12 Days of Teacher Christmas

Hey everyone! 
Wheww it has been awhile since I've last blogged. As we all know this time of year is crazy for all of us teachers. You're probably in the same boat right now, tired, exhausted, sick, and counting the days until winter break.  I mean really.... 
Thankfully I have only 7.5 days left. Until then I will just keep on telling myself ... I think I can! I think I can! I think I can!
Today I wanted to share with you about the 12 Days of Teacher Christmas that has just begun!! 
A few TPT teachers are hosting/participating in the 12 Days of Teacher Christmas to bring some holiday joy to you. Each day from now until December 24th you will find a different TPT product or deal. You can find these amazing deals by searching the #12daysofteacherchristmas on TPT. 

Today you can find awesome flash freebies! Who doesn't love a flash freebie?? Please remember that flash freebies are when a paid product is made free for a limited time. If you download a flash freebie feedback is always appreciated. Also, please do not mention that the product was "free!"
Be sure to head on over to my TPT store to grab my Mixed R Controlled Vowels pack. This product is the perfect addition to your word work center or skills block. It allows your students to review and practice r-controlled vowels in engaging partner and independent activities. If you download this pack I'd love your feedback! 

Enjoy the awesome deals during the 12 Days of Teacher Christmas and remember Winter Break is right around the corner. YOU CAN DO IT! 

It's Time to Celebrate! The Primary Punchbowl is turning ONE!

Hey y'all! Today's post is special because the Primary Punchbowl Blog is turning ONE! Us Primary Punchbowl girls are teaming together to share with you ways we "CELEBRATE" in our classrooms. Today I wanted to share how we celebrate BIRTHDAYS in my first grade classroom! 

Whenever it's a student's birthday they come into class and receive a birthday certificate and sticker. They also get to choose the GoNoodle brain breaks for the ENTIRE day!!! This is a BIG deal because in our classroom students typically do not get to choose the brain breaks unless they have earned one of our behavior coupons. 

My behavior coupons are in my TPT store and are actually marked down to just $1.00 for Spooky Saturday. Grab them by clicking here.

The first GoNoodle of the day is Koo Koo Kangaroo's Birthday Hooray! It is our non-traditional way of singing happy birthday. Our birthday girl/boy stands in front of the class as we all sing & do the birthday boogie for their birthday! 
During the Birthday Hooray brain break I record a video of it and post it on our Class Dojo's class story. This allows the parents of class to see the video and acknowledge the student's birthday. Both the students and parents love being able to see the video of us celebrating their birthday!  
How do you celebrate student birthdays in your classroom? 
No birthday celebration is complete without PRESENTS! At each one of our blogs in the hop you will receive a freebie and once you make it over to the Primary Punchbowl blog you can enter our giveaway for a $50 TARGET GIFT CARD! Who doesn't LOVEEE Target? I know I do! 

And the icing on the cake... We are also throwing a SALE in our stores. My entire store will be 20% off through Monday! You can search to see what is on sale by using the #letscelebrate in the TPT search bar.  

In honor of our celebration you can also snap my newest All About Pumpkins for HALF OFF!!! This  product is filled with nonfiction information to help your K-3 students learn all about pumpkins.
Don't delay... Grab it today!

And finally as promised here is a present for you, free birthday certificates! 
Grab my birthday certificates by clicking the link: Freebie: Birthday Certificates

Your next stop in our birthday blog hop is over to the Primary Punchbowl blog for a chance to win a $50 Target Gift Card! Be sure to complete the blog hop to grab an awesome freebie at each stop. 
Thanks for helping us over at the Primary Punchbowl celebrate our blog turning ONE!

Fun Fall Classroom Finds for the Primary Classroom Under $5

Hey Everyone! Something you probably don't know about me yet is that I'm addicted to Target's Dollar Spot & Dollar Tree. Both places always have fun seasonal items that are perfect for your classroom or lesson. And HEY! Who can beat $1-$5!?!
I have to admit I have a problem and can't resist going to Target and not stopping to check out the Dollar Spot even though I always seem to walk out with at least 5 extra things on a good day. 
Anyone else have this problem? 

Today, I want to share some of my favorite fall classroom finds with you. The best part is they are all under $5.00!
Witch Fingers- These fingers are $3.00/pack and can be found in the Halloween party section of Target. They are perfect for students to use as reading pointers. My firsties love using their witch's finger during guided reading groups and independent reading time. 
Blank Pumpkin Books- These adorable shaped blank books are found in Target's Dollar Spot. These books come 6 to a pack and are just $3.00. There are a variety of shapes depending on your Target.  I have seen pumpkin ones with a white and orange cover, haunted house ones, as well as plain black and purple square books. These blank books are perfect for students to publish a fall narrative story or even create an informational book. My students will be using these books to write an informational pumpkin book!
Grow Me Spiders- These spiders are found in Target's Dollar Spot and are perfect for a halloween science investigation. Students can go through the scientific process to predict what they think will happen to the spider when put in different liquids and can record their observations. 
Bat Garland- This bat garland is also found in Target's Dollar Spot. This garland is pefect if your class is learing about BATS! You can use this garland to help transform your classroom into a bat cave while you read and learn all about bats. You can read more about how to transform your classroom into a bat cave over at Fun in First's blog. 

Ice Cube Trays- These seasonal ice cube trays are found at Dollar Tree. Target's Dollar Spot sometimes carries similar ice cube trays. However, I have not seen any this year. These ice cube trays make for the perfect seasonal ten frame. Just make sure to count the spaces because as you can see the black ice cube tray on the right only has 8 spaces. But the orange pumpkin one has 10!
AND 
the perfect manipulative for these ten frames are festive mini erasers! 
photo credit: Oriental Trading
You can find these erasers in the Dollar Spot, Dollar Tree, or even on Oriental Trading. 

I hope that this post has helped you gain some new ideas on fall items that your can incoorporate into your classroom and lessons.

What are your favorite Fall Classroom Finds? 
I'd love to hear about them in the comments below...

It's Fall Y'ALL!!!

It's October! It's October! I can't believe it is FINALLY October!!
I'm so excited that it is finally October because that means it's FALL! I must admit, fall has become my favorite season especially now that I'm living in Tennessee. I have literally been waiting for fall to come since I moved here in January. I love the cool weather, watching the leaves change colors, and wearing my cozy sweaters and boots. Oh, and how could I forget my FAVORTIE fall Starbucks drink... Carmel Apple Spice Latte! It is just simply amazing and makes any fall day even more perfect. AND fall break is just right around the corner for this teacher. Just 5 school days until I'm officially on fall break!

Well I guess I should get to the real reason I am blogging today, to give you a look at my themed fall book display.
   
My themed book display changes monthly and holds our seasonal read alouds and books. My students love coming in the first school day of each month to see what new books are on display. This month our book display is filled with bats, pumpkins, skeletons, and mummies. 
                                  Some of my favorites on display are Click Clack Boo, Skippy Jon Jones Costume Craze, and of course ...Stellaluna!
What are your favorite fall read alouds? 
Also, this month after our fall break I will be introducting our CLASS PET to my firstiesHead on over to the Primary Punchbowl to read all about How to Have a Class Pet Without the Stress and Mess! This blogpost is great if you can not have live animals in your class, have students with allergies, or just don't have the time to take care of a class pet!! 

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today. 
Happy Fall Y'All!

Celebrating National Talk Like a Pirate Day

Whewww I must say that the beginning of the school year has gotten me BEAT! I don't know about you but I come home from school and am beyond exhausted. I don't know what it is about the beginning of the year but it is wearing out. Anyone else in the same boat? 
If you're not pleaseeeeeee let me know your tips and tricks. 

Any Whooo. Ahoy Matey!!! Did you know September 19th is National Talk Like a Pirate Day? Oh how I love me any excuse to add some fun into me classroom. So for the last two years I celebrated the day with me pirate friends and have an educational PIRATE DAY!
Arrrrgh you ready to learn more about it, Mateys?!
Pirate day in my classroom is a day where we do all things PIRATE. We learn how to speak like pirates and do pirate themed activities in reading, centers, math, and writing. This year, I didn't inform my firsties that it would de PIRATE day. Instead I let them be surprised when they came to school. When they arrived to our classroom they were greeted by an Ahoy! banner and our Talk Like a Pirate Day Sign!
You can grab my Talk Like a Pirate Day sign for free below!
And of course they were greeted by me dressed and talking like a pirate!
When my students entered our classroom they came in to see a pirate ship displayed on the ActivBoard and instrumental pirate music playing.
They then began decorating their very own pirate hats from Yeehaw Teaching in Texas. You can grab her template by clicking here! After they were done decorating their hat I stapled them onto sentence strips so they could wear them during our PIRATE filled day. 
The stories above are some read alouds that I have read in the past on Pirate Day. However, I must say, How I became a Pirate has become one of my pirate favorites. This year I tied our pirate story to our reading standard: Describing characters, setting, and important events. With this I used a reading response page from my Pirate Day  pack found on TPT. After reading the story my students worked with a partner to sequence the events in the story. In my Pirate Day pack you will find multiple response pages that can be used with any pirate book.
After our pirate story, it was time for a sight word treasure hunt. Captain Hook sent us a message in a bottle telling us that he had lost his treasure and needed our help!! Prior to this my aide placed sight word cards around our school. We then took our treasure maps sent by Captain Hook and were off to search for his missing treasure. As we went around the school we wrote & read the sight word cards.
At the end of our treasure hunt we found Captain Hook's treasure!!! His treasure (Pirate's Booty Popcorn) was found in a black skull and crossbone bucket from the Dollar Tree and had a BIG red X above it. If you want to use something other than food here are some other ideas that I've used in the past. Most if not all of these treasures can be found at Party City or Target!
After our Treasure Hunt it was then time for writing. During writing, I allowed the students to choose a pirate writing prompt. Their pirate prompt choices were... If I were a pirate, If I found a treasure chest, or How to be a pirate! Typically during writing I play classical music since writing time is QUIET time in my classroom so this year I played ocean sounds with a scenic beach view to make it fit into our pirate theme. I was able to find this channel on YouTube.

By this point in our day it had been pretty eventful and me mateys were in need of a brain break or two. However, the pirate fun must continue so here are a few pirate brain breaks we used.
GoNoodle: Pirate Prep      A Pirate You Shall Be     5-A-Day Pirates
Here is a picture of my students enjoying the 5-A-Day Pirates brain break.
For math we used gold coins as our manipulatives and treasure chest ten frames. We were practicing using number bonds and part part whole mats to represent numbers so we played Treasure Bonds to continue getting that practice.
There are also pirate videos on YouTube that you can share with your students during your math block! Click the links below to check them out!
If you are subtracting try this YouTube Subtracting with a Priate video

We had a great day filled with Pirate fun and learning.
The activities throughout this post can be found in my Pirate Day Activity pack on TeachersPayTeachers. If you are interested in taking a look at these activities, click here. 
Did you celebrate National Talk Like a Pirate Day in your classroom? 
If so, I'd love to hear about your favorite activities!

Preparing Your Classroom for Flexible Seating in 4 Easy Steps



After seeing and hearing about Flexible Seating via Facebook and Instagram, I decided it was something I may want to implement and decided to further research it. Considering I was going to be starting the school year at a new school this year I knew I had to speak with my principal about the idea first before I made any decisions. I must admit that I was a little nervous about what my principal would think about the idea because this idea is a little out of the norm. However, when I approached her with the idea, to my surprise she was all for it! Getting her approval made me super excited because I knew that with her support I was on my way to beginning my journey with flexible seating! Here are the 4 steps I took to prepare myself and my classroom for flexible seating. 
Step 1: Decide on Seating Options
After reading blog post after blog post I thought about all of the different seating options I have seen and which ones would provide my students with an option that would fit best for all of my different learners. Each year there are students who are extremely active and need constant movement, there are students who like to stand, and others who like to work on the floor. With this knowledge I decided that in my classroom I wanted to have a standing table, floor pillows, scoop rockers, and wobble stools. (I really wanted to add yoga balls too but didn't want to dish out the extra 100 dollars without knowing if this whole flexible seating thing would work in my classroom.)
Step 2: SHOP 
(This was my favorite step, considering I am a bit of a shopaholic when it comes to my classroom)
Stools for Standing Table
I was lucky enough to be visiting my parents in Orlando this past summer where they have an IKEA 10 minutes away, That was pretty exciting considering living in Knoxville the closest IKEA is in Atlanta which is a solid 3/4 hour drive depending on traffic. At IKEA I was able to grab these stools for ONLY $5 each.  I have also heard that both 5 Below and Dollar General have similar stools. However, I was unable to find them at any of the stores near me. 
Scoop Rockers
After seeing these all over Instagram this summer I was on the hunt for them. I must admit that it took me going to about 5 different Walmarts to actually find them. The awesome part about them is that they were ONLY $4.88 each. I only picked up 4 at the time and am kicking myself just a little considering they no longer carry them in stores. However, you can order them online but they are a little bit more expensive than they were in stores.
Floor Pillows
I was able to snag my floor pillows this summer at Hobby Lobby on clearance for $8.00 each. I also had a coupon for a percentage off so that was an added bonus. If you are looking for floor pillows be sure to check out 5 Below, and the clearance section of  Hobby Lobby, Target and Walmart for great deals. I also snagged super cute round lemon floor pillows for $3.00 at 5 Below. 
KORE Wobble Stools
Now I will admit that these stool as well as the Hokki Stools are a bit pricey, they were $80 each. 
In order for me to get these into my classroom I created a GoFundMe project. These stools were the perfect additon for my very busy students who need to constantly wiggle while they work. If you are looking to add flexible seating options into your classroom that are a bit out of your budget GoFund Me or DonorsChoose are a great way to get others to help you get them into your classroom. 
Floor Mats & Clipboards
These adorable frog mats were actually given to me by a teacher friend. I love having these in my classroom because my students who like to work on the floor are able to pick them up and bring them anywhere in the room to create their own workspace.
I also used a big metal ice bucket from Target to store our clipboards. This storage solution allows my students who are working on the floor to grab a clipboard to complete their work on. 
Desks
Unfortunately I was not able to do away with my desks because at my school there isn't anywhere to store unused furniture.  So this meant that I had to find ways to utilize my desks. After turning desks into station tables and independent work areas I used the remainder of the desks to created two groups of desks. On the first day of school these were the students go to seating option but I really think that was because my students were familiar with traditional desks. Now about 3 weeks into school I do find that the desks seem to be a less popular option among my students, but they are there just incase. 
Step 3: Decide on Organization
Now that students no longer have a desk to store their supplies in it was important for me to figure out how my students would manage their notebooks and folders. In order to manage their books, folders, and notebooks I assigned each student a drawer using my sterilite 3 drawer towers. These towers allow each student to have their own space to keep their necessary supplies. Originally I had all of these drawers stacked in one area of my classroom, however, I realized that when it came to retrieving our supplies it caused a bit of a traffic jam. Because of this I decided to then scatter the 3 drawer containers about my room. This has had made a world of a difference in the amount of time  it takes my students to retrieve and put back their supplies. 
Ever since I began teaching 5 years ago I have always used community supplies so I knew that it would make perfect sense to continue using community supplies. Our community supplies consist of crayons, scissors, glue, pencils, as well as erasers. These supplies are kept at each table in a table caddy (purchased from Target Dollar Spot) for easy access. In order to help my students stay organized I placed picture tags on the caddys to clearly label where each supply is suppose to go. 
Inside each caddy there are cups holding scissors/glue and another holding pencils/erasers. These cups are recycled icing containers that I covered with patterened duct tape. Each table or group of desks has their own caddy with enough supplies for all those working there. For my work areas without a table or desk the students are able to grab a pencil box to bring to their workspace. 
These pencil boxes hold the same supplies found in the table caddys and are kept on a little shelf that I have near our classroom door.
Step 4: Create a Plan 
After purchasing my seating options and setting up my room I knew it was time to come up with a game plan. How was I going to introduce this to my students? Where was I going to have them go when they entered on the first day? I knew I had to have a plan for it all. So I started creating a list of ideas in my notebook and decided that I wanted to jump in and start flexible seating on our first day of school. With that I decided that throughout the first week of school I would assign each student a different seating option. I wanted to ensure that during the first week each student had an opportunity to try all seating options and find which ones worked best for them. 

After deciding on how the first week would go I knew it was time to think about what my procedures and expectations were. I knew that if I was unclear on my expectations and procedures  my students would be too and it would just be chaos. Which is why it was back to my notebook to brainstorm and create another list. I thought very carefully about what my overall rules for flexible seating would be. Then I began thinking about each seating option. What would it look like for them to successfully use that seating option while working? After mapping those expectations out and finalizing them I created my seating expectation posters. These posters were added to a bulletin board so that we could review them as needed and have them as a constant visual reminder.  You can grab these editable flexible seating expectation posters in my TPT store here. 
I hope you found these steps and ideas helpful as you possibly begin your journey with flexible seating. Stay tuned for an update on what the first week of flexible seating looked like in our
First Grade classroom.