Giveaway Giveaway

Infinity book scarf

Personalized tumbler

Just a reminder...tomorrow is the last day for your chances to win some amazing items at my giveaway.  Check them out 100 Follower Giveaway!









Lots of other blogs are having some great giveaways too!
Reagan at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits

 Teach-Play-Smile is also having a 100 follower giveaway.

 Flying High in First is having a 50 follower giveaway.

First Grade Frosting

If you feeling lucky....enter away!
Happy Monday,
Laurie

Story Sunday

I like to spend a bit of Sunday at the library figuring out what I will read each week.  (Most times, I already have to books on hold, and am just picking them up.  This week we are working on Text to Text connections and modeling our personal narratives after some mentor authors.  Here is the potential reading list for the week. 
For text to text:
Lulu and the Brontosaurus by Judith Viorst


Prudence Wants a Pet by Cathleen Daly

A Pet for Petunia by Paul Schmid


One Cool Friend by Toni Buzzeo







(Can you already make some connections based on the titles!)

Personal Narrative Mentor Authors:

Every Friday by Dan Yaccarino

Night of the Veggie Monster by George McClements

 When I was Five by Arthur Howard


Letter to the Lake by Susan Marie Swanson




Just for Fun:
Stars by Marla Frazee  (This is a bEAutiFuL book!  Check it out now!)
Levi Strauss by Tony Johnston (True story of Levi Strauss)
The Princess and the Pig by Jonathan Emmett (HilARioUs redo of Prince and the Pauper.)
















Happy Sunday,
Laurie

Teacher Bag Organization

Week 7 of the Clutter-Free Classroom is all about teacher bags. 

BEFORE:Here is my bag:  It is a LARGE bag that I throw or shove a LOT of things into.  Anybody else fill their bag each night with the intention of getting back to it, and then losing the momentum to get it out:-)  This happens to me repeatedly....it is better to just stay at school into the evening hours and get it done there!

The bag is a Vera Bradley bag (which is unusual for me, I generally find her prints too busy.  I LOVE that this print had little birds all over it...since I call my class my chickadees, it was meant to be! 

It has lots of POTENTIAL to be organized, if I would stop randomly tossing things into it.  This is my attempt to corral the mess that is my bag.





Inside I usually have a professional book, Lucy Calkins curriculum, Investigations math curriculum, possibly a picture book.  I also have papers to look through and my laptop.  And the binder of all things important:-)  There are also camera cords and batteries, pencils, post-its, all kinds of little things.

AFTER:  First, using a colored binder clip and a Sharpie, I labeled each pocket.  And put the matching item inside.

I put all the pens, markers, highlighters, and pencils in a zippered pouch.  This is also a good idea to save your bag from disastrous ink explosions:-)

Finally I put an expanding file folder to sort the curriculum and papers by subject.












And finished!  The bag still doesn't weigh any less....but now at least I can find what I need without going through every pocket first:-)
Happy Saturday,
Laurie
P.S.  Don't forget about my give away...

The Boy Who Looked Like.....

Oh thank goodness for a 4-day weekend!  The 100 follower giveaway is four days away, don't forget to enter. 

My teaching friend at school does one of the most funny art projects inspired by The Boy Who Looked Like Lincoln.  For President's Day we make our own version of this book.  We read the book and then think about something we love.  Then we draw a picture of ourselves as that object.  First we sketched with pencil, traced our pencil with sharpie, and then painted with water color.

 

We had Ice Cream Cups, Medusa, Lemons, Hearts, Flowers, Basketballs, Music, and all kinds of creative stuff.

Happy Friday,
Laurie

What President's Are Made Of

Today we read What President's Are Made Of.  It is a great book about different presidents, but all the pictures are done in collage form with items that correspond with the president.  After we finished reading, each group was given a list of presidents, a fact about them, and a blank page.

They cut the president names out and the facts and the goal was to match them up.



We decided to create some motivation so the group with the most correct after 20 minutes got a prize.....they got to walk ahead of the line to music.  My kids do not like lines, so getting to go ahead makes them happy.  A huge shout out to Pitner's Potpourri for the fabulous freebie we used!  Students could take turns looking at the book to check their answer, or find an answer, but they only had a minute so that the next person could look and no one was a book hog!














Happy Thursday!  I'm off to see Beauty and the Beast, the musical.
Laurie

Started but Not Finished

What a Wednesday!  We got a lot started, and will hopefully finish tomorrow.  Then all the "stuff" we have been collecting will be out of the room!

I was inspired by the book, An Artist's America, by Michael Albert.  First we have been collecting cardboard boxes....the cereal, macaroni, cracker type.  (They were everywhere!)  Then we hunted for all the letters needed for The Pledge of Allegiance.  I assigned each group a portion of the words and they had to find those letters.  Then we put them all together on a big piece of butcher paper.

The beginning of our collage.  Now that we have found all the letters, we can glue them down and all the fillers for between and around the letters.  (I think we will need more boxes.)









We also started a President's Day Craftivity.  Erica Bohrer has the cutest project for both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln!  And they flip...one side George, the other Abe!  Genius!!

Cut out the pieces.

Glue to two identical shapes together.

The George side.

Tomorrow (hopefully we will finish Abe and our collage).
Happy Wednesday,
Laurie

Valentine's Day Survival!

Ryan Gosling and my little Chickadee:-)

This week at school we had "Secret Sweeties."  (Like a secret Santa, but for Valentine's obviously)  All week we left little goodies for someone at school.  I am pretty sure, that this is the best gift.  Some of us teachers are loving the "Hey Girl"  Ryan Gosling blog.  So my secret sweetie made me a personalized one and framed it!  It says,
"Hey Laurie,
I bought you two season tickets to the Dodgers.  The second ticket is for me!"  -Ryan
Too funny!



Some other "secret sweetie" evidence.  

Passing out Valentine's is pure craziness!  I love the end where "Thank You!" is being shouted from person to person, as they open their little cards.

Then we  had ice cream sundaes for a Valentine's treat...completely calm and organized:)  All the 2nd graders went to two different rooms.  One room watched a Charlie Brown Valentine video and the other group did Valentine art activities.  Then I pulled groups of 10 at a time to come make their ice cream sundaes.  They ate their Sunday and then went back to their group.  After about 30 minutes everyone switched classrooms.















What to do with all the cards kids give me.....

Thank them of course.  I simply cut a big heart out of butcher paper and then glue all the cards on!  The kids love seeing it when they come in the next day and play "I Spy" trying to find their card.

Happy Tuesday!
Laurie