100th Day of School Happenings!

Good morning, friends! Kerri here...
I just blogged all about the 100th day of school over at Blog Hoppin! Lots of pictures and some fun ideas for you to check out...Here's a little sneak peek! A little 100 year old lady! :)

Click on the Blog Hoppin' button to hop on over and check it out!

XOXO Kerri B

Five for Friday! Plus a Friday FREEBIE!

Hiya Peeps! Kerri here...
I'm linking up again with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for...

Okay, let's begin! Number 1...Our class shirts from Whitney Daniel Designs came this week and they are SOOOO stinkin' cute!

I heart these!

Number 2: Tacky the Penguin came to town! We have been reading his books (2 so far) and we made this fun art project to go on my Winter board...

I love their "crazy" eyes!

Number 3: I ordered this AH-MAZING magnetic spinner from Educational Insights and we had too much fun using it today to write word family words!

My kidlets were totally ENTHRALLED by this!

Aren't they so cute in their shirts? And concentrating so well on their word family words!!

Number 4: My poor neglected bearded dragon got to go out in the sun today because it was FINALLY warm enough (75 degrees and sunny!) He loved his sunbathing time!

And Number 5: We had lots of mathematical thinking going on using some of the math centers from my Snowman Soup Wintery Centers...

Snowman Spinners Add and Subtract

Snowman Soup Bar Graph

Blowing Blizzard Number Match-Ups

Also...here's a little freebie I posted last year at this time for those of you who missed it. It's my Wintery Super Sentence writing activity to help your kidlets write and understand what a juicy sentence is... My kids LOVED using the chart to think of their super sentences!!

Click on the pictures below to download this chart and book cover via Google Docs!!

book

Winter words chart

Happy Friday, Friends! I got Gold Rush tonight, Downton Abbey on Sunday, and no school on Monday. Hallelujah!! :)

XOXO Kerri B

100 Days of Fun!!

Good Evening, Friends! Kerri here...

Well, I did it! FINALLY! My "100 Days of Fun" Activities Pack is up on TPT! Here's a little sneak peek...

And here's what's included... a plethora of 100th day goodness!!

You can check it out by clicking the cover picture above! Have a great night friends and we'll be back soon!
XOXO Kerri B

Snowman Soup, The Mitten FREEBIES, and Snowflake Art!

Good Morning, Friends! Kerri here (again)...
Lindsay is busy caring for her sicky baby (stomach flu-YUCK!) so you get another Wintery type post from me again! 

I spent the better part of this weekend cutting out my Snowman Soup Centers so my kidlets can have all kinds of Snowman Soup fun this week. Here is a sneak peek of what we'll be doing...

MATH CENTERS

Snowman Soup! Bar Graph

Snowman Spinners! Addition and Subtraction 

Frosty Fact Families

Polar Brrr! Turn Around 10's

Blowing Blizzard! Number Match

LANGUAGE ARTS CENTERS

An Avalanche of Antonyms

Wintery Friends! Long Vowel Sort

Snow Day! ABC Order

Hot Cocoa! Write the Room

Chocolatey Compound Words

Whew! That's alot of Wintery goodness! I cannot wait to bust these out during centers this week. I just know my kidlets are going to love them!

Last week, we read The Mitten as part of our Jan Brett Authors Study and I decided to make a little "Mitten Spin and Tally Math Center" to give them some practice with tally marks. I thought I would share it with you, since my kids had so much fun using it! Click on the picture below to access it via Google Docs. :) 
(clipart from KPM Doodles)

Finally, here's a fun little snowflake art project that we will be doing this week from the TLC Winter Art book...

Simple and so pretty! 3 turquoise strips of paper, die cut shapes, or the kids can cut their own (that's what my kids did) and then glitter, which makes all the difference! We are going to write a poem to go with it, and VOILA! A Winter wonderland in our room!!

Have a great Sunday, friends!!
XOXO Kerri B

Five for Friday (on Saturday morning!)

Hiya Peeps! Kerri here...
I'm linking up with Kacey over at Doodle Bugs  Teaching for...

only I'm just a little bit late. I just didn't have the gumption last night....sooooo tired!

Here we go. Number 1:

me and sb-my big girl

My 8th grade daughter is applying to OCSA (Orange County School of the Arts) for high school and we FINALLY got her application all turned in this week! Soooo excited! Now, we just wait for an interview and she gets her portfolio together. (Am I living vicariously through her? YUP!)

Number 2:

My Hope for Newtown necklace from Origami Owl arrived in the mail this week. 100% of the proceeds from the sale of this necklaces will go to the victim's families from Sandy Hook Elementary. I don't want to forget those sweet little babies who lost their lives. This necklace will help me remember.

Number 3:

It has been COLD for us Californians this week. I know all you East Coasters are gonna scoff at me, but seriously it has been COLD! We're just not mentally prepared for this weather. On Thursday, our school made us do rainy day lunch schedule so the kids didn't have to eat outside even though it was SUNNY out. Seriously?? Too cold for their little bums to sit on the lunch tables! Needless to say, the teachers were NOT happy about that one!

Number 4:

We made snowmen this week and wrote a little snowman riddle to go with our art. Sooo cute! One of the students in my colleague's class had a little trouble with his buttons though...

What the???? Oops!

Number 5:

I am working on my "100 Days of Fun" Unit and hopefully (fingers crossed) it will be done by next week. I think this cold weather is making me unmotivated! Or maybe it's visions of Downton Abbey dancing in my head?

That's all I got!! I'm off to make brekky for my girls. Thank you Doodle Bugs for such a fun Friday idea!!
XOXO Kerri

Draw and Writes...and TARGET finds!!

Happy Hump Day, Peeps! Kerri here...

Man, is it just me, or are any of you also T.I.R.E.D. today?? Seriously, I am pooped! It probably doesn't help that I was up WAY too late last night watching my stories (Parenthood, how I love thee!), combined with a 12:30 bedtime on Sunday after I stayed up to watch 2 FULL hours of Downton Abbey heaven. Yup. Totally my fault. Guess who's gonna crash on the couch tonight at about 9:17? That would me be!

I wanted to share with you a little writing activity that I do with my Firsties each week in Lit Centers. I call it "Draw and Write", well because they basically draw something and then write about it. I use this book that I got ages ago through Scholastic...

Basically, there are step-by-step directions for 25 different seasonal things that the kids learn to draw. In centers, after they practice drawing the object, I give them their writing paper and they draw it again, and then write about it. After they finish their story, they get to SHARPIE (highlight of their day!!) their drawing, add detail and color. Here are some examples that we have done this year...

Snowman-just written today!

Turkey in November

Jack-o-Lantern in October

Apple tree in September

I display all of their stories on the back wall using a binder clip and I just put the new story right over the old one each week. At the end of the year, I take them all down, bind them into a book, and VIOLA!! Instant Open House writing portfolio. I love looking back to the beginning of the year and seeing the growth they have made in their writing and the parents love it too!

I did this same center each week with my Kinder Kids starting in January, and they would use sight word sentence strips at the beginning to get them going, but by the end of the year, they were writing 5 sentences all on their own. That was my favoritest part of all!!

Another reason this center is so important to me is because the kids know exactly what to do since we do it every week, and my back wall always looks so cute with all of their new writing up! :)

Guess what?? (chicken butt...no, not really) This book is available on AMAZON!! But really, what isn't available on AMAZON?? And less than $10~BARGAIN!

They also have this one, which looks fun... 

And this one, which I just ordered today!

So, maybe you can try this out with your kidlets? I am sure they will LOVE it!

In other Target news, look at what I found on Sunday in the Dollar Spot! Oh, what treasures can be found in the Dollar Spot! Now, I am NOT at all ready to think about V-Day or the 100th day (I shudder just writing the words...), but when a treasure presents itself, it MUST be bought!!

Oh, how adorable!! Dice with hearts on them and a little pail to store them in!! I will definitely be posting a V-Day adding game to use with these dice, so if you get some, stay tuned!!

Mini erasers to count on the 100th day. My kids (especially my girls) go BANANAS for these little erasers! They literally cheered when I showed showed them to the class! So funny...

100th day of school paraphernalia...must haves!

New bins for my centers that match my colors. These were NOT in the Dollar Spot, but when I saw them, I knew they had to be mine!

Well, its 7:28 and I am sleepy poo, so I'd better sign off for now. I'll be back with a snowflake art project idea in a couple days, so we'll chat it up then!
XOXO Kerri