Turkey Malurkey & a Bundle!

Turkey day is one of my favorite holidays! 

Random fact about me: I used to call it Mashed Potato Day when I was a kid because I hate, hate, hated turkey... but I tell ya, I loved mashed potatoes. Garlic mashed potatoes, buttery mashed potatoes, cheesy mashed potatoes, sour cream, chives, and bacon mashed potatoes. Oh-em-gee are your mouths watering yet?! That is right... I wouldn't eat turkey, I wouldn't eat stuffing, I wouldn't eat cranberry sauce, just a whopping pile of mashed potatoes. What can I say? I was a weird kid.

Well now, as a much more mature adult, I have learned to like turkey. Not love, just like.

Anyways......

I finished my Thanksgiving literacy centers this past weekend and while I say they are for Thanksgiving, they are mostly just TURKEY themed!

Here are a few of my fave parts from my new pack:

 Turkey Races!

It is no secret that I love games. This one is easy-peasy and fun to play! Students roll a die and find the corresponding sound. Students can move their marker to the closest word that has that sound in it. If students roll a turkey, they get to move their partner's marker all the way back to start - BOO YAH! The first one to the finish line wins! If they make it there too quickly, I make them race to the finish and back to start!

I made a separate game for short vowels, long vowels, digraphs (above), and blends. My kids are all working on different spelling patterns right now so this will help differentiate!

Next, I can't help but make another turkey craft! I made this one to resemble the cute little turkeys all over this pack (from the ever-fabulous Jessica Weible)

These are just some of the activities in my "Turkey Malurkey" literacy pack! If you'd like to check out more, just click on the picture below and download the preview at my TPT store :)

I also decided to bundle these ELA activities with my math centers to create:
Hip hip hooray - it's Turkey Day! Bundle!

***They are all the same activities, just bundled for a discounted price :) ***

On a side note:

Parkster and I just got back from an amazing little 3 day getaway here in Vegas and I am exhauuuusted! I was too busy having fun to take any pictures!! I did snap this little ditty of our crazy HUGE, but crazy delicious dinner at Hash House A Go-Go!

(Ignore the goofy faces)
Nomnomnom.

Have a great week!

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Trick or Treat Sale!

(Button made by the amazing Bubbly Blonde)

Bwhahahahahahahahaha.....

It is almost time for Halloween!!

The Parkster and I having a lovely little stay-cation here in Vegas at the M-Resort to celebrate our 5 year anniversary :) It is the last one we will celebrate before we get married so we thought we'd go all out! We have a mountain-view room, wine tasting, dinner, dancing, and even a little gambling lined up for the next couple days. Oh yah... and a couple's massage I SO badly need.

Wish us some luck and love!

While I'm away, I am throwing a little sale with a few of my fave bloggers! Everything in my store will be 20% off all day Saturday and Sunday. Oh yah... I opened up a Teacher's Notebook store a few days ago too! So I will be throwing a 20% off sale there too!

{My TPT store}

{My TN store}

Have a great weekend :)

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Going Batty!

A three day week for the kids.

22 parent-teacher conferences.

Report cards right around the corner.

Lesson-study with my first grade team.

Organizing 140 QSI results to make intervention groups.

I am going BATTY!

Thankfully, my favorite craftivity designer, Mrs. Cupcake, has got me covered! 

We are learning to identify the main topic and key details of non-fiction texts and this morning we read allllll about bats! 

I had been waiting for the perfect time to use her little freebie and today was it.

Are they not the cutest bats you've ever seen?!?

Tomorrow we will use her writing templates to write all the fun information we learned.

Click on the picture below to snag your own copy before Halloween is here!

I hope everyone's conferences are going well! I only have 2 more tomorrow - WAHOO!

Happy hump day!!

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Writing Flash Sale!

I am still getting ready for parent teacher conferences, but I thought I would share with you all that I updated both of my writing packets and I am having a quick sale on them! They are both reduced to $3 through Wednesday!

If you snag a copy of either one, let me know what you think!

I added a few student pages to my narratives pack for use during the Jonathan London author study. I just posted about this unit not too long ago, so you can read about it {here}

anddddd

I added a "caption action" component to my All About Books that I typically use with early finishers. If you want to read a little more about that unit you can read {here}.

See ya lata, alligatahz (can you hear my Boston accent??)

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Spider Word Families!

 Parent teacher conferences are this week - ahhhh!!

That being said I have tons to do and not enough time to do it all! So this post will be short and sweet. I made this little spider craftivity that we will be completing tomorrow afternoon. It is EZ-PZ and free! Click on any of the pictures below to snag yourself a copy!

 

I also want to show you a sneak peek of my Halloween bulletin board:

 It isn't finished yet, but I will be choosing some of the word family spiders to decorate and a few more of my riddle crafts to fill up the board. Once the whole thing is put together I will take a good picture for you guys!

Happy Sunday :)

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10's Frame Trains & Sight Word Cubes (MPM Supplies)

TGIF!

Okay... technically for most of you it is already Saturday, but I am going to milk my last hour of Friday as much as I can.

I was contacted by someone at MPM School Supplies a few weeks ago and I was given the opportunity to buy some products to review from their website and I have to tell you I was VERY pleased with my choices!

I chose 2 items to review:

Ten Frame Trains & Sight Words Foam Cubes

I saw the sight word cubes first and I have a group of kiddos that need some major practice with their sight words. Instead of the same old, boring, flash cards, I thought I would switch it up for my little ones! First we practiced simply rolling and reading and once they got familiar with most of the words, I added a Sight Word Quilt page so students could identify and color the words they rolled.

 The Sight Word Quilts are from Erica Bohrer's Just Right Reading Response Activity Sheets for Young Learners. To check it out, click {here}!

The next product I received, I fell in love with immediately!

My class has been working on number sense through number talks each day and this game has helped my low group tons this week!

 The Ten Frame Trains come with a tens-frame spinner (numbers 1-10), ten connecting trains, and 20 Unifix cubes. My kids took turns spinning, identifying the number on the spinner and adding that many cubes to their trains. After each spin I would check in with them and see how many cubes they had at that time. They had a ball with these!

The MPM School Supply website was easy to navigate and checkout was a breeze! I will also add that I have been checking back for more supplies lately and they always seem to have great sales going on.

With the holiday season right around corner, MPM is offering my first 10 readers an extra 10% off discount. You just need to click the link below to redeem the offer:

http://www.mpmschoolsupplies.com/redeem/S1210TZVIJXLD

Happy shopping!

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Addition with 3 Addends

I love math games. Did you already know that?!?

I really do. In my classroom, I teach a concept whole group, send my little ones off to play a game to practice that concept, students independently try via pencil and paper (or more likely mini-whiteboard and marker), then bring them back for review.

Rinse, dry, repeat.

Yah, this isn't new, I know.

What IS new, are the games and assessments I made for addition with 3 addends!

Last year when we adopted the CCSS, I had nooooothing for addition with 3 addends. Nothing. So I ended up making a few games, practice pages, and assessments. Well, I was looking it over this weekend and it needed a revamp - big time.

My little packet went from 17 pages to 44. From 2 activities to 7, and from 1 assessment to 3 with 5 practice pages!

Here are some highlights:

games, games, games = practice, practice, practice

A great mix of reading and math:

Students make CVC words, then add the letters together to get the sum. I made task cards to guide students at first, then they can just make their own words.

Assessments:

Story problems, missing addend problems, and basic addition with 3 addends.

I made 3 different ones for you to use throughout your unit.

If you'd like to see more you can visit my [my TPT store] or click the first image above and read the description/download the preview.

The weekend is almost near! Yahoo!

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This is where my brain is...

 

Ever heard of it?!?

Ha!

With a wedding coming in T-minus 339 days my mind is already past the ceremony and onto married life. Parks and I have been together for 5 years already and have lived together for 4. While we haven't been officially married, we've experienced all the fun of living together, traveling together, fighting and making up with one another, so on and so forth. Mostly everyone keeps telling me that when you actually get married it is different... not necessarily good or bad different... just different. I don't buy it, but check back with me in 400 days and we'll see what I say.

That being said, the Parkster and I have had baby fever lately. Yes, him too! We cannot wait to start our little (or big) family and the more I hear of friends' pregnancies and see pictures of my friends' adorable little munchkins the crazier I get about BABIES!!

This baby-fever has led to an over-abundance of pins on my Maybe Baby? Pinterest board. Nurseries, announcements, newborn photos, oh my!

 

 Have I scared you yet? Oddly enough, all the pregnancy photos have also led to an awful lot of food pins... am I getting cravings already?!?

That is all.

As you can see my brain is NOT with school today.

Babies and food. Just babies and food.

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B-Double-Oh, BOO!

Oh goodness.

It seems as though I have been BOO-ed. Twice. Seemingly, they are 2 different types of "Boos" as well, so I am going to try my best to cover all my bases!

First the fabulous hosts:

Cynthia at 2nd Grade Pad:

Tori at Tori's Teacher Tips:

 Next, onto my fave bloggers that BOO'ed me!

I love these 2 ladies so much and if you aren't already following them I suggest that you do!

{Holly @ Crisscross Applesauce in First Grade}

{Stephanie @ Falling into First}

Onto some of my Halloween favorites:

Book:

Shake, shake, shake dem bones now! This book is so silly but ohmigoodness, my kids ask me to read this at least once a week. Naturally I made up my own tune to "shake, shake, shake dem bones now" and now my little ones sing it allllll day long. That's what I get.

Activity:

I know you've seen this on my blog before, but my kids are just finishing theirs and they are soooo stinkin' cute! They think it is the funniest thing to try to guess who each student is behind their mask. 

This activity is from my [One Haunted Halloween mini unit]

Freebie:

Created by the ever-fabulous Kelley Dolling @ Teacher Idea Factory.

She had her students use Halloween themed directed drawings to help them stretch out their borrrring simple sentences into exciting ones! Click the pic to grab yourself a copy!

Last, but not least, time to BOO some other people! Check out my picks below!

(Stacy)

I love, love, love this lady! She is seriously the sweetest and has some fabulous ideas, so check her out!

(Lisa)

I just featured her narratives pack the other day and it is grrrreat! Check out her blog because I know she has more amazingness to come!

(Lindsay)

I just discovered this blogger and I am lovin' what I am seeing so far! She has an adorable candy corn contractions freebie that I just snatched up for my firsties!

That is all for tonight folks! It is LATE and it is Sunday night... wahhhhh!

See ya lata!

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