Five for Friday...On Saturday!

I'm linking up Doodles Bus Teaching to share my week with you!

and what a week it was!

We've been enjoying our visits with our classroom elf "Jingle" however in all the craziness of the week I forgot to take pictures of all his shenanigans, but I did get this one!

On Wednesday and Thursday we made Christmas ornaments for the parents and they turned out soo cute! I hope they will like them,  my ornaments are still on my parent's tree at their house.

This project required: white acrylic paint, plain Christmas balls ( I found blue glittery ones on clearance at Shopko), and a variety of Sharpies.  I was a little nervous to have them use Sharpies so I gave them a tiny little square to come up with their snowman design. I think the practice was perfect and they ornaments turned out great! Aren't they cute?!

Now for Friday...We began the day with the movie The Polar Express...I did a little lesson planning while we were watching.  All seven classes...yes seven were in the library.

To end the day we had our Christmas party and made gingerbread houses, fortunately we had many parents come to help us, Thank You :)

Then is was over! and now I'm officially on Christmas break, yeah! It was the longest week ever but it's all worth it! I'll miss those kiddos over break for sure. 

Yay for Break! me (in the red) and a fellow 1st grade teacher :)

When we come back we will be reviewing expectations and rules. What do you do when coming back from break? I would love to hear your ideas!

Keep calm, only 5 days left!

5 days left before Christmas Break! What do you have planned? We are hoping aboard the Polar Express all week, complete with pajama and movie day on Friday. I imagine the kiddos will be very excited, as they should be!

We're going to be doing lots of centers to keep us all entertained this week and I thought you might like a freebie for your week too.

Click this link to get your freebie! Santa's Silly Subtraction Sentences Tell me what you've got planned for your week!

Christmas Questionnaire

Hot Chocolate or Eggnog? 

I love both, I used to hate Eggnog and yes it does sound strange but I love love it now! (Isn't it funny how your tastes change from when your a kid to an adult so weird!)

Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them underneath the tree? 

When I was growing we had what I would consider now to be kinda a strange tradition of unwrapping presents...my brother and I got to unwrap all of our presents on Christmas Eve after we went to the Christmas Eve service at church and then on Christmas morning Santa would arrive with unwrap/no tag presents. I guess it worked in our house because there was no way the new Barbie doll was for my brother!

Colored lights or white? 

I actually love to use both! I think colored lights don't quite have enough brightness so I like to use white lights too!

When do you decorate? 

THANKSGIVING DAY!

Real or Fake Tree? 

Since I always insisted on putting up the tree ASAP my parents used a fake tree and as you can see mine is white, so yes fake. I fake the pine/spruce/balsam whatever it is smell, is my favorite smell ever and I love it all year long!

What Tops Your Tree?

This year it's a some sort of lighted ball that I found at Bit Lots and turned into a tree topper.

Favorite Christmas Memories or Traditions?

Every year my town has a parade and lighting ceremony the day after Thanksgiving. Hundreds of people line the streets and the floats pass by. After the parade all the lights are turned on in the downtown area and there's a firework show (almost as good as 4th of July). I also love baking cookies with my mom, she has the best sugar cookie recipe ever!

Do you remember your favorite gift as a child? 

This one is a bit of a stumper...I had so many good presents and every year I was so happy excited. I remember getting wedding Barbie and Ken and a giant pink Limo to go with. I was totally girlie and always got Barbies or baby dolls.

Do prefer giving or receiving? 

Well of course I love getting presents but I do get really excited when I find the prefect gifts for my friends and family...speaking of which I better get on it...  

What is your favorite Christmas song? 

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing! mainly because I love hearing my Grandma (who just turned 100) sing it. I love Christmas music but I prefer Frank Sintara, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole to the new artists

Candy Canes. Yuck or Yum? 

I love candy but candy canes are something I can turn down.

Favorite Christmas Movie? 

Christmas Vacation 

Do you shop online or at stores?

Depends on what I'm buying...usually in stores but it just depends. 

Photo Cards, Letter or Store Bought Card? 

I don't send out anything (no husband or kids to brag about, lol). My mother sends out a letter.

Now it's your turn! Link up at Michelle's blog

Look who's coming to our classroom this week?!

SO I couldn't resist... 

 and I broke down and bought one of these, especially since Cara Carroll came up with this cute freebie... click the picture to go pick up this freebie for yourself!

So on  Monday my class will be getting a special delivery! I'm pretty excited and I hope they will be too! Do you like the idea of an elf coming to your class to report back to Santa, I'm hoping that they will be extra good knowing Santa will be watching!

I'll be  back to let you know how it goes...

What did you buy at the big sale?

I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin' to share what I bought during the Teachers Pay Teachers sale! I could have purchased so much more but I had to limit myself and just pick out the items from my  wish list that I could really use.

I'm new to using centers in my classroom since I didn't do them with 3rd graders last year, so I'm in the process of making centers and printing and cutting and printing and cutting and laminating and laminating. I think about how I'll be so prepared next year! Yeah pipe dreams I'm sure!

Anyway here are my awesome purchases!

1. A Very "Firstie" Christmas  

 2. Write On! December Edition

3. 1st Grade Christmas No Prep    

4. Christmas Math Centers

The I was in need of some stuff teaching R-controlled vowels, we've had a lot of fun with Pirate Rrrrsss that's for sure!

5. Phonics Cards -I got these to make a focus

6. Word Work R-Controlled Vowels Pack

7. Arrr! R Controlled Vowels

So now I'm printing and cutting like crazy.

In other news I'm taking part in my first Facebook Frenzy! Tomorrow starting at 8am EST you can collect freebies by visiting my facebook fan site and others!

Start here https://www.facebook.com/FriendlyFroggies/

and collect those freebies!

TGIF! almost

How was your Thanksgiving Break? (It's sale time)

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break! I spent mine doing projects around the house and readying a new freebie for my first facebook frenzy next weekend.  What did you do over the break? I really enjoyed sleeping in all week ;)

In other exciting news I'm super excited to buy some stuff on my tpt wish list, the cyber monday and tuesday sale starts tomorrow! My store is on sale from now until Tuesday click on the picture above! What are some of your wishlist products that you will be purchasing during the sale?

Here are just some of mine!

Babbling Abby's R-Controlled Word Pack

First Grade Garden's Phonics Posters

Babbling Abby's A Very Firstie Christmas

I don't know about you but I'm very happy to be going back to school tomorrow I can't wait to see my 23 little friends!

On a freebie frenzy!

Sometimes this whole teaching thing is overwhelming, but hey you know what I mean so much to do all the time! This picture that you have probably all seen is completely true!

not to mention mother, father, counselor and everything else...BUT I do love it! Today was just a bit too overwhelming for me.

Anywho I'm here at home looking through all the amazing freebies that are available on TpT. I've been specifically looking for literacy center activities since I haven't yet begun using those yet. There are so many and I've found some that will be perfect. Well I need to get to printing and cutting!

WE SURVIVED!

What a week! Picture day, end of the quarter, report cards and oh can't forget HALLOWEEN! 

We started out the week with a little math center fun from my fall fun for firsties unit.

In this activity the students have to write numbers to make each number sentence true, tougher than it looks! You check out this little unit here.

Next we worked on nouns and we wrote down as many nouns as we could that could be found in our classroom and then we wrote a big list.

(Don't mind the 1st grade spelling...we're working on it!)

We also did some writing about bats, which we had studied for the last two weeks. Here some students were writing facts during work on writing.

And finally a little Halloween fun freebie I know it's late for Halloween this year but maybe next year or really anytime!

Spider True or False Addition Fact Sort {Freebie}

I was fortunate enough that I did not have to teach the day after Halloween because of teacher work day, so for all of you who did, you are awesome!

Have a great weekend :)

a busy weekend!

I've been busy busy busy! I swear I need more time in a day! My first project for the weekend was to come up with a new way to organize some of my math tools and word work materials. When I moved classrooms this year I was left with 2 of these rainbow cart storage systems...

let's just say I found something else at Big Lots that will hopefully work much better!

There's even a little support beam under each compartment! They are so awesome I bought 2. One for math tools and manipulatives the other for word work. I don't have them all labeled yet because my other labels are at school. I can't wait to take them to school next Friday when we have a work day.

I also did a little work on making some word work worksheets, a rainbow writing sheet and sight word practice sheet too.

Did I mention report cards are going home next Monday?! Oh it will be quite a busy week and how could I forget about Halloween! Nighty Night

Hooray for Fal!

I can't believe it's the 2oth of October?! Crazy how times flies isn't it? I have been so busy at school it never really ends, but when you love what you do then it's not really work is it?

It's also getting close to the end of the quarter so lots of work to do for the next 2 weeks. AHH! But I did manage to make a little something to help us with our math (mainly addition). It's up in my store now.

 It would be great for both Halloween and Thanksgiving math centers! Hopefully I'll be able to take some pictures when we're using this pack this week :)

Our amazing week! {Five for Friday}

Wow! what a week we had, I could go to bed right now, if I wasn't blogging ;)

So I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share just how great the week turned out to be!

We started Read to Someone on Monday and the kids were totally awesome and on task, almost as long as our Read to Self stamina, currently at about 8 minutes!

All week we learned about apples, we tasted apples, made a graph, learned about Johnny Appleseed and then we made applesauce to celebrate his birthday! We wrote the recipe to take home, apparently it was quite good cause some of my students told me they get to make it this weekend. It's super delicious, I'm gonna make some for home myself!

Here are some of the things we did...

 Writing our recipe

Coloring a Johnny Appleseed book

 My newest unit, in an apple theme, 5 math activities!

READING BUDDIES!!!

A local car dealership supplies every 1st grader in our area a "reading buddy" a stuffed lab puppy that stays at school and the students read to them everyday. It's just about the cutest thing you've ever seen! Yesterday I told the kids there would be a surprise after lunch and were they ever excited. Here's some pictures of their first read together!

and lastly...

I am just plain thankful! For everything in my life right now, and I'm just happy :)

I hope I can send a little happy your way!