs at night.

(Recognize that snowman?? )  :)

 

This week we have also worked on a How to Build a Snowman Book.  This idea came from Deanna Jumps Snowman Unit but I tweaked it just a little to differentiate it for my students and also created a rubric for the different levels.  I will try and post it tomorrow.

Night to all - TGIF...almost!! :)

Yay for Snowmen!

We have had a great time this week reading and writing about snowmen!!

To start off our unit, I wanted to find out what they already knew about snowmen and what they look like! What better way to find out then to have them make one!  So, each child was given a baggie filled with various pieces that could be used to make a snowman.

The only instructions that were given were simply...make a snowman.  I think the hardest part of this for me was to keep my mouth shut when I was asked questions about how to do it!  The finished products made me smile and I still do when I look back at the pictures.  Each one is sooo different and unique.

Enjoy!

Planning

Working Hard!!

Finished Snowmen!

This one made me smile.

Not quite sure how this one ended up with 3 bodies??? Hmmm....

I don't think the creator of this one  ever saw the hat as a hat - it was a shirt to him when he took it out of the bag because he specifically pointed out the hat that he made! :) So cute!

I can't wait to show you what we turned these snowmen into!!  :)

New Favorite Thing

O.K - so I have been thinking about buying a little laminator to keep here at the house for emergencies and to laminate games and stuff that I find in this wonderful world I like to call Blogland!! :)  I asked around at school, and a friend of mine had bought one and she liked it but didn't really use it that much, but it worked pretty good.  Well, hubby and I were at Costco earlier this week and they had one.....so.....of course I had to buy it.  Wanna know what the best part was???  THE PRICE!  It was only $18 bucks!!  Now, I haven't really priced them or done ANY research on them at all, but I figured for $18 it could break after the first month and I would have gotten my $$$$ out of it!!  (It also came with lots of little pouchy thingys too!!)  Well, so far so good!  I love it and it has made these snow days actually pretty productive!!! :)

 

Happy Laminating!! :)

 

Love this snowman game I bought from Kathleen Pederson!  She is awesome!!  Of course I had to mount on polka dot paper!! :)  You can see that the polka dots carry into our house too...do you see the chair cushions??  :)  I just can't help myself!!!

Snow Day #5

O.K - we are on snow day #5 here in the Atlanta metro area!!  I can't believe how bad it has been here.  I hope all my students are staying warm and enjoying their time off!!  

See you on Tuesday!

First attempt...

Well, tonight I posted my first products to Teachers Pay Teachers.  It is a group of Valentine Math Games!!  In honor of this I have decided to post one of the games here for my fellow bloggers, readers, teachers and parents!  Enjoy!

You can find my full listing HERE!!

I will be posting some literacy games soon!!!

WAR EAGLE!!

Wooo hooo!  So exited and had to share!! :)

War Eagle!!!

Going to bed now...it's late!!  At least I have another snow day tomorrow!! :)

Happy!!! :)

So some of you may have noticed the new button at the bottom of this blog... it is my other obsession... Polka Dots(I know... big surprise!! :) ) and Personalizing EVERYTHING!!!! Who doesn't like a few colorful dots and your name on anything you can put it on right???? I create a lot of my products with teachers in mind!!  :)  Well, it was a little hobby that has turned into a big business and I LOVE it!  A fellow blogger, Kristen Walsky at First Grade Teaching found my Porter's Polka Dots Boutique and she so sweetly asked if we could do a giveaway on her site.    If you haven't already, head on over to her BLOG and enter to win the giveaway!!  It's super easy!!!  Thanks Kristen!!!  

Oh and follower too if you haven't already!  She has some fantastic teaching ideas!!  

Now, on to other things - like what has been going on in our polka dot classroom this week.  Well, we have been playing catch up! We had sooo many fun things to do before we got our for Christmas that we didn't get it all done...so what do you do???  You turn Christmas Reindeer activities into Winter Reindeer activities!! :)  Just go with me on this...the kiddos did!!  :)  They had a blast!!  I used Deanna Jump's Reindeer Unit and did a little adaptation!! :)

 The kids had a great time rereading Deanna's Reindeer Book and looking at real reindeer on the internet.  Completing these All About Reindeer books was quite a task but after the first couple of pages they caught on and were able to put the words in order by using the sentence rules we have been talking about.... and talking about... and talking about!  :)  Sometimes I feel like a tape recorder... :)  My favorite part was seeing how good their reindeer drawings were.  Some of them were really cute!!

So I turned the glyph (minus the lights and ornaments on the antlers)  into just a cute art project to accompany the cute books!  

Busy Busy Busy!  I love to see this!  :)

Proud!! 

We also did our own reports about reindeer and I will post those at the beginning of next week... if we don't have a snow day.  Expecting a lot of snow in Atlanta on Sunday night.  Secretly wishing for one... or two... :)

Have a good weekend!

Testing...

...out some new games!!  I found some really neat ones over the break and yesterday we gave a couple of them a test drive.  The first one was the Valentine Number/Number Word game I made.  We did it whole group and they had a great time matching the correct hearts together. 

We also tried out a Hot Chocolate/Marshmallows themed missing number game focused on the teen numbers.  A fellow blogger, Kathleen Pedersen made it.  You can find it HERE on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Check out her blog Growing Kinders too!! She has some GREAT ideas - for parents and teachers!! 

Yesterday I introduced the game on my Smart Board.  They love getting up there and using the pen. Sometimes I think they know more about using that thing than I do!!

Today I let them play the game with a partner and I think they were pretty successful!!  I had one little boy come up to me today and said "Can I do this tomorrow?  This is fun!!"  That's what makes it all worth it!!  :)

:)

Valentine Number Fun Match Game

So here is the first game I made with my Valentine's loot... 

Match the number with the number word playing Memory style.  :)  

I will have some sort of response sheet to go with this too and will probably use it in small group first before I let them do it independently.  

Hoo Loves You Word Family Sort

I have been inspired by many of my fellow bloggers who have created some super cute activities!  Here is my first attempt at creating an activity to share with my parents and fellow teachers and using google docs - so I hope all works out!! :)   Before we left for break my kids were having a really hard time discriminating between the /t/ and /p/ ending sounds.  They were doing a lot of guessing instead of using their decoding skills.  I have included some pages that you can plug in and use your own word families. :)  

Parents: This is a great activity to reinforce skills we have been learning and practicing in class!! 

I forgot to add the response sheet so you can get it here!