Super Bowl Sale!!

Our friend Khrys from Keepin it Kool in Kinderland is holding a Super Bowl Linky Party for TpT and TN sales!!  We are throwing a sale this weekend, so we are linking up!!

We will have our items for 20% off at Teachers Pay Teachers and 25% off at Teacher's Notebook!!  Our sale will be Saturday and Sunday!!

Here are some of the things you will find in our store!!

Who is/was Neil Armstrong? Literacy Pack

Pronoun Pirates- Subject, Object, and Possessive Pronouns

A unit based on The Moon Book by Gail Gibbons

Ashley Hughes is also having a linky on TONS of stores having a sale!  Look at her cute button!!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand Melissa at Common Core and So Much More is also having a linky!!

Check out our shops because we have many more units!!  Head over to Khrys's, Ashley's, and Melissa's blog to learn about more sales!!

Happy Shopping!!  Who doesn't love a sale????   ;O)

HIghs and Lows of January

I am linking up with our blogging buddy Katie (love that girl!) at Teacher to the Core for her new linky...

We post about our biggest high and lowest low of January.  So, here I go!!

(I believe in bad news first!)

My low was when I sat down to try to plan out everything I needed to still teach in math, science, and social studies before THE TEST and I realized I was tragically far behind where I should be to get it all in.  Since our 4th graders have to pass ALL portions of the test (reading, language arts, math, science, and social studies), their promotion to 5th grade is in my hands (well....it's also in their hands but if I haven't taught it, that's my fault).  I'm very stressed about this but trying to take it a day at a time.  All I can do is my very best...I hope it's enough.

I just finished all of my Fountas and Pinnell reading running records TODAY!  Oh my, it took forever.  BUT, it took FOREVER (and a day) because ALL of my students went up MULTIPLE levels.  I was seriously worried at the beginning of the year and when I started running records Jan. 3rd I was terrified they wouldn't have moved at all because those stories are tough.  For the kids to have to think beyond the text was the hardest part (making inferences) and I was just worried.  But, they all did really well and I am so proud of them!!!!!  I have to meet with my principal soon, so I am so glad to be able to share good news!!!  Now, this is not to say they are all on grade level, but they all made growth, which is all I wanted!!

*Disclaimer- I had only one student who did not make growth, but his father died in November and then he was out of school for 2 months.  Right now I am just trying to be his consistent support system and give him lots of love while his home life is in great turmoil.  He is 11 and on a first grade level so we just take one day at a time and I try not to overwhelm him.*


Head over to Katie's blog and link up!  This is a great way for us to support each other!!  Cyber high fives and shoulders to cry on help us all get through another day!!!

:O)
*Amanda*

Valentine's Day Ideas and Freebie!

Hey, y'all!!!

I LOVE Valentine's Day, and I am super excited to share some ideas with you!

We are linking up with Denise at Sunny Days in Second Grade for her Show and Tell Tuesday!!  

I remember always looking forward to Valentine's Day in elementary school. We would usually make some type of cute Valentine card holder and then we would get to exchange valentines, eat heart shaped cookies, and watch some kind of Valentine's Day movie. Everybody loved it! :) 

Well, I do look forward to a valentines exchange with my students this year and hopefully some yummy treats, but I also have some other Common Core based ideas planned. :O) 

I am a HUGE Arthur fan so reading Arthur's Valentine is a must for me! Arthur has a secret admirer...it's so cute! Here is a literacy unit and freebie I created to use with this adorable book. 

Arthur's Valentine Unit

Freebie

I'm also so fortunate to have an ~AMAZING~ room mom who is planning a whole Valentine's center rotation day. She is making review activities for the students that are centered around Valentine's day. For example, we are going to have the students answer questions about the American Revolution and then they will get to play a Valentine bean bag toss or they will get to play one of their Valentine domino pieces. So...they students are "playing" Valentine's Day games while reviewing what they have learned. So much fun! :) 

Amanda has some other great ideas to share with you! :)

Thank you and Happy Heart Day! 
*Stacia 

Hey there!!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell, I've been working on some Valentine's Day games.  I did NOT make them because, you know what, there are some amazing teachers out there that had already made them and I just decided that they were so cute, I had to have them!!  (Can you feel the love- that's what Valentine's Day is about, right??)

So, first up I got these cute Language Arts Centers from Jen at The Teacher's Cauldron.  Click the picture to find a link to them.

Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen, I stopped by and got these 2 units from Lindsay at My Life as a Third Grade Teacher:

 

which I thought would be perfect since we are doing poetry and the centers are great for review.

Next, (are you loving these transition words?  I'm not- why can't I think of anything better???)

Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeext, I realized that we had won 10 SPECTACULAR Valentine's day Language Arts Centers from Jessica at Literacy Sparks, but it was lost in our email and I only just saw it on Monday!  Gasp!!  Look at this unit!!!!!!!!

When I say it's amazing, I mean, it's AH-MAY-ZIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!  I'm super psyched about it and I've already used a ton of ink printing it from home because I need to go laminate it (dread) and get it cut out (more dread) so the kiddos can play with it (happiness and excitement!!).

On the other hand....nope- not the right transition...but a favorite of my students.

Finallyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy (yep, that's the right word), I found a few cute edible craft ideas on Pinterest (of course).  Whatcha think?

Love Bugs!!!  How stinkin' cute!!   (No, I did not say stink bugs...I said love bugs!)

These came from Simply Stacie and she has a bunch more cute ideas.  Just click on both pictures and they will take you to their source.

I'm obviously in a marshmallowy kind of mood.  (Yes, I just made that a word- you can use it if you want to!  You know you want to!)   ;O)

Ok, I think Cupid hit me with an arrow or something so I'm going to put the computer down and walk away slowly...but not before I wish you a LOVE-ly day!!  ;O)

*Amanda*

Groundhog Day, Sale, and Pronoun Winners

As a thank you for following our blog, we are throwing a sale at our TpT store this weekend!!

And, we have our winners!!

Now, onto the meat,  :O)

Groundhog Day is on Saturday.  I don't guess it's really a big holiday, but it can be fun to talk about!  I know at this time of year we are caught up in that "I'm running out of time to teach everything so I can't throw anything in there that doesn't meet a standard!"  Buuuuuuuuut, that's when we get creative and make it meet the standards, right?  So that's what we are going to do!!

Plus, General Beauregard Lee (Georgia's groundhog) is right down the street from us, and they always have him on television for his "prediction" and the students always wonder about it, so we may as well go ahead and share the history behind it!!

We like to read Groundhog Weather School.  We teach weather in 4th grade so we can relate it back to the weather unit we taught the first nine weeks.  This is a really cute story about other animals going to groundhog weather school so they can do the job like the groundhog.  We've read it the last couple of years and the kids love it!

We also read Groundhog Gets a Say.  This is an informational book, all about the groundhog.  He is telling about how wonderful he is to persuade people to give him a month of appreciation in February.  It gives great facts about groundhogs AND it's persuasive!  Talk about killing two birds with one stone!!

So, Stacia and I put our heads together and decided that we'd have our students write a persuasive piece.  There are three possibilities after reading these two books.

Click the picture and it will take you to the document.  :O)

Where, might you ask, did this cute clipart come from?  Well, I'll be glad to tell you!!  It came from 

and it was FREE!!!  Isn't he cute?!?

Now I'll share some other great resources I've seen.  Our good friend Stephanie Ann at Sparkling in Third Grade has made an adorable unit with a craftivity to go along with it!  Go by her blog and check it out...she even has a freebie fact and opinion groundhog scoot game!!  Her writing papers will go perfect with our persuasive prompts up above!!

I found so many great Groundhog Day Freebies out there, I just had to share!! (If I couldn't find a link to a blog, I linked to the TpT store!)

Here's one from Jennifer at Teaching to Inspire in 5th:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Groundhog-Day-Freebie

This is another freebie I found, although I had to read the directions because I wasn't sure what it meant but it's like a brain teaser (at least to my feeble brain!)  :O)

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Groundhog-Day-Hink-Pinks-Hinky-Pinkies-Hinkity-Pinkities

From 4th Grade Racers:  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Groundhog-Day-TicTacToe-Choice-Board

And there's tons more freebies on Teachers Pay Teachers!  It's just amazing what you can find!!  I love all of these teachers sharing their resources!!  :O)

Also, our buddy Jessica at Ideas by Jivey made a unit for Groundhog Gets A Say.  It's not a freebie but go check it out and tell her we sent ya!!

So, there you go!  See!  I told you we could relate it to the standards!  We can talk about Groundhog Day AND they can apply it to the common core!!  

What are you wishing for?  More of winter or an early spring?

Happy Groundhog Day (a few days early)!

Amanda

The blinkie groundhog came from Ruby Red Slippers.

Ahoy Matey! A Sale and a Giveaway!

Arrrrrgh!  Ye be walking the plank!!

Ok, maybe not and maybe I've spent a little too much time with pirates!  I'll explain that in a sec!   ;O)

So, we wouldn't have believed it but it's right there on our sidebar saying it's true so seeing is believing, right?

Our little blog has reached over 200 followers!!!  We feel so blessed!!

So, we are throwing a 20% off sale in our Teachers Pay Teachers store this weekend, just for you!  We so appreciate all of your support and the love we have received!!  Just click the button below and it will take you to our store!

And, I have been working on a pronoun unit and I'm finally finished!!

This unit has subject, object, and possessive pronouns in it.  It has notes pages about each type and practice pages identifying the pronouns and practice with replacing a noun with the correct pronoun.  It also has a sorting game, a study guide, and a quiz.  If you think it's something you could use, go and snag it while it's on sale!!  Here are a few of the pages in the pack:

So, you know we can't ever talk about a new product without giving something away.  To win your free copy of this unit, please do the following steps:

1) Pin the Pronoun Pack on Pinterest
2) Leave a comment with your email and the Pinterest ID in the comment (all you have to do is copy the URL after you pin it to your board and then paste it into the comment section).

That's it!  I will use a random number generator to find the winners tomorrow (well, I'm going to try to learn how to do that tonight anyway!!)  I will give this away to 3 lucky winners on Sunday!!

Thank you so much for following our blog!!
Amanda

Friday Fun! {Freebie, Flashback, and Five for Friday}

Happy Friday!!  We're back with a look at the week!  (Can you tell we love these Linkies!!)

We are linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for 

and with Amanda at Teaching Maddeness for 

So, let's get to it!!  :O)

1.  We've been working on light energy in science and Stacia's class got to "play" with prisms this week.  Here they are learning about how prisms separate light.  They used a flashlight and the sun and compared the differences.  (This pretty prism was loaned to us by our assistant principal!)

2.  In math, we are still working on fractions.  This week we focused on equivalent fractions.  It would seem like fractions would be easy because they can use fraction strips or fraction circles, but it's still really abstract for them when they have to know how to make an equivalent fraction and why it's equivalent, especially without a picture.  Here is a notes sheet that we pasted in our math journals (composition notebook).  The notes on the left are already filled in for a quick paste and explanation.  The notes on the right can be pasted in and filled out in small group or whole class.  If you can use them, feel free to click on the picture and download it to use in your classroom.  :O)

3.  In Language Arts, we have been immersed in poetry and figurative language.  My students are obsessed with similes, but metaphors are much harder (for me too!).  We read the book Hailstones and Halibut Bones which are poems full of metaphors about colors.  We worked on analyzing the poem about the color black together.  Since I don't think I can type part of the book here, I'll just generalize what we talked about.  One line talks about black as a feeling so we analyzed what that might be (loneliness, sadness, anger), but it also talked about how black is kind and covers up a run-down street.  This was a hard one because they took it so LITERALLY and said that the pavement was laid over everything.  I had to explain that we had to look at it metaphorically and that the night is black and covers the ugliness outside.  So...all of the colors are in the book.  Once we analyzed black together, I paired the students up to analyze a different color in partners by taking it apart and really THINKING about what it could mean and what it means to them.  It challenged them, but they liked it, which makes me happy!!

4.  We are learning about the causes of the American Revolution.  After learning about all of the unfair taxes that were levied on the colonists (Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Tea Tax, etc.) we played a "game".  It's called The King's M&M's.  I have no idea where it originated from- a teacher that I work with shared it with me.  Basically, a student is chosen to be king (I picked a student that I knew wouldn't be afraid to make everyone mad), 3-4 students are chosen as Parliament, and 2-3 tax collectors.  The "king" and his parliament make up "laws" (example- if you are in 4th grade, you have to pay 3 M&M's- which would be every kid) and the tax collectors go around and collect the M&M's.  (Don't worry, they used a cup to hold their candy and a spoon to count them out so they weren't actually touching the M&M's.)  :O)  I let them pass enough unfair laws/taxes to get the "colonists" feeling pretty upset.  Then, the king had to pay his parliament and tax collectors (any amount of his choosing) and he got to keep the rest of the candy.  From there, they reflected on the activity and then related it to how the colonists must have felt.  It's obviously an exaggerated version of what happened, but it gets down on the level of the students and they couldn't believe that the king got to keep all of the candy (and yes, he really decided to keep it all!).  Even though they were pretty upset and adamant about how unfair it was, they still had fun!

Here, we have the happy king with his parliament (who were also happy because they didn't have to pay any taxes, plus got paid more!)!  Then, we have our sad colonists showing how they were "robbed" (I wish you could see their faces!!).  I think they got the point!!

5)  Last, but not least, Stacia updated the Arthur's Valentine unit that she created last year.  Here is a freebie from the unit.  If you like it, head to our Teacher's Pay Teacher store and grab a copy!  

Stacia made the clipart of Arthur!  Isn't he cute?!?

We hope you have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend!  Let us know how your week went and if you download the freebie, let us know what you think!
*Amanda*

Fabulous Finds for the New Year Linky Party!

Happy Tuesday, y'all!  :)

It's so nice to have a short week, isn't it? It felt like Monday, but it's really Tuesday!!! Yay!

We are linking up with Christy and Tammy at Fluttering Through First Grade for their "Fabulous Finds" Linky Party. I love their Costco mugs that they shared. I am big tea drinker so I really want to try those! :) And the Stikkiclips are great! My mom used to rave about them when she taught Kindergarten. She used them all over her room. She said they were perfect for calendar and putting up the pieces each day. Please stop by their blog and check out their fun finds!

So, I was out at Dollar Tree (one of my FAVORITE places to find cute stuff realllllllly cheap!) this weekend, and I found some adorable teacher products. I am so excited! All for $1 each. You can't beat that! :) 

These are owl incentive charts with the stickers, cute, cute, cute animal notepads and tiny ladybug, frog, and bee canisters for storing paperclips, erasers, rubber bands, wiggly eyes, sequins, anything. 

I use stickers as my behavior management system so this is PERFECT! :) And I know Amanda will LOVE the owls!

I think these notepads are so cute! I am such an animal lover so I had to get them. Not sure what I am using them for yet, but I am sure I will figure it out. I am thinking maybe using them for centers or games- would be great for a matching game! Or, I may laminate the penguins and make them "Penguin Passes" to reward students for excellent behavior. Maybe a no homework penguin pass or a write with a pen penguin pass or wear slippers for a day penguin pass. Hmmmmm....Please let me know if you have ideas! 

Have a great day!

*Stacia :)