Valentine's Day

Oh my goodness...I can't believe it's been over a year since I last posted. I am still HERE, but super BUSY! After 14 years in second grade, I began a new adventure in 1st grade.  I really have so much love for my little firsties and they surprise me every day with their eagerness and excitement for learning.

I know this is late, but then again my middle name should have been... LATE.  I just had to share the adorable Valentine bags my firsties made.

The Valentine Bags can be found in the following the 

following resource

 (click below to check it out):

Groundhog Day FREEBIE

Just a quick freebie in honor of Punxsutawney Phil.   Looking forward to an early spring!!! Hopefully our groundhog friend got it right!

  Click on the image above to download the FREEBIE.

Holidays Around the World

Years ago, I posted about my Winter Celebrations Scrapbook.  You can check out the post here.  Last year, I felt like we needed to condense our activities.  We were shorter on time and had a full packed curriculum that needed to be incorporated as well.  I decided to alter the booklet just a bit, but the original is still included in the resource.

I created one page passages and a place for students to draw a single snapshot of something they learned about the country or celebration.  The following countries/celebrations are included:

 

U.S.A.

Kwanzaa

Mexico

Germany

France

Sweden

Hanukkah

Check out my little guy's snapshot for Sweden.  That Tomten is too cute!!!  

Each of the pages is formatted like the page below. 

There is also a separate smaller booklet with multiple questions for each of the passages and a map is also included.

I LOVE to incorporate read alouds as I introduce each country/celebration.  

Here are just a few of my favorites.

You can check out this resource on TPT by simply clicking here.

Cinco de Mayo

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I put together this little freebie. 

I love to introduce Cinco de Mayo with a read aloud.  

My favorite is Marco's Cinco de Mayo by Lisa Bullard.  

The freebie above is a great follow up activity after reading the story.   Your students can simply color and write about Cinco de Mayo in the space provided.  

Happy New Year!

Just a quick post to wish everyone a Happy New Year!  In honor of the new year, I created this little freebie for all my teacher friends.

 

They turned out super cute!

 

School Snapshots

Sadly, summer is nearly over and it's time to get back into school mode.  With school now on my mind, I decided to update one of my favorite resources.  It's a great resource for students to reflect on special days and events during the school year.  I love to save all the pages that my students work on and add them to their writing portfolios at the end of the year.

Here is a peek at what is included:

These monthly reflection pages were just added.

 

I'd love to give a flip booklet to the first 3 people that comment below.  Simply leave your e-mail and I'll send it your way.

 

Doodle Turkeys

I found a doodle coloring book at Walmart, and had this crazy idea to make doodle turkey feathers using the coloring book pages.  They really came out cute and were simple to make.

If you'd like to create a Doodle Turkey with your little ones, but don't have a Doodle Coloring Book, I have a resource that has doodle feathers already included.  You can check it out here.

Arthur's Thanksgiving and more

I am knee deep in papers that need to be graded and I thought it would be far more interesting to write a blog post!  So, I  thought I'd share a few of the activities we did before the Thanksgiving Break.   Next week is sure to spring us into full Christmas mode, so I better post this while I still can!

We always read the book, Arthur's Thanksgiving, and it's always a class favorite! Arthur is in charge of directing his class play, and my students always make so many great connections to it.  I was in the middle of reading the story, when I came up with this spur of the moment idea.  I love kid art, so I thought a directed drawing of Arthur would be super cute.  Our second graders no longer have a separate art class, so I really try to bring art into the curriculum any chance I can!

I looked at the cover of the book and kind of just went with it.  I just started giving them different steps and hoped for the best!  Their drawings really turned out super cute!  I was pretty impressed and I love how unique they all turned out.  No two are exactly alike!

If you are interested in the summarizing labels, you can get them below.  

They could be used with any story.

We also worked on these goofy gobblers that turned out super cute.  This is available in my Writing Piece of the Month Resource.  

 

 

They also wrote why they are thankful.  They are so sweet! I am so very thankful for such sweet second graders!

This is also available in the same Writing Piece of the Month resource.  I save all of their writing for the year, which includes all of the pieces in the resource I mentioned above.  We put them all together into a writing portfolio at the end of the year.  Their writing makes a perfect keepsake.