Early Bird Sale!

Are you gearing up for the Cyber Monday and Tuesday Sale at TPT?! I can't wait! But, on the other hand, I'd like to be able to purchase some of the things on my wishlist now so I can prep them over the weekend to use next week. If you're like me, you'll love this:

In honor of Black Friday, I am joining a whole bunch of my blogging buddies, and putting my entire TPT store on sale on Friday, November 29!

On Friday only, you can save 20% off

 of every single product!

If you choose to wait for Cyber Monday and Tuesday you'll receive an additional 10% off with the code CYBER, this is just an option for those of you who want to shop early so you can get it prepped for next week!

BragTags, Milk Carton Turkeys and a Freebie!

Good morning! Are you gearing up for next week or are you off the whole week? I have school on Monday and Tuesday and then I'm off for 5 wonderful days to spend time with my kiddos! I'm iffy on doing the whole Black Friday thing - so far I haven't seen anytrhing I truly need to wake up for, and of course, Sullivan wakes me up quite frequently still. I'm thinking if I have to wake up early I'd rather spend time cuddling with him:

I finally get to post about my BragTags! Since I had a substitute at the beginning of the year, I didn't bring out my BragTags at first, so I was excited to debut them this week and my students love them!

This is my board - I stretched the fabric and stapled it to the back. My husband painted the letters and stars and tacked them on and added the hooks. It is perfect for my Cowboy theme!

So far I have awarded tags for our Character Pumpkins as well as our Sight Word Stars (3 kiddos out of 27! We have so much work to do!) I had 2 sweeties turn in their Turkey Disguises early so they received their tags for that too - I'm hoping the other 25 remember theirs on Monday! I can't wait to see the creativity! I have  tags for "Falcon of the Month" as well and it is sooo hard to pick each month! And of course the yellow boot tags are just for being part of my class :)

Here's what the board looks like with the necklaces hung on it. I am ordering more this weekend - have to think of a fun one for a holiday homework packet - my new teammate wants to send one home over the break, so instead of taking a grade on it I will give a BragTag for anyone who completes and returns it. imagestuff.com is an awesome website - it is so easy to get the free proofs and order the BragTags. Our Student Council is looking at these as a whole school motivation tool for next year!

Oh! We made our Thankful Milk Carton Turkeys this week too - how cute did these turn out?!

 This year we used Mod Podge to attach strips of brown tissue paper. Some just layered the strips while others crumpled theirs into balls for a puffier look. I love how different they all are!

 

For the head I just had the kids "draw a circle with a rectangle for the neck". I love how this one is so skinny! He was also proud of his patterned feathers :)

Our turkeys are going to roost in our classroom tree until we write our list of things to be thankful for and stick them inside. Then the kids will take them home as centerpieces for their Thanksgiving tables! Oh! And we are getting so smart about turkeys! When I was talking about the turkeys roosting in the tree one of my kiddos said "Oh, these must be wild turkeys since domestic turkeys are too heavy to fly!" Love it!

Last week I shared some of my Math games and had a few requests for the Scoop & Tally recording sheet. Click here to go grab it for free!

A Peek at Our Thanksgiving Plans Plus a Freebie!

Good morning! We've had a huge change in weather here in Oklahoma this week. We actually had to wear jackets to school! Can you believe it got down to 32 degrees? And then jumped right back up to 75! Of course this means that all the nasty little bugs are going around. I managed to get a stomach bug and had to stay home on Thursday - apparently 9 of my kiddos had the same bug as they were also absent! Luckily no one else in the family succumbed, at least so far (knock on wood!) In fact, Sullivan has been the most cheerful little guy and is really enjoying the Jungle gym we got him. This morning he was cracking me up with the noises he was making so I thought I'd share:

Even though we only had 4 days this week, we managed to pack in a lot of fun. One of the things we are doing is practicing standing at attention and saying the Pledge of allegiance because the local news channel is coming out to film us! My kiddos are sooo excited to be on tv, and its a great motivator because you know only those kiddos that make good choices can be on tv, right?  I have no idea when they're coming to film or when it will air, but I will try to share it when it does!

My student teacher came up with some fun math games this week, plus we recycled a few others:

This was a shake and add game that the kids loved. They shook the pennies in the egg carton and added the numbers that they landed in.

 They love Read and Write the Room activities and this Scarecrow Addition one is a favorite! I've made one for missing addends and one for telling time in my new Turkey Math pack.

They loved this Scoop and Tally game - they used the ice cream scoops to grab some coins. Made me hungry though lol.

They also did some coin rubbings and then labeled the rubbings with the coin name and value. We figured out that in order to do this properly we really needed to stick the coins to the table with a little tape, otherwise they slid around too much.

 We also did a Spin and Graph game with scarecrows from my Fall Graphing Pack. I like to include at least one graphing activity just to keep the skill fresh.

Next week we start our Thanksgiving study in earnest. We'll be using activities from several of my packs:

We'll be using magnifying glasses to find and record the addition sentences from my Thanksgiving Addition Search pack.

My Turkey Math pack is full of fun activities, including this fact family matching game.

My kiddos need some help learning the difference between questions and statements so we'll be using my Thanksgiving Questions Vs Statements pack.

We'll be doing ending sounds, vowel sounds, syllables and alphbetical order activities from my Thanksgiving Skills pack.

We'll be working with measurement and telling time with my Turkey Time pack.

Finally, we'll be reviewing word families with this FREEBIE! Head over to my TpT store to grab it!

I'm off to cut and laminate in between feeding and playing with Sullivan. Have a great day!

Veterans Day Pics, Turkey Math & a Freebie!!

Happy Veterans Day! I'm so happy to have this day off to spend with my family! In years past we had professional development on Veterans Day, but this year we got it off! My husband had a 4 day weekend (one thing to love about the Army, 4 day weekends for federal holidays!) so he was tasked with taking Sullivan to the doctor for his check-up and shots. Good news - Sullivan's hip click is gone so no more worries about dysplasia! Bad news - his skin is soooo dry but the only thing we can put on it is hydrocerin since he's so young, and the hydrocerin does almost nothing for it, so rather than having baby soft skin, Sullivan's little forehead feels like sandpaper :(  He apparently took his shots like a champ but was a bit sad that evening:

On Friday my school had a Veterans Day breakfast. In addition to myself, 3 other teachers at my school are vets! Our music teacher  put together a great program and I thought the cafeteria looked super:

My class did our part to help decorate the hallways for Veterans Day with this cute craft from Hadar:

Its kind of hard to read, but this one says "Thank you for serving our country. You are the best soldier in the world."

 "Thank you for fighting for freedom Thank you for our country. I love you soldier." Awww!

Our Veteran's Day Roll & Cover games were a hit inside the classroom too!

I'm spending today cleaning house and getting progress reports finished (progress reports already?! Didn't I just send home report cards?!). Yesterday I finished up my Turkey Math pack that covers all the skills we have been working on, plus the ones coming up in the next several weeks. Can I just say that I love teaching math and this pack makes me so happy! Its going to be so much fun that I'm rather jealous of my student teacher - it has been so hard to stay out of my room! This week I ducked back in several times to help out with our craft and do a few lessons, but next week I'm turning over the reins 100%! Anyways, here are some images from this pack:

 Turkey Ten Frames for number sense and missing addends.

Spin & Graph, plus finding 10 more/10 less/1 more/1less with base ten blocks, number lines and 120 chart.

 Fact Family Barns!

Read & Write the Room with time to the hour and 1/2 hour, more base ten blocks practice, and another graphing sheet.

Addition & Subtraction Roll & Cover Games, Read & Write the Room Missing Addend edition, Missing Addend clothespin activity, plus more practice sheets!

There are 7 different math center activities and 12 print & go practice sheets! If you'd like a chance to win a copy, Rustle Up a Response below and I'll choose two winners tonight at 10pm!

I also made a quick Turkey themed "I have... Who has..?" game for practicing CVC words. Head over to my TPT store to grab it for free!

Oh! And in honor of Veterans Day, I'll share this sweet pic of when hubby and I first met :)

Monster Spray, Veterans Day & a Freebie Hop!

Did you survive Halloween? My kiddos were actually pretty good both Thursday and Friday...or maybe I am just getting used to the craziness?! Sullivan spent most of the night exploring his hands - he is just learning how to get them in his mouth!

We had so much fun last week with Debbie Clement's Monster Spray song! Oh my goodness, I told my kiddos to close their eyes and imagine their monster as we listened to the song and I took the most precious video. I really wish I could share it because my kiddos were moving and dancing in their seats, spraying the monsters and at the end a chorus of voices called out "I got my monster!" "I know what mine looks like!" It was awesome! We made a class book and here are a few of their pages:

This week we are going to be learning Debbie's "Red, White and Blue" song for Veterans Day. I absolutely love the book that goes with the song! Such gorgeous illustrations and the song is super catchy. My kiddos always love learning the sign language too!


Before we hop into learning about Thanksgiving and all things turkey, we're having a week of Veterans Day fun! That includes a Veterans Day Roll & Graph as well as Roll & Cover games:

I'm also cutting and laminating my military ten frames from my Fall Holidays Ten Frames pack:

My student teacher is taking over more this week (poor thing, I'm having a hard time letting go and I know she's at that "Get out of here and let me try it on my own!" stage!) Wish us both luck - me in the letting go and her in taking over 100%!


If you're in the mood for some freebies (who isn't?!) then head over to my Facebook Page to see our Fall Freebie FB Hop! Tons of goodies for this time of year! Just click the picture below to go see it!