Non-standard measurement

Today I did one of my very favorite lessons- How Big is a Foot! I posted about this lesson last year and you can see the full post here. Last year I had said I wished an administrator would have walked in and today ONE DID! It was fabulous! I had kids all over my room measuring with feet that they had cut out and there I was lying on the floor with two students measuring me and another student taking pictures with my pink camera. The kids really get a kick out of measuring their teachers and classmates. It's an easy lesson to prepare for and it's one of my freebies!




This weekend was super crazy with getting things done at the house. I've decided shelf paper is the devil and I hope to NEVER cut another piece out again. I'm working on things for school and pinning everything I can for organization, closets, and pantries for the house. Because, you know, we teachers have all this extra time and I really should put that time to good use-HA! 

This weekend I also GOT A NEW CAR!!!! WOOOHOOO! 

Y'all, my last car had 224, 609 miles on it when we traded it in. I'm sorry to say that I don't have a picture of me in the car...yet. But I have loved driving to work without the fear of breaking down! 

I hope everyone is having a great week so far! XO

Cereal Box Skip Counting

I KNOW all you great kindergarten teachers out there practice skip counting and we've practiced skip counting all year too! But there are still a couple of my first graders who are struggling with their skip counting. I have an easy solution! I had asked students to bring in cereal boxes once they were finished with them. Today I threw together a few stations. Through a little trial and error, and some very willing and helpful kids, I decided this is my favorite set up.


I like that my struggling students know the starting and ending pieces are the smallest. I also alternated colors. When students think they are finished they flip the pieces over to see if the cereal box is made correctly.

Of course, the possibilities are endless here. You could alphabetize or match up antonyms, etc. 


We also worked on our Something's Fishy Compound Words stations today. I have a new student who has been very shy and when she found a match she was so excited. It was just what she needed!






Something's Fishy!

Well it's been a week since I've posted but I have a really good reason. We've bought a house! We close tomorrow and we've been busy running all over town looking at furniture, carpeting, plants, etc.....and I even test drove a new car! What?! Last week my car broke down (AGAIN) and it made me late for school and totally ruined my cute outfit and amazing hair day. It's time to let the Maxima go and move on to something new. As soon as we figure out what that new car is y'all better believe I'll be posting about it! I've only listed that I wanted a new car on like every Currently I've ever posted! 

Moving on....

This week my students are learning about compound words. I love that even your struggling students can understand what compound words are and they all have a great time making a list of compound words that they know. I created a compound word pack for this week and I think you'll like it too! It has two word games, compound word stories, and and I have who has game! It's available at my TPT store.


I kind of like the goldfish on the cover. He looks like my pet goldfish I had as child. His name was Poor Thing. (I felt really bad for him being in a little fish bowl)

I would love to give away a copy to the first five people who leave their email address and leave me a comment telling me the name of your first pet!

What makes you happy?

Ok, after my Monday post about how my kids were back on track and lovely angels something happened. Perhaps it was something in the air? I have no idea but several kids were REALLY mean to each other and it ruined our whole day.  One child told another child that his dog didn't go to Heaven. Then one child had a teeny tiny invisible scratch on their knuckle. They wanted a band-aid and I said no because they weren't bleeding. He told me I was the meanest teacher ever. (Give me a break!)
And one child told another child they were a loser because they missed words on the spelling pre-test. This child ALSO missed words on the pretest.

Tears. Drama. Frustration. Cranky teacher and cranky kids.

So tomorrow I'm passing out these little notes as my kiddos walk through the door. I thought we needed a little extra something. Students will draw a picture of one thing that makes them happy. We'll share what makes us happy before our calendar time. Then we'll be starting our day on a really happy and positive note!

Click on the picture to grab yours!


Tell Me Something Good

After watching the news last night and seeing that some places in the North East had 40 inches of snow I knew this was the perfect weekend to do another Tell Me Something Good linky party. I cannot imagine trying to shovel out of three feet of snow and know that there is another storm coming! If you know someone in the NE or you up there with feet of snow please know there are so many of us thinking of you!



The rules are tell us something good that's happening at home and then tell us something good that's happening at school.

Something Good at Home: the cat is off of Prozac again! Yes, you read correctly, she needs Prozac. Our cat has anxiety issues and when she gets upset she licks and licks and licks her belly until it's bald. The last time we went to Seattle we come home to a bald-bellied cat. We put her back on Prozac for a month and now she's off of it again. Whew! She's a high maintenance little thing, but we love her anyway!

Something Good at School: For about a week my students haven't been the first graders I've had all year. They haven't been good listeners, they were arguing with their partners in stations, being snarky to each other in the mornings, had me repeating directions three and four times. So we had a little "Come to Jesus" talk on Wednesday. We re-read Have You Filled a Bucket Today? and then discussed how we fill buckets and how we dip into buckets. Then we closed our eyes and thought of three ways we would fill a bucket that day.  I'm happy to say MY KIDS ARE BACK! They have been so sweet to each other ever since our chat. We had another class need to join ours mid-reading stations due to a clean-up on aisle six situation and my kids rocked. They just continued with their stations as though nothing had happened, worked around the other class, and stayed focused. On Friday we were making Valentines while playing some of our new music and the kids were just humming and chatting with each other and helping each other out. I love it when I can tell my husband "We had an AWESOME day today! My kids rock!"

Now it's your turn to link up! I love reading these! If you don't have a blog feel free to leave your something good as a comment!


Valentine Picture Books

Last night I went in search of some Valentine books to add to my collection. I came across this cute book by Natasha Wing.
There is a great preview on Amazon if you click on the picture. Here's a little snippet:
"They gathered their scissors,
their glitter and glue,
pink and red paper,
and paintbrushes too."

My kids will just think it's too cute and love that it rhymes! 

I also purchased 

I have wanted this book for a couple of years and finally purchased it!  I'll be using the Mr. Hatch Valentine activity pack from Simply Skilled in Second. Doesn't it look so cute?! 


*****
I've re-worked my math groups and everyone has a new partner. My kids love working together. I'm really blessed to have kids that get along with each other well most of the time. They were excited to have new partners, but even more excited to have new math stations! I busted out my Lovin' February stations and my kids are hooked! 


The task cards from this unit were a great addition to our literacy stations this week too. We'll use the rest of the literacy stations over the rest of the month. 

****

We are making Valentine cards tomorrow and I can't tell you how excited my kids are to use 
Me too! I love glitter and I stopped by Michaels on my way and bought MORE GLITTER! I'm certain I did NOT need more glitter, but there was a ton on clearance in all different colors! ¢99 folks! 







Simple Centers

I'm all about finding a deal and making the most of craft store finds. This weekend I was at Michaels and saw these


There are 68 hearts in the small package!  So I thought I would put together a couple of centers that I could reuse for a few weeks.

I numbered the back of the plastic hearts and put plastic coins inside each heart. We haven't started our money unit yet but I have a group of very high students in math that are ready to count coins. I am planning to change the amount in each plastic heart each week for the month of February. (Wish I could find a spot with better lighting than my kitchen counters!)


I created a recording sheet for it too!

Click on me to download
There were also some cute tins in the dollar section. I thought I could grab a mix of hearts from the hearts bag and place them into tins. I number the back of each tin. You could also just use a baggie. At the end of the week I can change out the hearts so students can use the center the next week with different results. 

Busted out the paint pens to be a little more decorative!
I have a recording sheet for this station as well. There are two versions: the second version has the word bag in place of tin.

Click to download
Now rush out to your local craft store and grab these goodies before they are gone! 
*I would love a comment if you choose to grab and download*

Have a great evening!