Addition, Addition, and More Addition

This week we have been working on Regrouping with Addition. I got some GREAT ideas for Amy Lemon's blog. Here is what we did. (it is slightly modified from Amy's ideas!)

This is what we started off with on Monday. The students got very familiar with the steps that need to be done to regroup! Here is what the inside says:

A little tip if you do this, make the booklets ahead of time. I really saved valuable teaching time by doing this! Today and tomorrow we are working on solving some regrouping and non-regrouping problems. After the kids are done they sort them in a mini folder booklet.

These next pictures are activities we are doing during our "Pioneer Time," which is when we split the kids up in small groups between the grade level teachers and the interventionists. My group has finished working on 4 digit addition and we are reviewing subtraction regrouping. These activities I am using during centers and small group instruction.

If you would like the link to some of these activities go to Mrs. Lemon's blog. They are under addition and subtraction. My kids have LOVED working together and trying new things!

2 more days until Friday! Woohoo!

Holiday Stories to Share

One of my favorite holiday stories is the Grinch! I definitely think it is a classic and of course I love the two movies. It reminds the kids of the true meaning of Christmas and hopefully inspires them to give back.

The Polar Express is another one of my favorites. When my brother and I were little my mother read us the story and that year Santa brought us both a silver bell. I still have mine and I put it on our Christmas tree to remember that special year!

My last favorite book is Snowmen at Christmas. My mom looooves snowmen and it has definitely rubbed off on me! She has bought me and herself every snowmen book she can find. I have a whole shelf in my room devoted to snowman books. This is one of my favorite ones! It give you warm fuzzes inside when you read it!

As you can tell I can't wait for the holidays! I enjoy all the twinkle lights at night and all the love that is in the air! And of course decorating my house head to toe in Christmas decorations. (my husband just loves it! ) Well I am off to watch my FAVORITE show ever..........
Tori and Dean! I just can't get enough of how cute Tori is and how sweet their family is!

Time for a Change...

Soo... I felt like it was time to change out my teaching bag and purses. As my husband says you collect purses and bags why don't you use them all! Since I had a little extra time today I decided to change them out.

My previous teacher bag was a 31 bag that I made and that I LOVE! It has lots of room and says teacher toolbox!

Here is the one I will be carrying now! It is one I have had for a while, but it is pretty green and suits the holiday season quite well I think.

The purse I was previously carrying was a sparkly coach one. It was just the perfect size for carrying all my "junk."

Now I will be carrying a cute black one that I got as a present several years ago. It was a tough choice between this one and a cute Vera Bradley bag. I will probably switch to the Vera one sometime right before the holiday. (if I have the time)

Now for something more school related! I saw these cute dishrags that I am going to totally use in my classroom on my whiteboard! I will let you know how they work. I found them at a small store in town, but I am sure you can find them other places.

I hope everyone has a SUPER Monday back to school!

Steals and Deals

Ok.... so I said I wasn't going to blog during the holiday break, but of course I couldn't resist. My husband and I just got back from our first round of BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING! We were able to get some great gifts for our families! I am very excited to see them open them on Christmas. Later I think I am going to hit up some of the craft stores in town for some stuff I can use in my classroom!

Freebie:

I created a writing prompt for the kids to do on Monday. They will be able to write what their favorite part of Thanksgiving break was.

Click Here

Well... I am going to go and rest before we go out shopping again! I also might look at some of the AWESOME lessons on TpT that are on sale!

Long i Word Sort Freebie and Happy Thanksgiving

Next week we will be working on some of the long i spellings. In my "maydo" basket I always like to make a spelling sort that the kids can do. They love doing these and they are very easy to make! I thought I would share the one I made.

Click Here

I will probably not be posting during the break....I have A LOT I want to get done:

1. Finish my HUGE project for my masters class
2. Read 2 chapters in Leading Lesson Study, I am very excited to be chosen to complete this project for my building!
3. Make a Christmas wreath with one of my bffs. (I will take pics)
4. SHOPPING
5. I would say put my Christmas decorations out buuuut I already have them ALL out...ok I love Christmas time!
6.My favorite, hang out with my family!!!
7. Work on my next reading unit.
8. Finally....maybe relax!

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! Remember to always embrace the big things that happen, but remember the little things that happen!

What I am Thankful For...

Linky Party over at What the Teacher Wants!

Here are the things I am most thankful for:

1. I am thankful for all my students! They all mean the world to me and they keep me going everyday!

2. I am thankful for my family! My husband keeps me smiling everyday! My mother is my best friend and she means the world to me. My father supports me and helps me get through the hard times. My brother allows me to be goofy and keeps me young! And of course I am thankful for my four-legged baby, Bentley!

3. I am thankful for the following blogs:

Mrs Lemon's Blog! She provides great freebies!
Denise gives her reader great ideas and she is very creative
I go to Abby's blog to find great ideas I can use in my classroom

4. I am thankful for Starbucks Passion Fruit Tea!! Yum, it is one of my favorite guilty pleasures!

5. I am most thankful for being able to do something I love each day and having such a great family and group of friends that support and love me!

Word Family Freebies

It's almost Friday!!! "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming!" We are almost there! I am sad because I will not see my kids at all next week. I am apart of MTSS training at my District Board Office on Monday and Tuesday, then we are off for the holiday break.

Our school has what we call "Pioneer Time." This is when we group our kids into small groups for reading and math. I know everyone school and district calls it something different! My group is focused on some of the more advanced phonics sounds. We are currently working on digraphs. We always practice sounding out words, but I was frustrated because I was having to come up with the words on the spur of the moment. I therefore decided I was going to make word family cards for the specific sounds we were working on. I print them out then glue them on COLORFUL card stock and laminate. I also have them on a ring so they are handy. I totally had to share with all of my blog friends! I will continue to share as I add more, but here is what I have so far:

nk and ng word families

th, sh, ch, and wh word families

I hope everyone has a GREAT Friday! I am super excited to be going to dinner to celebrate my wonderful mother's birthday tomorrow and of course we will be Christmas shopping all weekend together too! I can't wait for our first snow! Totally ready to wear my boots, scarves, and hats!!!!

Glyph Directions/Pictures

Hey everyone! I am sorry I haven't posted in a while! I have been super busy! This past weekend (3 day weekend!) I traveled through 5 states two times, driving almost 20 hours total with one of my besties! We traveled from Kansas to Wisconsin to visit her family! It was so much fun, but I am little behind because of it!

Here is what we have been up to: GLYPHS! We have been working on our family unit and we wrapped it up by making a glyph about our family using our house. Here are some pictures:

Sorry the pictures are turned around! I don't know what happened! Also of course here are the directions so you can make your own: Directions!!!

I hope everyone has a GREAT rest of your week! We have A LOT of data meetings the next two days! I love looking at data and see my kids growth, so I am pretty excited!

Family Freebie Activities

We are getting ready to start our unit on family, Indians, and Pilgrims! I like to start off talking about our own families first. Then we are able to compare and contrast our families to the Indians and Pilgrims. I finally broke down and bought some clip art, so my activities look REALLY good. We will be first reading some books about family and completing the following writing activity:

We will also be making one of my favorite activities, GLYPHS! We will be making a house. Here are the directions:

I will put up pictures when we get these done!

Finally we will be talking about the roles each family member has in a family. I made this cute worksheet to go along with that:

Click Here for ALL of the Activities

Well we have a short week this week! We have an early release for PD on Wednesday and then we are off Friday for Veterans Day. My girlfriend Crystal and I are traveling to Wisconsin to visit her family. I am very excited to wear all my cute boots! It isn’t quite cold enough to wear them here in Kansas yet. I hope everyone has a great week!

P.S If you have not checked out Mrs. Lemons subtraction activities you should! I plan on using these to review during our small group math time!

Organization

Ok so anyone that knows me knows that I love to be organized (when I have the time). I have been creating some math games that go along with our current games in our EDM resource. The problem was I didn't have any space to put the games in my room. I went to Joan's and got an organizer and used clear labels and here is what it looks like...

I always feel better when I am organized. I am currently working on a sight word organization tool, I will share when I am done. How do you get organized??