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Happy 4th of July~Enjoy savings at my stores.
Happy 4th of July. I hope your day is spectacular. Have fun with your family and friends. Enjoy special savings at my teacher stores today and tomorrow. I've been super busy updating products and creating lots of exciting new ones. I've only been out of school for nine days. The summer goes by soo quickly. We had so many snow days here in New England, therefore we got out of school pretty late. My summer will be cut short. This year our district will be starting a few days before Labor Day. I know for some of you that you start at the beginning of August. I will continue uploading lots more during the upcoming weeks to help you get prepared for back to school. Check out my stores and enjoy these special savings.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/123kteach
http://www.teachersnotebook.com/shop/123kteach
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/123kteach
http://www.teachersnotebook.com/shop/123kteach
You're Simply The Best
Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! I know how incredibly hard teachers work throughout the year. Please take some time off and do something special for yourself. Take a moment to recognize all the accomplishments and growth your students have made this year. I am very excited to be a part of this blog hop as we honor our fellow teachers and thank them for all they do. Here is a special activity that has been a huge success in our classroom and I am delighted to be sharing it with you.
Some of the students in our class were struggling with subtraction. I decided to create a "Subtraction Bowling" activity to help support the idea of taking things away and thinking about how many are left. Bowling is a fun activity and something that most students can easily relate to. I am a hands on teacher and I love to get the kids up and moving. So I decided to purchase a small plastic bowling set at Walmart for under ten dollars. I have to admit that I was feeling a little uneasy at first as I was unsure of how well the lesson would go. I thought to myself "Oh boy, is this going to get my students crazy acting and out of control." I explained the rules carefully to my students and let my student know that they had to sit quietly behind the lines near our pretend bowling alley to stay safe, if they wanted a turn to bowl.. To set up my pretend bowling alley, I took a long piece of colored bulletin board paper and set up the pins behind it.
At first, we just started with five pins and I let some of the students bowl. I then added more pins and let more student bowl. We kept adding pins as we went along. After each student bowled, I had them go up to the whiteboard and write a number sentence to go along with how well they bowled. You could also pass out small whiteboards while the students are waiting their turn to bowl and have all the students record the information. This activity was a BIG HIT and such a HUGE success. They all loved it, and the best part was they did not act up or act crazy at all. Students were happily cheering on their classmates and very willing to think about the subtraction equations. We followed up this activity with some subtraction bowling worksheets. After doing this activity for a few days, even my struggling students were successfully subtracting. Check out this activity at
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Subtraction-Bowling-Print-Go-KOA2-1OA1-1159127
Continue on The Best for the Best Teacher Appreciation Blog Hop by clicking the picture below.
Check out a Rafflecopter giveaway in which you could win this activity that I just donated to you as well as 55 best selling classroom resources by some amazing Kindergarten and First grade teachers. Best of Luck!
April Literacy Centers
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| Me On The Map Mini Book |
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| Egg-cellent Spelling |
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| Noun Sort |
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| Sentence Fences |
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| Earth Day Activity |
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| Bunny Bags |
Literacy Centers
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| Short U Umbrellas |
Don't you just love this time of the year. All the hard work and effort that you have put into your classroom is starting to make a huge difference. I am pleased with all the gains my students have made this year. Literacy Center Time is my absolute favorite time of the day.Yes!!! Indeed, it is mighty hectic as there is so much going on at the same time. This is the chance where they get to practice all those skills that you have taught them. Here are a few snapshots of some of the things that my students are working on. Since I've been busy taking a few snapshots, I will most definitely be adding some of these to my Teacher Evidence Based Portfolio. Now that the students are used to the routines, it is much easier to take a few seconds and snap some photos. Each week my centers include an art activity, science activity and lots of hands on literacy activities. I also have a couple of pocket chart activities that my students are busy doing. While the students are busy at their center activities, I am doing a guided reading lesson with a small group. Each center activity usually has no more than four students.We rotate activities throughout the week.The pictures shown are their first must do activity.If students do finish early, they have differentiated extra work that is provided in their work bins to complete.
Some of my centers explained.
Noun Sort- Students sort magnetic wooden fish onto the correct pond to include person, place or thing.
Egg-cellent Spelling- Students put together egg shells to make CCVC and CVC words.
Me On the Map Book-Students draw maps of their room, house, street, town and color maps of their state, country and globe.
Sentence Fences- Students read a sentence and decide the correct punctuation mark. (Super easy to put together and make)
Earth Day Activity- Students sort picture cards that they can reuse, reduce and recycle
Bunny Bags- Students use some tracers and their own creativity to assemble these bags. As a special treat, I will surprise my students by putting in a couple of special treats at the end of this week. (Not candy or food)
Short u umbrellas-We did this one two weeks ago. Students made paper plate umbrellas and cut out raindrops. They were asked to write words with short u on each raindrop.
Each of my centers include a recording sheet after they have finished the hands on activity. Hope you gained some ideas for your upcoming literacy centers. Happy Spring!!!
Magic Erasers Work Wonders
Teachers just love magic erasers. They can easily get all the stuck on glue, crayon, and pencil marks off desks, tables and walls with ease. They also work wonders on cleaning off all the dry erase boards. Even if a student accidently uses a marker instead of a dry erase marker on the board it will remove it. If you know me, I just love a bargain and I discovered this amazing deal on amazon. You can have 100 magic erasers shipped to your house for only $9.88. That is less than 10 cents a piece. A super cheap way to get your home and classroom sparkling clean. I jumped and quickly ordered some before this deal on Amazon ends. How do you use magic erasers? Please share in the comment section.
100 Magic erasers shipped for just 9.88
Spring Cleaning Sale
Many teachers are going to be hosting a Spring Sale on TPT this weekend. I've decided to join in on the fun! Enjoy 20% off my entire store. I've just uploaded several new spring products that are aligned with the Common Core and the best part is many of them are Print & Go. Save yourself lots of time and take some time to enjoy the sunshine now that spring is finally here!
100th Day Fun!
Today was our 100th Day Celebration! My students had a fun filled afternoon as we spent the entire day doing everything the 100th way. This year, 100th day came much later than normal due to the fact that we started school after Labor Day and we had several snow days that seemed to push back the date. I'm so glad that it finally came. To prepare for this special day I sent home special paper bags with instructions stapled to the front. Each child was asked to send in a collection of 100 things to donate to our class and keep it a secret. They were asked to write three clues on the front of the bag to describe what was in it. The instructions did provide a list of suggestions of items that students could bring in such as pompoms, popsicle
sticks, cotton balls, q-tips, sequins, index cards, etc. Each year, I get a nice variety of things that I can then use at the art center table or use to help make a variety of literacy or math activities. This year I had a brilliant idea to use some of these materials at a sensory table. In our class we have a large sandbox table that we rarely use since it makes such a mess on the floor. Even though we sweep the sand up, it scratches up the floor. I decided to dump out all the sand and put all those cotton balls, pom poms, pipe cleaners, beads and more into the box. When my students came back from specialist, they were so excited! They could not wait to dig in and play with all the treasures that they brought in. I also think that I will make the janitors very happy because they no longer have to deal with the scratchy floor and the mess it makes.
My students all had a chance to read their clues and choose classmates to try to guess what they brought in the bag. Once we finished opening all the bags, students had a chance to count their objects by placing them in ten groups of ten. Our day was filled with many more fun filled 100th day activities. We read 100th day books, sang 100th day songs, did 100 exercises, and counted to 100 by 1's,5's, and 10's. Students made 100th Day crowns to wear and their very own 100th day grids to take home and practice. They were asked to write in the missing numbers on this grid. All my students had a chance to draw a picture of what they would look like when they reached 100 years old and write sentences to describe what they would do when they reach that age.Who knows, perhaps many of them might reach this golden age with all the new medical breakthroughs and technologies we now have. My students were especially excited to get the pretend 100 dollar bills. Students could write about what they would do if they received $100.00. It is always fun to read all the interesting thoughts and ideas. Some students have some very unique ideas while others just make you laugh. It was a very busy exhausting day, but I'm hoping that it will be a memorable one.
Congratulations to the Winner of my Giveaway!
Congratulations to Rhoda! She has won over 20 fabulous prizes from some fantastic teachers who donated their products to my one year anniversary giveaway. Would you believe there were 777 entries on Rafflecopter? I am feeling pretty lucky. I know Rhoda sure feels the same way. My husband wants to take me to Foxwoods on Friday for our wedding anniversary. I am not big on gambling since I work way to hard for my money, but I think I will hit the slot machines and hope for "Lucky Number Seven."
I want to thank all the wonderfully talented teachers who have donated a product and help support me along the way. Hosting a giveaway is a lot of work, but at least I know that I put a happy smile on someone's face today. It is all worth it in the end.