I'm Joining the Sale and So-Cal K/1 Conference Here I Come

Oh Yes!! I am super excited for the TPT sale! My wish list is full and I am ready to add them all to my cart! Of course, my store will be on sale as well!! 

So excited that tomorrow will be my Friday!! I am off to Pasadena with my best teaching buddy and sister to the So-Cal K/1 conference! I can't wait to meet and hear all of the amazing teachers presenting. And I will be attending my first Bloggers Bash!! Woohoo!!!

Happy Thursday to everyone!!

Happy Thursday!!

I love my class, but they have been quite chatty the past few weeks! I don't know if it's because California has been having a 70 degree winter or what. Luckily, last week we finally got a few days rain!! I am usually not a fan of rainy day recess schedules, but I was excited!! Crazy I know!! The best part was that it rained most of the three day weekend. I got to be lazy and not feel guilty that I was curled up on the couch watching movies!! That's what happens when you live on the west coast and you haven't had a winter!!!

Here's a quick math valentine activity freebie!! 

You may have seen the one I posted for Super Bowl one or the hot cocoa one I posted in December. The kids love them and it's a great way to practice their subtraction skills!! Just click on any of the pictures below to enjoy!!

                                

Are You Ready For Some Football?? Photos and a Sale!!

It's Superbowl day!! Woohoo! I am doing some relaxing before I need to get up and get my appetizers ready and my big batch of my famous chocolate chip cookies baked. Word on the street is that they are some of the best!! I must admit they are quite delicious!! We are heading to our friend's annual Superbowl party down the street. So...I thought I would get a little work down now that way I can enjoy the festivities later!

I am not a big football fan, but I do love the play offs and Superbowl. Being from California, I am a little disappointed that the 49ers are not in it so I am going to be cheering on the Broncos!! I am so looking forward to the commercials!! Did you already see the Budweiser commercial with the puppy??? OMG...tear jerker!!!

This past week was a long one! I finally got some antibiotics for my flu that turned into a sinus infection! Did you know NyQuil and your anitibiotic make for a really good night's sleep!! I had 2 of the best night's sleep ever!! Something I really needed!! All week I had been working on some fun Superbowl stations for my kids. I wanted to get it on TPT, but I didn't quite make it. Below are a few of the activities that we did. The kids had a lot of fun!!

Here is our Superbowl graph. They had to decide which team they were cheering on! My kids are definitely Broncos fans! Sorry I didn't take the after photo so you could see that the Broncos are the favor.

Here the football fact families that they worked on!! They used their white board markers to write the 4 fact family equations. 

This was a compound match up game they played. All the words had to do with football. It was challenging for some, but they enjoyed it!

 Here they had to decide whether the sentences were declarative, interrogative, and exclamatory. They added the correct punctuation mark with a white board marker and then sorted under the correct heading.

These cards were laminated and cut. I had them in a super cute football container. The students had to draw a card and read it. If they read it correctly they kept it. If they could not read it they put it back.

   

These cards were added to make it even more fun!! They loved it!!

We didn't have time to get to adding 3 addends or missing addends. We will do both of these on Monday!

This is a freebie I posted earlier in the week. I gave the kids a cup filled with 20 Skittles. They read the problem in their book and then used the Superbowl Subtraction Tens Frames to solve it. They had to record the equation and write the answer. They totally enjoyed this...of course, because they got to eat the Skittles!!

I am joining in all the fun and my entire store will be on sale today!!

I wanted to share a few writing samples. I try to get my kids to write several times during the week. This year I switched from second to first grade. I am actually looping with my class to second next year. They are an amazing class and sometimes I forget they are first graders... I actually catch myself treating them like second graders. Anyway, I do a lot of modeling and framing so they can learn what good writing looks like. Here are a few samples of their writing this week!

 Here is the prompt. We talked about it and brainstormed. Then they were off and on their own!! 

Check out some of their writings!!

We also did this prompt too!

Sorry for the long post!! Enjoy your day!!

Third Round of Flu, 100 Day, and Want Some Rain!!!!!

Tomorrow is our 100 Day!! Woohoo! My first graders are super excited!! Their teacher however is battling the third round of the flu!! My head hurts, I can't breathe, my body feels like a truck ran over it, and the NyQuil isn't working!!!! I need to sleep and it just isn't happening! So tonight I am switching over to the liquid form of NyQuil instead of my gel caps!! Yes, I may be crazy, but I need to make it through tomorrow!

My first grade team has many fun activities planned for tomorrow. Our kids have been bringing in their 100 Day capes all week. The ones I have seen so far are pretty creative!This great idea is from Krissy Miner at Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business.

We also took our kids pictures and used the photo aging app on them.

The students will have a recording sheet and will guess who each "old geezer" is!!! One of my boys has been sick all week so I will get his picture in the morning.

So for those of you who don't know I am from California. And if you haven't heard already...California is experiencing Summer in January. Today it was 71 degrees and this weekend it is supposed to be 73-75 degrees. I am so jealous when I stalk my blogs every morning and hear about snow days or rain. I so want it to rain!!! I love me some sunny weather, but it is January and I need me some rain because I want to curl up on the couch and be lazy without feeling guilty!!!

Here is a quick freebie I made to work on subtraction while getting the boys attention!!

My kids will read the word problem and then build it on the tens frame. The square in the book is for them to write their answer in. The rectangle at the bottom of the page is for them to write the number sentence that goes along with the problem. 

Happy Friday tomorrow! I am off to have my date with my NyQuil!!

Freezing and a Freebie

Brrr….It's freezing in California. We are gearing up for several days of freezing temperatures!! Today my car read 19 degrees. Now I know to some that probably really isn't that cold, but in California we think 55 and 60 degrees is cold. So imagine how we are all freaking out with temperatures in the teens and twenties!!  

In honor of our freezing temperatures, I made a little freebie to share!!! All you need to do is click on the picture to download the freebie. 

I got the idea from Susan at Thank God Its First Grade. I bought her terrific What's The Difference? subtraction unit. There is a great activity in it where they build numbers on the tens frame and then remove a specific amount to find the difference. My kids were super engaged with this activity and it really enforced the concept of subtraction.

So,…here is what my kids will be doing tomorrow. They will have the Sippin' On Subtraction mat below. 

They will also have the below book to do their recording in. My students will read the problem and then build it on the hot cocoa tens frames with their real mini marshmallows. Yes, I did say real marshmallows! I might even throw in some real hot chocolate since we are having these freezing temps!!! LOL!! I love to get my kids excited about learning. 

The square in the book is for them to write their answer in. The rectangle at the bottom of the page is for them to write the number sentence that goes with the problem. 

I hope you enjoy the activity! 

Rudolph's Crazy Cousin, Math, and Dear Santa

So we are back into the swing of things after being off a week for Thanksgiving break. My kids were pretty mellow on Monday. So mellow that I wasn't sure if they were very excited about the little elf that paid a visit to our room or maybe the teacher just needed another cup of coffee!! LOL!! 

But…on Tuesday the walked in eagerly looking for her. They voted on a name for her and our elf is now called Rockstar! They are so into our Rockstar theme classroom that our magic elf had to be named after it. I thought I took a picture today, but apparently that was just a figment of my imagination. I promise I will share photos of Rockstar at a later date!

I wanted to share a super cute art activity and quick writing that we did on Monday. Thanks to Stacy over at Funky Fresh Firsties I know have Ruldolph's Crazy Cousins all over my room!! Here are 2 samples from my firsties!! They loved making these. I had them add the cute light bulb clipart!!

We have been practicing our math and language rotations. Since I am new to first grade this year it took me a little bit longer to get things rolling just how I wanted. I am quite pleased with how well my students are engaged and on task. They sure have made leaps and bounds since the first day of school. I can't imagine what they will be like after 2 years!! (I am looping with them to second next year.)

Here they are working on a super engaging subtraction task from Susan at 

Thank God Its First Grade. Her unit What's the Difference? is full of fabulous activities!!

The girls were building a number that was given to them. Then they were told to remove a certain amount. Finally they recorded the difference. For an added challenge, I had them write the equation to go along with the problem. They loved it! I loved how engaged they were and I could go around and help anyone who needed help.

Tomorrow during our language stations students will be working on working on writing a letter to Santa. I decided to make it a little more inviting by creating this:

I will let you know how it turned out!

It's time for me to go to bed. Five o'clock will be here shortly! Happy Hump Day!!!

First Grade Madness!!

I can not believe it is December 1st! Time sure does fly!! It has been very crazy busy the past several weeks!! When I moved to first grade this year I knew it was going to be a fun, new, and time consuming journey, but… it really should have come with a warning label…

First Grade kicks your @$!

Don't get me wrong, I am LOVING first grade!!! However, I have been sick twice in the past 5 weeks, my mom was in a car accident, I had my first round of first grade conferences, and we are in the process of changing our report card over to common core. Can we say it has been a little stressful!!

I seriously do not know how all you bloggers do it. I would love to blog way more than I do and create so much more for TPT, but seriously peeps do you not sleep??? Every time I turn around two of my favorite bloggers...Reagan from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits and Kristin from a Day in First Grade have posted another AMAZING unit  and blog post!! Reagan has kids of her own too…I seriously think she has magical powers or is related to SUPERWOMAN. It is just me and my husband and sometimes I have emotional breakdowns because I can't handle just the two of us!!!! LOL!!

Anyway, I did have the week off and it did allow me to get a little rejuvenated!! I was able to create a new product for my TPT store just in time for...

(Thanks Krista Wallden for the cute graphic!!! Love her products!!!)

All of my products will be 20% off including...

Of course, I had to link up with Farley from Oh'Boy Fourth Grade for the December Currently.

Wishing everyone a happy first day back!!!