Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Five Little Elves Poem, Finger Puppets and Subtraction Reader and More!

Guess who has to wake up by alarm tomorrow for the first time this week? That's me! ;)

We ended up having four snow days off from school. For new readers, I live in a rural area and actually live on a gravel road and they don't typically get plowed until everything else is somewhat clear. The buses are only driving snow routes, but I am excited for the students to get to go back tomorrow to have their Christmas concerts the next two days. My kiddos and I are fine staying home forever, but I know a lot of my parent friends on Facebook are READY for their kids to go back. ;) I enjoy all of the unexpected time off with my family that I can get. My babies aren't going to be babies forever!

Yesterday, I had the chance to bundle all of my Christmas hundreds charts hidden picture activities into one product. I know a lot of you find this much easier. You can find it by clicking on the picture below. The bundle includes 13 charts and is on sale for $8.75. 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/BUNDLE-Christmas-Hundreds-Chart-Hidden-Picture-Activities-for-Math-1017713 

I downloaded the super cute Unwrap your FREEBIE #6 clip art freebie from Krista Wallden's TpT store and I knew I needed to create something fun for all the elf lovers out there! Click on the picture to get the poem, finger puppets and subtraction reader for only $2! This would be super easy to print and have ready before Christmas, especially if you are doing anything with Elf on the Shelf in your classroom!
 
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Five-Little-Elves-Poem-Finger-Puppets-and-Subtraction-Reader-Christmas-ELA-Math-1018877


Sunday, December 8, 2013

Five Little Ornaments Subtraction Emergent Reader with FREEBIES!

I'm having so much fun being snowed in that I might be guilty of refreshing the school closings web page of our local news station no more than 8 million times in the last hour to see if my school has been added to the list. Yes, I receive texts from the Principal, Facebook messages, emails and a phone call, but knowing right away is such an amazing feeling! ;) Ha! Does anyone else share in this excitement?

Okay, maybe I should lay off the Coca-Cola a little! :)

This morning, I created an emergent reader and a few freebies to go along with it. Be sure to check them out! Click on the pictures to take you to my TpT store to purchase the reader or download the freebies! Just so you know, the freebies are included in the reader file if you purchase it.


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Five-Little-Ornaments-Subtraction-Emergent-Reader-and-More-Christmas-ELA-Math-1013809


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Five-Little-Ornaments-Poem-and-Finger-Puppets-Christmas-ELA-Math-1013835

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Woo hoo! Snow days are here!

Thursday we were fortunate enough to get out of school early due to snow and icy conditions and we followed it up with a day off on Friday! Woo hoo! I needed some time off to get a few things caught up around the house and to start creating a few more things for school. This time of year is always crazy busy, but to add to it, we are having a Breakfast with Santa fundraiser for encore teachers and it has been taking up tons of extra time. It should be lots of fun though!  

I am getting so excited for our upcoming holidays and while I was in the Christmas spirit, I created a few new hundreds charts activities! Just click on the pictures below to take you to my TpT store.  




http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Duck-Dynasty-Inspired-Camo-Santa-Hundreds-Chart-Hidden-Picture-Activity-for-Math-1013074



http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Christmas-Ornament-Hundreds-Chart-Hidden-Picture-Activity-for-Math-1012834






Saturday, October 26, 2013

Fall & Halloween Alphabet & Call Number Cookie Sorts for Centers

I hope everyone is having a wonderful fall season! I miss all of my bloggy friends! I am enjoying so many great activities in and out of school and it's definitely keeping me busy. This is my favorite time of year for many reasons. I love the colors, the smells, the weather, the leaves, pumpkin everything, long sleeves, bonfires, fall festivals, pumpkin patches, etc. I could go on and on!

This was our Parent-Teacher conference week and I honestly thought it would be a great time to work on curriculum. However, I didn't realize so many parents and students would come into the library. We were having a used book & VHS sale, so that brought families in, too. It was great to see parents and kiddos because I really miss family connections from being a classroom teacher! Although I wasn't able to work on curriculum, I did a massive amount of cleaning & getting rid of lots of things from when I was teaching Kindergarten. I love feeling organized and being able to get to things easily!!!

For today, my goal was to work on a few things for the upcoming week and I wanted to share a link to a few activities in case you need something, too. I have a few more things in mind, but I don't know that I will have time to post them between church and a fall festival tomorrow.

I created two fall/Halloween cookie sorts. One sort is for my Pre-K and Kdg. classes and the other is for 1st-5th grades. Click on the pictures below to take you to my TpT store. 






 I hope you have a great week of reading and learning!

Monday, October 7, 2013

{FREE} Columbus Day Bookmarks

Just dropping in to post about a Columbus Day freebie. :) It comes with full color or black and white bookmarks. Click on the picture below to download a copy from my TpT store.



Wednesday, September 18, 2013

{FREE} Halloween Teddy Bear Bookmarks

I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined that kids would go through bookmarks the way they do! I can't keep the basket stocked each week. I have to admit though, next to the smell of the Bookmobile when I was a kid, getting new bookmarks rated pretty high up on the scale for fabulous things about checking out a book for me, too. ;)

I created a little Halloween bookmark freebie and thought you might enjoy it, too! I have included color and black/white copies for your convenience. Just click on the picture below to grab them!







Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Vampire Hundreds Chart Hidden Picture Activity {FREEBIE}

In case you thought I have forgotten how to blog, you might be right! ;) This year has been a whirlwind and I've been super busy at school and at home. Now that things are slowing down a little, I thought I'd post a freebie. Enjoy! I hope to be back soon to post our Fall Book Fair pictures. You can use this as a printable for younger students and digital for older students. 


Saturday, August 24, 2013

My 2013-2014 Library Makeover Pictures {Before and After}

I cannot believe we've already been in school for eight days and I'm not just now finally blogging my library before and after pictures. Although it has been an absolute whirlwind finding my new normal, I am absolutely LOVING my new job! It is so fast paced and the kids are so enthusiastic right now that it makes my day! 

A little info. before you see all the pictures. Our 2013-2014 PBIS school theme is jungle safari, so that's why everything is animal print, leaves and vines. :) Our library is long and narrow, which makes moving things around next to impossible. Plus, all the bookcases, except for one, are attached to the wall. Next year, the paneling will be removed and replaced with sheet rock and we will be getting new flooring. I had help from several friends and family members to make this transformation possible. I couldn't have done it without them!

Here's a sneak peek at one 'after' photo!

Story time area

{Before}

 {Before}

{Before}

 {Before - The red bookcase in this picture had a cardboard box for the back. I pulled it off, piece by piece and you'll see it painted black and holding board books in one of the after pictures.}

{Before}

 {Before}

 {Before}

 {Before}

 {Before}
 {Before}

 {Before}

 {Before}

  {Before - The office I spent so much time on before summer school was messy and moved around when I came back in.}

  {During - Opening all these new books felt like Christmas!}

 {During - New DVD's}

{Before - We have five different student tables with all different colored legs. This is what one of them looked like before my sweet husband painted them black.}

 {Before - Cute shabby table before I painted it black. I loved it distressed, but when I got it to school the off-white color clashed too much with the white SMART Board screen.}


{Before - A teacher was getting rid of this right after I had asked if a new one could be built. I have it painted black now, but it hasn't yet been hung on the wall. It will hold some of our teacher resources.}

 
{After - My mom made this for our lower hall bulletin board.} 

 {After - A glance from the lower hall side door in the library.}

{After - Lower hall doorway}

 {After - This bulletin board will be changed monthly or by the season.}

 {After - Bananas for Books is our reward system for classes for bringing back their books on time.}


This bulletin board will be changed monthly, but it will also hold our Wild About GRRR Behavior chart for classroom behavior rewards.}

 {After -Student supply tubs}

 {After -Fiction}

  {After -Board Books for preschool students and Parents as Teachers}
{After - Non-Fiction}


{After - Lower hall door - My mom made this, too!}

 {After - Humane trophies - stuffed animal heads that our secretary let us borrow for the year.}

 {After - Half of reference, puppets and our pointer collection}


{After - Story time area with futons, carpet and the SMART Board. The cute table from before is now black in this picture. ;) }

 {After - Other half of reference, plus our new books held out until our Teacher Sneak Peek Preview}

 {After - Computer area}

 {After - Circulation Desk}

 {After - A few magazines for the beginning of the year. We just got confirmation that our DonorsChoose project for magazines has been processed, so I can't wait for the kids to have a great variety this year!}

 {After - Library view from the upper hall doorway}

 {After - Diary of a Wimpy Kid upper hall door entrance}

 {After - Just for fun pictures for the hallway. They came from Dollar Tree 2014 calendars.}

 {After - More Dollar Tree calendar pictures for the upper hallway}

{After - More Humane Trophies on load from our secretary}

I hope you enjoyed a little peek into our library! If you have any questions, be sure to ask!