Back in the game.

I'm alive!! It has been ages and ages since I blogged. I was swamped with end of the year craziness, plus moving out of my classroom, immediate family vacation time, and then three weeks of cabin life in the glorious NC mountains.

 I have lots and lots to share with you, the first being the big news that I took a job teaching 1st grade!! It was not my first choice (I have always said that my heart is forever in Kindergarten) but it was a great opportunity to move to an awesome school and I jumped at it. I'm not gonna lie, I had to go through some heartbreak for a bit over leaving Kindergarten (even though I am determined to make it back). But I am truly excited for a new adventure!

I have been pumping out lots of (Kindergarten) ideas that I didn't have time for over the school year. While I have had lots of forced relaxation time over the last few weeks a broken TV has also lead to some great creative time haha. I just finished updating my monster unit from last year. This was my first (and still one of my only) big thematic units and I just packed it full of more goodies. Last year I started the year with my monster unit so it was much more activity based and not so many centers. Check out all the fun stuff below. I even added some of my fun crafty monster activities from last year. Click the pictures to find it in my store. While you are over there you can check out some of my other new items. 


 

Teacher Appreciation Sale!

I have lots of fun stuff to share with you from our ocean unit, but for now....it's sale time!!! My whole store will be on sale tomorrow and Wednesday. Here's some fun new stuff you can snag while you are shopping :) Click on the pictures to head to my store

I updated my ocean interactive emergent readers to include some color books!

I just threw together a summer skills practice pack similar to my morning work packs. There are 7 weeks of 5 skill practice sheets to keep those little brains working over those long summer months.

Click on the picture below to start filling up your card!! Don't forget the TPT discount code for your extra 10% off :)

Gardens!

We are still going strong with our farm unit. The kids went nuts over these gardens today. We started off by reading this emergent reader together and answering the questions on each page. Then I let them make their own gardens. They turned out so cute! When I made my example I glued all the vegetables down but the kids had the idea to make the soil into a pocket so they could pull the veggies out of the soil and plant them again. I snapped these pics before they added their writing but they wrote all about what veggies they put in their gardens.  Click here to grab the book.

Farm Morning Work Freebie

Happy Sunday friends! I am currently enjoying a much needed stress free weekend. I have gotten almost nothing accomplished other than some glorious r&r!! This semester has been packed full of crazy weekends for me and this teacher is pooped. I did create this one thing for my kiddos to use this week as we head into our second week of farm. We are going to be focusing more on gardens and food grown on farms this week after having tons of fun with the animals last week.  I made just 1 week of farm morning work to use this week (basically recycling some skills from the spring pack). Click the pictures to find it in my store :)

 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. How many days do yall have left of school? We are getting down to the nitty gritty. Just dinosaurs and oceans left for us and then SUMMER TIME!

Fun on the Farm (Freebies)

We have been getting ready for our big field trip to the farm this week. This is one of my favorite units to teach especially because right in the middle of our unit we get to go to the actual farm and milk a cow and hold ducks and explore see tractors. I've been pretty bad at remembering to take pics this week but here's a few activities we have been doing.

These pigs and cow writing craftvities came out super cute. The cow is from my friend's class, the pigs were inspired by Michelle at Apples and Abc's and her cute farm craftivities.

 

Next week we are going to read "The Very Busy Spider" and make these books and webs to retell the story. One of my teammates made it today and they turned out super cute!

You can grab the book here.

I made these super simple math mats out of construction paper to be mud and grass for some pig addition stories. I forgot to snap a picture during our whole group lesson but we told different story problems, modeled them and then wrote the number sentences on a white board. Then I gave the kids a barn to glue to the mat and let them make their own story and they wrote the number sentence in the barn. They went CRAZY for these and were so excited to take them home.

Click here for the file. There are also some colored pigs for you to use.  It's hard to see in the pic but I copied the kids' pigs on pink.

 Tomorrow we head to the farm!! Leave me some love if you download the files...I love to know who is using my things in their rooms :)

Springtime fun :)

One year ago today I started this blogging adventure.  I am so so happy to have found this outlet to share with and learn from such talented inspiring teachers. It has been such a wild and blessed ride :)

It has been great to be back with my kiddos after spring break but boy and I pooped! I always forget how tired I am coming back after a break. It's not helping that my body doesn't like sleep this week :/
The kids have been loving our unit on plants. Their new favorite song is "Flower, Stem, Leaves and Roots" (to the tune of Head Shoulders Knees and Toes).  Tomorrow we are going to eat different parts of plants. (thanks Pinterest)  We are also going to plant lima beans and marigold seeds (this is the first time I will actually be GROWING flowers with the kids...wish me luck. Keeping plants alive Gardening has never been my strong suit.

I have been TERRIBLE at taking pictures this week. We have been using Caitlin Clabby's fantastic plant unit. This thing is packed. Check it out in her store here. Here are a few things we are going to be working on tomorrow and next week.

A few weeks ago we used Kim Adsit's unit on the presidents and made some ADORABLE flap books.

I decided to adapt the idea and make a sunflower book. We have been talking all week about how BIG sunflowers can get but I think this will really help them get it. Each flap has an unscrambled sentence about part of the life cycle with a picture inside.

You can grab the sentences and pictures here. 

I got the inspiration for this one from one of my teammates. She did the same thing with scrambled sight words in flower pots. I decided to make it a math activity with our teen numbers. After coloring the sample and putting it all together I came to a few realizations. I'm going to copy the leaves onto green paper, and we are not coloring the roots :) Also, I might just do 11-15 or 16-20. Either way I think it turned out really cute! Grab this activity here. 

 

Thanks to Ashley Hughes, and KPM Doodles for the cute spring graphics!

Don't forget to check out some of my resources for spring in my store :)