What is it?

Is it a porcupine? A headhog? Hedgie?

No, it's Mort the hedgehog!

Mort came to visit our classroom on Friday. It was so fun for my firsties to see, feel, and watch a real live hedgehog! (Even when he peed) 

And not to mention, I thought it was WAY COOL too!

My granddaughter Tiffany is one of my students and her Aunt Nikki has a hedgehog for a pet. After reading several Jan Brett books through out the year, I realized none of my kiddos really knew what a hedgehog was. So Nikki was gracious enough to bring Mort for a surprise show and tell. I loved watching the kids reactions as they petted Mort and learned all about a real hedgehog. Great motivation for writing. The kiddos are really excited now to write what they know. 

I hope you're having a fun weekend! 

Scrambled Sentence Freebie

I can't believe how fast this year has flown by. We are almost to THE END! My little ones are getting anxious. How about yours?
Here is a little scrambled sentence to help keep them occupied. There are 5 different ones. We've done several throughout the year and it's a great review of sentence structure and making sentences make sense. The graphics are from KPM Doodles! I hope someone can use it. Just click on the picture below to grab a copy.

Have a great Wednesday Hump Day!

Count the Tally Marks Freebie

Hey all! I  hope everyone has had a fantastic weekend. Mine has been super. The weather is sooooo nice. It's hard to be inside for more than a few minutes!

I've got a cute freebie for anyone who could use it. I just put it in my math stations this week. It's for tally marks and counting by 5's. It goes along with the new common core 1.NBT.1. Just click HERE for a free copy. The graphics are from Scrappin Doodles and From the Pond with fonts from Kevin and Amanda.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope everyone has a great week!

Fly Away Butterflies!

Today it finally warmed up enough so we could set the butterflies free!

Two of them wanted to hang around. One of them sat on my finger for awhile and let all the kiddos take a closer look. They thought it was so cool. I did too. Look how intense Tiffany is checking out that butterfly. I love doing  things like this! I love to see expressions like Tiffany's on the faces of my students. It's what makes teaching worthwhile. To see that thirst and excitement for knowledge  is a great pay check! Okay, it doesn't pay the bills but it makes me want to keep teaching and teaching!
I hope you have a great Friday!

Greater or Less Than

Today was a much better day! Sorry for the whining yesterday. We started our plant unit and planted seeds today. Even though it was still bad weather and we had to get messy inside with the dirt and all, my kiddos loved it and they were pretty well behaved.

In math we have been reviewing a lot. Some of the time we spent with greater and less than. So here is a little activity I'm putting in Math Stations for more practice. Very easy, hardly any prep. You roll 2 dice to make the numbers. We used 10-sided dice but you could use a 1-6 especially in the beginning. We also had one player roll one dice and the other player roll the other dice and together they decided what the number should be. We talked about cooperation and playing together. It worked well. If you'd like a copy just click HERE.

P.S. to my post yesterday on 10 more 10 less (click HERE to read it) about why it went better this year than other years. I think because of two things. I taught 10 more 10 less after a very big place value unit. More of the kids understood tens and ones in a number. Also, in the debrief portion of the lesson yesterday some of the kiddos noticed the patterns (34-44-54) and that the tens place had changes by one. This was a BIG ah-ha for some of the firsties.
Anywho, I hope you have a great Thursday tomorrow.
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you found something that you can use.

10 more 10 less freebie

So Sunday I'm walking out of church and standing there in the hall was Jonas from Survivor! Yeah, can you believe it.  I knew he was from Lehi but I didn't know he lived just a neighborhood over from me. When I saw him  he said hi and I said hi back. But I couldn't figure out where I knew him from. As we were walking away my hubby asked if I knew who that was. No, I can't place him. He really looks familiar, like someone I've talked to this week. Hubby couldn't place him either. Then my son comes up behind us and tells us it was Jonas. Oh my heck. I wanted to turn around and go ask him a bazillion questions about Survivor because I am a BIG survivor fan. I hope I see him next Sunday. I'll have my list of questions ready! lol

On to school things. My kiddos were so naughty today! I hope I can last 31 more days. It rained and we had an earthquake drill. So that didn't help. Our butterflies have all hatched so they are soooo excited about that. I had to raise my voice a few times today to get there attention because my mic batteries were all dead. Tomorrow my batteries will be charged, it's not suppose to rain, and we are setting the butterflies free. So hopefully we will have a better day!

We worked on 10 more 10 less today in math. It went really well. This is such a hard concept but we pulled out the 100's charts and really dug in. They really surprised me how well they caught on. In years past it seems like half of them just don't get it. We did a little activity after the lesson and I'm putting it in Math Stations for more practice. It's hardly any prep. We did it together at first so I gave them the numbers instead of picking a card. The cards are for the Math Station. Grab a copy if you think your firsties need the help. Just click on the picture.

Well, I hope your day was better than mine. And I hope tomorrow will be super for us all.
Thanks for stopping by.

TpT Tax Day Sale!

It's a sale! 15% my whole shop just for today. Hurry over and take a look.

I've just added a new noun packet too! It aligns with the new common core and includes Proper and Possessive nouns.

Click here to go to my shop!