What I'm Lovin Wednesday

 This Wednesday I'm Lovin'

1. That one of my oldest and best friends is in Austin and we're meeting up for dinner! (I've been eating so healthy...bring on the queso!)

2. I'm lovin that we have a three day weekend! Wooooooohoooooooo

3. I'm lovin that college football starts this weekend! Go Ducks and Fighting Irish!

4. I'm lovin that I found the cutest tee at a new store in the small town I work in- outfit for Friday- CHECK!

6. I'm lovin that the copy machine upstairs in our school isn't accepting copy codes so you can copy as much as you want! AWESOME! (We have a monthly limit!)

6. I'm lovin my first graders. They are such a sweet bunch.

7. And last, but not least- Sure love my husband!

If you want to join in go to Jamie's blog and link up. It's nice to focus on the positives!

How to make your blog buttons roll

I saw a few blogs with the buttons rolling along and I loved it! Such a space saver and easy way to de-clutter my sidebar.

<center><div class="textwidget"><marquee direction="up" width="200" onmouseover="this.stop()" scrollamount="5" onmouseout="this.start()" height="400" align="center">enter your html text for all your blog buttons here
</marquee></div>(finish with this last line of text after your last blog button code)

1) Go to Design on your dashboard.
2) Add HTML gadget
3) Enter "Blog Roll" as your title (Or whatever you choose)
4) Paste the code listed above then save.
5) Now open your gadget where you have pasted the codes for all of the blog buttons you have on your sidebar. Copy all of the codes. Close this box. **Don't delete it until you are sure everything works!
6) Re-open your Blog Roll gadget and paste your blog button codes. *I put one line of space between where the code is and where I pasted all of my blog button codes.
7) Preview to make sure it works.
8) If it works hit Save, then delete the gadget with all of your blog buttons.

Woohoo!

*I did change the code where it says direction="up" to "left" and buttons moved left, but only my first two buttons. Not sure why.

Quiet Coyote

 The Clutter Free Classroom posted today about some attention getting ideas. I wanted to share mine with you. I use Quiet Coyote. Excuse the picture- no one here to help me take it so it was a one-hander!
Quiet Coyote has his mouth closed and his ears ready to listen. When my students are working I ding my little bell and put up my Quiet Coyote. They look at me and put up their Quiet Coyote. (*I remind them that Quiet Coyote is QUIET) When we're lining up, or in the hall, etc. if I put up Quiet Coyote my students silently put up their own Quiet Coyote. It ends the "Shhhh!" sound, which drives me crazy!


Exciting News!

Hey y'all- we survived the second Monday of school and I had some news I wanted to share. I am one of the newest first grade authors/bloggers at My Gang. To check it out click the button below.



I'm so excited to collaborate with other first grade bloggers! 


Second Week

The first week went really well, but y'all I'm still exhausted! And I promise I will try to post pictures of my room this week. Truth be told- it's just not done yet! For example, as organized and obsessive as I am when I pack up my room I somehow misplaced my calendar. I have the months and the calendar numbers, but no actual calendar. So I had to head to Teacher Heaven Friday after school......and of course I spent $100. I swear I can't leave that place, or Target, without spending a hundred bucks.

Yesterday I posted about Lettering Delights Teacher Pilot program. Jill from Jillustration and I are emailing back and forth and she's going to see if there would be some possible way to allow teachers to post freebies if they had access to all that comes with the pilot program. So hang tight and I'll post the answers when I find out.

On a non-teaching related note. I heart True Blood. I LOVE Sookie and Eric together! And tonights episode was SO juicy! Ooh love it! Have a great week everyone!

AMAZING tip!

 I can't take credit for this because I learned about it at a training the week before school. But after I heard it  I thought "DUH! Why didn't I think of that?! SO SIMPLE!"

Do you have popsicle sticks with student names or numbers that you pull out of a cup? I used to put the ones I had already pulled into a little pile and inevitably at some point during the year I would lose one or two and have to replace them. Not anymore!

Take your cup and place an empty toilet paper roll inside.

Now place your popsicle sticks inside the roll.
Now you can pull from inside the roll. After you call the student, place their popsicle stick on the outside of the roll. * If there was a student that you think you might want to call on again just place them back inside the roll. Now students won't know who you're going to call on. They'll just think you're putting all the names back into the cup! So brilliant!

More Daily 5 Cards

 I had a request for frog themed Daily 5 cards and I've just uploaded them to both my TPT store and Teachers Notebook Shop. My teammate Amy will be so excited- she's got a frog theme in her classroom. Maybe the Daily 5 Fairy will leave her a gift! Hope y'all are having a good week!

First Day

 So as some of you saw in the wee hours of the morning I had food poisoning last night! AAAAAAH! And today was the first day of school. I'm pretty sure I could have one an Academy Award or at least and Emmy for best performance in a drama. (Ha!) I managed to make it through the day with my sweet firsties and can't wait to see them again tomorrow when I'm actually 100%.


Twas the Night Before School Started...

 and I have food poisoning.
Ugh.

Daily 5 Math Thoughts

 So I've been thinking and thinking about how in the world I will be able to finish Daily 5 Math stations in 55 minutes. It may be Daily 3! But I was thinking.....if I start each morning off with math journals that could count as one station. Last year after independent work students went to an assigned math games center while I met with small group. I may do that same thing this year.... what are you planning on doing for Daily 5 Math?

If you have great Daily 5 solutions, posters, or thoughts head over to Thoughts of a Third Grade Teacher and link up!

A+ Teaching Blogs

 I'm one of the authors on Teaching Blog Addicts and if you aren't familiar with us check out this link

A+ Teaching Blogs

Daily 5 Math Question

 Are you doing Daily 5 Math? If you are- what stations are you doing? This year I'm doing Daily 5 Math and I'm trying to figure out how to make everything work!

Almost Ready

 Today we got our class lists and for the first time EVER I have an equal number of boys and girls! Woohoo! I'm still haunted by the year that I had 18 boys and 4 girls! (Yes, seriously!)

After I totally flipped out on my *husband* (Love writing that! Can you tell I'm a newlywed?!) this morning because my class was no where near done, and I was running late, and I hadn't done laundry, and I had to go to the grocery store after school....I blasted some Molly Hatchet on the way to school and found my Zen.  Ha!

My classroom is getting there. I'm trying not to be SO VERY obsessive with things looking perfect, but I may need to breathe into a paper bag if it doesn't look the way I am envisioning it in my mind. I brought my Cricut to school and even though my bestie made fun of me she eventually admitted it was pretty amazing.

After going to Office Max and Michaels I bought a Texas Two Step lotto ticket. I'm not tryin' to be greedy. It's up to $775,000- I'm ok with that! Hope everyone else's classrooms are coming along and feel free to freak out here instead of on your husband like I did! Ha!

I can't wait to be done with my class and post pictures like the rest of my blogger friends. Hang in there everyone!

Easy Alphabet Center

 I came across an extra alphabet poster today and decided to turn it into a center/game. For those of you who aren't so crafty, or who don't have a serious addiction to buying clip art and fonts, or who just want to make an easy center....this is for you.
Here was the poster I started with. Luckily it's lined. So I have a few options for everyone.
You could simply cut along the lines and have your students put the alphabet in order (pre-k and kinder I'm thinking of y'all!)

OR
You could cut apart each letter and their picture to create a match up game! Hope this helps!

Daily 5 Cards

This year I'm having an owl theme in my classroom. I can't get enough of owl everything! Our district is using Daily 5 for reading and now for math as well. Well, I haven't quite figured out Daily 5 math, but I did make some super cute Daily 5 station cards for our LA block. I have them offered on my Teachers Pay Teachers Store and my Teachers Notebook Shop.

Classroom

 Any body else kind of freaking out about getting their classrooms ready? We have open house on Thursday and staff training every day next week. EEEEEEK! How will I get it done? I've been up late making to-do lists and trying to go with just getting the basics done! I seriously wish we had another week before school started!


Freebie Linky Party at Kinder Latino

 There's a freebie linky party over at the Kinder Latino blog. Come over and snag some freebies and join us! Last month I created "I have, who has" cards for numbers 0-20. I had a request for cards that went to 30. Click on the picture to grab it! Have a great day!

Monster Math

 I just created some monster math centers for the beginning of the year and posted the unit to both TPT and Teacher's Notebook. Below is a little preview.

Included:

1. Number sense sorting mat.
2. Place value mats.
3. Odd and even numbers sorting mat.
4. Number sense matching game.
5. Numbers and number words matching game with help card.
6. Addition facts practice game for 1’s, 2’s, 3’s. 
7. Just for fun board game.

But since we're all stressed with wanting this school year to go better than ever I will send a copy FREE to the first three people who comment. Be sure to leave your email address!

Plus, click on the monster for a monster dice game freebie!

Word Wall Solution

Where should you put your word wall? I have the solution! Use your cupboards!
I made a whole set of the alphabet that you can download it here. I use thick laminate and blue sticky and they stay up all year! I use Post It Label Pads for my words. I got sick of trying to tape up index cards. The Post It labels are very sticky and stay up all year too. Plus, they're super easy to peel off at the end of the year.