Red Ribbon Week

Like many of you, this week my school is celebrating Red Ribbon Week. We had a different theme each day but I only had a chance to snap pictures on "No bones about it, Drugs are scarey!" day. On this day, each class got a set of skeleton bones. They then brainstormed and wrote some healthy activities and foods they would do or eat instead of drugs.

 

Here s a close up of the bones.

(click on the images to enlarge)

I think they came out really cute and fit in perfectly with Halloween.

Other themes included

-I’m A Jean-ius because I am Drug Free: Staff and students wear jeans

- Team up against drugs: Staff and students wear team apparel

- Drugs Bug Me! I’d rather eat bugs than do drugs!: kids make and eat assorted bug snacks 

- Paws-itively Drug Free: Kids sign a great big Paw

- 2 smart 2 start = Drug Free 4 Ever: Students get Smarties at the end of the day

What is your class doing for Drug Free Week?

It's my birthday.

Today is my favorite day of the year...

it's my birthday!

Thought I would share what my 1st grade class has been doing.

After studying nouns I dove right into verbs. I used Lindsey, The Teacher Wife, Verb unit. Disclaimer: I love all of Lindsey's units, I used the Noun unit, and the Word Endings unit just a week before. The best part is that my kids love them too.
Click here to go to her shop.

But before you go check out our Action heroes with their action words.

The Action Hero worksheet and the word bubbles are in the Verb unit and instead of having them draw in the face, I used a picture of them!

 I had never thought of introducing the Verbs as action heroes before this unit, I must say that my kids loved it.

Hope you have a fab day.

Begging and Pleading.

As a little treat, not trick, here is my way too late, monthly alphabet strip for October. I promise to be more timely with Novembers. 

Halloween ABC Strip

This months Alphabet strip was created with a freebie clip-art set from The Pixelista's Blog.
Enjoy!

On a side note...

Eeek! My Donors Choose project is 24 days from expiring. I only have $95.00 to go. I hate getting so close and not getting it funded. If you know of anyone willing to donate, even a small sum I would greatly appreciate it. I would also be forever grateful if you would help me spread the word by posting about it on your Facebook and Twitter accounts. You can get o my project by clicking on the image below.

Don't forget about my giveaway...
Click here to jump to my Giveaway post.

What teachers make.

I was at professional development last night and at the end they showed us this clip of Taylor Mali. I thought I would take a time out, because it is after "Time out Tuesday" and share it with all of you all.

 

I hope you all are having a great Tuesday.

Back from the dead... with a giveaway.

I know I have been gone for some time now. I don't know how I fell of the face of blog land but I did. I have not posted or even read a blog in a week. However, I can proudly say that all my ELL files have been updated, assessments are completed and electronic grades are done. I feel pretty accomplished. :) Now on to the next big thing a formal observation and parent conferences. It never let's up.

Anyway, I wanted to give you all a little treat for sticking with me. So I have a giveaway for all you loyal readers.

The giveaway is for My Memories Digital Scrap-booking software and kits. Take a quick peek at just a few things you can do with it.

You got your wheels turning yet?
I am thinking of all the wonderful things that a teacher can create with this. How about class pictures on the first day and last day as a memento for your students at the end of the year. Make a memory page for each student to give their parent over the holidays. Have students plug in their pictures and make valentines for each other. Make a cover page for a class year book. I could go on an on.

Interested yet? One Lucky winner will win the "My Memories Suite Digital Scrapbooking Software" and all you have to do is...

- hop on over to My Memories, take a look around, come back here and leave a comment telling me what your favorite scrap-booking kit is and what you make with it.

Want more chances to win?

You can get additional entries by:
1. becoming a follower of My Memories blog or
2. follow My Memories on Facebook. 
One additional entry for each.
 Please come back here and leave a comment here for each additional entry.

This giveaway will run one week and I will pick a winner on Monday, October 31, 2011 at 12:00pm CST.

As if that wasn't good enough My Memories is offering my followers a special. Just enter a special Share the Memories code STMMMS37405 and receive a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store - $20 value!

End of the Quarter

Why is it that no matter how many years I have taught or how prepared I think I am, I always feel like this?

Today is the end of the quarter and I have files to update, writing papers to score, and grades to upload onto online report cards. I am VERY glad that I have Monday off, but don't expect that I will get any personal time this weekend. *sigh*

I hope you have a great Friday. I don't know if you will hear from me this weekend, but expect some Fall & Halloween fun from me soon... I hope. :P

School Sparks: An early childhood resource

Hi everyone,

Today I am bringing you, what I think is, a great new resource. I've taken some time to look through this site and am just enjoying all the wonderful free activities it has to offer. It was created by a retired Kindergarten teacher. Here is what she said to me in an email...

"I could never really give up teaching children (I love it just too much!) after I retired I started a totally free website devoted to creating resources to help teach preschool- and kindergarten-aged children.  Back when I was teaching, I used countless boring worksheets with black and white clip art and just knew the worksheets could be more engaging and effective for young kids.  So that's how my website was born!"

That is how School Sparks was created, and it was enough for me to want to check it out.

More specifically the Free Worksheet section, where Renne offers a variety of worksheets in several categories.

Here are a few of my favorites...

Alphabet worksheets

Phonemic Awareness

Letter/ Word Awareness

Identifying Different Words

Identifying Identical Words

Identifying Words in Sentence

I could go on, and on, but I think I will let you go poke around for yourself. :)

You can click on any on the link or any of the images to take you to School Sparks.
Hope you find something you can use.

Halloween Decor

 I have to start by saying that I LOVE Halloween. I always want to go all out and decorate my classroom in a spooky or creepy way. However, no matter how much stuff I cram into my class it never feels spooky enough. So instead of a ton of junk in my class cluttering it up, this year, I have chosen a few items I like a lot. Want to see what it looks like? 

 

 Here is the web I made for my door. Want one of your own? Well, I give you step by step instructions on my guest blog for Frogs, Bees and Under the Seas.

Curious as to what is behind the web? It is my new banner!

Don't you love it? I do. I contacted Stephanie from Parker's Prints and requested a Halloween banner. I have 2 other banners from her and she is always a pleasure to work with. I highly recommend her and her shop.

 Here is a view with a solid background for a better look.

 A closer view.

 I've wanted to get rid of these by my students love them year after year, so I can't bring myself to give them away.

 I picked up these cuties from the Target Dollar Spot. I kept 2 in Class A and 2 in Class B.

 The small one holds these witch fingers that my students use to help them read, one word at a time, during guided reading.

 

While I was at Target I picked up some pencils, erasers and baggies 

for treats on Halloween. I think once I get the baggies done I will put them in the larger buckets. Right now they are just for decoration.

 Let me not forget a Peanuts Halloween coloring books and stickers galore.

I also picked up some foam pumpkins, turkeys and fall leaves.

 I am going to have the students decorate their own pumpkins and will save the turkeys for Thanksgiving. The fall leaves I put up on my seasonal bulletin board. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of this, and one other item, a black, sparkly, metal skeleton I got at Target last year. I will have to update this post at a later date with those pictures.

So like I said not very scarey but I do like the items I have in there. Next week I will share some of my students October work, so keep an eye out for some pumpkins and an appearance from that illusive Leave Man, who "goes where the wind blows. " :)

Guest Blogger

Hi everyone,

Today is a busy day for me, this is my second post today. If you have not yet read about my freebie and contribution to Operation Julie's Smile, hop back to my previous post to read all about it.

Before you go, I just wanted to share that I am a guest blogger on one of my favorite blogs, Frogs, Bees and Under the Sea's.

I share how I, step by step, made a my own spider web for my classroom doorway. It came out much cuter than imagined.

Want to see how I did it? Click on the button below to get there.

Oh, and don't forget to comeback tomorrow to see all of my classroom Halloween decorations, including, but not limited to, that darling Halloween banner, made by the very talented Stephanie from Parker's Prints.

Have a Fab Friday!

Blog Hop- Operation Julie's Smile

I am so glad that you joined us on this amazing blog hop for Operation Julie’s Smile.  If you came here from Monique’s blog, For the Love of Paper blog, then you are in the right spot.  If not, you may want to start from the beginning at the Sweet Stamp Shop’s blog and take your time.   You have ALL WEEKEND to hop with us and win prizes!

 The creative blogging community is coming together this weekend to help Julie Ranae.  You may know her as the Design Team Coordinator for many wonderful companies from bakers twine, die cuts, rubber stamps and more.  What many people don’t know about Julie Ranae is that she has had some pretty major dental surgeries in her lifetime due to medication she had to take as a child.  It was in her plans to think about having all of her teeth  replaced at some point in the next 5 years, a decision that was pretty easy to plan out.  But then it happened…she chipped her front teeth on a weekend a month ago. The dentist told her there was no way to save them & that it was his recommendation that she give in and have them all her teeth removed soon, but for that day, they needed to get her front teeth done so her gums could begin to heal. He said he would 'work out payments with her to have ALL this work done...but when she called to make her appt for the first step of impressions, they told her the amount of money that was needed and that the 'payments' applied only to the two teeth that were extracted that day. Her husband Paul was with her & that too, was his understanding as well. So this is how she has found herself in this situation…Needing at least $4000 to get started and another $3000 to finish the process…a total of $7000.

Nicole Rixon, owner of Sweet Stamp Shop put together this benefit after finding out about this situation and before Julie Ranae knew it, it took flight! Because she is an event organizer by trade, she has taken on the job of organizing all of the blogs in this hop as her way of ‘working overtime’ for what she needs, the same as if she were able to work overtime at an outside job to pay for the work to be done.It is the goal of all of these generous friends & sponsors to help make this situation more do-able for our friend so that she can share a brand new smile with all of us soon.  If there is anything you can do to help with a financial donation, there is a donation button ready for you to click.   

Any amount is appreciated and ALL DONATIONS will be eligible for prizes from a sponsor pool of over $2500.

For my contribution I am sharing a freebie with you all. Here is a special ABC strip made with Julie in mind. :) I hope you can use it.

I thought it would be perfect for your students when they lose a tooth. Just keep extra copies on hand and they can get a  copy to take home for extra practice. If your a home school momma or daddy, just use during Dental Hygiene month. 

Don't forget to check out my other theme alphabet strips over in my Alphabet Strip Tab.

I hope you enjoyed your stop here on the hop!  The next stop is Jess’s blog, Jess Larsen's Designs.  Make sure you leave a comment here before you go so that you can have a chance at the amazing prizes up for grabs and if you can, please make a donation so we can help bring back a new smile for Julie.

Double Final Consonants

This week I'll be teaching Double final consonants, you know like shell, bell, tell, class, pass, boss, call, fall, well you get it. As I was planning for this week I started to look for some activities on Teachers Notebook & Teachers Pay Teachers. No go, then I searched all the blogs I read on Google Reader. Did you know that function is available? It is pretty cool. Still nothing, I even just did a blanket search on Google... nothing. So I found myself singing...

"What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would stand up and walk out on me? Lend me your ear and I'll sing you a song, and I'll try not to sing out of key. Oh, I'll get by with a little help from my friends..." I love that song. I used to love the show too. :)

Anyway, let me get back on track. Does anybody know where I can find an activity, song, unit, word sort, anchor chart something I could use to have my students practice double final consonants?

Fab Find!

To celebrate the start of my favorite month I have a Fab Find for you.

I could swear I knew about Dreamlike Magic's Freebie section before but for the life of me I can never remember it. 

Well, last night as I was catching up on some blog reading, I saw their latest post. Which is fantastic, I'll share more in a bit. While reading the Freebies tab popped out at me, so I clicked on it. Oh boy was I in luck. 

Look at what I found...

Click on any of the images to go to the Freebies page.

To top it all off they are having a...

So what are you still doing here?

Just a disclaimer, I did not get paid for this, I just enjoy their freebies and I wanted to share with you.

Have a great weekend.