Winner!! Earth Day Centers and a FREEBIE!

Hi Peeps! Happy Saturday! Kerri here...
My Earth Day centers are finished and posted and they are oh so pretty! Looky looky!!

5 Literacy Centers and 5 Math Centers, enough to last you the entire week (or longer, depending on how you run your stations), with Earth Day culminating on Friday, April 20th! If you are interested, click on the picture above to go to my TPT store!


This Unit is a companion to my Earth Day writing center...

and I will also be back this week with an Earth Day Art Project FREEBIE, so stay tuned, friends!!


The winner of our TIMREE giveaway is...

A Bunch of Randomness! And two wee, baby FREEBIES!

Happy Wednesday, Friends! Kerri here...
This post is going to be all kinds of randomness, but I just gotta get it all out there before I start dinner (veggie burgers, tater tots for my Katie Bug, and salad!)
I just finished my Earth Day writing center and it is SUPER pretty!!  Take a looksie...

Aren't the colors delicious?? I am a SUCKER for teal (is that teal??) and pink! I'll be back this weekend with my Earth Day Math and Literacy Centers, which I am super excited about! Stay tuned...


I downloaded a Jelly Bean Math Packet last year at around this time, but I thought I would include it again for those of you who were not following us last year at this time-Don't worry, I forgive you! :)
 My kids go cuckoo for cocoa puffs every time we do math with candy!! Click on the basket below to download...

I also FINALLY took picture of our art projects for the past couple of weeks. Here are our rainbows and kites...

The kites are from Cara Carroll's March Mega Pack, which I LOVE!!

A couple of fun things happened today in my classroom! First of all, my grant for Cuisenaire Reading Rods came yesterday and I couldn't wait to bust them out in reading groups today! My kidlets LOVED it! If you don't have these, you should BEG, PLEASE, STEAL, WRITE A GRANT, something Peeps! They are the BOMB DIGGIDY!

Obviously we are still working on connecting the reading rods so that capitals are in the right place, but you catch my drift, right??

I also got this fun little package in the mail today...

So...Learning Resources contacted me and asked me if I would review their Hear All Assessment Recorder and their Luna Interactive Projection Camera, and OF COURSE I said yes! How exciting!!
They also told me I could do a giveaway for our followers for each of these products! (Insert giddy squeal!!) Stay tuned in the next 2 weeks for 2 more GINORMOUS giveaways for these fabulous Learning Resources projects! Which reminds me...did you all sign up for our TIMREE giveaway? It ends tomorrow, so DON"T DELAY! Hurry up and click on the TIMREE link, so you can win her ADORABLE school set!


Finally, here is the other neato thing we did today. We had a mini inservice about Power Writing a few weeks back, and my first thought was "Too hard for my firsties-NEXT!", but today I had them try it and I was TOTALLY BAMBOOZLED! They LOVED it!!


Here's how it works...You give your students one or more words to choose from on the board and they pick one to write about. I only gave my kidlets one word, because I couldn't deal with the choice thing. Next, they write whatever they want (I told them to write whatever came into their heads) about that word for 3 minutes (in upper grades they do one minute, but obviously 3 minutes is better for Firsties). Our word was rainbow, and here's what they came up with...

Not too shabby for their first try! I had them count up their words and write the number on the top of the paper, but the number of words really doesn't matter. What matters is that they write! Sometimes my kids get so caught up in remembering their grammar and conventions, that they lose their creative spark. This will (hopefully) help them get it back!
After we wrote for 3 minutes, I had them share with their table partner and then I chose 5 to sit in the author's chair and read what they wrote to the class-FABULOUS! They ALL wanted to share, so of course, I had to disappoint 19 of them! So sad. But we will power write again tomorrow and I'll choose 5 more, so YAY!


I had them write in little composition books, but you can use ANYTHING. I also made a little cover for the books. If you are interested in having Power Writers in your class too, click the picture below...

Whew!! That was a long one! Don't forget to get your Rainforest Art and Writing Pack, which is on sale through Saturday. :)

I'll be back on Friday with our TIMREE winner. Remember, the winner also gets one item from both of our stores! YIPPEE!!
Have a great Thursday, my friends! Have I told you lately that I love you? Well, I do!!
XOXO Kerri B

Spring into Spring!! TPT and FREEBIES!

Greetings friends!  Lindsay here . . . Its bread & butter Monday. That's right . . . you get a little of BOTH of us girls tonight!  Hmmm . . . and if you are SICK like me, you can pair your bread and butter with a little chicken noodle soup!  (Seriously though . . . am I the only one out there who caught the plague that is going around?  I'm dyin over here people!!)

I promise to keep my sneezes, snot and sniffles to myself during my part of the blog tonight.  Scouts honor.

Well, in addition to fighting off some sort of mutant mega-virus-cold thingie, I have been hard at work finishing up my spring centers and they are **FINALLY** done!!!  (Drumroll please . . .)  It's my Spring Has Sprung - Math and Literacy Centers pack!!  This unit contains:

-My Oval Is An Easter Egg (a book about shapes)
-Spring Jellybean Graph, Sorting Mat and Data Sheet
-Egg-cellent Addition and Subtraction
-Spring Swip Swap
-Rhyming Rainboots Match-Up
-Scrambled Spring Sentences

Your students will be able to practice number sentences, shapes, addition, tallying, estimating, sight words, rhyming words, CVC words, and phonemic awareness all within this adorable unit!  And in addition to all of the cute, colorful hands-on resources, there is a recording sheet for each activity as well! 

Click the preview image below to head on over to my TPT store.  Your kidlets will love these fun spring centers!

In addition to picking up my Spring Has Sprung pack, you can check out my Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs unit as well!  They will BOTH be 25% off on my TPT store through Saturday only!!

I started my C.W.A.C.O.M. (Cloudy With . . .) Unit today and my kidlets adored it!! 

They thought measuring with meatballs was simply marvelous!!! (Eww . . . notice the dirty tissue!  Gnarly-megavirus DEFINATELY originated at school! )

And graphing our Wacky Weather was wonderful too!

There is still plenty of time to dive into this magically meaty unit!  (That was for you Kerri!)  And while you are at it, check out Kerri's darling C.W.A.C.O.M. Writing Center!!  Its meat-tastic!  (Okay . . . no more meat jokes. Promise.)

Just one more thing!  Don't forget to join in the fun with our Timree giveaway!!  In addition to getting your very own, one-of-a-kind folder, lunch box, and notebook, Kerri and I will each be giving away one TPT item of the winner's choice from each of our stores!  Holy hamburgers!!!  (Okay, THAT was the last meat joke. No really. . . )

My turn!! Hi Friends! Kerri here...
I have been working on a few little goodies that I have posted onto TPT, besides my Rainforest Art and Writing Pack (GINORMOUS thanks to those of you who already bought it! It's on SALE through Saturday!)  Here is what I've been working on...

Spring Words Posted and TOTALLY ADORABLE!!

This clip art KILLS me, it's SOOOO cute!

Companion piece to Lindsay's FANTABULOUS Cloudy Unit!!

Click on each picture above to go to my store!


Here is a little something to make you giggle. One of my cutiest cuties drew this picture when we were studying the -ank word family. I about D.I.E.D from laughter last night whilst grading a mountain of papers from last week!!

What the WHAT?? Is that not the raddest thing you have ever seen?? 

Last, but not least, here are a three FREEBIES for you. Simple little diddies, but I use them in my class every week and they work really well for my kidlets! The first is my "Word Family Machine" paper that we do every week as a warm-up. My kids write 8 words from our chunk of the week and illustrate each word. This really increases their vocabulary AND improves their drawing skills. As you can see from the above photo, they REALLY get into it! Click below to download...

The next FREEBIE is my Number Machine (Why is everything a machine?? I have NO IDEA! I feel like it makes my kids crank out quality work, but it's probably all in my head!!)

For this one, my kids cut and paste their numbers in order, for example 1-10, and then write the number word, draw tallies, write even or odd, and write a number sentence that equals each number. I have included numbers 1-50, but I am CERTAIN I won't be using all of them. Can you imagine our kiddos drawing 50 tallies in a fairly small box?? YEESH! What a mess!

Click on the picture to download...

Last Freebie of the night is some Rainbow (ROYGBIV) writing paper for your kids to write about the colors of the rainbow. After we talked about colors, my kids wrote sentences, such as "Red is for apples and cherries.", etc. You get the idea, right? My kids were NOT all that excited about brainstorming things that were indigo. Indigo?? What's indigo, anywayz?? :)

Click on the rainbow hot air balloon to download...

I have heard that if you are having trouble downloading from Google Docs, just click on file and download that way...Hope it works for everyone! It should!

Have a great week!

Kerri

Rainforest Art and Writing Unit!! Plus, don't forget about our TIMREE giveaway!

Happy Saturday, Friends!! Kerri here...
I DID IT!! Oh my word, I feel like I just birthed another child (minus the excruciating physical pain, of course!) My Rainforest Art and Writing Unit is FINALLY finished!! We'll call her "Rainy" for short!
I give you the following...

Check out all that's included:


This 74 page Rainforest Fun! Art and Writing includes everything you need to help your students experience life in the rainforest, with animals such as jaguars, sloths, macaws, leaf-cutter ants, and many more, by making art projects and writing about different rainforest animals!

Step-by-step directions and photos are included to make 10 different rainforest art projects:

-monkey art (patterns included)
-rainforest fish art
-3-toed sloth art
-layers of the rainforest art
-macaw step-draw art
-leaf-cutter ant art
-jaguar art
-red-eyed tree frog art
-tear art flowers
-butterfly art (pattern included)

Also included are:
-Bubble maps to describe different rainforest animals
-Tree Maps for different rainforest animals
-Rainforest Acrostic Poem writing paper
-My Five Senses in the Rainforest Writing activity
-Diagram paper so students can draw and label different rainforest animals
-Animals Facts paper for different types of rainforest animals
-A list of educational rainforest websites
-Photos of 10 different rainforest books that can be purchased through Amazon

The 9 animals included for the above writing activities are:
-monkey
-sloth
-boa constrictor
-leaf-cutter ant
-red-eyed tree frog
-jaguar
-green iguana
-macaw
-toucan

This unit is a perfect companion to my Rainforest Fun! Math and Literacy Centers and my Rainforest Fun! Writing Center.

If you are looking for a theme for Open House, this unit includes everything you need to transform your classroom into a living rainforest!




Click on the red-eyed tree frog below to head on over to my TPT store to pick it up for yourself. I have it on sale now through the end of March, so HURRY HURRY! While you're there, you can pick up my 2 other  companion units to complete the whole rainforest experience!!

Also, don't forget to click below and enter our fabulous TIMREE giveaway!! We are giving away an AWESOME prize and I am sooo jealous! I want it for myself!

TIMREE Giveaway!!

Hiya Peeps!! Kerri here...
Thanks the Lord it is Thursday, because that means it is FRIDAY tomorrow!! Yippee! I seriously need the weekend to get here, like NOW!
I know I said I was hoping to have my rainforest art and writing pack posted last weekend, but MAN, OH MAN, that little unit is slowing turning into a 75 page HONKING GIMORMOUS UNIT filled with Rainforest goodness. 


I am including 10, that's right ladies and gents, 10 art projects, plus bubble maps, tree maps, writing activities (bunches of them!), websites to check out, books you can order about the rainforest...well, as you can tell, it has TOTALLY taken on a life of it's own! I have LITERALLY been working on it every night this week and I am STILL not done. 


Add that with the fact that I had to buy ADOBE PRO so I can combine the 3 PDFs into one GIANT PDF, and when it came in the mail today, I had to practically sell my left arm in order to prove that YES, I am a teacher and YES, I do qualify to buy the teacher version of this product. 


YEESH!! Don't the ADOBE people know about my BLOG??? HELLO!


The above rant was to tell you that FOR SURE, ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY, it will be posted this weekend, and I think you are going to LOVE IT!!


Now on to the SUPER DUPER EXCITING NEWS!! Have you heard of Timree?? She is just about the MOST adorable artist EVER and she makes the cutest hand painted gifts EVER!! Check her out...

Isn't she TOO cute?? And, her studio, which is literally 5 minutes from my school, is just about the most awesome, girly, cutey place ever!! She does art classes for kids and adults and teaches you to paint really amazing pieces on canvas-Fingers crossed, I will be going to one of her classes with my girlfriends in May and I CANNOT wait!!


She is the one who painted this pencil dish, which my besty bought for my birthday last year and I absolutely LOVE and adore...

The fabulous thing about Timree's products is that each one is individual and unique. My friend told her I love owls and she created this special just for me. There is also a personalized note from my friend on the back, which makes it even more unique!


She also does TONS of other personalized products. Ring dishes, plates, little bowls, ornaments, baby gifts, AND she has started doing school supplies, which is where you, our LOYAL followers come in. Just look at what she is going to give away to one of you...

personalized folder

personalized lunch box

personalized notebook

OH MY HOLY CUTENESS!! Can you believe how adorable those are? And, you don't have to choose the owls (Of course, I would, but that's just how I roll...), she also has other themes, such as the Eiffel Tower (my daughter would DIE!), ice cream (my other daughter would DIE!), cabana cuteness, princess, sunglasses and lipstick, butterflies and high heels! AND... the lunch pail has a CHALKBOARD inside to write notes on (I can hear all of you squealing in excitement right now!!)


Here's what you need to do to be considered for this giveaway...

1. "LIKE" Timree on Facebook
2. Follow Kerri's TPT store
3. Follow Lindsay's TPT store

This SUPER COOL widget makes it uber-easy to enter! Just follow the steps on the widget and you will be entered, then leave us a comment that you did it! We will run the contest from now until Next Thursday, March 29th, and I will announce the winner on Friday, March 30th! Whoot whoot!!

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs . . .and More!

Hey friends!  Lindsay here . . .

Well, first of all, can I just tell you how fun Friday was with the leprechaun hunt I took my little kidlets on?!  We came back from Flag Deck to our classroom . . . which had been destroyed by a very naughty leprechaun!  (Sample picture below - more pictures to come later!)

Our little leprechaun friend led us all around the school . . . from the cafeteria, to the playground, to our Big Buddie's 4th grade class, to the computer lab, to the library, and finally to . . .(cue ominous music) THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE!!  Our little leprechaun left my kidlets brand new boxes of crayons (instead of gold - boohoo!) under the principal's desk.  The rest of the day my kiddos were SO funny.  Every little thing that seemed a bit out of place they blamed on the leprechaun . . . "My pencil's not in my box!  It was the leprechaun!"  "Look at this piece of trash I found on the floor!  It was the leprechaun!"  "I saw something orange move outside!  It was the leprechaun!"  Needless to say, it took awhile before we were able to regain focus and actually learn anything on Friday morning, but in the afternoon we did sequence our leprechaun hunt using this printable from my Lucky the Leprechaun TPT Unit (click the image below to view item in my TPT store):

It was a great day.  I had many more picture to share, but I left the CD at school on Friday.  Oh barnacles!!  More pictures to come, I promise!

Now on to this weekend.  This wet, sopping, I'm-so-glad-I-stayed-in-my-PJs-all-day-on-Saturday weather.  We had crazy weather all weekend, with some sun, hurricane force winds, some hail, and rain. Lots of rain.  So . . . being the Southern California girl that I am . . . I stayed inside. 

This weekend I spent lots of time on the computer (when Jack was asleep and I couldn't cuddle him) working on my newest TPT unit . . . Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs!!! 

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (hereafter referred to as CWACOM) is one of my favorite books to read throughout the year.  Every year I read it with my kidlets and we create a class book of our very own kinds of wacky food weather.  It is a story that the kids love year after year - it really gets their imaginations going!!  So this year I decided to take the story BEYOND writing, and to create some really great literacy and math centers as well.  Take a peek!

If you are interested, check out this meat-a-licious unit over in my TPT store HERE.  (That was for you Kerri . . . my dear vegetarian friend!)

Speaking of Kerri . . . she wanted me to pass the word on that she is working furiously on her Rainforest Art and Writing Unit and is 95% done.  So keep your eyes peeled folks.  It's on its way! 

That's it for me tonight!  Hope you all have a wonderful Monday tomorrow!

Lindsay