Apples!

Time has been flying for me! I think missing the first 6 weeks of school due to maternity leave has to be the best thing ever! I go back in 1 week and due to having a wonderful sub I think this is going to be a great transition. I've been going into school every Monday morning, toting along Sullivan, partly to run copies and drop off lesson plans, but also to visit my class and let them get used to me a bit. I am about 30% eager to get back in the classroom and get to know all my cuties better, and 70% sad to be leaving Sullivan at daycare so soon. My students, on the other hand, are about 110% ready for me to be their teacher, if the eager greetings and hugs I get are anything to go by!

Speaking of Sullivan, he experienced his first fire drill last week when it went off while we were in the work room. Luckily the noise didn't bother him at all, and he enjoyed the brief trip outside (partly because he was passed around between teachers and our cook!) Of course I have to share a picture or two, so here ya go, here's my little man:

I thought for sure I'd be able to get so much accomplished during my 6 weeks of leave. I forgot how time consuming a new baby is! Between feeding, burping, changing and rocking to sleep, some days I hardly have time for a shower! But, I did come up with a new Apple Math Fun center pack. This one is Common Core aligned for Kindergarten and it has 9 fun activities! I printed and laminated all week - and it took me that long because Sullivan has a sixth sense about when Mama is about to start printing, cutting or laminating and chooses that moment to start fussing lol! Here are some pictures:

This is one of my favorites: Students look at the picture to fill in the graph and then complete the recroding sheet, answering questions about more than, less than and equal to. I laminate my sheets so they can be used with dry erase markers!

 I also included lots of number recognition and counting activities, including Roll & Cover with 1 or 2 dice, a number order puzzle for 1-10, 11-20 and 10-100 by 10'sand 1-10 counting puzzles!

 There's a missing number Read & Write the room too - and there are 4 different sets of cards so you can differentiate!

This one is my favorite - we play Hide N Seek with our sight words all the time (click here to see the different sets I have) but this is the first time I made a Hide N Seek for shapes! There are 2d and 3d shape cards, and the shapes have different orientations, sizes, and colors. You just hide the apple pie card behind a card and the students "seek" it by identifying the shape on the card they think its hiding behind. There are 2 count and color sheets with this one - one for the 2d shapes and one for the 3d shapes.

I also have a patterning activity with AB, AAB, ABB and ABC patterns, which is one of our "highly recommended" skills even though its not in the Common Core. I also made a cute spinner with apple goodies and the kiddos graph their spin each time - the recording sheet is printed 2 to a page to cut down on paper use too!

 Tonight only I'll have this pack on sale - its normally $4.50 but its marked down to $3.50 until midnight! Click the picture to check it out!

When I go back to school next week we are going to work on my favorite Apple craftivity - apple trees for all seasons:

I print out a simple bare tree, have the students cut it out and glue it down and decorate it for the seasons - for summer its torn paper, in spring its tissue paper flowers, and for fall and winter they use paint! I love displaying these!
 

Oh! and the winner of the $25 Oriental Trading gift card was Patricia Schena! I'll be having another giveaway this week, so check back to see what it is!