Sunday 25 November 2012

Cyber Monday and Tuesday Sale!

No Thanksgiving break or long weekend for me.... Just a normal two-day weekend that goes by way too fast and you can't get anything done in! *sigh* But the good news is, four weeks until Christmas vacation! Two weeks of relaxing and fun family time! Let the countdown begin!

Well, if you haven't heard yet, TpT is having a big sale this Monday and Tuesday. Everything in my store will be 20% off and if you use the promo code "cmt12", you get a total of 28% off! Click the picture below to check out the items in my store.

You can get ready for December with some of my Christmas-y products. Click the pictures to check them out at TpT...



Thursday 15 November 2012

Shape Up!

Sorry, just stopping by for a quick update! I'm right smack dab in the middle of report cards. This was our Remembrance Day bulletin board. We read "The Peace Book" by Todd Parr and did our own "Peace is..." writing (posted this freebie here last year). My favourite is "Peace is suntanning." Haha. Too cute! We also made this cute poppy wreaths. Warning: oil pastels + hot laminating = runny mess. Whoops! Where was my brain??



In math, we have been practicing our 2D shapes. I put together this anchor chart that we filled in together over a few days. You can download the chart labels {here} for free. The shape clipart is from the blog LoveTwoTeach and, best of all, it's free!


I made the clipart into large posters, as well, and we like to play the mystery shape game! I hide one of the shapes and give the students three clues to try and guess it. It's a fun way to kill a few minutes at the end of class!

Here's a few shape books I like to read during our lessons:


After we read "The Shape of Things", we made our own shape pictures. I put out large 11x17" white paper and various shapes for students to choose. Each student chooses one shape and creates a picture around it. Tomorrow we will do some writing along the lines of "A circle is just a circle, until you add a body and wings, then it becomes a pigeon!"

 Pigeon and duckling... so cute! Can you tell we are starting our Mo Willems author study?

 Circle flowers!

Square robots... a whole squad of them!

Here's a fun game we enjoyed playing too. It's called "Trace a Shape"! Students roll the die and trace the shape they rolled. Did you stock up on foam cubes at the dollar store like I did? Then just draw some shapes on them to make a shape dice! Easy peasy! Grab your own game {here}.


If you haven't stopped by my TpT store lately, I posted this 2D shape book a few weeks ago. It's a freebie, so grab it if you haven't yet! It contains pages for the following shapes: circle, oval, triangle, square, rectangle, rhombus, trapezoid, pentagon, hexagon, and octagon. Each page follows the same format: write it, draw it, sides/corners, color it, and draw objects that are that shape! Click the picture below to check it out at TpT.



That's it for now! Happy Friday tomorrow! Yay!!

Sunday 4 November 2012

November Currently (already??) and New Products!

Wow, sorry I have been such a bad blogger. I'm trying to get on here at least once a week, but some weeks are harder than others! We have been super busy at school... no Halloween activities or parties (which was actually kind of nice, but I did miss dressing up!) but lots of other things to occupy our time. I couldn't believe Farley already had her next currently up and running... I'm trying to deny that it is November already! Report cards, parent teacher conferences.... eeeek!!! Go check out the other Currently's at Oh' Boy 4th Grade. Don't forget the rule of three!!


So here's what we were up to this week. Even though we didn't celebrate Halloween, we did study pumpkins. We did this cute pumpkin life cycle craft.... it did take a lot of steps to get it finished, but I think it was worthwhile. First we painted a paper plate and a half orange, then we coloured the pumpkin life cycle pieces from A to Z Teacher Stuff found here and glued them to a vine, and then we put it all together to make these cute pumpkins!


We practiced making patterns with these foam leaf stickers I bought from the dollar store. This worksheet was from the blog Just Add Clipart. The kids really enjoyed this! I think I will pull it out for each holiday... just buy some different seasonal stickers! :)


I think I have mentioned how weak my class is before, but it's pretty much like having a class of Kindergarteners. So when I find simple math centres that keep them engaged... woo hoo!! One of the most popular math stations is PLAY DO!! I had my numbers out (posted last year here), but wanted to extend it a bit further. So I created these number mats for the numbers 1-20. Students can create the number and fill in the ten frames to show the number. I also created mats for 2D shapes (circle, oval, triangle, square, rectangle, rhombus, trapezoid, pentagon, hexagon, octagon).


You can check them out at TpT for only $2. Just add Play Do for an instant math centre! Click the picture below to check them out.


Our author of the month for October was Melanie Watt. She is a Canadian author, which I love, and her books are too adorable. If you haven't read the Scaredy Squirrel or Chester books, you must go check them out now! I have a monthly author study bulletin board that I update each month. Can you tell it was Kevin Henkes before? Hehe... darn fading paper! Here is my Melanie Watt display:


I created some posters with some facts about Melanie Watt to display. We read all of her books... there are six Scaredy Squirrel books (the Christmas one is new.... we will read that one in December!), three Chester books, Augustine, Leon the Chameleon, You're Finally Here!, and Have I Got a Book for You! Love them all. Here are some activities we did: a Scaredy Squirrel craft, text-to-self connections about things we're afraid of, and our own emergency kits!





I combined these activities (and more) into a pack for you. If you liked my Clifford Author Study pack, you will love this one too! There are 65 pages of Melanie Watt fun! There are a bunch of activities to go with the Scaredy Squirrel books, Chester books, and other Melanie Watt books. Click the pictures below to check it out at TpT.



That's it for now! I promise to be back again soon. Next week we are doing some 2D shape activities that I can't wait to share. Enjoy the weekend everyone!