Friend Venn

I had so much fun with my kids yesterday! They were fairly quiet, probably because they were tired! 

I always have the students complete an activity about resolutions for the new year. This year we made these foldables.

They had to write a school, home, and personal resolution. Since I teach at a private school, we also added a resolution that regarding our relationship with the Lord.

Some of my favorites were:

• I will not chew my nails.
• I will have a new hairstyle everyday.
• I will run a marathon.
• I will sleep more.
• I will invite Heather over to my house everyday.
• I will deepen my relationship with the Lord.  (Yes, a 7 year old wrote that!!)

We started our graphing unit by making Friend Venn Diagrams.  I found the idea on Just Add Clip Art.

You can get the prewriting activity and Venn template here.

Jessica from Second Grade Nest is having a HUGE 500 follower giveaway. It ends tomorrow, so be sure to hop on over there to enter if you haven't already! There are 5 separate giveaways.  My Winter Blends Literacy Centers is up for grabs on the 3rd giveaway.

http://www.teachingmaddeness.com/2013/01/friday-flashback-read-this-book.html

New Year's Resolutions & Giveaway Winner

Happy almost New Year! 2012 was a bit of a rough year for me personally, so I'm hoping that 2013 will be a lot better! There are a couple of New Year's Resolution Linky Parties, so I'm linking up with Jen from The Teacher's Cauldron and Amanda from Teaching Maddeness.

Blogging Goals: I want to blog more consistently and share what's going on in my class. I'm hoping to blog at least 3 times a week.  I also want to make sure to comment on more blogs.  I love getting comments and I want to spread the comment love!  I have found so many more great teaching blogs recently.  I have read teaching blogs for the last 2 years and discovered even more since I started blogging.

Personal Goals: I want to get my running groove back! I used to be able to pop out 3 miles like it was nothing.  I even completed 5 marathons back in the day! It seems that once you stop running, it feel so hard to get back going. I have the Couch to 5K app on my phone and I'm hoping that motivates me to get moving!

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Congratulations to Cherie Mae Ong! She won my 50 Follower Giveaway and received a copy of my Winter Blends Literacy Centers.

Cherie, make sure to check your email because I already sent you a copy.

If you didn't win, this packet is on sale until midnight for $3!

Compound Words & Sale

I've had a lot of free time on my hands since Christmas, so I decided to start planning when school starts back up in January.  It hasn't been fun free time because my dad has been in the hospital, but he seems to be doing a lot better today. 

I was able to make one new packet for compound words.  I LOVE teaching the kids about compound words and was looking for some more activities to complete with them.  

I plan on the playing "I Have, Who Has?"game with them. 

There are also two center activities.

    

Can't wait to use it with the kiddos next week!

I'm also throwing a TPT sale from today until December 31st.

Be sure to enter my 50 Followers Giveaway if you haven't already!

Off to play on the laptop some more! I'm headed home today and my flight has been delayed by over an hour. I have claimed an outlet....I'm not moving until it's time to go!  

Blends + a Giveaway

Right before Christmas break, we started to learn about beginning blends.  

I made 4 characters - Gretchen, Drake, Brad, and Crissy.  Each table had to work together to write words for each beginning blend.

Side note about the activity - I loved seeing how the students decided who would write on the poster. Some tables figured out quickly a fair way to share the responsibility. Other tables, not so much. :)

Since we covered this topic right before break, I wanted to reinforce it when we return in January. I made a Winter Blends Literacy Centers that covers r-blends, l-blends and s-blends.

The first activity is similar to posters we completed in class. Students will sort the words onto the correct character.

         

There's also a Penguin Real or Nonsense Word Sort and an Igloo Word Match Up.

        

Since I recently reached 50 followers, I wanted to host my first giveaway. The winner will receive a copy of the Winter Blends Literacy Centers for free. The giveaway enters Sunday night 12/30 at midnight EST.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Merry Christmas Break!

It's officially Christmas break for everyone! We had a half day on Wednesday and I've been enjoying my comfy pajamas ever since. 

The Christmas party was one of the best I have ever had in my class. Thanks to the wonderful moms that planned it!

Here's the reindeer toss.

The snowman toss....

All ideas from Pinterest! I really think life should be divided into two eras - BP (before Pinterest) and AP (after Pinterest).

I'm sure you've seen a zillion gingerbread activities, but I never got a chance to share mine. The gingerbread unit is one of my favorites, so I have to share!

We took a bite of a gingerbread cookie and graphed our results.

We made a chart of adjectives (inspired by Abby's gingerbread chart).

This is something new I did this year.  I bought Baking Up Adjectives Craftivity + Center Activities. Each student chose an adjective and created their gingerbread man. The students absolutely LOVED this.  I had scrapbook paper out, along with some sparkly things and their creations were wonderful. This was one of my favorite - a hairy gingerbread man!

Now off to finish up my Christmas shopping!

Hard & Soft C & G

I always have such a hard time finding activities for the different sounds of c and g. There are activities listed in the teacher's edition of our phonics book of course, but they are so not fun! It's not enough for the students either. This year, with my new found knowledge of how to make my own printables, I made a Hard and Soft C Word Hunt & Activities packet as well as a few Hard and Soft G Printables. 

The Hard and Soft C packet includes word cards for a word hunt around the classroom, along with a recording sheet.

The Hard and Soft G Printables contains a color code printable and a word sort.

Both packets are free, so make sure to grab them!  I hope you find them useful in your classroom.

Christmas Gifts

I wanted to share the Christmas gifts the students made for their parents this year.  It was Pinterest inspired of course! The students made a brown handprint and added antlers, eyes and a nose. Then they

added green and red dots to fill in the white space a bit.

I wish I was there to see the parents open the gift Christmas morning.  I think a special gift like this had a little more meaning this year.

What do you make for parent gifts?  Every year I try to make salt dough ornaments or cinnamon ornaments, but it fails miserably!