Springy Fun and Giveaway Reminder

Spring break is in the air...only 1.5 days until SpRiNg BrEaK! I was finally able to a post an itty bitty spring theme math stations packet to TpT tonight. Between grades, teaching, and my masters class, I haven't had much time to spare for creating new things. These math stations review some math concepts my firsties have been working on and also touch on some new....fractions! We'll be doing lots of fraction stuff after spring break!

Click here to check it out: Springy Fun! {Math Stations}

And... please look at my previous post for a chance to enter the Easter Blog Hunt and Giveaway I've joined with 4 other fabulous bloggers to giveaway some great things. Just click on the link at it will take you to that post with more details. 

Since I'm in the giveaway spirit...be the first one to comment on this post and I'll give you a copy of my Springy Fun! {Math Stations} for free! Just leave me a comment with your email. :) 

Happy Spring! 

Easter Blog Hunt!...and giveaway!

I'm a member of a great group of relatively new bloggers who decided to come together for a great giveaway. But giveaways are more fun if they have a little twist. So, we've also made this one a blog hop. Each blogger will be running the same giveaway on their blog. So after you enter here, head on over to each of the other blogs and comment to enter there as well!

Here's what you'll win:

1. From Tales from Outside the Classroom: Captain Cool, which practices addition and subtraction in function machines.

2. Ms. Fultz’s Corner: Egg-citing Math Bundle, which practices addition, subtraction, and multiplication.

3. All that Glitters in First Grade: Shape Fun, which practices the basic shapes circle, hexagon, octagon, oval, pentagon, rectangle, square, and triangle.

4. Ms. McDonald’s Fourth Grade: Decimal War, which practices decimals from tenths, hundredths, thousandths, and mixed decimals.

5. Young and Lively Kindergarten: Growing in a Spring Kinder-Garden Learning Center Games, which practice beginning sounds, color words, rhyming, number words 0-14, counting 1-20, real/nonsense words, reading CVC words,punctuation, & Time to the Hour.

Here's how you enter to win:

1. Follow Tales from Outside the Classroom's blogand TpT store. {1 entry}
2. Follow Ms. Fultz's Corner blog, Ms. Fultz’s Corner TpT store, and Ms. Fultz's Corner TN store. {1 entry}

3. Follow All That Glitters in First Grade's blog andTpT store. {1 entry}
4. Follow Mrs. McDonald's blog and TpT store. {1 entry}

5. Follow Young and Lively in Kindergarten's blogand TpT store. {1 entry}

This means you can get up to five entries here and up to five entries each by commenting on the other blogs as well. That's 25 chances so go get yourself entered to win! Entries will end on Sunday, April 1st at noon CST. Winners for each blog will be announced that night.

Other Easter Blog Hunt Pages:

More Predicting with the Old Lady!

I couldn't resist making a predicting sheet for "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Chick" by Lucille Colandro.

 My kids had fun with "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover",  I thought that I would give it go with this one....

I included a little space for them to write about their choices at the bottom of the paper too. My goal is to remember to take pictures of the finished product...we'll see if I remember. 


Click Here to get it: Old Lady Predicting

A Fancy Freebie!

I don't know about you, but I love all of the Fancy Nancy books! They are great for expanding vocabulary.  I'm going to use this little vocabulary freebie as a mini lesson during the daily 5 this week.

If you don't have "Fancy Nancy's Elegant Easter" you could still use the activity sheet with your students using a different Fancy Nancy book.

Click here to get it.....    Fancy Words

Reading Response Freebie

Here's a St. Patty's Day book that I'm going to be reading to my firsties this week. Each of my kids have a reader response notebook that they add to about twice a week. I'm going to have them do this fun little predicting sheet to put in their response notebook based on the book...

There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover by Lucille Colandro


Click here Old Lady Predicting Sheet

My kids love all of her "Old Lady" books. I'm going to have my kids make predictions about things that she might swallow in this story based on St. Patty's Day. They're going to draw pictures and write words. We're going to do this tomorrow, so I'll upload some pics of finished ones to show everyone!

Find the Leprechaun's Gold!

I was cleaning out one of my drawers at school and found these:

So...I decided to take these pirate coins and turn them into the leprechaun's gold coins for a fun St. Patty's Day math activity. 

Just click on the link to get your copy.... Find the Leprechaun's Gold ! 

I can't wait to do this activity with my firsties and I hope you will be able to use this activity too. I also have a couple other St. Patrick's Day freebies on my TpT store. Just click on the link on the upper left hand corner of my blog to visit my store! 

Also...please stop by Crystal's blog  Kreative in Kinder. She is linking up with other blogs to help tornado victims. Swing by her blog when you get a chance to see how you can help out! 

                                                           

Top 10 Award

A huge thank you to Michelle at Teach123 for nominating my blog for the Top 10 Award!

This award was created 5 months ago and the purpose is to encourage and congratulate new blogger
I am nominating the following blogs:

Tammy at Forever in First

Heather at Heather's Heart

Brian at Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings

Jessica at Apples and Papers

Mrs. Cook at First Grade Smart Cookies

Barbara and Mary at Happy Teaching Sisters

Kaleigh at Kaleigh's Klassroom

Mrs. Hoffer at Mrs. Hoffer's Spot

Mrs. MC at Buzz Buzz Buzz

Tessa at Tales From Outside of the Classroom'

Congratulations to all of you! All of you have truly amazing blogs. 

If you won, please visit Top 10 Award instructions.

Inferencing Investigators and a Freebie!

This week my firsties and I spent some time practicing our inferencing skills. I started the week by using a fabulous idea that I came across from Abby on her blog The Inspired Apple: What's in my Teacher's Bag?

On Tuesday, we used some of Sarah's ideas from her Making Inferences Mini Pack. Thank you Sarah for all for your hard work! :)

On Wednesday, I read my kids the book Two Bad Ants by Chis Van Allsburg. This is an amazing book for making inferences. Students use the picture clues and the text to try to figure out where the ants are. My favorite page is where the ants end up in a boiling brown lake. My firsties inferred that it could be hot chocolate or coffee. Then, on the next page it talks about how it tastes bitter. One of my kiddos said "Yuck! That's not hot chocolate, it's coffee!"






After reading the book and making inferences as a class, students completed a little Two Bad Ants Inferencing Sheet that I made up. You can get it for free here: Two Bad Ants Inferencing Sheet

Then, on Thursday I read my kiddos the book Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts. We practiced our inferencing skills once again! This time my kiddos inferred how the main character was feeling through the book.



Students held up these faces to show how Jeremy was feeling. A big thank you to my mom who put together nine sets of these for my kiddos! She got the idea from a Mailbox Magazine.

We talked about words to describe the faces before we started reading. During the story, I stopped at different places for students to hold up a face showing how Jeremy was feeling. Then, students gave some reasons for their choices. All I have to say is that the little boy in the story was on an emotional roller coaster ride. :) My students ended up using all of the faces and some held up two at once!

I hope that you will be able to use some of these inferencing ideas in your classroom!