Oh... and P.S.

Since my fam finally gets to see the ring today.... you can too!

 

My beautiful canary diamond! He picked it out by himself :) and an old picture of us from last Thanksgiving.... we need to take lots more pictures.

Had to share!

Susan

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Swimming into Summer!

I have my first official follower!! How exciting!

Thank you Vicky from Traditions, Laughter, and Happily Ever After! I am so new to this but it is all very exciting :)

Tonight starts a fun, family-filled week. I cannot wait to see everyone. My fiance, Parker, and I got engaged in December (the 29th to be exact) and I have not seen anyone from my family or his since he popped the question! They are going to see the ring for the first time and I can celebrate with his family and mine.

Knowing I was going to have a busy week ahead, I created this fun lil unit for my kiddos in the upcoming weeks. I don't know about you, but we have like 3 weeks of testing for my little ones coming soon and while they are not testing, I figured they can play some of these games.

My class loves Jeopardy, so I was sure to include a fun Jeopardy game with lots of different questions for every subject. 

There are loads of other Common-Core aligned activities as well.

Head on over to my TpT page to check it out yourself.

Swimming into Summer!

Have a great week & wish me luck with my family and my soon-to-be inlaws! 

A whole week in Vegas with family and friends, woo-hoo!

Susan

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Testing & Mama's Day!

Our 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders just began taking their CRTs here in Nevada. High-stakes testing... ahhh!

We knew how stressed out they were about the test so grades K-2 threw an adorable pep rally for the kids yesterday afternoon. We cheered, danced, and wished them well! We also paired up with a 5th grade class and we have a few surprises for them each day of testing. Tomorrow we are giving them these treats I found on Pinterest! The free printables are here: Smartie pants!

Aren't these just the cutest?!

On a different note...Mother's Day is coming up soon and we will be making these little "Mother's love" recipes:

See an example of how to fill it in at my TpT store: Mother's Love Recipe

Last year I baked these sugar cookies and brought them into school to share. Then I printed the cookie recipe back-to-back with the "Mother's love" recipes on card stock. We gave the moms the recipe card (laminated), a cute letter, & a place mat craftivity. I am on the lookout for a new, cute, craftivity for this year! What are you all doing for the holiday?!

Susan

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Subtraction freebie!

We have just begun 2 digit addition and subtraction and my-oh-my we need our practice! 

I created a simple subtraction spinner game for the students to practice using place value to subtract two digit numbers. I created it specifically WITHOUT regrouping. I did this because we have just introduced this concept andddd... that is the common core first grade standard we are working on! 

My students are still focusing on using their base ten blocks and place value mats (we made ours using the teacher wife's idea from pinterest - Here!) to subtract. With lots more practice, my kiddos will be pros at 2-digit subtraction!

Here is the freebie:

Subtraction freebie!

Let me know what you think!

Now, it is time to get a big bowl of ice cream and watch The Biggest Loser :)

G'night!

Susan

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Butterflies!

We started our butterflies science unit and the kiddos are so excited! We finally received our live caterpillars and I must admit, they realllllyyyy gross me out. I am not a creepy-crawly type of gal, but the kids love them, so they can be in charge of this unit :)

We filled in our K and W parts of our KWL using a Kagan game "jot-thoughts" and my friend Carisa created an adorable vocab butterfly to put up on our science wall. Jot thoughts is a fun game we use for brainstorming or coming up with lists of things. Students work in small groups and use post its or small pieces of paper to "cover the table" with their ideas. I usually put about 2 minutes on the class timer and students must call out their idea before they write it down and put it in the middle of their table. There are no repeats allowed! I also have each student in a group use a different colored pencil so there is individual accountability as well.

We use jot thoughts for:

- Spelling: How many long a words can you come up with? blends, digraphs, short vowels, etc.

- Writing: brainstorming, nonfiction features, etc.

- KWL charts

- Comprehension:  write down all the details you remember from the story

After the students cover their table, they can sort the ideas too. After recounting all the details from a story I will have the students sort them into beginning, middle, & end categories. After long a words, I will have them sort them by long a patterns. After small group work, we always come together and record everything whole-group. I don't know about yours, but my students love anything timed and a little competitive!

But, back to butterflies...

Here is a butterfly observation booklet I made for the students to record their observations throughout our unit! Its completely free in my TpT store:

Butterfly Booklet Freebie!

Check it out and please let me know what you think! I am always looking for feedback and suggestions :)

Also, let me know what fun butterfly activities you are doing in your class!

Have a great week :)

Susan

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Spring Break!

Spring break is officially over :(

It has been such a relaxing week, but I am ready to get back to school. After all, there are only 8 more weeks until summer, ahhh! How is it that the year always goes by so fast?

Before Spring Break my kids had an author's celebration to share in their success after completing their non-fiction books! They drank Capri Suns and enjoyed a few snacks while sharing their book with some other first grade classes. They were so proud of themselves and I was so proud of them too! Thank you to those who have bought my non-fiction book templates. Please let me know how they come out!!

My week was mostly spent by the pool reading bridal magazines... but I did manage to create this long vowel packet I plan on using with my small groups this week!

Long Vowel Fun!

 This packet goes through all of the long vowel patterns!

 I included some long vowel read-n-find passages, mix-n-match games, long/short vowel sorts, and showdown games! This pack has a full color version and a full B&W version.

Have a great week :)

Susan

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