50th Day of School!

Happy 50th Day!

That's right today was the 50th Day of school!  We had such a Nifty day!  

These lovely ladies are my teaching partners, Renee and Karin!  We had so much fun planning this fun day and experiencing the fun with the kiddos!  

We ordered matching 50s Day outfits - complete with poodle skirt, socks, shirt, scarf and glasses!  The kids all dressed up as well.  We had oodles of poodles (skirts that is) and greasers!  So fun to see the kiddos get into it the way they did.  

Of course, we had to hula hoop and play hopscotch!

 We used many of the activities from Renee's 50th Day Unit!

We measured with Tootsie Rolls, emphasizing non-standard units of measurement.

One of the parents let us borrow a record player and lots of records. We compared CDs, iPods and the record player.  This was a real hit with the kiddos.  We wrote about life in the 50s compared to life now.  We were so lucky to have so many parents volunteer to help out today.  We ended the day with Root Beer Floats and free play!  I'll try and post more pictures soon, but I'm exhausted!  And tomorrow is HALLOWEEN!  Really?  

Giveaway!

I'm participating in a fabulous Blogaversary Giveaway for my Fantastic Teaching Partner over at Fantastic Froggies! Head over there NOW and enter to win the amazing prizes!

http://www.fantasticfirstgradefroggies.com/

Halloween Boo Linky!

Maybe you've seen or heard of this fun "game" in neighborhoods or even at your school... but let's try a blog version!  Here is how it works:

If you've been booed, copy and paste the above pic and these "rules" into your post.

1.  Give a shout out to the blogger who booed you and link back to their site!

2. Share 3-5 October activities, books, products (yours or someone else),

or freebie(s) that you love!

3.  Share the Boo love with 5 bloggers- make sure you check this link to make sure you don't boo someone again:

I've Been Boo-ed

Fantastic First Grade Froggies

Fun Times in First

Creation Castle

Tiny Toes

Real Teachers Learn

And don't forget to tell them that they have been BOOED!

4.  Link up {here} so that others can find you and read about your October ideas!  And while you are there... check out the other great blogs

Ok, I haven't actually been boo-ed!  But I came across the idea over at Teaching Maddeness!  I love this tradition!   I love the tradition of Booing neighbors and friends, so virtual booing caught my attention right away.   So to start with here are my treats for you:


My October activities and a Freebie!

This week I'll introduce some great new activities to my students that I found during the Frenzy!

Post by Friendly Froggies.

1.    Starting with my own freebie!  I'll  use this with my firsties who are struggling with the "orange" list (2nd 20 words of the Dolch list).  

2.  This great Frenzy Freebie from Sommer Pride.  I think I'll use it this week to work with my kiddos on ordinal numbers.  

3.    This is an awesome product from one of my favorite TpT sellers!  Check it out!

4.  One of my favorite Halloween Books is The Halloweiner by Dav Pilkey!  My students love it every year.  I realized this year, after I read it, that it was published in 1995!  That's the same year that my oldest daughter was born.  That means, I've been reading this book to my students for 18 years!  Wow!

5.   My students have been enjoying these "Sentence Scrambles" with Sammy the Scarecrow!  These are in my TpT store!  You can check them out by clicking the picture below!

Let the Booing proceed!  Have a great week!

 and now I'm booing some of my favorite bloggers:

Fantastic First Grade Froggies

Fun Times in First

Creation Castle

Tiny Toes
Real Teachers Learn

The Frenzy is hoppin'!

If you haven't already, you need to hop over to Facebook and get started with the Frenzy.  There are so many free downloads available now!  You can start here at my Facebook Page!  If you get lost along the way here are maps for the Frenzy!  There are Frenzies for K-1, 2-3 and 4-5!

Frenzy Maps

Leave a comment and let me know your favorite find!

And the winner is....

 Drumroll please.... out of 1,493 entries on the Fall Blog Hop....the winner is.....Cindy Murray.  Congratulations, Cindy! She is the winner of 11 great fall themed activities for her students!  

And,as I am exhausted...I'm cutting this blogpost short...but remember to stop by tomorrow for the October Facebook Frenzy!  It's going to be a great one!  I promise you will not be disappointed!

Blog hop, a freebie and a Frenzy...Oh my!

Wow!  I have lots going on this week.  Actually feeling a bit overwhelmed!  The good news is my students are doing well and it's almost time to start assessing for report cards.  I still love the Daily 5!  Once the kiddos learned the routines, I started working with students one on one and in small groups.   Now, with report card assessments looming, I'm excited about how the Daily 5 will make this easier!

Since I'm in California, we won't be fully implementing the CCSS until 2014-15.  My school, however, is implementing this year.  This makes report cards a little tricky.  We are teaching CCSS, but using last year's report card.  We can explain that easy enough at parent conferences, but now we have to develop new assessments.  That is what my teaching partners and myself have been working on.  But we all agree, the other kiddos will be engaged with their Daily 5 sessions.

Today, I introduced this great management idea from teacher to the core!  My kids were so excited to earn points.  I've put my own spin on it.  We earn one "bouncy ball eyeball" for every 5 points.  This helps us practice counting by 5s and the eyeballs are an awesome incentive!

This is a fabulous freebie right now!

I'm so excited for this weekend!  The October Facebook Frenzy begins Friday!  You will not want to miss this.  There are sooooo many awesome Freebies.  This Frenzy gets bigger every month!  Stock up on Free Fall Freebies!

Don't forget about the blog hop going on right now, too!  The blog hop ends this weekend, so if you haven't hopped through these awesome blogs and grabbed your freebies, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?  :)  Click the picture below and get started!

TpT Sale!

Wow!  TpT's Facebook page hit 100k likes so they're throwing a sale!  You can read more about it here:

https://www.facebook.com/TeachersPayTeachers

or just head over to my store and start saving!  It's time to get everything on your wishlist.  Lots of teachers have put their stores on sale to add to the savings!  My store is on sale!  Enter code FB100k at checkout for 10% off including sale items. The sale ends when the date flips to 10/14.

Fall Freebie Blog Hop!

Thanks for stopping by!  I'm so excited to be a part of this month's blog hop hosted by Smart Kids!  You are in for a basketful of treats! 

Be sure and stop by each of the Eleven blogs so you can pick up all Eleven Fall Freebies!. 

I love the change of each season, and Fall is certainly no exception!  In fact, it might be my favorite!  It is so nice to feel those cool breezes after a hot summer! 

I've definitely been having fun creating some fun activities for my firsties.  (So if you're new to my blog, that's something you need to know about me!  I love creating games for my students.)  I'm a big believer in FUN and playing to learn.  Here are the newest games I've created for my kids.         

                                  

These are sight word games for small groups and independent practice.  These games can be played like "Go Fish" or as a "Memory" game.  My students enjoy playing with sight words this way.  

                                 

And here my Fall Reading logs for this year.  My students color in one picture for every 10 minutes they read.  This is so great for developing the responsibility of tracking reading minutes while keeping it FUN!   My parents like it because they are not responsible for tracking the minutes, the kiddos are!  

                         

 

One of my latest products is the Fall version of my "Froggy Fix-its"!  Fix-it's are great for daily oral language practice or a Word Work tub.  I usually introduce these whole class for the first couple of times, and then the kids are familiar enough to complete these independently!  

This is also my Freebie to you for stopping by! I hope your kiddos will enjoy it!  You can download it out here.

Ok, y'all have to visit each blog to gather the rest of the awesome freebies, but here's a peek at the items in the grand prize.  

If you just can't wait to see if you'll win, you can click each pic to go straight to TPT and make your purchase.

Thanks for hopping by!  Here is my Fall freebie for you! 

Don't forget to follow my blog and enter to win the grand prize.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Next stop, Young & LIvely Kindergarten!   Be sure to follow all the blogs along our hop for a chance to win 

To keep filling your basket, go to the next blog: