3 Million Strong TPT SALE!!

Good evening Peeps! 
Did you know that Teachers Pay Teachers in nnow 3 million teacher strong?? That's a TON of teachers!! To celebrate, they are having a HUGE site wide sale!! Yahoo!! I love me a good sale, don't you??

All of Kerri and Lindsay's products will be 20% off on Thursday and Friday. Add TPT's 10% discount code (TPT3) and you can get 28% off. That is a GINORMOUS savings!! AND...you can redeem your TPT credits to get even more $$ off!

Here are some of Kerri's products for the Spring that you might be interested in...
Looking for a theme for Open House? How about transforming your classroom into a living rainforest with my totally re-vamped Rainforest Unit?? Click on each picture to get a closer look...

Looking for some fun St. Paddy's Day learning centers for First Graders??

Maybe you are looking for some ways to re-enforce math and language arts topics that you have already introduced?? Here are a bunch of learning center choices!!

Or, some writing centers to get your kids excited to write about any theme you can think of?? Check out my Writing Center Bundles!!

Or my print and go, ever popluar Word of the Week! activity pack...

Here are some of Lindsay's Spring products that might interest you...
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Unit! One of Lindsay's best sellers!

Looking for a fun way to celebrate Read Across America Day?? Check this one out...

How about some St. Paddy's Day fun for Kindergarten??

The sale starts tomorrow, and we cannot WAIT to get our SHOP ON!! Hope you find lots of great things for your classroom!
XOXO Kerri and Lindsay

Back to Work & Read Across America Day

Happy Sunday folks!  Lindsay here . . .

I know some of you probably just fell out of your chairs.  Lindsay? Blogging?  It can't possibly be!!

But it's true.  I'm baaaaaaaaaack!

After taking a long teaching (and, apparently, blogging) hiatus after Baby Charlie was born back in November, I returned to work just in time for the 100th Day of School AND Valentine's Day all in one week.  It was pure craziness and sugar.

Here are some shots of my first week back:

One of my favorite 100th Day centers - 100th Day Gumball machines!!

 
Idea courtesy of A Cupcake For The Teacher . . .

 
Then we used Kerri's fabulous 100 Days of Fun packet and did all sorts of activities . . . like writing our numbers to 100!!  Yes, I had some students who were SO SURE they would never survive physically writing all of those numbers . . . but of course they did and it was fabulous!  They were SO, SO proud of themselves!!

 
For Valentine's Day we made "I love you to pieces" pictures for the kiddos' parents.  Painting + gluing puzzle pieces = fun in Kindergartenland.  (Hot gluing 300 popsicle sticks does NOT = fun for poor Mr. Messyhair at home!  Thanks babe for all your help!!)

 
We even did special Valentine's themed sticker stories in our journals!  My kidlets thought their little valentine pooches were just so funny!

 
And one of my sweet (and oh-so-talented) moms made me this delicious Welcome Back cake to enjoy with my lil kidlets!  (Yes, she made all of those little pieces with fondant!)

 

 

This week our district has Ski Week (really a week off for President's Day) so I am trying to get organized for all of the fun stuff that is coming up in March . . .

 

One of my favorite celebrations of the year is Read Across America Day, which in my classroom really gets turned into a weeklong celebration of all things literary and Seussical!! 

 

You can check out my whole Read Across America unit in my TPT store (just click the image below):

 

 
Your kiddos will love celebrating ready and Dr. Seuss with activities such as:

*Read Across America ABC order
*Real vs. Nonsenssical Words (CVC word practice)
*Rhyme Time (identifying and recording rhyming pairs using literature)
*Cats in Top Hats Sentence Scramble
*Write the Room: Read Across American Edition
*Read Across America: Write, Cut & Glue
*Favorite Nonsenssical Book writing paper

 

 

 

In addition, I am sharing my Dr. Seuss favorite book graph FREEBIE for y'all to enjoy!!

 

Well, that's about it for now!  I'm off to go spend some time with my crazy boys . . . Being back at work always makes our Sunday afternoons together seem so much more precious!

 

Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend too! 

Lindsay

Southern California Teacher Bloggers Facebook Hop

Hi folks!  Lindsay here . . .

Some of my fabulous friends and I have been working our tails off to prepare for the Southern California Kindergarten Conference! We are so excited to present, celebrate and have an all around wonderful time with some fantastic teacher friends in Pasadena, California at the end February.

We want to share all that fun with ALL of you! Soooo....

We are having a little hop over on our FACEBOOK pages. Start on Dragonflies in First's FB page and hop your way through some fabulous freebies from some amazing teachers. 

It's a short hop and you won't want to skip a step because it ends in a chance to win an AMAZING GIVEWAY!

It all begins Saturday! What a fabulous way to start the weekend!

Happy hopping!!

 

Lindsay

All Kinds of RANDOM!

Good Evening, Peeps! Kerri here...

My hubby is watching the Olympics behind me, which I could care less about, UNLESS Shaun White is competing, then I just might be interested!!
 I am counting down the minutes until Downton comes on, so I thought I would blog a bit! I have ALL SORTS of randomness to share, so bear with me...

Have you all heard of this book?

OH.MY.WORD. 
This is the most hilarious book EVER!! It was gifted to me this year from one of my parents and my kids LOVE LOVE LOVE it!! 

To make it even better, I have my mom (who is the best storyteller in the WHOLE WORLD and a former teacher of 35 years) read it to them. HILARIOUS, I tell you!
Here is a little clip of my mom reading to the kids...

Isn't she the BEES-NEES?? When I told my kids that my mom was going to read to them, one of my little guys said, "It's a good thing I like how your mom reads!" Whew! That's a relief. I wouldn't want to crush him with SUB-PAR reading skills!! HA!!


You can get your own copy of this fabulous book through Amazon using this link... and your kids will thank you for it, for real!!



                                                            

Randomness #2!

Lindsay and I had our annual date night last Thursday at the Newport-Mesa School Foundation grant dinner. It was sooo fun! We get to see lots of our friends from other schools, have a glass of wine and a fabulous dinner, and best of all, walk away with a check to purchase materials for our classrooms. It is AWESOME!!

Randomness #3-Art all over the place...
We made 2, count 'em, 2 art projects this week! The first was our Groundhog art, which always comes out so cute and fun!

I also FINALLY got my new projector for my SMARTboard and HOLY CANNOLI,  that sucker is soooo bright, it's blinding!! I was used to a very dim, very sad, slowly dying projector, and this projector is absolutely GORGEOUS. I am one lucky teacher!!

GLORIOUS!!
So, I went to Michaels and bought about a BRAZILLION foamy hearts for my daughter's class because I thought I was in charge of the craft for the Valentine's Party. Turns out there won't be time for a craft at the party and I am now the proud owner of a PLETHORA of foamy hearts. 

What to do?? Use them to make heart trees with my class, of course!! This project was SUPER easy peasy and we busted it out on a Friday afternoon, which normally I NEVER do, because someone will wind up dead, probably me, from the chaos that is ART...on a Friday afternoon. 
This project was so easy I knew I would survive, and the kids loved it! Best of all, no one lost their life, so WIN WIN!! :)

Even prettier under the beautiful projector!!

Randomness #4-Sweets for my Sweety Unit and We Heart America Unit!! 

This week will be all about Valentine's Day and the 100th day of school and the last week of February we will be focusing on America! I used both of these units last year and my kids LOVED them!! (click on each picture to take a closer look)...

Final randomness of the night...

I just love this time of year in first grade, don't you agree? The kids are becoming great readers, they know the routine, and center time is SMOOTH SAILING!! We had such good rotations last week, I had to share!

Well, that's it for me! I'm about to get my Downton on, baby!!
XOXO Kerri B

GINORMOUS TUB Organization!!

Hi Everyone! Kerri B here...

Thank you so much for visiting Teacher Bits and Bobs on your Bright Ideas Blog Hopping Adventure! 

I am here to share with you the way that I got myself SUPER organized this past summer...by cleaning up all the CHAOS that was living on top of my cupboards for WAY TOO LONG!

TADA!! Isn't it oh so pretty?? Okay, get ready to gag. Here is what it looked like before I got my rear in gear and made it all pretty...

Is that not ABSOLUTELY HORRIFIC?? And, to make it even worse, I had junk up there that I hadn't used for eons! Like a VHS video player. What??? And a baby Christmas tree in the box (Just plain weird) Random bubbles and clorox wipes. It was just a HOT MESS!!

I got my big old tubs at Target and they just happened to have the correct colors to mathcy match the rest of my classroom (Thank goodness for that,m or might have gotten a permanent twitch!). After that, I grouped everything by category and dumped it in. Trust me, the inside of the tubs are still messy sort of, but at  least the outside looks pretty! Here are some examples...

All of my art projects for the entire year are stored in Ziploc bags and kept in one of the tubs...

All sorts of art supplies. I may or may not be a hoarder of foamy shapes AND buttons. Well, and pony beads too!

All of my Open House projects and directions for my Rainforest theme go in this tub!

Aren't they so darn pretty sitting up there all organized?? Love it!

This organization idea has made a WORLD of difference in my classroom. Not only did I clear up a bunch of space inside my cupboards, but my classroom in general looks so much more organized and free of clutter!!

If you are looking for more great ideas, please visit the next blog on this blog hop, written by Kaci Hoffer from Mrs. Hoffer's Spot!

You may also visit the link up below and choose a topic that interests you! Thanks so much for visiting!!

Super Bowl? Super SALE!!

Good evening peeps!! Kerri here...

So who are you rooting for, the Seahawks or the Broncos? You should all be proud of me that I was able to recall the names of the 2 teams in tomorrow's big game, because honestly all I care about is the delicious pizza that we will be ordering AND the online shopping that I will be doing while my husband is engrossed in the game!! HA!!

Whilst everyone else cheers for their favorite team, you can get a little shopping done yourself, cause we're having a SALE Peeps!!

Both Kerri and Lindsay's stores will be 20% off, so you can stock up on some Winter games fun, Valentine goodies, or 100th day items, or maybe even some writing resources!!

I hope your team wins!! Go SUPER BOWL!!
XOXO Kerri B

Five for Fraturday!

Good Morning, Bits and Bobbers! Kerri here…

Once again I am linking up with Kacey for her Five for Friday link party. Of course, I couldn't get my rear in gear to get this done last night, so I am late to the party AGAIN. Oh well, at least I made it!!

This week we made Snowflake Art and wrote a snowflake poem together. It was super fun! We also got .00001 inches of rainy drizzle (the closest we will ever gets to actual snow and it's not even remotely close at all!) on Thursday, which made my kids turn into Looney Tunes since they haven't seen a drop of rain since December 20th, NO LIE.  

They came back from lunch screaming and running around like wild banshees, not to mention they tracked about a pound of dirt and grass into the classroom from their feet. Seriously? We desperately need some rain so my kidlets can actually get used to it!!

The sweet people at Teacher Created Resources were kind enough to send me some classroom decor in their new line that is Chevron themed! OHEMGEEE!! Chevron! I am sooooo in love with Chevron!!

I had so much fun using these classroom decorations in my classroom. Check it out…

These Chevron Welcome letters are perfectly perfect on my Tacky the Penguin bulletin board!

I re-labelled all of the bins in my classroom library so they are finally all matchy matchy, thanks to the cute chevron labels that came with the Welcome bulletin board set!!

These name tags fit perfectly onto my drawers that house all of my units and centers for each month! I love the black and turquoise together!! 

I am still deciding where to put up this border….Hmmmm..

If you are interested in winning at $150 gift card to Teacher Created Resources, click the link to enter their Chevron Classroom Pinterest Giveaway! $150 can buy ALOT of CHEVRON for your classroom!!

It was Kindness week at my school this week! In addition to completing all of the activities in this Kindness pack that I created…

Our entire school got to do some pretty awesome acts of Kindness throughout the week. Check them out…
We all made Kindness quilts and hung them up on the fence so the kids could read them all...

Our students wrote letters for kids in the hospital during recess and lunch…

Our students also raised $250 dollars by selling lemonade for the Mckenna Claire Foundation, which supports Pediatric Brain Cancer research…

The kids made over 350 rainbow loom bracelets to give to children in need during their recess. They even brought their own loom kits to school to do it!

All of our students also worked hard to complete their Great Kindness Challenge checklists, by performing random acts of Kindness around the school…

My class wrote kindness stories about our favorite TOSA in the whole world, Mr. T, and presented them to him as a book. They were so proud!!

Overall,  it was a wonderful week and I think the kids really tried to embrace Kindness! 

We are working very hard in class on writing a proper paragraph. The kids call it their hamburger story. I introduce them to this chart…

This thing is so old and ratty! But it is a great visual...

Then, I use markers to turn my modeled writing into a "hamburger story" (Don't judge my printing/writing. This was done spur of the moment and it is NOT pretty!!)…

Then, they used this model to write their January writing samples, and they were all successful in remembering to write an opening sentence, 3 juicy details, and a closing sentence! YAY!! 

We will now work on expanding our details and making them even more juicy.

So, Lindsay and I are REALLY and TRULY presenting at the Southern California Kindergarten Conference in less than a month! WHAT THE WHAT????

We decided that since this is OFFICIALLY happening, we needed our very own FANCY SCHMANCY business cards…

Aren't they gorgeous???

We are also having a GINORMOUS Blogger's Bash on Friday February 28th, which anyone can attend, even if you aren't signed up for the conference…

We're all making baskets to give away, and everyone who signs up to come with get a goodie bag filled with fun stuff, including a CD with a bunch of our products on it!! We hope a bunch of you will sign up to come! Click on the picture above to get all the details and sign up!!

Have a happy Saturday, Friends!!
XOXO Kerri B