SALE STARTS TODAY!!!

Don't Forget!  The Cyber Monday Sale starts today!

Head on over to TpT and check out my items as well as the following sellers that are offering an additional 20% along with the 10% that TpT is offering. (Make sure to enter CMS28 at checkout - only valid today.)  Every seller below will have their items at 20% off through Dec. 2nd.

Jodi Southard

Rachelle Smith

Natalie Kay

Anna Brantley

Lesson Plan SOS 

Melissa Freshwater

One Extra Degree

The Teacher Wife  

Michelle Oakes

Erica Bohrer

Kinderglynn

Primary Graffiti

Scrappin Doodles Black Friday Special

I just thought that some of you might be interested in the Scrappin Doodles Black Friday special that is going on until midnight tonight.

Click on the picture below to head on over and check it out.



Happy clipart shopping!

Cyber Monday Sale

Jodi Southard

Rachelle Smith

Natalie Kay

Anna Brantley

Lesson Plan SOS 

Melissa Freshwater

One Extra Degree

The Teacher Wife  

Michelle Oakes

Erica Bohrer

Kinderglynn

Primary Graffiti

Are you ready for an awesome

Cyber Monday sale on TpT?!?!  Many bloggers, including myself, are offering 20% off the products in our stores on top of the TpT 10% discount (use promo code CMS28 at checkout-valid only on Cyber Monday)! You can also enjoy 20% off our products from November 29th- December 1st!!

Happy Shopping to our Sweet Customers!!!

Here are some of the things you will find in my store:

           

         

   

And, much more! 

 

December Fluency Packet

I just posted my December Fluency Packet on Teacher's Notebook and Teachers Pay Teachers. 

There are 4 weeks worth of passages for those of you that may be in school for 4 weeks during December.  I will be starting my 1st week on Monday (November 28th).  We only have 3 weeks of school until Christmas Break so I will just be picking and choosing 15 of my favorite passages, or I may send 5 home as "Holiday Homework" over the 2 week break. 

The themes for this packet are Winter, Gingerbread, December Holidays (includes Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, and New Year's) and Christmas. 

If you aren't allowed to celebrate Christmas at your school or do any Christmas themes, you may want to purchase the first 3 weeks seperately and not buy the Christmas week.  I always post the entire packet as well as each individual week to allow for those that are just interested in one particular theme. 

Here are the samples for each week: {Just click on each picture to download.}

Winter

Gingerbread

December Holidays

Christmas

You can head on over to check them out.

I am Thankful for...

I'm linking up with What the Teacher Wants for their I'm Thankful Linky Party.

1.  What are you thankful for in your classroom?

I am very thankful for the fact that I teach 1st grade.  Our principal did an experiment with us last week where all of the teachers were paired up and had to switch grade levels for the morning.  I was sent to 5th grade for this experiment. The students were great and I loved certain aspects of it, but I was very happy to get back to the "Land of the Littles."  I also could NOT be more thankful for my team of 1st grade teachers.  They are a-ma-zing!  We are great friends and I am so blessed to work with both of them!!!!

2. What person are you most thankful for?
Absolutely, without a doubt, my husband and two children!  They are the light of my life :)

3. What 3 blogs are you most thankful for?

This one on the other hand is MUCH MORE DIFFICULT!  I love, love, love so many blogs that I have a hard time deciding.  However, I have to go back to my 3 standby's that I know will always have great ideas.

And, to add another to the list. 

She is seriously HILARIOUS!

 4. What guilty pleasure are you most thankful for?
Pinterest!  Love it and I'm absolutely addicted!

5. What are you most thankful for?

This could go on forever, but I'll keep it short.  My family {they are the best}, my job and my co-workers, great friends, and my health!

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Ok, ok, I know, we haven't even made it through Thanksgiving yet, but once it's 12:01 a.m. on Friday, November 25th, it's Christmas season!!  Since next week is only a 2 day week for us, I'm already getting some things ready for the following full week, which means... Christmas activities.  Wahoo!

I just posted my Christmas Activity Packet on Teacher's Notebook and Teachers Pay Teachers.

This is a 51 page packet that includes a ton of activities to keep your students busy and engaged during those cr-a-zy weeks before Christmas Break.  Here is the Table of Contents to give you an idea of what you will find.

I'm really excited about this packet and I know my students will have a blast!

You can head on over to check it out.

Word Lists

Something new that I started doing this year was to time the students on word lists each week.  I created lists of words to go along with our phonics skill for the week.  On Monday, I time each student while he/she reads the list.  I do this mostly during morning work time, restroom breaks, or when a child finishes something early, but sometimes I have to finish up during small group time.  I record their time on their list and send it home for them to practice during the week.  I also keep track of each student's time on my class list as well. Then on Friday, I time each student again.  They LOVE to see if they can beat their score.  Here are what the lists look like:

In the box, I would write somthing like, Jack's time on November 11th was 1 min. 32 sec.

Here is the class list where I keep track of the pre and post times.

You can download these for FREE at either Teachers Pay Teachers or Teachers Notebook.

I'd love to hear if you downloaded these and found them useful :)

Thanksgiving Bulletin Boards

I just thought that I would share two of my current Thanksgiving bulletin boards. 

The first one is a Math bulletin board. 

 I do not have a pattern for this, I just freehanded them.  But, I can tell you the dimensions of the paper.  You will need a 5x6 brown, 1x3 red, and 2x2 yellow for the turkey body.  I just cut out a bowling pin type shape for the body. 

Next, I labeled each brown part with a number (2-22).  The students colored a paper plate with a brown crayon and made their turkey body.

After the students make their bodies, pass out 6 feathers (approximately 3x6) to each student.  I guided them through ways to make their number.  We did each feather one at a time with different directions for each.  Each student had one with tally marks, 2 with addition number sentences, one with a subtraction number sentence, one with a picture to show their number, and one with money.



Another bulletin board in my room right now is a turkey body that I had made about 5 years ago using the overhead projector.  I put this up every year with feathers that the students write on to show what they are thankful for.

I have done others in the past where students have had to write about how they would cook a turkey.  You can find this idea at What the Teacher Wants.

What are some of your favorite Thanksgiving displays?

Veteran's Day

Veteran's Day is next week, so we've been learning about veterans this week.  We make a huge deal about Veteran's Day at our school and I am so thankful for that.  My brother is in the Air Force and I could not be more proud of him for his sacrifice to our country.  We discussed what a Veteran is and what the military does for our country.  Next, we wrote letters to veterans to thank them for their service.

Click to download



Next, we made the soldiers found in Deanna Jump's Veteran's Day Unit.

They loved these!  Tomorrow, we will be completing this Veteran's Day Booklet that I created.

It's just a quick 6 page booklet that the students will have fun doing while learning about Veteran's Day and some of the vocabulary words that are associated with Veteran's Day.  The booklet contains a word search, a crack the code, a fill in the blank comprehension reading page, and two other pages.  I have uploaded this booklet to TpT and I hope to get it uploaded to Teacher's Notebook tonight.

What are some of your favorite Veteran's Day activities?

Christmas Cards from Shutterfly

Halloween is over and it's officially November.  Do you know what that means?  Time to start thinking about Christmas cards.  Some years, I'm on top of it and others I wait until the last minute and I'm scrambling the week before Christmas to get them out.  I'm hoping this year I won't be waiting until the last minute.  The good news is that I have already searched through the gazillion options available at Shutterfly.  If you have never used Shutterfly, I highly recommend them.  I have created and purchased numerous photo books in the past through Shutterfly and I LOVE them.  I used to scrapbook, but haven't done it since finding Shutterfly.  It's so much easier and much more affordable. 

Shutterfly also has tons of other options like calendars and other photo gifts.

After searching through all of the Christmas card options and narrowing it down to close to 25, I still can't decide, but I think I have a few top choices.

I like the modern feeling of this one.

 I love the idea of including a sentence about each person.  Cute!

I like the bold colors on black.

This one gives me the option of including a lot of pictures.

 I still have a little bit of time to decide, but I love them all.  I keep my photo Christmas cards up all year long on a card display from Pottery Barn, so I feel like I need to make my Christmas cards great just in case anyone else does this too ;)

Now I just need to break out the camera and go capture some really great shots of my kids!

I did receive a free product from Shutterfly for this post, but I truly love Shutterfly and have had great experiences with them.