Five for Friday Linky

Hi!  I am linking up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching to share 5 things about my week.  

1. My boys spent the entire morning at the Fox 9 news studio. They got to play video games in The Game Truck Party for the morning news shows from 6-10 a.m. They were sooo excited that they got to play video games for 4 hours. I was amazed that I was able to get them to get up by 5:30 a.m. so that we could get there on time. We have been sleeping until 11:00 or so daily! I met some fun people as I waited during the recordings. It was fun coming home and seeing them on the news too. We all took naps this afternoon and are good to go.  It is the BEST idea EVER! I think we'll be doing that for the boys combined birthday party this year! The truck arrives at your house. 20 kids can fit in it and THEY supply all the support needed! No mess in the house & kids love it! Sold!  

1.  Fox 9 News...The Game Truck

This little girl was adorable and stole the show.  She was dancing away to Just Dance.  

So focused on their games!

2. Tomorrow we are going to be going to my old stomping grounds. I went to school in Mankato. The dorms that I lived in and met my husband in are being imploded. They are taking them down. It makes me sad! We're going to take the boys to see them knocked down.Gage Towers....my old dorms.  They are being taken down tomorrow morning.  I lived in the one on the left.  It's going to be sad that they will be gone.

3.  I spent the entire week going through the boys' closets.  I have to admit, I have not gone through their clothes since they wore 5T.  They are both wearing men's clothing right now.   I sorted all their clothes and put a message on Facebook saying that I was selling it.  They were gone in a matter of a couple hours. I am so glad, I really dreaded the thought of having a garage sale.

  This shoe is really tiny!  I am so sad that they are growing up so fast.

4.   I received this book in the mail this week!  I love it!!!  It is about a baby learning to walk.  It teaches kids to never give up on trying new things.  Things may be hard for them, but they still should try.  We are going to read it before doing our Hopes and Dreams next year.

Walk-On-Guide-Babies-Ages

5.  I am having a sale in my TPT store through Saturday.  Here is where you will find freebies that I added this week.  

I will be using a Writer's Briefcase in my class. I will send it home with my kids.  It's a great way to encourage kids to write at home.

Writers-Briefcase

I will also be making name tags for the parents in my class this year.  

Click here to download them.  

Name-Tags-For-The-Parents-In-Your-Classroom

I hope you are having a great week! 

Sara

Thankfulness Sale!!

Hi Everyone!  One year ago today was one of the scariest/happiest days of my family's life.  My mom had gone into kidney failure and was needed a kidney transplant.  She had to do dialysis every single night and depended on a machine to live.  3 of my siblings and I were tested and were matches to give her a kidney, but after further testing, we couldn't donate.  My cousin was then tested and found to be a perfect match!  One year ago she gave the greatest give that anyone could give, she gave my mom a kidney and a second chance at living a more normal life.  I am including a video that my sisters, mom and cousin made talking about the process they went through.  If at any time you considered registering to be a donor but didn't do it, I would highly recommend it.  My family will never be able to repay my cousin and works cannot express the gratitude that we feel for her.  My mom had her 1 year check-up today and she's doing well.  My cousin is doing well too.

 

Kidney Transplant - Second Chances video

 

To celebrate this day I will be throwing a sale in my TPT store.  It will go through Saturday.  Click her to go to My Store.
Happy Wednesday!
Sara

Blog Lovin' Linky

I cannot believe that July 1st is almost here!  Have you switched over to bloglovin' yet?  If not, you should do so soon so that you can follow all your favorite blogs.    Tori, from Tori's Teacher Tips is throwing a fun Bloglovin' linky party!  Head over to find new blogs to follow on Bloglovin'!  Also, if you aren't following me on Blog Lovin' click on the tap on the right hand side.  Thanks!

Writer's Briefcase

I love to write with my class!  We incorporate writing into everything we do.  This year I will be sending home a Writer's Briefcase with my students.  All you need to do it to is a briefcase or old laptop bag that you no longer use.  I will be attaching this sign to the outside of it.

I will fill the briefcase with supplies, a variety of paper, writer's workshop books and the following notes.

Students will each get to take it home throughout the year.  You can grab your freebie here...Writer's Briefcase.  You can also find it here...Writers-Briefcase in my TPT store.  Enjoy!

Sara

Getting Organized

Hi!  We've had some pretty uncooperative weather here for several days.  Luckily, I am not one of the 16,000 people without power until probably Wednesday.  I have spent lots of time indoors which gave me time to start and finish my classroom decorations for this upcoming school year.  On Friday I found this cute picture from Ikea.

I have fallen in love with it.  On Saturday I stopped at the Dollar Tree and found some bins that match the colors.  I am so excited to do a classroom make-over.  I designed some new things for my classroom to help me get organized and set up for the new year.  I intended to do only word wall words and then kept adding to it.

There are 500 of these words.  I also took the top 100 that our first graders are expected to know and put them in ABC order on an ABC border for my classroom. 

 

 After doing the word wall cards, I started making labels and decorations for my room that coordinated with my picture.  I love what I came up with and am so excited to get to school and redo my room.

 

There are 4 different frames like this.  You just need to snap your kids' pictures and attach them to this background. 

 

I then added table numbers to hang above my tables.  There are 7 in all.  Below are a few more sames of what I made. 

 

 

You can check out the rest of my pack here....

Get-Organized-Tons-of-Classroom-Labels-500-Word-Wall-Cards

 

I hope you are having a great day!

Sara

Five For Friday

Hi!  I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share 5 things about my week. 

 1.  Today was my husband's last day at his job.  He starts a new job on Monday.  He left work early today to come with me to have my son's cast removed.  We had the best day.

The whole time he had his cast on, he complained that he could feel something moving in his cast.  He would say a mosquito or a bug flew in it.  Today when his cast was removed there were some dead bugs in it!  It was so gross!  I felt so bad for him!  It always cracks me up when they ask if we want to keep the cast.  UMMMMM....NO!!!!  The initial smell just about makes me gag....I don't know what I would do with the actual cast.

 

He had an orthopedic brace made for his finger.  He has to wear it when he is rough housing or just being a boy.  When asked about playing video games the doctor said, "YES!!' He said that it is actually good therapy and teased us saying he'd write a prescription for it if need be.

2.  After the cast removal, we went to the 5*8 Club and had Juicy Lucy's.  OMGosh!  They are the best!!!

My boys and I before dinner.

3.  After dinner today we went to Ikea.  We just went to look around.  I was trying to get ideas for bins that I want in my room.  I found some great deals.

 I have NEVER been a fan of owls.  I know a lot of people have them in their classrooms or decorate with them...but I never jumped on that band wagon....until today!!!  I found this caaauuutttte picture!  This picture does not do it justice.  The green matches the green chair in my room.  I found blue bins that match the sky.  I am soooo excited to incorporate this into my classroom.  The first thought I had was that I was going to put this by the from of my room with the greeting, "Look Hoo Is In Our Room".  My mind is wandering.  I can't wait to pull it together.

 I found this plastic bag organizer.  I have tons of bags always laying around. I bring them to school and can't throw them away.  I usually have a bag full of bags, but this is going to help me stay organized.  When I need a bag, I will just pull it out of the holes.

 I found these timers.  I am still laughing now at what when down with this little find.  I am always using timers in my room for everything.  It seems that I can't find mine all the time or that when I need it the battery is dead.  This is a little wind-up one that will be put to great use.  As we were driving home, we heard a lot bell sound in the back of the car.  My son started laughing as my husband nearly drove off the road. He had set the timer and it went off scaring us!  When I asked if people at Ikea were hearing the same thing too, he said, "No, I set those for less time!"  He probably set 10 of them.

 


 My other find was these little stuffed toys.  I will use the beach ball next year when we have our Swim and Read Day.  I am planning on using the owl (which happens to be a puppet) during Morning Meeting.  Only kids with owl on their hand will be able to talk.

4.  We have a new curriculum this year.  We are using Benchmark Literacy.  Soooo, I have to do all my word wall words over and all of my sight word lists.  I have been working on this all week.

Originally I was going to have a black and white theme in my room, but now after finding my picture, I am going to change the background of these to blue or green.  I will be adding them soon.  There are 500 word cards altogether.

5.   One of my sweet first graders gave me a gift certificate to Benihanas for Teacher Appreciation Day.  My husband also had a birthday and got a free meal there.  So, we went to dinner this week to use the certificate before it expired. 

 My son loves that his shoes glow in this picture!  The flash hit the reflective parts of his shoes and he glowed.

I tried Octopus while there!  It was really chewy and not that bad!  I don't know if I'd order it again, but I tried it! :)


Finally, I am adding a number 6.  Tonight I bought these from an online garage sale.  For $10 I got all these.

Being a mom of two boys, I have LOTS of boy toys in my classroom for Friday Fun Day or for when we have indoor recess.  Whenever they outgrew something, I brought it to school for my kiddos. I didn't really have any "girly" things.  Last year I bought Pinkalicious and some other girly books.    Today I added these Barbies to my collection. 

That's all for tonight.  I hope you have a great weekend!
Sara

4th of July

Hi everyone!  I hope you are all having a great week.  I feel guilty that today I still haven't changed out of my pj's yet.  Gotta love summer and just hanging out at home.  Tomorrow my son has x-rays to see if his thumb is broken and if he can lose his cast.  Crossing our fingers.  I really want to take them to the beach.

I finally finished my 4th of July bundle that I was working on.  To be honest, I wasn't going to do one, but I couldn't resist the cute clip art that I have from Nikki from Melonheadz.  I do have friends teaching summer school and I have read about some people who are teaching at year round schools, so hopefully this will be useful for someone! I also thought that it could be used for people who Home school their kids or for people who just want to work with their kiddos at home to prevent the summer slide.   You can find it here.  4th-of-July-Math-Literacy-Centers-More

There are 3 math and 3 reading centers.  There are also pencil decorations, flags to cut out and attach to a straw and crowns to wear on heads. 

 

 You will find a direction sheet like this for all 6 centers.  There are 3 math and 3 reading centers.

Putting words in ABC order.

Find the missing number in the equation.

 

Compound Words

 

 Determine if the greater than, less than or equal to cards are true or false.

Cut the cards out and find its match.

 

Crowns for a mini parade if you choose to have one.

Have a great night!
Sara