Random Acts of Kindness

Where is the time going?  We have been so crazy, busy the last couple months...I really don't know where time has gone!  We sold our house at the end of November...after having TONS of showing.  It sold after 3 weeks.  We will be moving mid-January.  I think we are INSANE.  I am hoping we have warmer weather then...but December was cold.  We had a week straight of indoor recess.  Crazy!

I was lucky to find out (on my birthday) that I was being awarded a SEEF grant that I applied for.  I wrote a grant asking for money to purchase an iPad and a green screen.  I was shocked when I found out that I got it.  

I will be getting an ipad to record videos and take pictures on.  

This is the green screen kit that I ordered.

This year we have a new reading curriculum.  We do Reader's Theater every 3 weeks.  My plan is to have the kids draw pictures of the setting of their play.  I will take pictures of them in front of the green screen and I will record them doing their play.  I will then merge their pictures that they drew with the recordings that I took.  I will make a mini movie of them doing their plays.  I will also use it for other projects we do  in the classroom.   We are lucky in our district to have the SEEF grant program.  It allows us to do things we wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

Because I have been given so many things...through grants and parents, I decided to have my kids do Random Acts of kindness.  I was originally going to only do it through December, but decided that their are so many people that do things for our class throughout the year...that I wanted to do it randomly throughout the year.  I created this freebie for anyone to use.  You can find it here. 

After I created it, I found this one that I fell in love with.

You can find it here.  I know it's a little too late now, but it's worth putting in your cart for next year.  Rachelle from What The Teacher Wants did a wonderful job with it. I love how pages are specific for specific people.  We did a few from the pack and the people that received them said that they loved reading the letters that they received.  We also attached a packet of hot chocolate and a candy cane to the letters.

I was then moved by a post that I saw from Katie at Queen of the First Grade Jungle. 

 Hop on over to read what she is trying to help someone accomplish.  I truly believe that students learn in all different ways.  Unfortunately when programs are cut, it's usually the arts.  So many of our kids learn through doing plays, through singing songs and through listening to music.  What she is trying to help someone accomplish is amazing!  You can go to Mr. Canty's sight here.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. I have two weeks off and can't wait to relax with my boys.

Merry Christmas to you all! 

Sara

Gingerbread House Decoration + a freebie

On December 20th, our first graders are going to be decorating gingerbread houses.  I absolutely love this time of the year.  In order to prepare for this, my hubby helped me create a gingerbread house in our cluster at school today.

 This is how we left it this afternoon.  In the middle I wrote, 1st graders are so sweet.  They will be decorating the house with pieces of candy that they color and cut out.

My hubby helping out.

 Some of the candies have circles in the middle.  This is for you to insert your first graders pictures.  I included a set for pictures and a set without circles for them to just color.

My firsties will be coloring pieces of candy and gluing them to the house.  You can find the candy here...
Gingerbread House Decorations or HERE.

I  will post pictures when we are done.
Sara

Totally 80's: Getting Ready to Celebrate the 80th Day of School

Yikes...I have been gone from this blog for longer that I wanted to be.  We have been soooo busy with school and trying to sell our house.  I don't know how people with SMALL babies work and try to sell their house at the same time!  It's hard to keep it clean and make sure it's ready with 2 bigger kids.   I am also in the middle of fall conferences.  One more night and then I am done until spring. I have truly enjoyed meeting with all of my parents.  I have the sweetest class ever.  There isn't a day that goes by that  I don't laugh about something that one of them said.

In November we had a combined birthday party for the boys! They both invited a total of 20 friends to come over.  Their party was Minecraft themed.  We decorated for hours the night before...but it was so worth it! :)

For their birthday...Game Truck Party drove up to our house.  They all loaded into it and played video games for two hours.   It was so much fun! 

In school we have been busy too!  I had a little sweetie give me this card.

We made Veterans for Veterans Day.

 We had Minion Day.  We watched Despicable Me and made our Minions to hang in the hall saying why we liked first grade.  These are decorating our halls for conferences right now.

For our Harvest Party I had 4 of the BEST moms in the world help me with Loom Bracelets.  Most of my kids were saying they knew how to make them...so I didn't think it would be so hard.  Boy!  Oh Boy!  Do my moms deserve a medal!!!  I was sweating by the time we were done with the hour.

On Friday, it was the 50th day of school!  I was NOT even close to prepared for this day.  Because the kids wanted to dress up...we decided we'd still have a 50 days of school party the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  We'll still do a lot of the same activities...it just won't be on the 50th day!

I AM prepared for our 80th day already though!  I love celebrating the milestone days with my kids and they really get into it.  The 100th day is fun....BUT...it falls the day before Valentine's Day.  We also have President's Day, Groundhogs Day, Dental Health week, etc...at the same time...so everything is rushed.  This year I decided I am going to do 80's day.  Just.Because!  I love the music and I love the toys, etc. that we played with during that time.  None of the kids now really know what the 80's are like...so we're going to learn about it!

I created this unit and just uploaded it to my TPT store.   Totally-80s-Math-and-Literacy-Centers-to-Celebrate-the-80th-Day-of-School.  I started it this summer and it took until today to finish it!  It's 300 + pages of Math and Literacy Centers that you can do with your kids that is all aligned to Common Core.  I was having a hard time creating a preview file...so ended up taking pictures to get it done.  There are TONS of pictures for you to see what is included.  I only included about 1/2 of them!  I apologize for this!

Finally Misty at Krazy About Teaching is having a giveaway for having 10,000 views of her blog!!  You'll want to check it out to win some awesome packs!  Good luck!!!


I hope you have a great week!!!
Sara