100 Followers Giveaway and Goodies for Everyone!

Sometime during my lengthy absence from blogging I hit 100 followers!  I am amazed, and honored that you want to listen to my rambling :)

In celebration, I would like to give away a $25 gift certificate to Teachers Pay Teachers! 

It's a win-win. You get some fabulous new products for your classroom, and you're supporting a fellow teacher!  I want to make this a quick giveaway so that the winner will have their certificate in their hot little inbox by the weekend.  I am going to try Rafflecopter, so here we go...

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And because I love all of my followers, and I want everyone to be a winner...I have a little something for you.

I was creating a background to match some clip art and got a little carried away (AKA-procrastination).  I ended up with a ridiculous amount of backgrounds.  

All 43 are yours.  You can download them for free from TPT for personal and commercial use, just give a little linky love in your creation.  Now, here's the disclaimer...this is my first stab at this, so hopefully all will go well.  If not, email me, and I will actually read one of the 15 different pins I have on making backgrounds and fix it :)

Nicole, over at The Kinder Kid, has created some fabulous space themed things.  I was on the fence about doing a theme this year.  I created a Bloom's Chart and used a space theme, because the metaphor fit, but the space theme started growing on me.  Then I read Nicole's post, and that confirmed it for me.  The alien headband is killing me! I love it!  Hop over and check out her creations, and I will be posting my creations soon.

I start back for training on our new math curriculum tomorrow, and I am in complete denial :)

I'm back...sort of

I had planned to take the month of June off from blogging and all things school, but our summer took a crazy turn and June has turned into July too.  At the beginning of June we finally got Sophie, the German Shepherd puppy that we had been waiting for.  

Unfortunately, our sweet little baby had a congenital defect for which there was no remedy, so after 7 weeks with her, we had to have her put to sleep.  Absolutely the hardest thing I have ever had to do!  She was precious and dearly missed.  It's hard to remember what life was like without her by my side and under my feet!

I'm in need of a distraction, so in an effort to get back into the school groove, I'm back, sort of...  I'm not promising any earth-shattering pearls of wisdom, but I do have a freebie for you to help create a print rich environment in your classroom.  Several years ago I started adding labels to things around the classroom, not everything, but lots of things. They used to be simple black and white labels on ruled lines - because correct letter formation is such an emphasis with so many of my little lovelies!

I needed to add a few more and redo others, so I decided I wanted just a bit of color to help them stand out without being a distraction.  My revamped labels are still simple print, but they are on colored rule.  They're free in my TPT store if you're interested.

Download this freebie from TPT

I hope to be back later this weekend with some other classroom revamping!  And, while I've been away, I passed 100 followers, so I think a giveaway is in order!  More details to come!

These Are A Few of My Favorite Things...

Teaching Idea Factory is hosting her first linky party.  Hop over, check it out, and link up!  Who knows, maybe you'll find a few new favorite things!

I feel a bit like Julie Andrews now that I'm finally on summer break!  So...These are a few of my favorite things... 

Overhead Spinners

My overhead spinners.  Now I don't actually use them on an overhead, but they are essential for literacy and math stations.  You can read a bit more about how I use them here.

Sharpie Love!

What teacher doesn't love Sharpies and have a rainbow assortment in every possible tip size?  This year I actually let the kids use Sharpies (not mine, of course) on several art projects.  I loved the pop that the Sharpies gave their artwork and they were very responsible while using them.  Needless to say they have a very deep understanding of the word PERMANENT! 

MOBI Interactive Tablet

I love my MOBI Interactive Tablet and the kids do too!  Now if I only had an interactive board to go with it.  

I use it all the time during whole group instruction and the kids use it during literacy and math work stations.

Fisher Price Kid Tough Camera

Another favorite in our classroom. We use it regularly during our literacy and math stations.  When kids have an activity that is purely manipulative, they take a picture of their name tag next to their work.  It helps with accountability when necessary, and also give me a peek at how the are doing with stations when I'm too busy with small groups to check in.  We use it for so many projects too - shapes in the real world, small moments writing, poetry, and as a reward for our PBS system they can take it to recess.  It's truly kid tough. We have been using ours for the last 3 years and it still works like a charm! 

And of course, I don't know what I would do without all the fabulous inspiration from fellow bloggers and Pinterest!

What are the Rockin' Resources that you couldn't live without?  Head over to Teacher Idea Factory and link up and share your favs!

Feeling Blessed and Appreciated!

My twins turned 8 yesterday!  We spent the day together with just the immediate family to celebrate.  Their big bash with friends and extended family will be next weekend! (Lego fun for the boys and A Day at the Spa for the girls!)  Watching them together today I am reminded of how truly blessed I am!


Are you ready to feel appreciated?  

You have probably heard the exciting news!  But in case you have been under a rock or just insanely busy will all of the year end activity, there is an amazing blog hop to beat all blog hops going on right now!  Over 150 bloggers are each giving you a gift from their TPT store!  Absolutely AMAZING!

It's organized by grade bands so here's your links to get started:

PK-2: Hosted by April McNair at A Modern Teacher

3rd-6th: Hosted by Laura Candler at Corkboard Connections

7th-12th: Hosted by Adrianne Meldrum on The Tutor House

This fabulous event is today only, so get going!  You can also take advantage of TPT Teacher Appreciation Sale May 6th-8th.  TPT is offering an 8% dicsount, use promo code TAD12, and many, many stores are running additional sales so you can save up to 28%!

I have put everything on sale, so you can snag some deals.

Find it here.

Find it here.

Find it here.

Have a fabulous weekend! I'm off to shop 'til I drop!

Number Sense Winners and Some Insect Station Freebies

Ok, a day late, but hopefully not a dollar short! 

     

The winners of my Number Sense Giveaway are:

  

   

  

Congratulations Ladies! 

Erin, email me so I can send your goodies to you!

(ofprimaryimportance @ gmail.com)

Iraines, I have emailed your goodies!

And now some goodies for my all of my wonderful followers.. we are still need to wrap up our plant unit on Monday, but then we are headed straight into insects, another one of my favorite themes.


Here are the two Write the Room activities we will be using next week.

Click here to download this freebie from TPT.

Click here to download this freebie from TPT.

If you download either, please leave me some feedback and let me know what you think!  Happy Saturday!

Plants and Some Word Work

We have had a crazy week! We did our final round of MAP testing this week and I'm so proud of my kiddos!  It was amazing to see how hard they were working!  Some of my high kids were presented with multiplication and division during the math portion, and their little pencils were just flying all over their scratch paper trying to figure out what to do!  This was our first year of MAP testing with kindergarten, and at the beginning of the year I thought the whole thing was going to be a complete fiasco, winter was a little better, but watching them take their spring tests, I am blown away.  We also started our spring benchmarking for DIBELS.  
 
With all of the testing going on, we have had a hard time getting to our learning about plants, but here is some of what we have done so far...
We observed dry kidney beans and then wet kidney beans.  After our observations we disected them, drew them, and labeled the parts.

We talked about what seeds need to grow. We also began our bean sprouting experiment.  

Wetting our paper towels to provide water for our bean.

Fitting that wet paper towel into a sandwich bag is trickier than it looks!

Hung in a hallway window to provide sunlight  for our beans.

We also started our observation journals.

"My seed is shaped like a rainbow. It's a wet bean."

"The seed looks like a banana."

"Takes the seed 8 days." (One of my ELLs predicting that it will take 8 days to sprout.)

Here is the cover that will go on our journals when we assemble them tomorrow. Simple, but it gets the job done!

We also started our Plant People today.  Awhile back I found this picture on pinterest...

Source: Pinterest via Carolyn from The Teacher Wife

When I followed the link, I was bummed to find out that the download was no longer available :(  With all the copyright craziness going on, maybe Mr. Potato Head had to come down, but I was in love with the idea, so here's what I created to use instead...

We didn't put shoes on, and I'm not sure if we will add them or not, but they are there if anyone wants them.

Adding our seeds.

Gently watering our newly planted grass seed.

In all of our planting fun, I forgot to take pictures of their plant people with the parts on.  I'll try to remember to snap a few tomorrow.


And finally a bit of word work.

I wanted a bit more practice with our color words after our rainbow words, so I created Can You Build It?  This one is just color words and has a recording sheet to practice writing their words after they build them. We did rainbow writing with ours.

You can find this freebie at TPT. 

If you download it, I would love some feedback!  I am thinking about creating some more for number words and our end of the year sight words.  If you think these or other versions would be useful in your classrooms, leave me a comment and let me know.  Also, if you have other ideas to extend this idea, let me know!

Long Time No Blog, Plant Freebies, and a Giveaway!

Wow, spring break was fabulous, but it feels like everything has been moving at mach 3 since we started back!  We wrapped up our weather unit practicing color words and incorporating a bit of poetry with our 3-D rainbows.  I have to give my kids kudos for this one because they largely completed this activity independently during our literacy work stations.  They turned out pretty cute, and they just make me smile!

We started work on our plants unit.  The kids are loving it, and I have to admit it is one of my favorite units to teach.

I will post some more pictures (and freebies) of our fun later this week, but in the meantime, here is a sight word game that we are using in our literacy work stations.

Click here to download this freebie from TPT.

I have been trying to create some free choice activities for our math stations.  I wanted activities that focused on number sense and could remain in our free choice baskets for an extended period of time.  Here's what I came up with to add last week.

This game is played just like traditional dominoes, but instead of the traditional dot patterns, students must find a match with various representations of the number (numerals, number words, objects, tally marks, dice ten frames, base ten blocks, addition, subtraction, and coins).  My kids absolutely love them.  And I love that they are practicing so many skills!

You can find them here at my TPT store.

Our second addition was Bingo Bonanza.

You can find this pack on TPT.

Again, the focus is on number sense.  Bingo is always a hit, and this pack includes bingo games that can be used throughout the year as students build number sense.  There are 8 bingo cards and caller cards for 11 different versions of bingo.  

Versions include:

Number Bingo

Ten Frame Bingo

Tally Mark Bingo

Addition to 5 Bingo

Subtraction within 5 Bingo

Mixed Addition and Subtraction 0-5 Bingo

Number Word Bingo

Addition to 10 Bingo

Subtraction within 10 Bingo

Mixed Addition and Subtraction 0-10 Bingo

Number Words

Bonanza Bingo (includes representations from all versions)

I have used these in small groups, and they are also out in our free choice baskets.  Since students will be self selecting versions during work stations, and to avoid a potential management nightmare, I printed each version on a different color.  

So far it has worked beautifully!

I would like to giveaway a copy of my Number Representation Dominoes and a copy of my Bingo Bonanza Mega Pack to 2 people.  

Here's how to enter:

*Follow my blog & leave me a comment

*Follow my TPT store & leave me a comment

*Blog about the giveaway for 2 additional entries

Easy peasy, right?  I will pick 2 winners on Friday night, April 20th.

I will have more plant ideas, pictures and freebies later in the week!  Wishing everyone a fabulous week!