Sunday 30 June 2013

July Currently

I am officially on summer break now, but it does not feel like it yet! I had kids right up until Wed., June 26th. Then I had two admin. days Thurs. and Fri. Thursday I had to stuff my report cards, do my cum files, fill in the Grade 2 teachers on the students they will be getting next year, and empty out my classroom! It was a busy day, but I left a nice, empty classroom for the teacher returning! Friday I got to spend at my new school, where we had a staff meeting all morning and in the afternoon I unpacked my vehicle (load #1... I still have another load at my house to move this week!) into my brand, new classroom!

So not only was I busy with the regular end of year stuff and moving schools, we decided that we wanted to buy a new place out in the country (5 acres of land for the silly puppies to enjoy) and sell our existing house. We have been up to our eyeballs in painting, cleaning, fixing, and renovating the house for the last two weeks!! It was nuts!! But it's pretty much all done and the listing for the house is up, so now we just have to wait for some buyers! :D

I will always have time to link up with Farley, so here I am for the July Currently!



I will leave you with a fun summer-y picture of our puppies. Just enjoying their swimming pool. Haha. They are so excited to move out to the country! :)


Saturday 15 June 2013

Five for Friday {Father's Day and Freebies} ... whoa, alliteration!

I really had planned to link up on the actual Friday, but it was a lazy night. Watched a bit of TV with the animals and was in bed by 10. That's pretty early for me, especially on a weekend! So here I am, linking up for Doodle Bugs' Five for Friday on Saturday!


Random #1

There are only 8 days of school left!! Woo hoo!! I didn't go all fancy on our countdown. Just a little corner on the whiteboard.


Random #2

We made our Father's Day presents. I like the food idea, because what Dad doesn't like to eat?? So I came up with Dad's Nuts & Bolts! I used a no-bake recipe that my mom always makes around Christmas time. So yummy! I put out pretzels, goldfish crackers, Shreddies, Cheerios, and peanuts. Students put a scoop of each into a medium-size freezer Zip-loc bag. Then I put a tablespoon of "sauce" into the bag. The student then shook up their nuts & bolts and we stapled the cute bag topper onto the top. Easy peasy! We made 26 bags in only an hour. It went pretty smoothly. {Next time though I would put each item into a bowl though--way easier for littles to scoop out of!}


I think the bag topper turned out so cute! You can get the recipe and bag topper for free from TpT. Click {here}. For cards, we just used some scrap book paper cut in half and folded in half. Then I shrunk some cute Dad colouring pages (just search Google for some). Colour, cut, and glue. Done and done.


Random #3:

We did a fun search and find activity for the vowel sounds of "Y". First we listened to the song "Y Can Be A Vowel" from Starfall. Then I had hidden 16 cards around the room--8 of the cards had words that ended in a Y that sounded like an E (like bunny) and 8 of the cards had a Y that sounded like I (like fly). You can download this fun activity for free from {here}.



Random #4:

We have started working on our Year End Memory Books. They turned out super cute! I printed the covers on neon cardstock. On the back cover I included some photos of each child that I had taken throughout the year. I included a photo from the first day of school and a group silly photo. Then I added some randoms of that specific child. We are writing about things we have learned (favourite literacy centre, favourite math activity, favourite thing to do at recess, etc.) On the last day of school we will pass our memory books around and sign each other's book beside our school photos. These will make such a great keepsake!


Random #5:

I love shopping. Here's a few fun things I picked up this weekend!

This is a fun math game I found at Chapters! It's a number puzzle, but it will perfect for practicing subitizing! It works on numbers from 1-10 and practices dice patterns and finger patterns. Students can play by themselves as a puzzle or take turns rolling the dice with a partner. This will be a fun "Math with Someone" game.


Cute new book about a crocodile who LOVES watermelon... until he eats a seed! Uh oh! Adorable. I'm going to read this and do a watermelon activity afternoon sometime this week. Fun, fun! I plan to use this fun freebie from Jessica at Wild About Firsties!


I love my Toms shoes. I have a pair of grey classics and black classics and I wear them all the time! They are so freaking comfortable! Plus, I can feel good about buying shoes, because they donate a pair of shoes for every pair you buy! It's basically like donating to charity, right?? Well when I saw these new ballet flats, I had to get a pair! They are adorable and super comfy too! :)


Well, that's it for now! I have a house to clean and report cards to finish and some procrastinating to do. Happy Saturday!

Monday 3 June 2013

New Books! and Zoo Freebies!

I have no problem admitting it. I have a problem. I buy books. A lot of books. My classroom library is ridiculously full. I love it! My bf doesn't even comment anymore when there's a box from Amazon or Chapters in the mail. I'm just thankful my Scholastic books go right to school. He doesn't need to see those boxes too. lol. I thought I would show you what just arrived in my latest Amazon order. I got some cute new ones!!


When I heard of The Three Little Gators, I knew I had to get it to add to my Three Little Pigs collection. It'll go perfect with my little mini-unit! The book is hilarious. "Then I'll wiggle my rump with a bump, bump, bump and smash your house!" Super cute. Did I ever show you my students' fractured fairy tales? They turned out really cute. I used the story map and writing pages from my mini-unit to create their own versions of The Three Little Pigs. Some titles were The Three Little Horses and the Big Bad Bull, The Three Little Lukes and the Big Bad Darth Vader (yes, he is obsessed with Star Wars), The Three Little Mice and the Big Bad Rat, The Three Little Cats and the Big Bad Dog, and The Three Little Kids and the Big Bad Dad. Too funny!


I have all the Scaredy Squirrel and Tacky the Penguin books, so when each of them came out with a new book I had to add them to my cart right away! I can't wait to read Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping on our camping day! Should be fun! Happy Birdday, Tacky will wait until next year when I do my penguin unit!

I bought two new school bus safety books that we will read in September when I do my bus safety unit! Safety Dave and Daisy Ride the Bus is a cute book about a boy bring his dog to school for show and tell!


And last up, I bought two new zoo books to go with our zoo unit! These came just in time. Our field trip is on Thursday! We are getting so excited. It's supposed to be a beautiful day! Along with our zoo animal cards, we learn about the types of animals (mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians, insects, and fish) and things related to the zoo. I use some ideas from Hope King's unit On Safari: An Animal Science Unit and Melissa Hodson's Off to the Zoo! Unit. I also put together a few pages about living things, zookeepers, animals vs. people, etc. Click any picture below to download a copy for yourself!






If you are visiting the zoo, don't forget my zoo trip reflection freebie I posted last year too. Check that post here. Alright, I'm off to snooze. Enjoy your week!

Sunday 2 June 2013

June Currently

Yay! Time to link up with Farley for the June Currently! I wrote my Currently this afternoon, but got distracted by cleaning and organizing, so I'm posting it now!


18 days left of school! So excited! It sounds like I'm not the only one changing schools this year. There's a lot of bloggers packing up their rooms. I'll be getting to that in the next few weeks.

My vacation needs are:

1. My iPad (I use the Kindle app to carry tons of good reads or play various games like Word Warp, 4 Pics 1 Word, Plants vs. Zombies...)

2. A cold Slurpee on a hot day... although I am from the Slurpee Capital of the World, so we drink Slurpees on cold days too. Dr. Pepper is the best. Cream Soda is good too.

3. Tent because we love to go camping! We had three camping trips booked for the summer, but we had to cancel two of them, so we are only going to go camping once this summer! Oh well. Vegas beats camping any day! ;)

Go check out the other Currentlys and don't forget Farley's rule of 3!


Saturday 1 June 2013

Five for Friday.... last one for May!

Do you know what time it is? Yes, it's after midnight. Yes, it's bedtime. But it's also time for Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs!


{1.} When we finished our Laura Numeroff author study, we decided to write our own circle story. The last book we read was If You Give a Pig a Party and in that story the pig invites some of the characters from the other stories, but also a snake, a rabbit, and a fox. I had the students vote for which animal they wanted to write a story about. The snake was the winner! Then we had to vote on a food that started with an s, to keep with Laura Numeroff's pattern (moose - muffin, dog - donut, cat - cupcake, pig - pancake). We decided on sundae! Yum! We wrote the story together. Then I typed it up and gave each student their own copy to illustrate. 


If You Give a Snake a Sundae
by 1AT

If you give a snake a sundae, he will want a cherry to go on it.
The cherry will remind him of a clown’s nose. He will ask you to take him to the circus.
At the circus he will want to go see the clowns perform funny tricks.
One of the clowns will give him a balloon animal.
The balloon animal will remind him of the zoo. He will ask you to take him to the zoo.
At the zoo he will want to see the tigers first.
The tiger’s stripes remind him of the zebras. He will want to go see the zebras next.
Then he will go visit the monkeys.
Inside the monkey cage, he will see a red ball.
The ball will remind him of a cherry. He will ask you for one.
And chances are… if you give a snake a cherry, he will ask you for a sundae to go with it.

{2.} For the past two Christmases I have gotten a Cute Overload Daily Calendar. Love it! Each day I would rip the pages off and just stuck them in my drawer figuring I would eventually find a use for the cute pictures. Well I decided to bring them to school for a fun story writing activity! I let them choose a picture to be their main character. They cut it out, glued it on their page, and drew a setting for their animal. 


{3.} One afternoon we just had a math games afternoon, rotating through a few fun addition/subtraction games.

Tip Top Tally - Amazon
Number Hunt - Really Good Stuff
Swashbuckle Addition - Really Good Stuff (out of stock now)
Math Marks the Spot - Really Good Stuff
Math Dash - Edupress



{4.} Our field trip to the zoo is on Thursday this week, so we have been busy learning about some of the animals we will see at the zoo! We have been making our little zoo card books. The students have really enjoyed learning about the animals. Some of them have never been to the zoo before, so it will be pretty exciting for them.


{5.} We only have 18 more school days left! Then two admin. days which will involve a lot of cleaning, packing, organizing, saying goodbye to my current school, and moving to my new school! :)



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When I saw Melonheadz' adorable Potato Peeps clipart, I decided to updated my freebie math game and use her clipart to give it a fresh new look. The game is the same--students can work alone, with partners, or in a small group. You just need enough Mr./Mrs. Potato Head pieces for each student. Students take turns rolling two dice and adding them together. They take a potato piece according to the legend. The first student to complete their potato person is the winner! There is also a recording sheet to write down the addition sentences. Click the picture to download your new freebie!




Have a great weekend!