My Thanksgiving Break

I know I am enjoying my Thanksgiving Break!  I hope you are too!

I know all of my students are also having a great Thanksgiving Break and will be so excited to share with their classmates.  This is a graphic organizer I will use to help them organize their thoughts before they write about their break.  Click here to grab it free.

This organizer helps the students who always answer "nothing" when asked what did you do over break.  I know personally, I will "Go" to my parents and a cheerleading competition in Orlando.  I will "Do" nothing (at least for a day), watch Catching Fire (I LOVED it!) and marathon shop on Friday with my Mom.  I will "Eat" a scrumptious Thanksgiving meal made by Mom!  What will you do?

I am linking up with Thankful Thoughts at Teaching Blog Roundup this week.  (I am taking a week break from Helpful Hints on Hump Day)

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful and blessed to have such a wonderful family.  It amazes me how fast time is flying and what beautiful ladies my girls are growing into.

From my family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!

Book Box Helpful Hints

Today I am sharing a tip I learned from one of my colleagues, Mrs. Bevacqua.  Check out these great book boxes she made for just pennies!

She picked up shipping boxes from the Post Office (or you can buy them really cheap, even use cereal boxes).  She then assembled the boxes and used a razor knife to cut the boxes at an angle.  One shipping box gives you two book boxes.  My partner teacher painted her boxes to match.  It was cheap and easy!  You could also use duct tape.

Another quick tip, label the boxes with numbers instead of names.  Then you are good to go for the following year!  

I'm still holding out hope that my Helpful Hints on Hump Day will take off.  Freebies are great, but I really love reading great blog posts with helpful information.  Sometimes the smallest tip or "why didn't I think of that" makes the biggest difference.  So join me and share those little tips!

Link up an join in the fun! Share a helpful hint that has worked for you and let others learn from your success!  Here are the rules so please play along the right way:

1.  Each Wednesday I will have a post with a linky at the bottom for you to link your helpful hint for all the world to see!  It will be open for 1 day only each week.
2.  Please include the "Helpful Hints on Hump Day" graphic in your post and link back to this post.
3.  Your link must be to a blog post. NO STORE LINKS PLEASE!
4.  If you don't have a blog but would like to share a helpful hint, please do so in the comments!
5.  Please visit at least 2 blogs If you find it helpful, please be sure to let them know!  Leave a comment or follow them!  We will share the love, meet some new friends in the process, and learn something new!  Happy Hump Day!

Turkey Time - It's a Fact

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching!  I have been doing a few fun things in the classroom!  With so many things to teach and so little time, I have a hard time fitting fun crafts in!  I generally won't do a craft unless I can tie a lesson to it too!

Check out these fun Fact Family Turkeys my little turkeys just made.  We are working hard on understanding the ins and outs of fact families.

Each student made a different fact family on their turkey body and wings.  Then we did the addition feathers and followed with the subtraction feathers.  Finally we assembled our turkeys.  I loved them.  I traced some of the parts on construction paper and printed some parts on colored paper.

I'm sure these are easy enough for you to make your self, but if you want to save some time I have uploaded the patterns and directions to my TpT store.  Click here and grab it for $2.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, here is a First Thanksgiving KWL I used last year and am using again this week.  Click here to grab it if you like.

Don't forget to stop by and check out Classroom Freebies Manic Monday!

Passwords and Usernames Oh My!

I am just getting back from a 5 day camping trip.  We had a great time as always at Disney's Fort Wilderness.  Now I am back and hear my bed calling me, but I wanted to catch up on my blog.  Being unplugged for these past few days were nice, but I am almost as happy to have my computer back as my own bed!

Even after just a few days unplugged, I had problems remembering all of my different passwords and usernames.  It seems every different textbook, resource and website requires a different type of username or password. 

I had the hardest time keeping them straight.  I tried a Rolodex and a small address book.  These were OK, but then I always seemed to not have it with me when I needed it.  Then I tried a new way to keep track of them all (except for the major important ones like banking...),  I started using Excel.  I have a workbook for passwords.  In this work book I have several different worksheets; one for school, personal, business and my kids passwords.  I have one column with a hyperlink to the website, my username and password.  I can then click directly on the hyperlink to go to the website.  Then I can even copy and paste my username or password if it is one of those crazy ones.  Give it a try!

I'm still holding out hope that my Helpful Hints on Hump Day will take off.  Freebies are great, but I really love reading great blog posts with helpful information.  Sometimes the smallest tip or "why didn't I think of that" makes the biggest difference.  So join me and share those little tips!

Link up an join in the fun! Share a helpful hint that has worked for you and let others learn from your success!  Here are the rules so please play along the right way:

1.  Each Wednesday I will have a post with a linky at the bottom for you to link your helpful hint for all the world to see!  It will be open for 1 day only each week.
2.  Please include the "Helpful Hints on Hump Day" graphic in your post and link back to this post.
3.  Your link must be to a blog post. NO STORE LINKS PLEASE!
4.  If you don't have a blog but would like to share a helpful hint, please do so in the comments!
5.  Please visit at least 2 blogs If you find it helpful, please be sure to let them know!  Leave a comment or follow them!  We will share the love, meet some new friends in the process, and learn something new!  Happy Hump Day!

My Toy Wish List Freebie and Helpful Hints

It seems the day before Halloween stores were putting out the Christmas stuff.  What happened to Thanksgiving?  Has it been swallowed up by the holiday rush?  With Christmas comes Christmas Craziness with the kiddos.  (This has already started in my classroom.)

This weekend I noticed the big toy books are out!  This Sunday's paper had a toy wish book from Target and Toys R Us.  (Quick go grab it out of the recycling bin!  You can get copies from the store too.)

Everyone knows how much children love making an unending wish list.  Making lists is one of the reasons we write, so why not add this to your writing center!  Students will LOVE this!  You can even take their list and narrow it down to an item or two and expand the lesson into a persuasive writing lesson.

Here is the list paper my students will be using.  Click here to download your copy.

Now that I have shared my little helpful hint, please share yours with us!

Link up an join in the fun! Share a helpful hint that has worked for you and let others learn from your success!  Here are the rules so please play along the right way:

1.  Each Wednesday I will have a post with a linky at the bottom for you to link your helpful hint for all the world to see!  It will be open for 1 day only each week.
2.  Please include the "Helpful Hints on Hump Day" graphic in your post and link back to this post.
3.  Your link must be to a blog post. NO STORE LINKS PLEASE!
4.  If you don't have a blog but would like to share a helpful hint, please do so in the comments!
5.  Please visit at least 2 blogs If you find it helpful, please be sure to let them know!  Leave a comment or follow them!  We will share the love, meet some new friends in the process, and learn something new!  Happy Hump Day!

Freebie and a Friday Five

I have to admit I was having mixed feelings about this Friday.  Friday is always my favorite day of the week, but a Friday after Halloween and candy for breakfast????  I have to admit my expectations were not good for a day of testing, but I was pleasantly surprised!  It was a great day!

I am happy to finally have time to sit down to blog! (Yes, I lead a thrilling life that the highlight of my Friday night is blogging!)

I am kinking up at doodlebugs to share my five this Friday.  Then I will head back over to discover a few new blogs and see what is up with a few of my favorites!

We had pumpkin fun!  Unfortunately we can't take a field trip to the pumpkin patch because of budget cuts, so we brought the pumpkin patch to us!  We brought in little pie pumpkins for our first graders and even hay to make it more Fallish!  (Granted is was 86 degrees outside in Florida, we haven't quite made it to Fall yet!)

Then we investigated our little pumpkins.  We measured with links and cubes, weighed them with teddy bears, counted lines and tested to see if they sink or float.  This is one of my favorite days!  We learn so much this day, even without a test!

We decorate out doors every Fall.  This year I stuck with my Lego theme.  Check out my mini-fig maxi-fig.   Today I added a vest and Indian headdress and viola Thanksgiving!  (I take pix next week.)

I found an amazing book this week at our book fair.  It is packed with fun experiments that are so simple and the kids love!  I highly recommend this book if you ever come across it.  

Today we did a few sink or float experiments.  The kids brought in 3 different pieces of candy from their night of trick-or-treating (3 they didn't want to eat).  Then we did an investigation to see if our candy would sink or float.

I have a cute "why I love seeing the world through a first grader's eyes" story.  Today at lunch in the cafeteria a very handsome Marine in his dress blues came in to see a former teacher.  While he was waiting I was chatting with him and the kids were in awe!  Several kids were asking what he was, one boy asked if he was police.  Then this little girl asked "Is he a prince?"...  I loved it, I said no, he is even better, he is a Marine!  Then I told the Marine and it made his day!

I have become addicted to the sparkle backgrounds,  so I tried making my own.  I want to share a sample to what you think.  Click here to download it for free from my TpT store.

Check out TBA's Friday Freebies for more great freebies!