Let's Talk About Me!

I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin' Teacher Week 13: Let's Talk About Me Monday.

Here are 10 things about ME!

1. I married my high school sweetheart 36 years ago!

2. We have 4 awesome kids!

3. I have 10 beautiful grandchildren! (our newest one is not in the picture)

 4. Our mini schnauzers: Bella and Sammie!

5. We love vacations in the beautiful UTAH mountains!

 6. LOVE my alma mater: BYU! Go Cougs!

 7. I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was in the first grade.

8. I've been teaching for 36 years and I'm still loving it!

 9. I love to cook, sing, play the piano, watch TV, blog, and hang out with my family.

10. I LOVE vacations with my BFF!

Well, there you have it, a few things about me. 

You can head over to Blog Hoppin' and check out all the amazing blogs and meet some incredible teachers.

Teacher Notebook SALE!

Teacher Notebook has started their 
Back-To-School Sale. 
And this looks pretty cool!

I have packets in bundle #1 and #15. 

Plus my shop is on sale! 20% off until August 15th. Including ALL my NEW packets!
I hope you'll check it out HERE.

Random-ness and a FREEBIE

Well, I'm back to school. I've been going in for about half a day all week.

This is what greeted me on Monday. LOTS of work to do!

My room looks so big until the desks, tables, and kiva get put in place.

That reminds me, I've had requests for more pictures of my kiva.

About 28 firsties can sit comfortably. Any more and it's crowded. I forgot to take a picture of the back. But it's a shelf where I put my genre book baskets and then there is storage on the floor.

I found this cool tape at Wal-Mart. It's like a cross between painters/masking tape and washi tape by Scotch. I've seen the cute duct tape patterns but was afraid to use them because duct tape doesn't come off easily. But this stuff is suppose to peel off easily (I hope!). I put it around my boards, mirror, and windows. It comes in tons of colors and patterns.

I was reading Holly's blog- Crisscross Applesauce In First Grade a few days ago and she had a post about Planbook.com. Click HERE to read Holly's wonderful post.
I've always made and printed my own plan book. I hated writing everything each week and thought it easier to make it on my computer. Here's what mine looks like.

I put them in a binder and print them back to back.

But after reading Holly's post about Planbook I did some investigating. You have a 30 day free trial and then if you like it, it only costs $12 for the whole year. Pretty cheap. So I signed up and I'm going to try it out. All ready I'm loving it! I can access my plan book from home on my iPad or home computer. That will be nice when I wake up sick and need to write sub plans. I can also work on my plans at home without bringing my binder home. It has lots of features and is very easy to use with GREAT tutorials. You can link documents & homework to a lesson, share with teammates, bump your lesson to the next day because you didn't get to it with one click of a button (no more erasing), reuse your lessons for the next year, link to the Common Core, send you lesson plan to your administrator if he/she wants it, and more. So I'm going to try it and I'll let you know what happens.

I told you this was RANDOM-NESS and now for the freebie.

Here's a fun game we like to play in math stations. It helps reinforce number order. Click on the picture to grab a copy of the game. 

You have to be careful when you buy your sand timers. There are some out there that aren't accurate. My team found these at EAI Education. They were reasonably priced and accurate. They are 10 for $5.75 We got the 3-minute ones. Click HERE for a link to the website.

Sorry for such a LOOOONG post. 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you found something useful for your teaching and classroom.

I'd LOVE to hear your comments!

Back-To-School Rules & Procedures with Alex Alligator GIVEAWAY

I am so EXCITED about my newest packet! I haven't been able to sleep the last two nights thinking about it. I finally got up this morning at 3:00 AM and finished it.YAHOO! Sometimes the ideas just flow like water and other times I can't think of a darn thing.

This packet is for the beginning of the year when you're teaching all the rules and procedures. I generally talk about a lot of things on that first day. My kids give me that 'deer in the headlight' look and I know it's not sinking in. This is a cute little story about Alex Alligator who goes to school and the students have to teach HIM the rules.

You can print the story pages, bind it, and make it into a book. I like to discuss the good and bad choices Alex makes along the way. Then, at the end of the book the student teach Alex the school rules. I like to use the snipping tool on my computer to take a picture of each page. Then drag it into my Smart board software to make slides for each page of the story. Then write on the pages the student's responses to what they will teach Alex. You could also do this with a document camera. There is a writing page for the rules we'll teach him and I turn that into a class book.

There is a class sort with situations to discuss if Alex should make a good or bad choice. I also included a Follow the Path game with questions about your own classroom and school procedures. Like- What is your teacher's name? What do you do if you need to throw-up? (I had that happen once on the 1st day of school YUCKY!). It's a fun little game to play with the whole class. This is also fun to review again in January when the kiddos have forgotten everything :)

There are also paper bracelet they can make to remind them to make good choices and a darling, very simple craftivity called the I CAN Chain. It has a review of some of the rules.

 And because I'm soooo tried from being up since 3 AM and I'm soooo excited to have the packet done and I'm going in to start on my classroom today- I thought I'd have a little GIVEAWAY!

Just comment on this post before tomorrow (TUESDAY) at NOON (Mountain Time). Be sure to leave your email address. And I'll randomly select 3 winners by the good ole' Random Generator. I'll send the 3 lucky winners my new Alex Alligator Packet! Good Luck!

The winners are Kris, Teresa, and Lisa! 

Congrats and thanks everyone for the great comments. I appreciate everyone who reads my blog!

P.S. Don't forget to follow me on Facebook HERE!

Utah Teacher Blogger Meet Up

We had a blast at the Utah Blogger Meet Up. I got to meet some very amazing ladies! Utah has fabulous teachers and bloggers. It was fun to put a face with the bloggers and meet great teachers. Can't wait to do it again next year.

We had good food and GREAT prizes! I won a hand-stamped multi-use mat from 'RAD MOM COOL KID'.

These fantastic ladies put it all together. Thanks Nikki (Melonheadz), Lindsey (the teacher wife), Natalie and Rachelle (What the Teacher Wants).

Some of the other amazing blogger were:

Fredia from Frogs in First

Jacque from Mommy and Me Creations

Rachel from The Sassy Classroom 

Tereas from Little Star Learners 

Liesel from Tricycles and Triangles 

Melissa from Dilly Dabbles
Terri from Merry Kinder Kapers
Krystal from The Good Enough Teacher
Joell from Teacher Tech Time

I hope you'll check out their cute blogs!

New Math Packets

I've added some new math packets to my shops. I hope you'll check them out.

I have to give tons of credit to my wonderful team for this packet. We got together and decided what our I CAN statements should be for each week of the school year for math. This is a set of posters with each I CAN statement in KID-FRIENDLY terms with pictures and examples. It will be great for our ELL kids too. I like to use my snipping tool on my computer to take a picture of the poster I'm using that week. Then drag the picture onto my Smart board slide. I use this when I'm introducing the new objective for the week. Then I put the poster on my focus board for the week. Then the poster will go onto my Math bulletin board for the rest of the year so the kids can refer to it when needed.
This packet also coordinates with my Common Core & More Math Vocabulary Cards. You can check out a post about these cards HERE.

This next packet I created to help me with the number sense routines I'm teaching this year. I wrote a post earlier about this great book-

You can check out that post HERE.

I love how the author Jessica Shumway says when you start to teach Quick Images to have the dots in different colors so the kiddos can understand that you're trying to see groups of dots. She also talked about using ten-frames and dominoes for Quick Images. This is a great way to teach subitizing. So I made a little packet of Quick Image Cards that have those things.

You can check out all these new packets and more by clicking on my shop side bars or the picture of the packet above.

Don't forget to like me on FACEBOOK!

Number Freebies

Hi all! It's been a week since my last post but I've been a little busy.

I took a little road trip with my hubby to beautiful Lake Tahoe! Wow, was it gorgeous!! Now I'm  rested, relaxed, and ready to get to work. I'm heading back to my classroom on Monday to get things ready for the new year.

I've been doing a lot of work on math this summer because our district is implementing the new core this year.

Number sense! Number sense! Number sense!

That's the BIG focus for first grade. Whenever there is a curriculum change I have a struggle with what to keep and what to let go of. Do any of you have that problem? I have lots of games and lessons that I love but I've found some really cute, fun, new ones. So what of my old ones do I keep and what new ones do I embrace. Sometimes I just wish I could do them all. Our district is really good about not making us teach a textbook but encourages us to teach the core and gives us many resources. I LOVE that concept. The only problem is deciding from all the great resource what to use. Our team has meet several times this summer to hash out our new math map and I think it's all coming together. I'm getting excited to try out new things and new ideas!

Here's a little something I'm using at the beginning of the year after I teach and review 'Ways to show a number'.

If you'd like to grab a FREE copy click HERE and HERE.

P.S. I'm soooo excited to attend the Utah Bloggers Meet Up tomorrow. Can't wait to meet all the cool teachers and blogger in Utah! Hope to have pictures in my next post!