EduBlog Awards 2011...Go Vote!

The 2011 EduBlog Awards are happening now. Nominations are open from now until this Friday (December 2). There are lots of categories to nominate people for, but I'm just voting for Best Teacher Blog. 

I follow TONS of blogs, but I have 3 or 4 that are my absolute favs, so it's hard to narrow it down to just one. But.....my nomination goes to the ever fabulous Cara at The First Grade Parade. Her ideas are *amazing* and beyond creative. If I'm ever in a teaching slump, I always visit her blog to become inspired and she never lets me down. And I'm not joking when I say that her calendar companion completely changed the way I teach my math and I can tell such a difference in my kids because of it. She's beyond brilliant and that's why I'm nominating her. :)

Okay, so how do you nominate your favorite blog?? Just click the link below and follow the simple directions! :) :) 

http://edublogawards.com/nominations/

Sheep in a Jeep- Teaching Long 'e'

Aren't these cute?? Our phonics skill this week is long e so along with our reading series story (Honey Bees), we read Sheep in a Jeep and found all the long e words- all 32 of them! This is a wonderful story to help teach long e and my kids loved it!

***I've gotten a lot of emails and comments asking how we have time to do all this. I precut everything in order to fit it all in. There's no way we could do it if the kids had to cut all the parts out. It is very time consuming, but the kids love it and I think it brings so much more to the learning process and allows the kids to better understand concepts and skills since they feel more involved in the process. :)

***patterns coming soon!

Some new anchor charts and a CHEAP center idea!

After being sick the week before Thanksgiving week and then being out all last week for Thanksgiving, I'm missing my kids and classroom very much! And to matters worse, I haven't been in a creative mood at all these past two weeks, which would have been the perfect time to make some great centers. But no ideas would come to me....until today. Wouldn't you know? The very last day and I'm finally in the mood to create! haha :) I've made a couple of anchor charts to introduce this week's skills. I also make charts with my kids so they understand them more, but these are just reference charts that I thought I'd share.

This idea is not mine! But isn't it great?? I had this saved on my old computer, so I don't know where the original idea came from. If you know, let me know and I'll credit them :) 

Is she scary?? My mom cannot look at this one without laughing. She says she looks scary. Maybe the hair is a bit much? I tend to go overboard on drawing hair HAHA :)

I'm determined to start poetry! I've been wanting to for the longest, so I'm hoping it goes well.

And now for the cheap center idea. I found these Christmas trays at the Dollar Tree for (of course) $1. I created a label and word cards and made this cute, inexpensive sound sorting center. There's a recording sheet to go along with this activity after they sort the sound. The labels and cards are included in my Christmas center packet, which hopefully will be on TPT later this week.

Close up of the tray with labels

Roll Tide TPT Sale!

In honor of Bama's huge win over Auburn(42-14), I'm throwing a Teachers Pay Teachers Sale. Everything in my store is 20% off. Click here to visit it :)

**Hurry! Sale ends Tuesday!

Roll Tide!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Giveaway Winners!

Aren't giveaways fun?? So much fun that I decided to have three winners instead of just one. Here they are!

Melissa and Delighted, I have your emails and I'll send the packets tonight. Ohteach- leave me your email and I'll email you! :)

 I'm working on Christmas Math and Literacy Centers so we'll do another giveaway when I post them! :)

Dinosaur Patterns Freebie, Counting Turkeys, and Ed and Edie!

I have finally uploaded the dinosaurs patterns! Sorry it took a little while! Click the pic to get them. I've uploaded them onto my teachers pay teachers store, but they're free. I've found it's easier to download from TPT instead of Scribd. 

I found this gem of a book today in our classroom library. So wish I would have discovered it last week. It would have been oh so helpful!

If you haven't yet gotten to the Big Circle in Reading Street, be sure and pick this book up! My kids loved it and it would have been wonderful to use at a poetry center during this story. I may even extend our dino study into this week so we can use it :)

Need a quick activity? A handprint turkey is always a hit! We made these while we counted by 5's and 10's.

And lastly, one of our phonics skills this week is ending -ed, so I created Ed and Edie. I made the married couple "ai" and "ay" via the fabulous Abby's blog last year and it helped my kids understand that sound so much better! 

********Don't forget to enter my 1000 followers giveaway! I'll pick the winner tonight, so there's still time to enter!

1000 Followers Giveaway!

Giveaway time! In honor of hitting 1000 followers, I'm giving away the following:

My Thanksgiving Math and Literacy Centers

Christmas Fry Phrases

Christmas Nonsense Words

Here's how to enter:

1 entry: Follow me and leave a comment under this post telling me

1 entry: Follow my Teachers Pay Teachers Store (Click here to follow!) and leave a comment telling me.

1 entry: Blog about this giveaway and of course, leave a comment directing me to the post.

I'll pick the winner tomorrow (Monday) night! :) :)

Christmas Nonsense Words on TPT...Giveaway is coming!

First off, wow! I'm now at 1005 followers. That's unreal! I hope some of you are finding some useful ideas to use in your classroom or be directed to someone else's blog that's inspiring me! I am planning on a giveaway very soon so keep checking!
I just uploaded my nonsense words for Christmas on Teachers Pay Teachers. Can y'all believe I'm that ahead???? I sure can't! :) Click the pic to check them out.

Author's Purpose Graphic Organizer Freebie!

I'm almost to 1,000 followers (currently @ 999!!) so I figured a freebie was in order! Click here to get a graphic organizer for Author's Purpose. I use this at my comprehension center with my leveled readers, but it can be used with any book.
***I'll do a giveaway when I hit 1,000! :)

Dinosaurs and There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Pie!

To finish up our weekly story The Big Circle, we made these cute little dinos. Aren't they mean looking? :) :) If any Reading Street teachers (or anyone doing a dino unit!) would like a copy of the pattern for these, let me know and I'll post it. 

We also read a funny Thanksgiving story There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Pie. The kids LOVED this one! We identified the rhyming words in this story since that's a skill we need some extra practice with. Of course, the chart is the one thing I forgot to take a pic of! I'm finishing up a literary companion for this fun book on Teachers Pay Teachers and hopefully it will be up this weekend. The patterns for these "old" ladies will be included in it.

Thankful Pilgrim Hats and Dinosaurs!

Today, we made lists about what we were thankful for. Then, we made pilgrim hats to display our thankful lists and thus our new door was created!

We also finished up our schema chart about dinosaurs. 

Tomorrow, we're doing a sequencing activity with one of our favorite Thanksgiving stories There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Pie. This was our skill this week and some of my kids are still having a difficult time with this. I'll share pics tomorrow! :)

Happy Veteran's Day!

Aren't these precious? I used Deanna Jump's Veteran's Day unit to create these TLC style soldiers and then I found this adorable chart on Cara's First Grade Parade blog, which should be renamed The Fabulous First Grade Parade, in my opinion. Isn't that just the best site?? Love it! 

Our reading story this week is about dinosaurs (The Big Circle) so we are learning lots about these interesting animals. Here's our schema chart that we started today. I'll share pics after we chart our new learning too :)

How I package my centers

Several of you have asked how I store and organize my centers so I thought I would do a post about it to show y'all. This is what I do with the centers I get on Teachers Pay Teachers and also mine that I create. This is what works best for me so maybe it will help some of you!

I buy these white envelopes at Walmart. You can get the ones that have the metal prongs that close them, but I have found that these are quickly torn off! So I get the ones with the sticky back. To solve the problem of the kids tearing off the paper and forever sealing in the contents of the center, I tape the flap down with clear packing tape. 

I tape ( I use a lot of clear packing tape in my classroom!) the cover sheet for each center on the front, make copies of any recording sheets that go along with the center, include the rest of the materials and you're done! 

The finished product!

Super simple, but neatly organized and it works! :)