Water Dance {Water Cycle Lesson Ideas}, Summer Fun Pack, and more Digital Background Papers! You can win!! {Five for Friday}

Hi there!  Summer is a busy time, right?  It's like you make lists of things that you need to do and there's so much we want to accomplish, but sometimes I think my to-do list may be a little difficult to achieve!

So, we have been working hard this week!  Check out what we've been up to!  We are linking it up to Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for her:

Hey, friends! Stacia here. I am so sorry that I have been MIA lately! Thank goodness I have Amanda! What would I do without her!!? I just finished helping out my sister-in-law with her wedding. I was her matron of honor so there was lots to do!!!  But the wedding was GORGEOUS! Check out this special champagne glass she made for all of the bridesmaids. Adorable!  

Also, taking up my time these days is my sweet new baby puppy! She's a Sheltie and only 5 months old. My husband and I just adopted her. She is quite the handful! Any suggestions from y'all on how to occupy a teething puppy who is chewing my house apart are greatly appreciated! And of course I had to include a pic of my other baby- my 2 year old guinea pig. They are becoming friends actually. The puppy loves to give her kisses (lick her)! I think she's convinced it's a baby puppy.  :)

I love this photo with her tongue out! It's just so cute!

She loves her tennis balls!

She is a Braves fan like her mommy!

And, I FINALLY finished this unit I have been working on since the beginning of May! It's a summer seashell and sand bucket theme! I created bunches of math and language arts activities for either the end of the year or back to school. Since we are already out for the summer, and we go back at the end of July (groan...), my class will be using this for back to school. I'm excited because all of the games and craftivities should keep them engaged while I do beginning of the year assessments.  :)  You know how all that goes....fun fun!!! Okay, here it is! And you can also download a preview file if you want. 

Click here to go to our store

Included in the pack:

*Sandy Seashell Search- math game focused on multiplication, subtraction and place value
*Sandcastle Geometry- drawing and identifying basic geometric figures
*Fraction and Decimal Seashell Stack Up- creating and writing fractions with denominators of 10
*Seashell and Sand Bucket Division- division with one digit divisors using manipulatives (with remainders)
*You Never Know What You Might Find in the Sand Writing Craftivity- paragraph writing focused on using amazing adjectives with craft
*Seashells Synonyms- memory game matching synonyms
*Sorting Sand Buckets- identifying nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs
*Seashell Poem- seashell craft and acrostic descriptive poem

This unit would really be great as an end of the year review but also as a preview for the beginning of the year to see what my students already know and to refresh them from summer vacation! :)  I may even use one of the craftivities as a display for open house. Yay!

See below to pin it to win it! 

Hey!  Amanda here!  I finally finished the unit that goes with Water Dance by Thomas Locker which I blogged about HERE.  It's  a beautiful book of poetry about the water cycle.  This unit integrates science and langugage arts- mostly vivid language and poetry.  We are going to use this at the beginning of the year as part of our poetry unit so there are several elements included.  Here is a preview:

You can also go to our TpT store HERE and download the preview file for more information.

So, I may have gotten a little distracted while working on Water Dance because I decided I wanted to make some background papers to go with it (you know...water...blue...) so I made some more papers.  I completely go overboard with this because it's just fun!  Here is the set I made.  I call it Tangerine Splash.  :O)

I didn't want to overwhelm you here, but you can go to our TpT store to see the 89 papers I made (told ya- I go overboard!!!)  Does anyone have any color combos you'd like?  I'd love to make some papers for you!!  :O)

Here's a freebie.  Click on the paper below.  Right click, Save Image As... and you have your paper!

Pin all of these to WIN them! 

Here are the rules:
You can pin as many of these as you want.  Whatever you pin, is what you will win if your comment comes up in the number generator.  So, if you pin all 3, and your comment comes up as a winner, you get all 3!  If you only pin the Summer Fun pack, then you will only win that if your comment comes up.  I hope that makes sense!

1.  Pin what you want to win (pin by clicking on the picture of what you want so we know) one pin for each item you are entering to win.

2.  Leave a comment with the Pinterest ID(s) in the comment (all you have to do is copy the URLs after you pin them to your board and then paste them into the comment section)

3.  Be sure to leave your email address so we can send it to you when you win!

We'll pick 2 winners and announce them on Monday!

Be sure that you like our Facebook page!  We will start doing flash freebies very soon for just our FB fans and we don't want you to miss out!  Click the link below to like our page!  :O)

My new teacher planner {Tried it Tuesday- Erin Condren!}

Hi!  I'm very excited to share this with you today!!!

I'm linking this up with my sweet friend Holly for

I'm sure at this point you have heard of the Erin Condren planners.  Of course, when I first heard about them I looked them up and thought WHOA that's expensive for a planner.  So, I pretty much just let it go, even though it looked sooooo nice.

Then, everyone started blogging about the great features and THEN she threw a Teacher Appreciation Sale.  I'm to the point where I rarely spend money on myself (3 children who need stuff constantly, I feel selfish when I do spend a lot on just me) but I felt like this would be a year long investment and my hope was that it would be so adorable organized that I would actually use it!

So, I did it.  I ordered one.

And last week it was sent to me!

We had gone out to dinner and we pulled up and I saw this!

The car wasn't even stopped and I was jumping out to get it.  I had gotten an email saying it was shipped and so I had been looking for it everyday.  I heard my daughter say, "Is that a birthday present for me?"

Her birthday is not until July 31st.  Not sure where that came from.  I said, "No, it's a present for ME!"

I guess my kids could see how excited I was because all 3 crowded around me while I opened it.  (I knew once I opened it they were gonna be like, whaaaaat?  It's a notebook!!  Why are you so excited??")

I tried to contain myself when I opened it.  But, I got too excited!

Erin Condren adds little touches that make it so fun! (I mean, because surely SHE packaged it herself just for ME!)  ;O)

So, the kids saw all this and walked away.  I have no idea why.

So, I go show it to my husband.  It went like this:

me- Look!  My teacher plan book came!!

him- <half smile>

me-  Look!!  How cute!  With my name on it and then it has all of these pages!! (I'm showing him the inside).

him-  <raised eyebrow, half smile, slight nod>

me-  Look!  It even has tabs that separates everything.

him-  You could make something like that.

me-  <sigh> I can even put my grades in here and it's all in one book so I don't have so many random pages everywhere.

him-  How much did that cost?

me-  Did I show you the dividers??? It's so exciting! (as I walk away)

Yeah.  He didn't get it.  I mean, he understood I was really excited, but he didn't GET IT.  So that's why I'm sharing it with YOU because I know YOU GET IT!!  You'll be excited WITH me!

Now, I did tell him that I was going to tell this story and he said, "What?? I'm glad you are so happy.  I was just saying, you could totally make something like that, too!"

Yes, I probably could.  In all of my spare time. (love him!!)  But I think I'll leave it to Erin Condren!!  ;O)

Now, I was worried that it wouldn't be everything that I had built it up to be.  But it was everything I had hoped and more!  I did have them add extra grading sheets (I counted out how many I'd need based on my classes) and a pen holder.  Oh, and 2 extra sheet protectors.  But that was all.  The rest is just the basic planner!

Now, I still haven't written in it yet...I just like to look at it right now...but I will write in it...soon...

So, if you are on the fence, maybe this knocked you over it.  It's worth it!
Amanda

PS- I have not been asked to do a review of any kind, this is just how I feel about the planner!

Monday Made it- Father's Day gifts

Hey!  We are linking up with Tara for her weekly summer edition of Monday Made It!

First off, I made a few things for my husband for Father's Day!  Here is the first one!

My husband has a tendency to empty his pockets all over the bar that is in our kitchen.  It's a huge mess.  There's stuff everywhere and although I was tempted to take a picture of it, I'm too embarrassed.  Just imagine it.   I saw this pin:

Once I saw this pin, I knew that a tray for his stuff would be perfect, especially since my husband adamantly did not want me to buy him anything for Father's Day.  I love crafty things so I had to try it out!

Here's what I did:

I went to the store and bought supplies (which I forgot to take a picture of before I used it all!).  I got the wooden tray out of the wood section, scrapbook paper, mustache duct tape, and fuzzy mustaches!

I wished I had had the time to paint the tray first, but this was last minute, so I didn't.  I would have liked to have paint it black, but oh well!

I had two of these scrapbook pages.  I had to trim it.  I had originally thought to use two of the pages and cover the whole thing.  But then I decided to do this instead:

I thought I would tie in the mustaches a little more so my husband "got it".

I used my Cricut to cut the letters.  Too bad that I remembered I had black sticky vinyl, AFTER I had cut and glued these.  Sigh.  Oh well!  This worked just as well!

I got very aggravated at how bubbly the paper got as I Mod Podged.  I do not know why it did that!  I tried really hard to smooth it out but it didn't help!  Ugh.  Luckily, my husband does not care about such things (even if I still do!!!!!)!

I got the fuzzy mustaches from Party City!  :O)  I thought it added a fun touch!

We also made these for him:

I traced my children's hands and cut them out.  Then, we used receipt paper and they stretched out their hands to show that they love their Daddy "this much" and I rolled out the tape and then cut it the length they held out.  I accordion folded it so that he could pull it apart and we wrote "______ loves you this much!" inside.

My husband loved his crafty gifts!  (not that he'd say otherwise, of course!)

Last week, after training teachers all week, I needed to decompress and so I made these:

These are the colors.  I have pages and pages to show previews, but I didn't want you to have to scroll through all of that!  So, if you want to see all of them, you can go to our TPT store and download the preview.

Since I never make something without giving it away, we did a Pin it to Win it giveaway.  Here are our winners!

I also wanted to link up with my dear friend Christy for her:

I saw that Christy linked up meatballs, and so my meatball recipe popped into my head.  I have no idea where this recipe originated from...I've made it for years as an appetizer!

Ingredients:

package of meatballs (I think I usually get 16-28 oz- I can't remember- and they are swedish meatballs)

1 jar of chilli sauce

1 can of jellied cranberry sauce

1 TBSP of lemon juice

2 TBSP of brown sugar

Put all of this in a crockpot and cook on low for about 4 hours.  That's it!

They are a crowd favorite.  Even my friend Jessica likes them and she does not really eat "beef"!  They are so easy and yummy!!

I hope you have a great week!

Amanda

Science Mentor Text for the Water Cycle- Water Dance {lesson ideas for the water cycle}

(Do we need a new button???  Everyone has these cute buttons from The 3AM Teacher...I'm not sure that we should change it now...what do you think???)

This week's mentor text is based on science.  I usually make ask Stacia to do science because she thinks better scientifically...but her sister-in-law got married yesterday so she's been MIA for the last few weeks, helping get everything ready.  So, you're stuck with me!  ;O)

The book I want to share today is:

About a month back (the last time we did science) Stacia shared about Cloud Dance also by this same author.  Stacia has that book and I have Water Dance (we share).  These are fantastic books!

Here are some pages from the book!  Just look at these amazing illustrations that Thomas Locker painted!

These pages are a two page spread, but I couldn't get them big enough so you could read them and really see the illustrations.

Just look at the personification that Thomas Locker includes in his poems!

This book takes you through the water cycle using poetry.  I love the "I am" statements.  There is also scientific information to go along with the book in the very back.

I have used this book when I introduce the water cycle as a fun way to guess what each little poem is describing.  This year, I am going to start the year doing poetry in language arts and I'm going to use this book as a mentor text to integrate science and poetry.

I will read this book at the end of the unit and have students guess each poem before reading the "I am" statement.  We will use this book in LA to discuss personification and vocabulary.  There are great words like cascade, spiraling, plunging, palisades...there's just tons of great vocabulary, vivid verbs, and amazing adjectives.

Since I will use this at the beginning of the year, here is the sentence I would pick for a mentor sentence:

Click this picture to learn more about mentor sentences.

I would choose this sentence because it illustrates personification, the amazing adjectives and the vivid verbs.  Plus, we could talk about the compound word, pronoun, plural noun...and on and on.

Then, I would have students create their own water poem ending with an "I am" statement.  I don't have an example, but I'd like it to be more of the poem on the outside and the I am statement hidden or on the inside so that other students could read the poem, make a guess, and then check to see if they were right.

I'm considering giving them a picture already created to help give them inspiration.  I have found that getting cheap calendars, pulling the pages apart, and laminating the picture pages can work as inspiration for writing.

Or, they can draw an illustration to go with their poem.  I haven't decided yet.

This way, they are combining their knowledge of the water cycle with writing a poem using vivid verbs, amazing adjectives, and personification.

Here is a unit that we created to go with this book.  It integrates poetry, vivid language, and the water cycle!

We also created a graphic organizer book to go with our water cycle unit.  This year, I used this book as a review when we were preparing for state testing, but this could easily be used as you go through teaching the water cycle.

It's great for all age levels!

I hope that you got some ideas you can use!
Amanda

Now, it's your turn!

(If you have never linked up before you can check HERE for more information.)

For the Linky- Please make yourself a SANDWICH!  Please comment on the person who linked up before you and the person that linked up after you.  I know everyone puts in a lot of time and effort to these posts and I want everyone to feel the love!!!  (Haha, see, you're a sandwich...you know...because you are in the middle of the comments...do you get it?)  ;O)

Next week's topic- Social Studies