Easter Bunny Craftivity Giveaway

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! For the first time in many years the leprechauns did not visit our house and I have to say I'm a little sad. My boys are growing up. Thank goodness I teach 1st grade so I can still enjoy the magic.

Easter is early this year so it is time to start thinking bunnies. I blogged about this bunny craft and writing last year but never made the templates available. I added more writing ideas and aligned it to the common core.

I included picture book suggestions and a choice of three writing activities.

Picture book: The Easter Egg by Jan Brett
1. Opinion: Do you think the Easter Bunny picked the best egg? W1.1
 

  2. Text-to-Text: How did The Easter Egg remind you of Horton Hatches the Egg? RL1.9

Picture Book: If I Were the Easter Bunny by Louise Gardner
3. Narrative: Students write what they would do if they were the Easter Bunny. W1.3

Click on the picture below or {here} to go check this packet out.

As always, I will give a free copy to one of my loyal followers. You can earn 3 entries below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

St. Patty's & a Fashion Emergency

Wow, this was a busy week! Progress reports due, conferences, a visit from the leprechauns...

It was St. Patty's Day fever in my room this week.

We read Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato and used our Potato Craftivity pack I posted about last week. Congrats to Amy S. who won that giveaway.

We read That's What Leprechauns Do by Eve Bunting, wrote about what we would do if we caught a leprechaun, and of course made another cute TLC craft. Anyone else noticing how bad the fine motor skills are these days? I have SO many kids who are terrible with scissors, complain how hard it is, and some still hold the scissors wrong! Is it the excessive standards put on Kinders now or the electronic age? Combo maybe?

 We played Pot O' Gold in math to practice our addition strategies.

The kids made leprechaun traps for homework and brought them in on Thursday. I wish I could show them all but here are few...

This smarty made a Starry Night background and included a battery powered candle under the roof!

Many people believe drilling a hole in coins is illegal so I got a chuckle since his dad is a cop.

Can you see the slit in the path the leprechaun will fall through?

"He will get stuck on the sticky hand!"

"The cup falls down to trap him."

 The leprechaun visited our room on Thursday night and made a mess. I forgot to take pictures but it was similar to previous years. We didn't catch him but he left each child a note and some chocolate coins.  I had a blog reader request help with the leprechaun note.  I had previously uploaded the one I use to SCRIBD but I know some people have trouble with that so I put in on Google Docs. Click on the picture to download.

I forgot to post last week that  I won {woohoo, I never win anything} Elizabeth's cute craft pack Let's Celebrate Reading!

We wrote homophones on the socks.

Do your girls make eyelashes on EVERY art project? LOL

After his baseball game on Thursday night my middle school son says he has nothing cool to wear for free dress day, will I take him to H & M? I am dead tired but you know how important looking good is at this age so I take him. He wants bright green skinny jeans for St. Patty's day! We end up in the mens section so the skinny jeans aren't that skinny but he was happy with his outfit complete with beanie. When he got to school, his girlfriend had on the same color jeans so people thought they planned it. Ah, middle school...

Alrighty, off to watch my two boys play baseball. The weather has been beautiful this week so I think I need to go find the sunscreen!

St. Patrick's Potato Craftivity

I'm home today with a sick kiddo. Nothing brings out the mommy in me like high fevers and vomiting. I've been flying solo since my hubbie has been out of town but thankfully he gets home in 4 hours {not that I'm counting or anything.}  :-)

Anywoo, I finally had time to get this St. Patrick's craftivity done!

My teammate Toni shared this craft with me a few years ago. I told her last year she really needed to put her cute stuff up on TpT but she is not all that comfortable with the computer. So this year we decided to work together.

 The kids get so excited by the shamrock sticker nose and orange freckles! It cracks me up when 30 potatoes start dancing around when they are done. :-)

As we transition to the Common Core we are making sure everything we do is aligned.
So, I created a few different reading response sheets to use after reading Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato by Tomie DePaola.

This packet includes:

*St. Patrick's Potato craft templates & directions

*Sequencing cut and glue RL1.7

*Story Structure RL1.3

*Describe the character Jamie O'Rourke RL1.7

*Beginning, Middle, End RL1.2

*All answer keys

As usual, I will give a FREE packet to a lucky loyal follower.  Enter below and I will pick a winner Friday.  Click {HERE} to go check it out in my store. Any blog comments saying how cute it is I will be sure to share with Toni!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Slurs, Saint Patty's math & a freebie

Well, I made it 2 whole months but  I had another incident with the aggressive, verbally abusive family. The banned family member sent other family members in to harrass me and an offensive slur was made towards me. The worst part is this happened in front of a boy I was tutoring and my own son. The catalyst? My refusal to return a Bakugan toy that I had confiscated.

So, my heart isn't really up for blogging right now but I wanted to make sure you saw this freebie in case you wanted to use it next week.

 Lucky ABC order center

You can download it for FREE by clicking on the picture below.

Next week we will playing Pot O' Gold which focuses on students verbalizing the strategies they use to solve addition problems. I focused on the strategies of doubles, near doubles, and making ten. The first player to cover up all the strategies on their board wins. I will use "gold" as the cover up pieces but you could use counters.

Partner 1 picks a card and tells his partner not only the answer but what strategy he used to solve the addition problem. The included math talk cards provide sentence frames to aid your students in practicing this skill.

 I also included a double ten-frame so students who need the extra scaffolding can use counters to help them make ten.

Pot O' Gold is only $2 in my TpT store right now.

 

How do you deal with work stress? I think I deserve a medal for managing to stay professional but perhaps a mani/pedi will suffice?

Updates, WInner, and Freebies

After many requests, I updated my Decoding Strategies pack to include a poster for each strategy. Here are a couple of examples:

 

If you have already bought this pack you can re-download and get the additions for free.

If you haven't checked out my best seller yet you can click {HERE} to take a peek.

I'm happy to announce that Lori Polkadotowl won my new Gilbert and the Lost Tooth Book Club packet!

 Now for the freebies. I think the Common Core has really helped me be more purposeful about teaching my students to explain their thinking. I make anchor charts like this support the standards of Mathematical Practice.

 The students use it to first decide which strategy (orange) they will try, then decide which tool (tool icons) they will use.  {You may remember I shared a subtraction one like this earlier in the year.}

This week we are working on addition strategies again, this time with a focus on doubles, near doubles, and making ten (Topic 14 for Envision users.)

The trick this week is for the students to determine which addition fact will best help them solve the problem. So after practicing each separately, I will give the students this cut and glue tree map to see if they can apply this knowledge to a strategy sort.

 If you'd like a free copy of the anchor chart and cut and glue sort just click {HERE.}

I know we are all really busy but I'd love it if you'd leave me a comment so I know that someone actually reads this blog. :-)