And the winner is.....

Frame: Graphics From the Pond

Last Hours of Giveaway

I will pick the winner of my Year Subscription to Scholastic News giveaway just before I go to bed, probably around 11 pm Pacific time. You have 4 hours left to enter. Click {HERE} to enter!

Giveaway Countdown and a Find!

Tomorrow night (Wed)  I will pick the lucky winner of a YEAR subscription to Scholastic News. Have you entered yet? If not, click {HERE} to go enter, QUICK!

It is report card and conferencing week here so I haven't had much time for creating/blogging. I posted my St. Patrick's Day stuff early. Maybe you haven't grabbed your FREE ABC order center activity yet? Over 1,500 people have so far. Wow, that is CRAZY!

The only new thing I have for you tonight is my Dollar Tree find....
What do you use to take home the zillions of papers you need to grade? I had been using an expanding file, thinking I would like the different papers organized. However, the reality is first graders don't fold those math newspapers exactly in half so it was a pain to get them to fit in the pockets. Also, I am always rushing off to get my kids to practice, etc so I really just need a quick, safe place to put the stack.

 Viola! $1 at the Dollar Tree. All different colors. I was feeling the purple.

 Look at how big that pocket extends!!! The sides are fabric so it easily folds flat and it is light weight.  I may need to go back and pick up a few more... Tell me I'm not to only one who gets excited about office supplies?!

I can't stop rhyming!!!

I love Seuss week but there is a major side effect....I can't. stop. rhyming!  Or at least thinking like the texts. Can you, can you stop me now? No I can't Ma'am, ask a cow. 

Today was also Crazy Hair Day so that added to the excitement! One of my former students had hair that looked Seuss-ish so she came down and showed it off to my class.

I also had Thing 1 in my room today. Funny enough, her twin is in my class too but he did not want to come as Thing 2!

We made green eggs and ham and then graphed if we liked it or not. Even simple things like making a graph is more of a challenge with 30 students. Since 24 didn't fit, even with super long paper, we decided to make it wobbily like a Seuss picture.

Here is a shot of the hats we made on rainbow hair. You can see our Horton writing and peek over on the bulletin board in the background. I didn't take a close-up since I already blogged about that project {here.}

The kids loved that all week our daily editing word problems had Seuss characters in them.

This year, instead of a notebook, my kids paste my daily editing on Cara's Calendar Companion and it has been terrific combo!

The picture is supposed to match the number sentence but this young man pointed out to me that he didn't need to draw all 15 Sneetches because, "I played Pot O' Gold yesterday and knowd to use near doubles. " Woo Hoo! I told him that was a good point and from now on if they could tell me the strategy they used instead and used labels like this I 'd be happy.

 

I Don't forget to enter my Scholastic News Giveaway for your chance to win a year subscription!

Scholastic News GIVEAWAY & free sneak peek for my readers!!!!

Do you get Scholastic News? I was asked to do an honest review and I have to say, I'm impressed. Clearly real teachers are involved in the creation of these materials. {I wish I always felt that way about a certain math and basal series...}

I am a visual learner so I hope you'll appreciate a review through pictures.
I'll be honest, I probably don't read as much nonfiction as I should with my students. It is sometimes difficult to find text that is first grade appropriate and not too time consuming to read.  These issues do a terrific job practicing skills like text features, finding the main idea, vocabulary, map skills, etc.  I was also presently surprised at how cross-curricular they are. I didn't expect ABC order in the Seuss issue but that works for me!

A peek at the student copies of the March issues. Correlates great to my plans for Seuss, St. Pat's, spring, etc

As we all know, we are in the digital age and Scholastic is keeping up. With your subscription you get some cool new features and the nice people at Scholastic have made some of these links available as a special treat for my readers!

For every issue of Scholastic News, there is a video that introduces the topic and provides background knowledge for the students. It is available in English and Spanish. Here is a video we watched today about the life of Dr. Seuss.  Click on the picture to go watch it.

There is also a game for every single issue of Scholastic News. Many of them are like this one—reading comprehension—and others use the theme of the issue to test another skill, such as synonyms or ending sounds or math skills. The game below is meant to be played after reading the March issue “Peek at Plants.” The class can play it in teams if you have a projector or as individuals in your computer center. Click on the image below to go check it out.

There is also a Words to Know section on the website where you can project the vocabulary with the definition and picture.

The Teacher's Edition includes lesson plans, correlating worksheets, and reminders of the feature video and game for this issue. A planning calendar lists the topics covered for the whole year so you can plan ahead. Each issue is correlated to the Common Core Standards.

 A Big Book version is provided for your instruction and I put mine in the Big Book Reading station.

 I also really like the posters that are included. They are like anchor charts {see, I told you they have a team who knows how we actually teach!}

I am pleased to announce that one lucky follower of my blog will win a year subscription to Scholastic News (any grade!)

To enter:
1.  Check that you follow my blog (I swear Blogger has unfollowed me before) AND my TpT store  and then leave me ONE comment with your email.

2. You can earn a bonus entry by blogging {or tweeting, pinning, posting on facebook} about this giveaway. Provide the link to the post in your comment please. This could be some traffic back for you, too!

If you can't wait and want to subscribe now go  here.

The winner will be chosen one week from today on March 7th. GOOD LUCK!