14 Days of LOVE Blog Hop!

Almost February already?!

Well, that means it's time to start thinking about Valentine's Day. That's why I am linking up with 13 of my blogger friends to spread some LOVE to all of you. It's called 14 Days For the Love of Teaching FREEBIE Blog Hop and it is just that....14 days of FREEBIES for you! We are hoping to make your Valentine planning a little sweeter:) 

The blog hop starts on February 1 at Ms. Smarty Pants. Click here to check out her blog and then be sure to come back February 1st and follow the link to pick up all the FREEBIES!

Bulletin Board Ideas

Are you like me? Constantly on the hunt for the next great bulletin board idea? Sometimes ideas just pop out at me when I start a new theme, but other times I spend the entire month trying to think of a bulletin board idea and before you know it, the month is over and the hallway is still blank!! Well, I have a couple to share and also a request.......

This is the board I put up at the beginning of every year.

"Meet Mrs. Powell"

The pictures and the layout vary from year to year but the idea remains the same. I put things about me that I think kids are wondering about.....

"Does she live at the school?

Does she ride the bus home?

Does she really buy groceries at Publix??!!"

For the last several years I have included a picture of me when I was in the grade I am currently teaching. My Mama is the best at buying, taking, and saving pictures and she still had all of my school pictures. The framed picture at the top is me when I was in 2nd grade along with my 2nd grade class picture (so old it's in black and white LOL). They always think this is the COOLEST because I went to school K-2 in the same school where I am teaching now. Very little has changed about the building so they instantly recognize it!

I also include pictures of my husband, kids, parents, former students (many that they also recognize) and the gold sheet pictured is random facts about me (favorite TV show, favorite game, snack, etc). This board is usually their favorite.

Another board I put up every year is our "Secret Stories" board.

Our school uses Saxon Phonics and many of us add in Secret Stories. Since we are Pirates, I added  a Captain Hook and titled the board "Hooked on Phonics." Many of my students have no idea what Hooked on Phonics is, but it makes me smile when I look at it. 

There they are, my 2 ideas for the moment and now for the request. I would love to know about your favorite bulletin boards. I'm starting a thread on my FACEBOOK page for bulletin board ideas.  Please head over and either tell us about your favorite boards or post a picture/link/even a bulletin board product that you are selling. We would LOVE to hear about them. 

Bulletin Board Ideas on Facebook

Who is thinking about school on Saturday morning?

I am up and trying to get moving this morning! Wanted to see who else was up and looking for school stuff......I'm having a Flash FREEBIE (this morning only) on my subtraction game. Grab it before it's too late. FREEBIE ends January 26, 2013 at 11:00am EST!

LOVIN' Friday!

Friday means FREEBIES and that just gives us one more reason to name it the best day of the week. Our classroom hasn't started thinking about Valentine's Day yet, but I have been playing around with some cute graphics for the occasion. What came out of that was a cute alphabet matching game that will be great for your students who still need practice.

Don't forget to click below and go pick up the rest of your FREEBIES. Hope you will LOVE them all (and Friday:)!

You do not want to miss this.......

It is Ms. Fultz's 1 year Bloggy Birthday and she is having a SUPER giveaway!

Hurry over and enter (although I am hoping to win myself)!

Happy Bloggy Birthday Christi!!

Friday FREEBIE!

Happy (finally) Friday!!

In our classroom we are knee-deep in subtraction with regrouping. I think they have it, but we will be practicing for at least another week. Do Math texts ever have enough practice pages in them?  This is our practice page for today. And yours too if you can use it. Enjoy your long weekend!!

Head over to the Teaching Blog Addict for more great FREEBIES!

Flat Stanley Fun

This week we finished reading Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. My kids LOVED it! I know that most people use this book to have him travel around the country/world to different places and track where he has been, collect pictures, etc. but we felt that we had covered our "traveling" with Christmas Around the World. So, we used Stanley a little differently. We only have 2 science standards to cover for the human body, and who has a body that you would want to talk about? Flat Stanley! The book only has 5 chapters, but we stretched it out over 2 weeks. We covered several CCSS in reading, writing and our state standards for science. We kicked off the unit by reading Parts. It is so funny! A must read if you never have. It made a great connection with Flat Stanley (things that cannot happen to your body). 

Our Science text has very little information in it, so we supplemented with many different nonfiction books, including this one.

And then the activities began.......I bought this great puzzle from the $1 section at Target. It has became a HUGE hit in our Research Center.

They used the book and puzzle to make their own skeleton.

Our Science standards cover the brain, heart, lungs, stomach, muscles and skeleton. We divided up into groups and made ourselves "flat.". They traced the shortest person in their group and then added the parts above.

One of our reading focus skills was "setting" so we talked about all the different settings where we could place Stanley. We discussed things in each setting that are flat and imagined Stanley being those things. Here are a few they come up with. I LOVE these!

Since they are loving Stanley so much, we are planning to do Stanley in Space for the next 2 weeks. It should be out of this world:)

Flash FREEBIE Thank You!

Happy Saturday everyone! I am so excited that my TPT store just reached 200+ followers! Join the celebration by heading over to my store and picking up my bestseller for FREE! It's an Addition "I Have...Who Has?" Game (sums to 25).

Yep, FREE! But go quickly, this flash FREEBIE is good for 24 hours only (ends 3:16 pm EST January 13, 2013). Thank you so much to all of my followers! If you are not following and you like the FREEBIE, please consider following my store and blog. It would be great to have you join us. Enjoy!!

First Day Back and a Giveaway

Today was the day and it was a LONG one. Those naps and pajama days had me spoiled. LOL 

We had a great day though. The kids came in sporting their new sparkly boots, new haircuts and a hundred new stories to tell. It was good getting back into our routine.

And speaking of routines.....included in our morning routine is a variety of ways to practice high frequency words. We might do flash cards (right-side up or upside down), an "I Have...Who Has?" game, Beat the Clock (to see how many words we can read in a minute), etc.  I try to constantly change it up for them. Even if it's the same game, I like to change the card themes, just to keep their attention. I recently made some Winter Word cards for us to use. They include the dolch sight word lists and I have sets for preprimer, primer, 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade. 

This week I am participating in the Rockin' Teacher Materials Flash Drive Giveaway. The giveaway is divided by grade level.  The neat part about the prize is that the winner will get a cool flash drive that is loaded with great materials specifically for your grade. The items were all donated by TPT sellers. I donated my Winter Word cards to the 1st and 2nd grade giveaways. You can check them out by clicking on the cover.

If you are interested, head over to Rockin' Teacher Materials and enter for your chance to win.
Good luck!

Manic Monday FREEBIES!

Happy Monday!! It is back to work for me this morning and I'm sure for many of you. We have a planning day...grades are due this morning! My FREEBIE today is for all of you Bible teachers out there. This is a matching game that I made a while back. It has matching cards and a cut and paste worksheet. If you can use it, it is yours to grab. Also make your Monday happier by running over to Classroom Freebies and getting some other neat stuff. Have a great day!!

Tablet for the Teacher

I was looking for something to brighten this "day before I have to go back to work" day. And here it is......Teachers Notebook is sponsoring a "Tablet for the Teacher" Sweepstakes. The winner will receive your choice of an iPad Mini, Amazon Kindle Fire HD, or a Nook HD. The best part is that you can enter EVERY DAY (January 5 - January 31). So hurry over and register! Hope you win!!

Last real day off (argggg)

I know I still have the weekend, but today is my last official day off:) Although I am ready to see my kids and my teaching friends, I have not been able to motivate myself to do very much planning. I do have an overview and maybe by posting it here, it will make me get up and actually put it together! My buddy teacher and I are focusing the month of January on the book Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. We have a few standards on the human body that we need to cover and we are going to do that with Stanley. (ie, Can you really flatten body parts?) We will also be working on Persuasive Writing, Setting, and Adjectives. The last 2 weeks of the month our plan is to do Stanley in Space. I'll let you know how that goes.

And now on to your FREEBIE... In language arts we will be working on adjectives. We wrapped up nouns before we left for vacation, so I wanted a quick sheet to see if they remember nouns and to  introduce adjectives. Please grab it if you can use it.

Noun or Adjective?

Be sure to head over to Teaching Blog Addict to pick up some other great FREEBIES!

If you are looking for some great ideas for January, go see Cynthia at the 2nd Grade Pad. She is hosting a linky party and her site is full of great ideas. 

One last thing, THANK YOU to Debra over at Primary in Idaho for featuring me on her blog yesterday! Be sure to hop over and check her out!

Happy New Year (and a FREEBIE)!

Happy New Year!

And a FREEBIE!

(I thought my last few posts were long, so I made this one short and sweet:)