A Bunny Blog Hop

A Tisket, A Tasket, Freebies for your Basket!

Several phenomenal teachers and bloggers are joining forces for an amazing bunny blog hop!  As you follow us along the bunny trail, you will visit some of your favorite blogs and discover a few new blogs too!  Each with a fabulous freebie just for you!

Thank you for hopping on over to my blog! I hope you are enjoying the first ever blog hop I have hosted.  I am super excited about all of the fabulous freebies everyone is sharing.

I am sharing with an Earth Day Craftivity!  This craft turns out so cute!  I usually pair it with a writing activity as well.  Click here to get your copy FREE.

I am also throwing a 15% off sale at my TpT and Teachers Notebook stores.  I have just uploaded my new A Primary Unit All About Earth Day.  It includes this craftivity and so many more activities for the week of Earth Day.  Perfect for centers!

Thanks for stopping by and visiting!  If you are new to my blog and liked what you see, don't forget to follow me.  A Tisket, A Tasket, next up with a Freebie for your Basket is Nikki from Teaching in Progress.  Hop on over!

Just in case you didn't join us from the beginning, here is an ordered list of all the participating blogs.

Stephany from Primary Possibilities
Sally from Elementary Matters
Lory from Fun for First
Linda from Primary Inspiration
Nicole from Mrs. Rios Teaches Second Grade
Brian from Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings
Liz from The Happy Teacher
Jennie from JD's Rockin' Readers
Sarah from Learning is for Superstars
Teresa from Fun in K/1
Nikki from Teaching in Progress
Faith from Kindergarten Faith
Renee from Fantastic First Grade Froggies
Amy from Happy Teacher Heaven
Leah from Learn with Leah
Nicole from Teaching's a Hoot
Kristy from The Phonic's Phenomenon
Rich from Mr. Giso's Room to Read
Susanna from Whimsy Workshop
Amy from Motivate to Learn
Lola from Preschool Wonders
Kimberli from Mixing the Next Batch

Magnets

Everyone loves magnets and exploring with magnets.  I was uber excited with this great find at Michael's today, a HUGE magnet! 

They were on the $1 toy aisle, but it was $3.  Still I think it was a great find.  My girls (9 and 11 years old) were with me when I found them and started exploring as soon as we left the store.  I will admit it drove me nuts while I was driving and they were testing everything in the car. 

I can't wait for the students to use these in my S.T.E.M. center next week.  I made a Scientific Observation form for them to use and thought I would share.  Click here to grab it.

I am also very excited to be hosting my first ever blog hop tomorrow!  Make sure you come back by Thursday, March 28th after 8:00 p.m. to see what all of the excitement is about.  We have 22 blogs each giving away a fabulous freebie just for you!

DIY Table Top Easel

I wanted table top easels for my student's center task cards.  I also wanted them to be easy to change and cheap!  I had a great idea to make them with a binder and duck tape.  So I set to work making them and taking pictures of all the steps to share with you.

First I took a cheap binder with the 3-rings mounted to the back cover, so it opens and folds back flat.  I folded it back bent the cover to be even with the other cover.  I also taped the top part together.  Then I made a sheet with duck tape making a base for the easel.  It didn't take long and turned out pretty well.

OK I was thinking and came up with a way easier way to accomplish this same goal!  

I took the "economic" super cheap binder with the 3-rings mounted to the binder.  I then clipped a binder clip in the middle of the front and back cover.  I used ribbon to tie the binder clips together to the binder would stand by itself.  When you aren't using it you can unclip one of the clips and close it for easy storage.  I think this option is much easier!

Here are a few writing center cards for you to use on these easels.

Sorting 3D Shapes

We had so much fun last week learning and exploring 3D shapes.  I think this is probably my favorite math topic.  We started the topic learning the names and attributes of the shapes.  My kids love playing "Can You Read My Mind?" I thought of a shape and described it to them and they were amazed that they could read my mind!  Then the students paired up and played "Can You Read My Mind?" together.

This is a fun hands-on topic too!  The students love learning to draw 3D shapes.  We use play dough and toothpicks to build the shapes.  Students also enjoy building with various 3D shapes (a.k.a. blocks) to create things.

 I have a labeling and sorting 3D shapes printable for you that I use to assess their understanding of this topic.  Click here to grab it!

This freebie was featured on Manic Monday!  Don't forget to see what else is going on this Monday.

Giveaway Winners

And the winner is...

a Rafflecopter giveaway
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Prize 1: The Quietest (and Best) Classroom Pencil Sharpener
Prize 2: A 6-month Subscription to The Organized Classroom Digital Magazine
Prize 3: $15 Gift Certificate to Dreamlike Magic Designs 

Prize 4: Any Item from The 3am Teacher's Store

Prize 5: Any 2 Items from Granny Goes to School TpT Store

Prize 6: Any 2 Items from HoJo's Teaching Adventures TpT Store

Prize 7: Any 1 Item from Primary Inspiration TpT Store

Prize 8: Any 2 Items from my Fun in K/1 TpT or TN Store

Prize 9: A Graphics Factory 9 Month Membership

Prize: 10 A Teachers Notebook Gift Certificate

I am e-mailing the winners tonight, so check your inbox!   A huge thank you to everyone for entering and participating in the Fun in K/1 birthday celebration.

What's in the Sky?

Happy Saturday!  I am so excited that my blog has had over 100,000 page views!  It is hard to believe that people have checked out my page over 100,000 times.  Thank you!  To celebrate this and the last day in my birthday week of freebies, I have a fun Science freebie pack for you.

Click here to get your copy!  I copied the observation pages front to back.  We did the daytime sky observation at school and I sent it home for them to finish as homework and bring back.  Then we did a class Venn diagram comparing the day and night sky.

I can't wait to see who the winners are of the giveaway are!  You have a few more hours to enter and shop my $1 sale.

Freebie & Five for Friday

TGIF!  It's even better than Friday, it's the Friday my Spring Break starts!  I'm starting off with sharing my Five for Friday!

 

1.  It's My Birthday

I have had a great time connecting this week with people while celebrating my Blog Birthday.  I can't wait to give away the amazing prizes Sunday.  My $1 sale is going amazing and here is today's freebie for my week of freebies!

2.  My Students Finally Love Reading

I have had the toughest time encouraging my kids to read and take comprehension quizzes this year.  No matter what I tried this year for incentives, I got nothing!  I was looking for other incentives and found this program and had to try it.  It is from Fitness Finders and called simply I Love to Read!  I will share more about this unbelievable effective and easy to implement program in a post next week.

3. My Favorite Books

I love to read!  Here are my favorite books from the week.  I loved the children's book, The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch.  This story was great for reviewing drawing conclusions.  For my pleasure reading I just finished Kristan Higgins by The Best Man and loved it!  It was a funny, romance that would make for a great Spring Break read.  (I am always looking for great reads, have you read a good book lately?)

4. iPad vs. Paper???

I loved this video!

5. Where I hope to be next week!

I just hope it warms up!  For some reason Winter and cool temperatures decided to make an appearance finally in Florida now???

3D Shape Chickadee Freebie

Woo Hoo!  One more day (18 hours) until my Spring Break!!!  I'm not sure who is more excited; my kids, my students or me!  I have so much I hope to accomplish over break, I just really hope I can make it happen.  If I'm lucky I can even find a little relax time too!
 
Today we water color painted paper eggs.  Using my magic white crayon I even made secret shapes appear.  They were thrilled to do it themselves.  We used this for a quick lesson on absorption and properties of wax.   (I have a hard time doing a craft in class if it isn't tied in to learning, so I am getting my mileage out of this project.)  Then I gave the kids an index card and had them describe their eggs.  The students set in a circle holding their eggs as I read the clues.  The class had a great time guessing which egg I was talking about.  Tomorrow we will glue these eggs to the Easter/ Spring cards we will be writing.

My week of freebies continues with this color by code 3D Chickadee.

The students must break the color code by figuring out the 3D shapes with the clues about it's attributes.  This is a great 3D shapes review and a fun Spring time project.  Click here to grab it.

My week long blog birthday celebration has 2 days left!  Did you enter the giveaway?  Don't forget to check this weeks posts and grab the freebies?  My $1 sale on everything in my TpT and TN store is on until midnight Saturday, March 23rd.

I'm Going on a Book Hunt

Happy Wednesday!  Only 2 more days until Spring Break!!!  I am planning to catch up on work over break of course, but at least I can do it on my schedule.

Today in class we read our weekly reading story in their reading text.  We also used our Social Studies book and read a few pages.  It amazes me how long it still takes kids to find the right page!  So I thought my kiddos could use a little practice with this.  I made up this printable to use with any text book to practice this skill.  (Yes, I am a bit obsessed with the little detectives!)

I left the page numbers blank so you can fill it in with the pages that correlate with the text book you are using.  (However, fill it in BEFORE you copy a class set.  Yes, I have learned from doing this more than once.)  Along with practicing finding pages in a book, it will also addresses the Common Core Print Concepts standards.  When we return from Spring Break we will start a new reading unit and this will be perfect to become familiar with our new books.  Click here to grab your copy.

A few more days left in my birthday week celebration!  I am so excited about how much my blog is growing!  Thank You!!

A Little Tech and a Freebie!

It's Tuesday and I am thinking of how thankful I am for all of the technology we have!  I can't imagine life without it!  When it is working as planned it is truly wonderful!  When it is on the fritz, oh my! 

My latest app I love is very simple, but so helpful!  As I was grading papers and realized I had left my old school easy grader sliding cardboard thing at school.  So I was figuring out each percent with the calculator when I thought "there has to be an app for that!"  Sure enough there is and it is free!  

It isn't a complex fancy app; it is very simple and gets the job done.  It doesn't take much to make me happy! 

As I continue with my 1 year blog birthday week celebration, I have another freebie for you.  This is a sheet I have used for daily practice.  I copy it two sided and cut in half.  On the board, I post the two signs and have a word and number of the day.  The word is one of our high-frequency words and the number of the day is the date or can be the number of days in school.  They complete this first thing in the morning and we review it.  As the year goes on, we learn to do the same thing in our composition books to save copies.  Click here to grab it if you like.

Thanks for coming by this week!  I am very excited about reaching over 200 followers and having so many people view and pin from my page.  Many have taken advantage of my 1 week $1 sale in my stores.  (The uncovering numbers to 120 is a great deal!)  Also don't forget to enter the giveaway if you haven't.  

I am also planning a Spring blog hop of freebies for next week with some great blogging friends!  More information to come soon.

"Egg"citing Activities & Centers

There are several "egg"citing things going on in my class this week!  The possibilities are endless with those cheap little plastic eggs.  Here are a few things we are doing!  I also have a great FREEBIE for you too, the recording sheets for the center activities.

 We planted grass seeds in these little "egg heads".  (I just they grow!)  I glued them together with glue dots and had the kids decorate them with a marker.

I found these adorable little carrots that go together like plastic eggs.  On one side I had a contraction, and the other side the two words that make up the contraction.  The kids love "picking the carrots" and making the match.

 "Egg"cellent compound words!  The kids make matches and record their new words on the recording sheet.

 Endless addition practice with these eggs.  Mix and match and record your answers.  You can even fill the eggs with the sum. 

 Word work is so much fun with these little eggs.  Put letter tiles in the egg and let the kids build the words.  Either write the words on the eggs, or let them figure it out.

They are great for word family practice as well. 

Click here for the recording sheets I use with these activities.  I also plan to use them after Easter too, who says I can't???

Thanks for stopping by this week during my celebration!  If you haven't checked out my giveaway, click below.  Also stop back by tomorrow for another great freebie!

Test Encouragement Freebie

One more week and then Spring Break!!!  I am excited, but I really hope my kids have not caught Spring Fever.  I tried the beach today and used my towel as a blanket as I watched my crazy girls surf and boogie board.

It is also the end of the grading period for us this week.  With all of the various bugs going around school, I have had students out sick... which leads to the dreaded make-up assignments!  Make-up tests are the worst, especially in K/1.  With some of the assessments being read to the students, it is hard to find the time to make them up.  I wish I had some great wisdom to share with you on how to make this easy, but truth be told I have nothing!  Have you found a way to make it easier or somewhat efficient?  What do you do if a student misses and entire week, do you still give the weekly assessment?

Speaking of tests, The Big Test is coming and we all need a little encouragement.  This week I am sharing a freebie everyday, so here it is! 

This file includes directions, 3 different designs for cute water bottle labels and 3 encouragement cards.  I make these for my students during our big standardized test in May.  I like to have something special on their desk each day they come in.  If your lucky, you will have a class parent or two that will help you put them together.  My girls are in 3rd and 6th and take the feared and dreaded FCAT, so I put these together for their classes too.  Last year my daughters classes loved them.  If you need more motivational cards I have a pack with many more called Sweet Motivation Cards for Test Days.

In case you haven't heard, I have big sale and giveaway going on this week.  All of the items in my teacher stores are $1 in honor of my 1st blog birthday.  You can also enter to win some great prizes.  Click the button below to read more about it.

If you are on Spring Break, I hope you enjoy it immensely.  If you still have another week like me, I hope time flies!

Fun in K/1 is Turning 1!

Happy Birthday to Fun in K/1!  It is hard to believe I started all of this almost a year ago.  I am having so much fun meeting new people, sharing ideas and creating.  My little blog is growing slowly, but surely.  I want to celebrate my birthday week in a big way!!! (I think all birthdays should be a week long!)

It's my birthday, but I have gifts for you!

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.funink1.com/2013/03/fun-in-k1-is-turning-1_17.html" title="Fun in K/1 Birthday"><img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/69179605/images/Blog%20Birthday.png" alt="Fun in K/1 Birthday" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

A week long $1 sale on everything in my TpT and TN stores.

As my way of saying thank you, I am putting all of my items on sale for $1 in honor of my 1 year blog birthday.  Be sure to stop by my stores (Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook) from now until midnight Saturday, March 23rd for this amazing sale.

A week of daily freebies and informational posts! 

Everyday this week I will have a new post with a different fun Freebie!  To start things off here is a My Spring Break graphic organizer and writing paper for you. (I am counting down the days until my Spring Break)

A Birthday Giveaway with 10 fabulous prizes!

I am excited to host my first giveaway!  I have rounded up some fantastic prizes to giveaway!  I was debating on one winner winning a huge bundle of prizes or ten different people winning a prize... I decided to share the love and pick a winner for each prize.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Prize 1: The Quietest (and Best) Classroom Pencil Sharpener 

My friends over at Classroom Friendly Supplies will give one lucky person a free pencil sharpener.  I have this sharpener and it is the most amazing thing ever.  To be eligible to win this prize you have to like them on facebook.

Prize 2: A 6-month Subscription to The Organized Classroom Digital Magazine Everyone can get the March 2013 edition FREE by clicking here!

Charity Preston is the person behind the fabulous new magazine, The Organized Classroom and several other fabulous blogs.  She has been so helpful and supportive on this journey.  If you ever want to start a teacher blog, the first thing you need to do it head over and sign up for Teaching Blog Traffic School!

Prize 3: $15 Gift Certificate to Dreamlike Magic Designs 
I love my blog design by Alicia at Dreamlike Magic Designs!  

Prize 4: Any Item from The 3am Teacher's Store

If you haven't seen all of the great things going on over here, check it out!  She is a night owl like me!

Several of my favorite blogging buddies have offered several items of your choice.  Please take the time to discover these blogs if you haven't ran across them yet.

Prize 5: Any 2 Items from Granny Goes to School TpT Store

Prize 6: Any 2 Items from HoJo's Teaching Adventures TpT Store

Prize 7: Any 1 Item from Primary Inspiration TpT Store

Prize 8: Any 2 Items from my Fun in K/1 TpT or TN Store

Prize 9: A Graphics Factory 9 Month Membership

Graphics Factory is a membership based clip art collection.  When I got my membership, I was also given one to give to a friend!  So, I chose to give it to one of my blogging buddies!

Prize: 10 A Teachers Notebook Gift Certificate

Our Earth

I can't believe how quickly time is flying!  It will be Earth Day before we know it!  In K/1, before we teach about Earth Day we have to teach what Earth is. 

Because of how limited our actual instruction time is, I love to tie in as many subjects as I can.  We are currently learning about 3D shapes in math, so it is a great time to learn about this big old sphere we live on!  I also introduce fractions a little bit with a craft we make.  After learning nearly 3/4 of the Earth's surface is covered by water and 1/4 is land, we need to learn and visualize what 1/4 actually is.  I start off by demonstrating with a green piece of paper and fold it in to fourths.  Then I cut is apart.  Then I give each student a piece of blue paper, we fold this paper in to fourths, then cut away one of the fourths.  Then I have enough green 1/4 pieces cut to give each child a piece.  Using out paper, we tear them into little pieces and glue them to the back of a paper plate, making our own little Earths.  (I was not brave or crazy enough to break out the balloons and paper mache.)

In science and reading we learn about our Earth using several informational resources.  We conclude our study of Earth by completing this graphic organizer and writing about Earth.  I pair the writing and craft to display.  Click here to grab it here.

I have also created an Earth Day Linky!  Click on the Linky Fun tab above to find out about other great lessons and find more resources.  If you have a great lesson I also hope you will share!

Please check back tomorrow, I have big plans!  My blog is turning 1 year old and I have big plans to celebrate and gifts for you!