Reading is Thinking

Readers in your small group or during Daily 5 Read to Self can use these mini classroom display posters to show their thinking while they are reading.   Students can use the symbols on sticky notes to show their thinking and stick them in their books while reading.  This product is a great way to show their thinking or you could add images to an anchor chart for an additional classroom display.

Check it out at my TpT store: Show Your Thinking

Off to finish lesson plans and make some fun craftivities for this week! 

Wishing everyone a great week! 

First FREEBIE on TpT

Good news... I just posted my first FREEBIE on TpT!! I am so excited!  I am far from an expert, but I did teach myself to get started and I had a little help from my friends in the blogging world!

We have a field trip coming up in May, so I thought a great first product would be a simple checklist to keep track of permission slips, money turned in, school lunch orders, and chaperone contact info.  Hopefully it helps to keep things simple and to stay organized as you prep for your field trip day.

Here is the link to my store: TpT

Have a great day!

heather

Spring Break!

Spring Break is here and I am loving every moment.  I am very lucky to have 10 tens off.  Its been a perfect time to travel to see some of my very best friends and family.  I've also been checking my things off my to do list.  I finalized my Donors Choose project and working on my TpT store.  I'll be back with updates about TpT.  I am definitely teaching myself as I go and continue to be amazed at the thousands of talented teachers out there who create.  I've also been pinning in my PJ's and have some classroom projects that I want to accomplish this week.  I'll be back with updates, but for now I am going to try my best to have a nice balance of downtime and productivity as I sip coffee in my PJ's.

Cheers to a great Spring Break!

Dr. Seuss!

I love March.  Dr. Seuss, Read Across America, St. Patrick's Day, and that much closer to Spring Break Week.

We kicked off March with style in my classroom.  This past Friday we celebrated the great Dr. Seuss.  I sent home a note for all the kids to wear a red t-shirt on Friday.  I made Thing One and Thing Two designs for their shirts, and when they arrived Friday morning they created their "blue hair" out of bright blue construction paper and blue sentence strips.  I even paired up with a teammate and we dressed up as Thing One and Thing Two.  So fun and hopefully a memorable day for everyone.

Besides the thrill of being Thing One or Thing Two I created Truffla Trees from the Dr. Seuss book, The Lorax.  Oh man, so worth it.  The response and reaction from the kids was priceless.  I sat some of the trees outside the classroom so they could see them right when they walked in and others spread out in the classroom.  I love them too much to not use them everyday and plan to make a permanent home for them in the Classroom Library.

This week Dr. Seuss fun continues in celebration of Read Across America.  Looking forward to the fun!

Have a great week!

Work Hard. Play Hard.

Hello blogging world! Just a quick check-in....

So, I am not sure where February went - how is it the last week already?

February was jammed packed with deadlines, school ceremonies, Black History month, a snow day, field trips, 100th day, Valentines Day, Kindness Week, and Professional Development opportunities outside of school.  Did I mention I did some teaching in between all that? !??  Whew.

I still have one more deadline to meet for the month of February - third quarter progress reports.  And then we get pumped up and ready for Read Across America Week, Dr. Seuss' birthday, St Patty's... play hard, work hard coming right up.

Before I leave to finish up third quarter progress reports I leave you with this... in the middle of a crazy few months this pretty much sums it up!

Kindness Week

I will spare you the details of how cray my week was last week.  Lets call it a wrap and focus on the the great weekend I'm having.  Lets also focus on the week ahead.  I declared it "Kindness Week" in my classroom.  I told the kids as they were packing up on Friday that they must come to school on Monday with a kind heart and sweet thoughts.  No drama or negativity has happened in the classroom, I just decided to promote the kindness character trait in connection to Valentines Day on Thursday.  My kids really do have big hearts, and I hope they will have fun with Kindness Week and Valentines Day.

Inspired by all these fabulous blogs out there I decided to get my craft on.  I went to Hobby Lobby and found brightly colored boxes to put notes in.  Cut out some fun hearts, glued them on, and we are set.

I have "compliment paper" aka paper from the Target One Spot for the kids to "drop in" their compliments.

I plan on starting it first thing tomorrow morning.  I'll update to let you know how it goes, but for now, enjoy the rest of the weekend and have a great week full of love!

100th Day

This past Tuesday we celebrated the 100th day of school.  I love the 100th day.  We came up with 100 things we have learned so far this year, 100 day writing prompts, and made 100 day trail mix.  I went and bought 10 different snack things and the kids counted ten of each.  Its a total hit and so easy for the teacher!  We also made our city with 100 stars in the night sky.  Its been in the hallway since Tuesday and have I gotten so many compliments on it.  The kids did a great job!  I love teaching artistic kids! 

Here's a pic of our city below and pictures of other 100 day fun.  

For our 100th day snack these are the 10 things they had to count out

1. gummy bears

2. marshmallows

3. pretzels

4. animal crackers

5. chocolate teddy grahams 

6. M&Ms 

7. fruit loops

8. goldfish

9. chocolate chips

10. Kix cereal 

78 days to go....