Good morning everyone! I hope you've enjoyed zippin down the freebie trail this morning! To begin zippin from the beginning click on this button! 

As y'all know we've been moving all week and didn't have internet until Wednesday. I have a lot of catching up to do! I can't wait to zip down the trail after we've unpacked the whole kitchen. That's my motivation to get busy!

This past week we've been working on money in my classroom. Money is one of those things that kids can really struggle with. I started re-vamping my money unit to meet the needs of my current class. *Look for a post about that tomorrow!* Toward the end of this week we will be adding coins together. Let's face it- the math workbook pages are SO boring. Add a little clip art to something and BAM- it's so much more exciting! I'm hoping this little worksheet will be a little more fun for my firsties.  I have two versions. The first is just counting dimes, nickels, and pennies. The other is all four coins. In the first worksheet the top row is just nickels and pennies. We want those struggling students to really GET it and feel successful!

Now it's time for you to keep zippin! Head over to the The Schroeder Page to pick up a freebie from Monica! Happy Easter Weekend!

Whew! I'm back! My husband and I moved this past weekend (and we are still moving!)  and internet and cable service were just set up today. It's been five days without blogging and five days without television! No time on Teachers Pay Teachers, no blog stalking, no clip art purchases. I won't lie it's been TOUGH! 

5 Things I've Learned About Moving

1) My husband will never be in charge of "the move" ever again. His way is the hard way. I've done it twice. I've given it a fair shot. He is no longer in charge of the move. Period.

2) I swear things multiply! Clothes, spoons, towels....

3) Just when you think you're done you find a closet you haven't emptied or a cupboard full of glasses. Then you contemplate throwing them out just because rolling them up in paper and packing them away is so awful. 

4) Keep snacks at your new place because you'll be starving!

5) It's all worth it....after a glass of wine!

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This week we started working on poetry. We started with sensory poems. They are simple and fun and a great way to work on descriptive writing. I found this poem on the internet on my phone. I have no idea what website I found it on but I thought it was a great example.

After I introduced the poem to my students we created one of our own for watermelons. It took lots of brainstorming! (Sorry, forgot to take a picture)

Today we made another poem called Chicken Noodle Soup. This poem turned out so well! They were really proud.

After we created our class poem I split my kids into five groups and they all wrote their own poems. They all had to write their poems about cereal. They were allowed to do cereal in general or pick a brand of cereal. Here are two examples.
Cereal
I hear crunching
I smell milk
I see something wet
I feel something hard
I taste honey
What could it be?
It's cereal!

Tomorrow they will each get to write their own poems and pick their own food to write about. A few ideas would be: banana, cookies, pizza, ice cream, and marshmallow Peeps!

I will post pictures of some of my poems on Instagram!

Howdy! If you've followed the whole blog hop then you're here visiting from my lovely friend Lisa's blog, Growing Firsties! 

{I do LOVE me some blog hoppin!}

This time of the year we're all in need of a little humor. We teachers are exhausted and our students have worked hard.  We are desperate for  They are more than ready for summer break! I created a little something to help all of us add a tiny bit of fun into our day.

This is a Funny Bunny Silly Story Freebie to start your ELA block. It's sort of like a mad lib, but I have a list of verbs, nouns, and adjectives for students to choose from. That way your struggling students can still be successful, and everyone has the chance to create something funny. It's short and sweet and would make an easy time filler or warm-up. I'll be allowing my students to share with three friends in class. 

If this goes well in class I may make a whole set!

You don't want to miss the last stop on the blog hop! Drumroll please......Learning with Mrs. Leeby! She is the host of this wonderful blog hop! At her blog you can get a super cute freebie and enter to win items from each participant! Blog hop and giveaway end on Monday, March 25!

Last week I wandered into Barnes & Noble....this is dangerous for any teacher, as you well know. I can never just browse and add items to my mile long wish list. I always find something I just can't live without. 

I stumbled upon a book called "Rabbityness" by Jo Empson

Over my past two years of blogging I've been lucky enough to become friends with several bloggers. I've even met some of them in person at blogger meet ups! I love that blogging makes you feel like you have an extended team of other teachers that are just as dedicated to teaching as you are. They also share your gripes and wish their spring break would last just a little bit longer! (Right y'all?)

Gina from Third Grade Tidbits is one of my bloggy besties! We text each other and send funny pictures to each other, and laugh about how we are addicted to clip art, and digital paper, and anything cute that's even slightly teacher-y....or on sale. We talked this afternoon about how stinkin' hard it was to get up and go to work after sleeping in for a week! 

We both want to help ease the pain of you getting back to waking at the crack of dawn OR ease the pain of still having to wait a while for your spring break! We're having a giveaway and we'll pick two of you lucky teacher friends as winners!

Gina is giving away 

My friend Becca from Teaching First is having a great science give away. I've thrown in my Living and Nonliving unit. If you're like me I'm always on the hunt for great science tools. Be sure to head over and enter for your chance to win amazing science resources from several different bloggers! 

Is it me or did the Peeps appear in aisles of Target WAY to quickly?! The month of March is flying by and my spring break is coming to an end. (WAAAAAA!) I wanted my students to be excited to get back to school and knew if I created some stations for them with Easter candy clip art that they would be giddy!

I wanted to join so many other bloggers in a great linky party hosted by Flying into First Grade. Using your three initials share three things about yourself.

I just finished my Bossy R activities! Between packing and spring break I have barely been able to squeeze in time to work on anything class related. We just started r controlled vowels before spring break and I want to make sure my kiddos have those sounds down pat. This packet has I have who has cards for all the r controlled vowels. That was tough people! "Honey, can you think of another word with ur?" This went on for days. DAYS people. 

As always I like to give away a few copies of something new! I will send a copy to the first three people who leave a comment that includes their email address! 

Have a great afternoon! 

One of my bloggy BFF's Gina from Third Grade Tidbits and I were texting about how our kids transition during our stations. In the past I've used bells, the weird magic want thing from the teacher store that I wish I'd thought of because it's basically a bent hanger for $10, and the timer beeping.

But c'mon! That's no fun! This year I've put lots of fun ringtones onto my iPhone and I use the timer on the iPhone for math and reading stations! When the timer goes off and the song starts my kids clean up their station and move on while dancing....and singing....usually into pencils. And maybe I'm doing that too! Why not be silly and have fun? Today we tried Don't Worry Be Happy and collectively decided it didn't have a very good tune to boogie to so it's off the list. 

Her are our top five hits for transitions:

1. Don't Stop Believing by Journey

2. Boogie Shoes by KC & The Sunshine Band

3. Dallas Theme Song- because it's such an awesome show! No words, but high boogie factor!

4. Footloose by Kenny Loggins!

5. Ho Hey by the Lumineers

In December we danced like Charlie Brown characters to the Lucy and Linus song! 

As soon as the music stops I'm starting my next small group and I expect my kids to be at their station or almost there. We mean business in first grade! My kids know the expectation and we don't want to go back to boring old timer sounds so they get started on their next station right away. It's a good break for all of us.

* I TRIPLE DOG DARE y'all to try it in your classrooms!*