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!

March Currently and New Products

Hello March! Hello Spring! Good-bye Winter! Good-bye Snow!... Oh wait, we're suppose to get 10-25cm of snow tonight. Grrrrr! No more snow please! Unless we get a snow day. Then it'll be worth it. I'm linking up with Farley for her Currently of the month. Here we go...

Way back in September, I saw this great idea floating around to make "new student" bags full of everything you would need for a new student--classroom handbook, desk name plate, hook tag, etc. So when I was getting everything together for my new class, I created five bags for new students. I thought I was being overly cautious, but figured if I didn't use them next year, I'd probably just use them again the following year.

Well turns out someone installed a revolving door on my classroom this year and I have had a total of 7 students move out and 6 new students move in. So I ran out of new student bags and have to make all new stuff for my 6th new student starting on Tuesday! Errrggh! Right before report cards too... So stressful!!

Anywho, my three A's. I like animals, especially my adorable puppies (see left side bar if you have not seen their adorable-ness before!) and I love awesome friends who are always there for me to rant and rave to. I hate annoying people... who complain about things that don't matter and who treat people like they don't matter. Boo to them!

Seeing as it's report card month I have been really procrastinating (of course) so I have put together a few new products for TpT. First up, I finally finished my St. Patrick's Day Word Work Centres. Click the picture below to check them out at TpT.

Included in this pack are a stamping centre, mixed up sight words, long i word family sort, scrambled sentences, and ABC order.

I needed to make some sight word cards to practice with my lowest reading group, so I put together some bright and colourful rainbow sight word cards. I made two different packs--Dolch word list and Fry words. Click the pictures to check them out.

I have also been working on my Year-End Memory Book. This is a pack of pages to create a keepsake for your students to take home at the end of the year. They get to reflect back on their favourite activities throughout the year. There are 57 different pages--some for each month, season, and holiday. There are also pages for each school subject and activity.

And of course I had to leave you with a freebie. This is a little how-to writing activity I put together. We start out graphing how we like to eat our Oreo--by splitting, dipping in milk, or biting. Then we put together a little circle book with directions on how to eat an Oreo. Of course we have to do some Oreo tasting to go with out writing! Yum! ;) Click the picture to get your free Oreo writing activity.

End of the Year Memory Book

It is the beginning of May. There are only two months of school left. I am both excited for summer vacation, but terribly sad to be leaving my school and firsties. They keep telling me they want to stay in grade one with me forever! *swoon* :)

Well, with the year coming to an end soon, I've been busy getting my end of the year scrapbooks ready. I am lucky to have really efficient EA's in my classroom who help me with all my cutting and laminating WHILE also helping with my students. I don't know how I could do anything without them! My school/district doesn't have mandatory portfolios or anything, so I decided that I wanted to put together a scrapbook for each student with work samples and photos throughout the year. I wanted to have at least one page per month. So I started collecting work samples and photos for each month and holiday. I have one of these little badboys behind my desk:

It has a labeled file folder for each student and everytime I collect a work sample, photo, poem, etc., I just disperse them into the correct folders. So when I am ready to start putting the scrapbooks together, my fabulous helpers and I can just take the student's file and glue everything down into their scrapbook.

My inspiration for these scrapbooks came from the wonderful Shari Sloane {go here, scroll down to Memory Books}. I used the large size construction paper and bound them together. I only laminated the front cover. Here's a little peek into our First Grade Memory Book:

Cover: The cover has our name bugs from our welcome bulletin board from the beginning of the year and a picture of the student on the first day of school.

September: On the first day of school we completed these pages from Cara Carroll's Time Capsules at The First Grade Parade. All of the fonts for my monthly labels come from Lettering Delights. Love those fun, colourful alphabets!

Another September page: We wrote about our Terry Fox run. I also included our shoes we coloured and a picture of the whole class at the run.

October: I included our writing about what we are thankful for (Canadian Thanksgiving), our pumpkin investigation book {again from Cara Carroll} and a picture of the student in their Halloween costume.

November: We wrote about what peace means to us and made these cute little poppy wreaths.

50th Day: This page looks a little bare... I might change it up next year. I included our 50 day math book {from Cara Caroll's 50th Day Mini Unit} and a picture of the student in my awesome pink convertible cutout.

December: This is our four-square writing activity {posted here} and a picture of the student wearing their Rudolph headbands.

January: Our New Year's resolution activity {posted here}.

February: I think I will change this page next year too... I wanted to do some sort of Valentine or friendship writing, but time got away from us. Instead I had a computer sample where they made 10 collections of 10 things for 100 day. February is also "I Love to Read" month, so I printed out our Scholastic certificates for reading 100 books.
 

Another February page: Our groundhog craft/predictions and a picture of the student with their groundhog headband and my groundhog puppet. They love that furry guy!

March: Our leprechaun faces and lucky writing {posted about these here}.

Another March page: Our writing about our favourite Dr. Seuss book and cutie pictures.

April: Our Spring Break reports. I wish I had some sort of April photo for this page! Maybe under an umbrella next year?

Another April page: Our Earth Day writing and pictures.

May: Coming soon.... a write up after our field trip to the zoo. I will also put in a small copy of the zoo map and a picture of the student (or class) at the zoo! Can't wait for our field trip!

June: We will revisit our memory pages from the beginning of the year, and complete these new ones to see how much we have grown!

Last Page: A more recent class photo and a page for the students to sign each other's scrapbooks. 

I think they turned out super cute! I think the kiddos (and parents!) will love them!