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 firsties! Head 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!