End of the Year Fun!

Here are some pictures from our end-of-the-year fun. We did a 'Student Appreciation Day' where, we the teachers, honor the kids with a day of fun activities.

 Here we had some science experiment fun with Diet Coke and Mentos thanks to Mrs. Hodges!

 Lots of bubbles!

 Baby chicks came to visit!

 Sidewalk chalk was a big hit!

 We have brick pavers around the flagpole in front of the school and the firsties loved to color them in.

 It was very colorful for all the families attending Kindergarten graduation!

 Playing games with our friends!

 A fun P.E. game on the lawn!

Two cuties doing our 1st grade dance to 'Rock-a-Hula-Luau'. A great song from Grease 2.

Well, tomorrow is our last day. I can't start thinking about how much I'm going to miss them. They are so cute and make me laugh. Have I said lately how much I love this job?

Hope everyone is having a great summer or soon to be summer. 

I know I'm excited to get it started!

Great Teacher Book!

Mrs. Spitzer's Garden by Edith Pattou

This is one of my favorite books- for me not the kids. I've read it to my firsties before but most of them don't get it. So then I have to explain. I like to read it to myself at the beginning and end of the year. It reminds me of the important job I have to do. I love the part that says:

"She knows that different plants (her plants are her students) need different things. And that each plant has its own shape. 

Some of the plants grow quickly, pushing upward, eager, impatient.

Some grow more slowly, unfolding themselves bit by bit.

Some plants sprout thin and tall.

Some are bushy and wide-spreading.

Some are bold, showy. They are brightly colored, saying "Look at Me!"

Some are silvery and quiet, the color of the earth.

A few are like wildflowers and will grow anywhere you put them.

And some need gentle care, a special watching-over."

 "And then the year is over, and her job is done.

But the plants will keep growing, uncurling their stems, stretching their leaves outward, and showing their faces to the sun."

I can't dwell on this for very long or I'll get a little teary. But I LOVE being a teacher and watching my little ones grow and change. Grateful of the chance to help my little plants 'stretch and show their faces to the sun!'

This book makes a terrific gift for any teacher on your list- even yourself. It's a must read!

Thanks to all the wonderful teachers out there that make a difference in children's lives. Bless you!

Have a great day!

Relay Games Freebie

Okay, so on the the last day of school, I have my little firsties for only an hour and a half. What do you do for just an hour and a half on the last day of school. It's been my dilemma for years. I read a great post by Reagan over on Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits. She does a cute 'Minute to Win' activity with her kiddos. Please check out her cute ideas with pictures HERE!
I have a ton of kiddos so I decided to do the same type of thing only we'll do it in relay teams. I went on-line and found some great ideas. This internet thing is so wonderful! I put together a little packet of about 14 relay games. I'm picking about 6 of them to play on that last day. I'm putting everything into Ziplock Bags with the game card so I'm all ready to go. All the games are pretty easy to assemble. You shouldn't have to spend too much or go looking all over to find the materials, mostly just things around the house plus a balloon or two. I think I'm actually getting excited for the last hour and a half! Click on the picture for a PDF.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you found something you can use in your classroom!

Memorial Day Sale!

In honor of my fantastic dad who fought in the Korea War as a Marine and all the other wonderful soldiers and veterans, I'd like to say a 

BIG THANK YOU

for protecting and defending this awesome country that I love!!

I'm participating in the BIG teacher sale at my shop over at TpT. And I'll be running the same sale at my shop at Teacher's Notebook.

The sale starts Sunday and ends Monday at both my shops.

Just click on the word for a direct link to my shops.

TpT or Teacher Notebook

I hope everyone has a terrific holiday!

Wipe Out Freebie!

I hope everyone is enjoying their Saturday. I know I am. Got a lot done today. Yeah! Flowers planted, house cleaned, laundry finished and ironing almost done.
Here is a little game I've had for years. Don't really know where I got it from but I fancied it up a bit with some new graphic from Scrappin Doodles and KPM Doodles. It's a game I like to play at the end of the year. The kids LOVE it! I don't know if its because they get to use the calculators or what. It's called Wipe Out. Maybe it's because they think they're surfing. They roll a die and record but if they roll a 6 it's a WIPE OUT and they lose everything. I added some other variations to it to make it harder for your high kids or for 2nd graders. Click on the picture to grab a copy.

I hope your kiddos love it as much as mine do.
Have a great Sunday! And thanks for stopping by.

Behavior Bingo

The other day I found a great idea on Camille's blog over on Fun For First. Please go check it out. She found a cute idea on pinterest called Behavior Bingo. I forgot to grab my copy of her cute freebie so I was unprepared but you can if you go to her blog and get it. Today my kiddos were awful!! It was raining, we had an inside day, only 8 days of school left, yada, yada, yada, you get the picture! In desperation, I quickly threw a Behavior Bingo board together (I don't have any cute graphic or even a colored printer at school). I had my aide laminate it and tried it.  Mine is not as cute as Camille's or the one on pinterest but I gotta say "IT WORKED"!!!

Every time I catch one of my firsties being good, I give them the silent signal and they get to sign their name with a visa-visa pen in a square on the game board. Our silent signal is the letter 'b' in sign language. As you can see some of the kiddo's names are there more than once. They were the good ones! At the end of the day, I roll the wooden cubes to determine the winners! One die has B-I-N-G-O and roll again. The other die has 1-2-3-4-5 and roll again. So if I roll B-2, all the kids whose names are in that square win a prize from my prize basket. They were really excited. Then I bribed my little darlings some more and told them if they were SUPER good and we got tons of names on the board, I would roll the colored die. It's another die with the words purple-pink-yellow-blue-orange and roll again on it. Then everyone whose name is on that color wins! The next morning I wipe all the names off and we start again. THANK YOU Camille and whomever came up with this idea on pinterest! It's saving me from pulling my hair out these last few days!
I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!
Thanks for stopping by.

Sounds of y freebie

Hi everyone. I'm sorry I didn't post on Mother's Day. But I want to wish everyone a belated Happy Mother's Day! Being a teacher we are all mothers for 6-7 hours each day when teach our little darlings. I hope everyone had a terrific, pampered, relaxing day!
We are still hard at work even though we only have 10 days left!!!!! I find if I try to keep my kiddos on the same schedule and as busy as possible, I have less behavior problems. Sometimes that is hard with dance festival practices, assemblies, testing, and fantastic weather. But I try. Here is a little sort we did today on the many sounds of Y. I hope someone can use it. Just click on the picture to download a copy.

Also, voting started today for the Most Fascinating Blog. I'd LOVE your vote! Just click on the side bar. You can vote until May 21. THANK YOU!
I hope everyone is surviving the end of the year. I've been putting my memory books together for my firsties and I love seeing how much they have grown. I think that's what I love the most about teaching first grade. The kids grow and change SOOOO much more than any other grade. It's good for me to look back over the year because sometimes I don't think they've changed that much. But when you look at their writing or reading scores, it always amazes me. Even my little ones that struggle so much have made great progress.
You gotta love it baby- teaching that is!
Have a great rest of the week!

Monkey Mess Freebie

It's getting closer and closer to THE END! I'm trying to keep my firsties busy so they won't go crazy on me. Busy but learning with some fun activities. I made Monkey Mess to review some of our spelling/sight words.  Click on the picture to grab a FREE copy. There are 3 different pages and the graphics are from Scrappin Doodles!

I've also uploaded some new packets to my shops. One is called Fact Family Detectives and is a fun packet for fact families with games and ideas for teaching fact families.

Another packet I had a request for (thanks Dana) and that was for more Scrambled Sentences. You can find that post HERE with 5 FREE scrambled sentences from the packet.

And finally I put together a little packet for reviewing word families. You can do it like 'hunt the room' or put them in a literacy center to sort.

You can check all these out at my shops. Just click on the word and it will link you over. TpT or Teacher Notebook
I hope you've found something you can use with your wild little monkeys! Thanks for stopping by.

Shock and Honored!

I received an email the other day and was very shocked and honored to be nominated for the most fascinating blog award. I guess people really are reading my blog. Thank you, thank you. I'm humbled to be nominated with all the other wonderful blogs out there. The voting starts on May 14 and goes until May 21. I hope you'll vote for me!

Have a great Wednesday!

Gigantic Sales

In honor of all the wonderful, fantastic, terrific teachers out there, gigantic sales are coming your way.
Teacher Notebook is having a sale starting this Saturday, May 5 to 11th. Everything in my shop will be 20% off! I hope you'll stop by HERE.

And I've just added a new math activity packet called 'A Hodgepodge of Math Fun'.

Then starting Sunday, May 6-8th over on Teachers Pay Teacher another great sale starts. My shop is also 20% off. I hope you'll check it our HERE. But when you're checking out if you enter the promo code: TAD12 you'll get an additionally 18% off. Wow! 

A BIG THANK YOU to teachers everywhere! {HUGS} to ya' all for making the world a better place!

Happy Friday!

CRAZY Kids!

It's hard to believe there are only 20 days of school left. But if you visited my classroom you would know right away because my little cuties ARE GOING CRAZY! And they are driving their teacher CRAZY too! I loved Reagan Tunstall's post yesterday. Read it HERE. AMEN to all she said about how crazy it is getting. I had one of my little firsties put glue all over another person's chair today. What's with that? Nothing like that has ever happen in my room before. I just keep telling myself- only 20 days, only 20 days. Seriously, I love my kiddos but I forget how CRAZY they get at the end!
Anyhow, we've been working on Wants and Needs and I have a little freebie to share. It's a little class sort of some of the things we want or need. I dug around to find pictures and ended up use several graphic artists so here is credit where credit is due- Scrappin Doodles, KPM Doodles, 3 AM Teacher, and Kevin and Amanda Fonts. Their links are on my side bar. Just click on the picture below to grab a PDF copy.

Click HERE to download the file.

I hope someone can use it!
I also downloaded a new packet to my shops. You can check it out too. It's a few of the activities we've been doing with Fact Families.

Click on the word for a link to my shops. TpT or Teacher Notebook
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you found something you can use in your classroom!
Have a great Wednesday.