Dr. Seuss FREEBIE!!!

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm exhausted!!!   Today I found myself wondering if it's too soon to start a countdown for Spring Break!  But, tired as I am, I can't wait for tomorrow!  I love doing my Dr. Seuss author study, and we're starting tomorrow.  I like to start with "Happy Birthday to You!".  When I start talking about Dr. Seuss my class always expects the more popular books like "The Cat in the Hat", "Green Eggs and Ham", "Horton Hears a Who"...the list goes on.  Most of my students have never read "Happy Birthday to You!".  But I figure, the whole reason we celebrate Dr. Seuss in March is because of his birthday - so why not start with a birthday book on his birthday?! (Or the day before if his birthday is a Saturday!)   Every year I search for a fun activity to do with this book, and every year I find absolutely nothing - so tonight as I sat down to begin my search I decided I would save myself some time and just make something myself.  Of course, it wasn't long before I realized the reason I have never made an activity is because I had no idea what to do! After re-reading the book for the third time I finally gave up on trying to think of a fun birthday-themed activity and instead decided to use my favorite quote in the book to make a writing prompt.  Dr. Seuss says "Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!"  I've always loved that! I made a writing prompt where students can share what it is that makes them unique!  You can download your very own freebie here at my TPT store!  I'll have more fun Dr. Seuss posts soon, but for now I have eighteen Dr. Seuss birthday cupcakes to frost!

PS - If you've never read this one, you should check it out!  Target has it on sale for $10 right now!!

 

February Currently and Valentine's Day Fun!

Alright - I'm a little late to the Currently party this month but better late than never! Make sure you head over to Farley's blog to link up too!



My listening and wanting this month go hand in hand - I'm catching up on this week's Bachelor and Tierra is driving me insane.  I want him to stop giving her roses and ship her butt back to where ever it is she came from! 

 

I am loving how well my class is doing with our play.  Every year the first grade classes have a History Comes to Life performance.  The kids dress up as different influential Americans - from Ben Franklin to Barack Obama.  Almost every kiddo in my class has memorized his or her lines!  They just love talking into the microphone and I am so proud of them.  I can't wait to see them on stage at the end of the month!

 



My internal clock went off at 6:30 and I've been sitting on the couch for the past 3 hours working on the computer.  But now I'm thinking it's time for me to get up and start my day.  I am running (well let's be honest I'll probably be walking more than running) in my school district's Character Counts! 6K today!  The race will benefit the Character Counts! programs in our schools.  I always do a huge lesson at the beginning of each year to show how each pillar ties in to our classroom rules so I am super excited for today!

February is flying by!  I need to go through my dental health file this weekend and make my copies before the month is over!  We're at the point now where I'm really pushing writing in the classroom, and I have lots of dental health writing activities that I like to do with the kids.  

My pet peeve is slow drivers!  I drive 30 minutes to the work each day and I love setting the cruise control.  But it drives me crazy when I get stuck behind slow drivers and I have to take cruise control off!!


In other news - I don't know about everyone else, but my class is starting to get very excited about Valentine's Day.  I made some fun Valentine's Day literacy activities to use with my class next week.  One is for compound words and the other is for contractions.  I plan on using them for word work next week!  You can click on the pictures below and they will take you to my TPT store!

 

And with that, I'm off to get ready for today's race!  Fingers crossed that I'm not the last person to cross the finish line! :)  Enjoy the weekend!! 

Groundhog's Day Treats and Valentine's Day Math Centers

Happy Groundhog's Day!!!  I am so excited that Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow - even though it means my kiddos are going to hassle me.  It's been so cold this past week (and by so cold, I mean high 50's - what can I say? I'm a Florida girl now!) I just assumed it would stay this way for a while.  So my prediction was 6 more weeks of winter - and those kids never let me forget when my prediction is incorrect!  But I am so happy to hear that spring is coming early!  I am dying for a beach day! 

We had a really fun day yesterday.  Our morning was full of reading, writing and math facts, but our afternoon was all fun!!! We had our Boosterthon Fun Run yesterday.  The kids ask family members to pledge money per lap and then they see how many laps they can run in 30 minutes.  The kids loved it and I had a great time too!  After our Fun Run we went back inside and made our Groundhog's Day predictions.  We also made adorable groundhog cupcakes!  They had so much fun frosting their own cupcakes - I may let them frost all their cupcakes from now on! 

I also finished my Valentine's Day Math Centers this morning!  There are five math centers for students to practice addition and subtraction facts to 20, greater than and less than, counting coins, and number patterns.  Click the picture below to check it out at my TPT store!

 

100th Day Fun!!!

It's been awhile but I'm back!  And just in time for one of my favorite days - the 100th Day of School!!! We had so much fun today yesterday...because I started typing this yesterday but then got sidetracked preparing for an observation (which was fabulous because my class knew good behavior would be rewarded with Skittles!).  So today was actually the 101st day of school, but I'm still going to tell you about all the fun we had yesterday!  We spent our morning working on a booklet I made.  I absolutely love all the 100th day writing prompts...what will you look like when you're 100, what would you do with 100 dollars, what animal would you want 100 of...the list goes on.  The problem is I can never decide which one to do.  So I decided to make a booklet with a few of my favorite and have my kiddos just write a sentence or two on each page.  The last page has a spot where they can show me how many ways to make 100.  I loved how creative my class got!  I had lots of addition and subtraction problems, but I also had tally marks, drawings of ten rods, and tens frames (which they were regretting by the end!).  Click the picture below for your (FREE) copy!

While my lovely little friends were enjoying their lunches, I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to hide 100 Hershey's Kisses!  Every year I forget how difficult it is trying to hide all 100 of them...but it's worth it.  The kids have so much fun looking for them.  I number all the Kisses and they have to place them on the 100's chart as they find each one.

 

 

Unfortunately number 44 was hidden a little too well!  And it just so happens that someone found it in the middle of my observation today...so glad she was paying attention to me, right?!

 

We broke out our collections of 100 things during Math.  They had to put their 100 things in groups of 10, 5, and 2.  They did great with 10's and 5's - groups of 2 was where most of them forgot how cool I was for bringing in 100 Hershey's Kisses!  But I must say I had some very creative friends this year.  I had 100 pennies, Cheerios, beads and marbles as usual, but I also had crayons, army men and shells this year too!

 

 

 

 

My class really does appreciate the simple things in life! Their favorite activity was a dice game.  They had to guess which number they thought they would roll the most often, and then roll their dice 100 times.  They put a tally mark next to each number they rolled.  They were so excited each time they rolled their number!

 

 

 

Now that all the 100th day excitement is over, it's crazy to think that there are only 79 days of school left!  I hope everyone else enjoys their 100th day as much as we did!!!  

 

I have also been working on a few Valentine's Day Math centers - I'm hoping to finish them up tonight so I can post them tomorrow! :)