Last Post of 2012!

I can hardly believe it is almost 2013!  After taking a few weeks off of blogging, I am starting to work on a  new math and literacy pack for January--February.  So, here is a freebie for my followers before it goes into the pack!

Have a safe and happy New Year's!
Corinna

Freebie Companion Pack to Use With My Santa's Christmas Math Centers

Hi Friends!  I am so thankful for my followers and for the people who bought my products on TpT!  So, here is a FREEBIE for you!  I created "Evens & Odds, Numbers & Gnomes," which has math worksheets & signs for you to use along with my Teachers Pay Teachers Product, “Santa’s Christmas Math & Literacy Centers” or as a stand-alone item.  Scroll down to see pictures of some of the items you'll get.

This companion pack contains:
**Evens & Odds helper signs
**Greater Than, Less Than, & Equal To helper signs
** Evens & Odds worksheet
**Greater Than/Less Than worksheet
**Standard Notation to Expanded Notation worksheet
**Expanded Notation to Standard Notation worksheet

 

I'm also linking up to TBA's Freebie Friday!  So, after you download my freebie, take a look at some others!  If you're a new visitor and/or follower, be sure to comment and leave your info so I can visit your blog, too!  Thanks!

Have a great week, Everybody!
Corinna

Freebie on the First!

Happy December, Everybody!  I must say that the Christmas season is SO much fun with little Firsties!  We had fun making Christmas Countdown Chains.  Pretty much everything from now until December 22nd is going to have to keep my kiddos' attention. My first Teachers Pay Teachers' Cyber Monday was successful (for a newbie!) and I had fun buying great products, too!    Now, it is time for holiday freebies!  I am joining up with Freebielicious for "Fabulicious Freebies on the First!"

Here is a FREEBIE my kids have fun doing and it helps my kids with counting and place value.  It is similar to my pages in my Santa's Christmas Math and Literacy Centers.  You can click on the picture to download one for yourself!

 

I am so thankful for all of my friends and followers!  Thanks for visiting!

Corinna

Fun With Santa!

I am SO ready with a full cart at Teacher's Pay Teachers for their big Cyber Monday sale! Maybe your cart would like my new Santa's Christmas Math and Literacy Centers pack? Take a peek!


CLICK THE PICTURE ABOVE



So, this is why my house is still a mess after having a week off! :)  I hope you like it!

My sweet blogging buddy, Leslie, The Groovy Teacher, has some fantastic new products that you really need to take a look at.  Her Super Math Pack 1 and 2 will change the way you teach problem solving with your students.  She also has a fun new Christmas Writing Pack that is great.  Click on the wreath below to see for yourself.

 

Have a joyful week!

Corinna





Christmas Fun & TpT Sale!

If you are like me, you already know about Teachers Pay Teachers' gigantic Cyber Monday and Bonus Tuesday sale--and you've already pre-shopped and filled your cart with goodies! 

In case you need some new Christmas activities, I've created my first big product: Santa's Christmas Math and Literacy Centers!

I am excited that I finally finished it (thank goodness for our Thanksgiving week break)!  I hope you go and check it out.  There are 12 centers included.  When you download the preview, a FREEBIE Making Words activity is included.  But, since you're my fabulous followers, I'm including another FREEBIE for you.  Click on the picture below to download your freebie. 

Thanks for visiting!  Have a great day!

Corinna

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am very thankful for the wonderful people who follow my blog and for all of my virtual "teammates" whose blogs inspire me every day! Thank you!!!

 

And the winner is...

Congratulations to Beth Ann!  She is the winner of the coveted Classroom Friendly Supplies' Quietest (and best ever) pencil sharpener!  Sorry for the announcement delay.  Rafflecopter rolled out some new features that were a little too new for the kinks to be worked out.  So, I had to do a little investigating to find who the winner was.  Beth Ann, I'll be contacting you soon to get your address and color choice of sharpener! 

 

Have a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving with your families!
Corinna

It is Giveaway Time!!! You KNOW you want this Pencil Sharpener!!!

Do you hear that?!?  It is the sound of people rejoicing that The Quietest Pencil Sharpener Ever is back in stock and ready for you to buy and/or WIN one!  Troy, the wonderful teacher/owner of Classroom Friendly Supplies is donating one of his pencil sharpeners for one of my fabulous followers!  In case you missed my post about these pencil-sharpening wonders, scroll down below the Rafflecopter.  You will get your pick of a red, blue, or green sharpener if you win!  Check out how happy my Firsties are when sharpening their pencils.  Yes, I have more than one QPSE...Don't be jealous. :)  So, what are you waiting for?  Enter now via Rafflecopter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


So, if you are like me and you are a blog stalker and/or you spend more time on Pinterest than on cleaning, you have seen/heard about The Quietest Classroom Pencil Sharpener from Classroom Friendly Supplies. I wondered what made this sharpener so great. I know everybody has those old-school pencil grinders sharpeners that chew a new pencil up until it is a sad stump the maintenance guy says have "brand new blades and it should work like new? After spending a small fortune each year to buy electric sharpeners, I hovered around my $50 sharpener to make sure that NOBODY put their COLORED PENCILS or *shudder* those plastic-wrapped pretty pencils into it to ruin it. That is, until I finally tried The Quietest Class Pencil Sharpener. I had one shipped to me and it arrived very quickly. It comes with a clamp that you can use to attach it to a table or shelf, but I had to see how it worked without that, since it claimed to work fine that way. Well, hold on to your hats and glasses, because this sharpener does everything it claims to do! In fact, it knocked my socks off, or it would have if I didn't have shoes on! It sharpens easily and quickly. The point is VERY sharp and pointy. I had never seen a pencil that sharp! My fabulous Mama also ordered me two more of these babies, so my blue sharpener would have some company. So, the true test was if my little Firsties could use this on their own. Was it quiet? Yes. Would I settle for it being noisy if only my kids could sharpen their pencils? Yes! But, I didn't have to settle. It worked great and the kids LOVE it. In fact, they started to fight over sharpening pencils....They broke pencils ON PURPOSE just to get a chance to use the sharpener. So, I decided that whoever got their math warm-ups done first could sharpen pencils. Woo-hoo! You would have thought that I promised them money or candy, because there was a stampede of kids finishing warm-ups in record time. Now, it is a "Friday Surprise" choice, by popular demand! The kids can sharpen their pencils quietly and independently. Need proof? Check out one of my happy Firsties! This is his first time getting his hands on the sharpener and he is SO excited!

Isn't he adorable?!? Also, sharpening it was easy-peasy! Check out my other buddy who couldn't even wait to get his backpack off before getting his math warm-up done so he could sharpen the pencils. He LOVES the sharp point! LOL!

Corinna

Have a great week!
Corinna

Math Centers and a Thanksgiving Freebie!

What a week!  I was SO glad to see dismissal time roll around and my four-day weekend begin!  We have a non-paid "furlough" day attached to our Veteran's Day weekend.  Then, next week I have just 4 days to get in all of the last-minute assessments before doing report cards.  Maybe I over-think my grades, but I just want parents to know exactly how their child is doing and I want to know how best to help my struggling students. 

I finally have my math centers/math tubs going!  Yay!  They are allowing me to work with a small group of students that need extra help while they practice math in a fun, engaging way.  The first time the kids got to use them, they worked for AN HOUR without any problems!  I couldn't believe it!  Of course, by the time my centers were all prepared and ready to go, we only had about a week left of October.  But, the kids are ready to try out the November math centers next week.    Here is what I did for our Halloween Math Work Stations.  I made a chart listing the options, with a little screen shot of the games.   This allows my beginning readers to find the correct game more easily.

Does this format look familiar to you?
The district adopted Bridges a million years ago and the only part I liked was the Work Stations recording sheets.
 So, I made my own sheets with FUN math games made by great bloggers!!!

The kids have to play all of the games once, then after that they may revisit some favorite stations.  They have to keep track of which stations they've been to by coloring in a symbol on the sheet (pumpkins, Pilgrim hats, Christmas trees, etc...).  I staple the chart to the front of a pocket-folder.  When kids play a game that has a recording sheet, they put the sheet inside of the folder.  At the end of the week (or however long we use the math tubs), I staple the chart to all of the recording sheets so that I may do a quick check of how the kids did and parents can see what we're doing for math.  The kids are loving this and so am I!  I have to give some shout-outs to some of my favorite bloggers who have fabulous TpT items that I use for my work stations.  I LOVE Anna Brantley and all of her centers!  I used her "Fall is Here" and "Gobble, Gobble, Gobble" centers for our upcoming November math stations!  Her products are so good (I've already purchased her "Holly Jolly" and "Wnter Wonderland" centers)!   For my Halloween math stations, I used Leslie Hope's "Halloween Math Centers--BOO!"  Leslie is The Groovy Teacher blogger, so go and check her out.  She is one of my FAVORITES.  Her style is exactly how I'd want to make things, but I don't have to because she already did!  Teach With Laughter'shttp://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Teach-With-Laughter "Halloween Math {10 Work Stations}" is WONDERFUL!  The directions are so clear for the kids and they love the games!  I have a lot of her products on my wishlist.  I could go on and on, but I want to share a freebie with you!

Here is a quick and easy literacy center activity for November: Thanksgiving ABC Order Center!  Click on the picture to download it for yourself!  Let me know how you like it.  If you are a new follower, leave me your contact info so I can visit you, too!

 

Have a lovely week!

Corinna

Counting, Making Tens,and Tallying Freebie

One of my favorite bloggers, Leslie Hope at The Groovy Teacher, had a great Halloween counting activity that I used with my kids.  I had thought it would have been pretty easy, but I learned A LOT about who needs more help with counting.  It turned out to be an excellent informal assessment.  If you'd like to see her original post and idea, click HERE.  So, I decided we needed to do this activity again and Leslie generously gave me the OK to use her idea.  I made some Thanksgiving-themed counting activities that you can get HERE.



















Have a great week, Everybody!
Corinna

Haunted House Patterning "Mathtivity" & Freebie

I saw a Haunted House Patterning project on Pinterest, but I wanted to change the rhyme... so, I tweaked it a bit. You can get my freebie version HERE.  My kiddos first cut out a black Haunted House and added a few details with Construction Paper Crayons and white crayons.  They had to choose a pattern using an A and B in some variation.  They wrote their pattern name on my new little rhyme page.  Then, they used their thumbs to stamp orange "pumpkins" and white "ghosts" in the pattern they chose.  They had such fun doing it!  When it was dry, they added details to the ghosts and pumpkins using black Sharpies and/or Construction Paper Crayons.  Here are some of my little pumpkins working on their project.

 

Have a great week!

Corinna

Freebie Friday Fall Work Work

I'm so happy to be done with Parent Conferences.  It was nice to meet with the families, but I am glad to have a three-day weekend to blog stalk, shop on TPT,  recover my voice and hang out with my Hubby. I know I'm kind of a dork, but I was super excited about coming home, checking my email and finding that I had sold a bunch of my TPT things! I am also getting excited about planning new November activities to do with my Firsties.  

I just had to use my new ThistleGirl graphics, so I whipped up a spelling practice page and linked up with TBA's Freebie Friday.  Write some of your spelling words in the first column before reproducing this page.  Then, students will practice writing the words in "pumpkin/Halloween-ish" colors.  I hope you can use it. 

How are you celebrating Halloween with your students?  We're going  to do Halloween themed math and literacy centers all day, followed by some goodies.  Don't you wish Halloween would just fall on the last Friday of October?  Obviously, nobody consulted with a teacher on this! 

 

If you're thinking about doing an election unit, check out Learning with Mrs. Leeby's "Get Out and Vote" pack.  It is full of great ideas to use with your kiddos.

 

Have a super weekend!

Corinna ¢

 

 

 

I've Been Boo'd!

My Bloggy Buddy, LaToya at Flying into First has "BOO'd" me!  She was recently featured on Teachers Pay Teachers for her fabulous 50th Day Celebration Freebie.  You've got to visit, if you haven't already followed her.  Click on her logo below go meet LaToya  Then, before I had time to reply, Pinetreelia, another wonderful blogging friend, Boo'd me, too!  So I'm feeling the love right now.  Pinetreelia's blog A Grade One Nut and Her Squirrely Crew Pinetreelia has another blog about Whole Brain Teaching, which I find fascinating!  Click HERE to check that blog out, too.

 Here's how to play.

1. Choose a fellow blogger that has MORE followers, another that has about the SAME number of followers, and last, someone that has LESS followers. 
2. Highlight their blogs with links to encourage others to check them out. Don't forget to let your fellow bloggers know that you shared about them. 
3. Lastly, leave them some love by offering them a goody from your store as their "treat."

Here are the bloggers I am BOO'ing. Just click on their button to check out their blogs.

1.  Leslie at The Groovy Teacher has been a great inspiration and very supportive.  Her ideas and products are fabulous!  She also makes products that I wish I'd made myself.  She's a must-read and a must-follow!

 2.  Reagan at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits is one of my favorite bloggers and my Teachers Pay Teachers wish list is full of her goodies!  I hope to be just like her in about 2,000 more followers! :)

 

3.  To Be Continued...I'm still trying to find a newbie blogger for my 3rd BOO. :)

Have a good night, Everybody!

Corinna

Freebie, New Product, & Giveaways...Oh, My!!!

I am so excited about my upcoming 200 Fabulous Follower Giveaway!  I have a special prize (Yay!)that will be given away, but you'll have to finish reading this post for more details!

I thought it would be fun to make a sight word practice game or two for my little Firsties.  Well...that took A LOT longer than I had imagined, due to my OCD attention to detail.  But, here is a little sneaky-peek at my Halloween Sight Word Games.  What do you think?  It is available at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Click to check it out!

Thank goodness for Oregon's unpaid/optional 3 Day Weekend "Inservice Day" on Friday! It gave me lots of time to catch up on things that are really important, like catching up on reading blogs doing laundry. Hmmm...I think blog-stalking counts as Inservice! I downloaded over 60 new items from my favorite bloggers this weekend!  I'm late for Freebie Friday, but I created a Halloween Candy Word Work sheet.  I have to keep spelling practice fun for my Firsties.  Otherwise a lot of times kids say, "I forgot," when I ask where their work is.  I know what kids mean when they say "I forgot."  It means, "This is not fun or worth my time."  Like when "I forgot" to do my laundry this weekend.  *sigh*  So, here it is!  Spelling practice with the magic motivating word, "candy!"  Click on the pic to download!

I am almost to 200 Fabulous Followers!  That gives me another excuse to have a giveaway!  I've been so excited about this, but I won't let all of the details out of the bag yet.  OK fine...You forced it out of me...I'll just give you a hint.  A BIG hint.  How do you like my delicious, personalized notebook from Maybooks.com?  I bet you'd love one of your own?  In your own favorite design and colors?  Stay tuned...

Speaking of 200 Follower Giveaways...Halle & Jenna's Across the Hall in 2nd Grade is having a 200 Follower Giveaway with LOTS of great bloggers' goodies!  There are three opportunities to win!  Click below to visit.

If you've read this whole post, thank you!!!  If you'd like one of your products to be included in my giveaway, please let me know soon.

 

Have a great week, Everybody!  I'd love to hear your thoughts on my freebie and/or how you keep your kiddos motivated during the pre-Halloween weeks!

Corinna

Pig in a Wig? Thanks, Reading Street!

So...our district adopted the Scott Foresman Reading Street program (*sigh*).  The stories (at least for now) are not even close to authentic literature.  So, we try to focus on the week's "targets" and teach them using better literature.  At least the kids are amused by the thought of a pig in a wig, even if it isn't the most creative story they've ever read.  For our Word Work station, we will do a short i word sort that I put together.  Even if you aren't using the Reading Street program, you could still use this for an easy short i word family practice sheet. Click the picture below for your FREEBIE copy.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5HmeWLoRfDGR04za2VQNjNJeGc/view?usp=sharing

Do you have Reading Street as your school's reading adoption?  I'd love to hear how you use it and which supplemental stories you use to teach the standards.  Maybe we could make a linky group to share Reading Street ideas?

Have a great week!
Corinna

Fall Word Work Freebie!

I'm just going to pretend that it hasn't been a few weeks since my last post.  To help you overlook that fact, I'm posting a Fall Word Work Freebie!  Just to make practicing their spelling words a little more exciting, my students will write their spelling words in fall leaf colors.  Writing words in color is SO much more fun for them.  Click on the picture below to download.  If you enjoy the freebie, I'd love to hear your comments!  Have a great week, Everybody!

Corinna

Sleep-in Saturday (Freebies) Surprise!

Hello Blog Friends!  Sorry for the brief blogging hiatus, but for some reason, I've been extremely busy at school!  Go figure!  ;)  Am I the only teacher who forgets just how much STUFF you have to do for the first few weeks of school?  It has only been 8 days and I'm always at school for 2-3 hours after the kids leave!    When I work late, it is very quiet and I tend to get more "me time" to get things done without other distractions.  Though, our piece of junk lovely copy machine and I got into a fight and I had to go through a 10 step process to get all of the bits and pieces of jammed paper out of it.  Just in case I hadn't realized what kind of mess I'd  it made, it beeped at me and flashed its evil red eyes red light at me!  I know, rude, right?  Darned copy machine!  Luckily, I LOVE teaching my Firsties, so it is worth it!

So, here are some things that I had forgotten about teaching first grade:

1. Firsties need to take a lot of bathroom breaks!  I mean A LOT!  Since I am not too keen on having pee in my classroom, I have to just assume that they really need to go...10 times a day...during my instruction...as soon as we're outside for recess and far from a bathroom...after they already have their lunch tray...one second before boarding the buses.  Does anyone else experience this?
2. When you tell kids to put their names on papers, not all of the kids know HOW to write their names!  I really don't remember that happening, ever!  But, it does now and it makes me sad.  Isn't that one of the first things eager parents do once they can get their child to hold a crayon?  So, I will be making handwriting/learn to spell your own name sheets, pronto!  I always have a list of my kids in a Word document table, so I can make "mail merge" items (checklists, labels, etc...).  My favorite thing to merge are student names in ruled handwriting fonts.  I print names out with a ruled style, trace the dots style, then blank ruled lines for practice.  We did D'Nealian handwriting up until a year ago.  Now, we're doing ball and stick handwriting.  I still haven't found the perfect font.  I didn't really want to pay for the Zaner-Blozer font, but the "ABC Print Lined" font isn't quite perfect, nor is "Penmanship Print."  Does anyone have a great ruled/lined font that they use?  Please share!
3. Firsties will cry over school supplies.  They can go from smiling and laughing to full blown hysterics when they drop their perfect big-kid box of crayons on the floor.  This is usually followed by an "I want my mommy!" or "I want to go home!"  They will also cry over misplacing their Hello Kitty, Darth Vader, or Monster High lunchboxes.  Logic doesn't work in this case.  Even though the lunchbox was used just a half-hour ago, Firsties tend to panic that the missing lunchbox is gone forever!  Firsties will pull out the "I have to go potty" excuse just to wander down the hall looking for their lunchbox in the lost and found.  Firsties may also repeat this process every day like it had never happened before.  Panic-cry-search-relief!  New day-panic-cry-search-relief.
4. Firsties say the cutest/funniest things!  After our back-to-school assembly, one of my little boys told me "I'm calming myself by being a whale," in all seriousness.  The next day, he asked me what he was (as he made crab pincher motions).  I guessed, a crab?  He doesn't tell me I'm correct, but he starts making really fast crab pincher motions along with clicking sounds for some crab applause.  Ya gotta love it!  Another little guy told me he wanted to sleep in dad's room (though this took about 2 minutes to explain).  I asked if Dad snored.  He said he didn't know because he was "too busy sleeping and having happy dreams."  What dreams?  "Really happy dreams about Legos.  It was really good."
5. Nothing is better than a tiny little hand that reaches out to hold your hand when walking down the hall.  Or a tiny little hug.  Or tiny little bodies that scoot closer and closer to you during a story.  Or tiny little people who think you are the funniest teacher ever when you use expression while reading stories.  Or tiny little kids who totally believe that you really will find Pete the Cat while searching through the school on Pete's School Tour.  Ahhhhh...First Grade.  My heart is happy!

To make up for the (gasp!) no Freebie Friday, I'll post something after my breakfast nap breakfast.  Well, my breakfast may take an hour or two, so I'll go ahead and post it now.  The first freebie is a September Writing Sample that I have my kids do during the first week of school.  This gives me a quick idea of who will need what support once we start Writer's Workshop.  The second freebie is a handwriting assessment.  It lets me know who is going to need some serious help with their handwriting automaticity so that they will be able to get their ideas on paper.  I also watch as the kids write to see who has to really look at the sample to make the letters match or who has to look at his/her name tag to see how to spell their name.

My bloggy buddy, LaToya is having a 100 Follower Giveaway with 14 donations from other bloggers (myself included)!   Head on over to her blog, Flying into First Grade and check her out!  You'll want to send your friends over, too!  Rafflecopter is waiting for you!  Click on the picture below to visit.

Have a great weekend!
Corinna

Ready or Not, Here They Come!!!

Wow!  What a week!  You can tell that I was not able to do back-to-school things AND blog this past week.  Fail!  I'm still getting used to the whole not sleeping until noon waking-up-with-an-alarm-clock thing and I've been missing those random naps quiet times during the day.  So, here is the week in a nutshell...well, I'm allergic to nuts, so here is the week in a...really tiny shell of some sort.

This week was filled with Staff Development Meetings, some of which were good and others which were n-o-t!  My Fabulous Mama and my BFF Ruby came to help power through the unpacking of my room.  They even helped when I was in meetings!  Mama also went shopping because she though we needed cute seats with zebra print to match my focus wall!  Wait until you see how cute they are!Now, I'm down to organizing the random stuff...oh, and planning for CHILDREN that are coming next Wednesday!  What do I have planned so far?  Well, playing "Who Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar?" and eating cookies, of course!  I even found Jungle (Circus Cookie Style) Cookies to go with my Jungle theme!  I don't know what it is about those cookies, but the waxy frosting and hard little sprinkles taste especially good and magical during back-to-school time!  So, classroom pictures are on the way, but not until everything is in place.

I get the pleasure of teaching with my buddy Mary, who had to teach (gasp!) MIDDLE SCHOOL last year and she's teaching first grade for the first time this year!  I taught her little boy years ago and he's practically a grown up now!   I also get to teach with my buddy Machelle. I first met her when we took our ESOL and Reading Endorsement classes and she is WON-DER-FUL!  Rounding out our team is Anne, whom I taught with my very first year of teaching in my district, and now she is teaching her last year before retirement.  No, I am not the reason she wants to retire...I don't think.  ;)   But, it is fun to get to teach with her again.  I am looking forward to doing fun things with these ladies!

So, since I missed Freebie Friday, I have a "So Free Saturday!"  I'm putting these little "luggage tags" on the kids' backpacks so when kids cry one minute before dismissal because they don't know who is picking them up,  I'll know exactly how they go home.

I hope you can use these!  Have a great holiday weekend!
Corinna

To Desk or Not To Desk...?

So, I am thinking about giving up my teacher desk to make more room for the 32+ Firsties that will be coming next week.  I would love to hear about anyone else who gave up the desk and if you love or hate the idea.  BTW, this cute picture is how my desk NEVER looks!  :)

Have a great week, Everybody!  I'm FINALLY going to get in my classroom tomorrow!   Pictures will come later...

Corinna