OWLS, Reading Street, and a Freebie!

Well ~ we've had a break in the weather... high today 98! At least we are out of the triple digits.  Yesterday, I found some of the cutest clipart and decided I had to make a few things using owls.  {I just LOVE owls!}  I bet you didn't know that!?  So for ALL the owl fans out there, I hope you like these.  I started out by creating some nameplates using bright colorful owls.  I thought these were just the cutest... take a look:

If you notice - some of the nameplates have cute sayings and some do not.  I made them both ways  so you could choose if you wanted the sayings or not.  There are actually even more nameplates in the file.  I used 6 different backgrounds.  Click on any picture above to take you to my TPT store.

As I started using the chocolate brown backgrounds (which I love since it is the theme in my room) I began creating another file using brown owls.  I fell in love INSTANTLY!

I'm not sure which one I'm going to use this year... I may just use one of each!  Again - I created these so there are 2 copies in each file - one with the cute sayings - and one without.  Just print out the ones you want to use.  If you are interested, click on any picture above or HERE to go to my TPT store.

If you teach Reading Street, I created some grammar posters that I plan to use this year as we make our way through each week.  I will post these as references for each unit and then make them available in my writing center either on a ring, or in a binder, etc.  I'm not sure yet.  I wanted something that I could project on my Smart Board as we learn about each grammar concept.  Here are a few examples of what I came up with:

These are both from Unit 1.

These are from Unit 2.

These are from Unit 3.

These are from Unit 4.

These are from Unit 5.

Each unit has 6 different posters for each of the weekly skills.  These are all available in my TPT store if you are interested. 

NOW for the freebie!  I hope all you OWL lovers out there will like this. You can get one brown owl and one bright owl name plate for free by clicking HERE!  I am thinking about creating new book box labels, binder covers and cubby numbers using these cute owls.  What do you think?  Hope everyone has a great week... I am off to take my kids to Six Flags today.  Thank goodness it has cooled down a little.  (Heh heh)!

The Countdown Begins...

I can't believe we only have 22 days of school left!  Well, as of Tuesday.  Every year I do an activity that I call Balloon Pop Countdown.  Depending on the number of students I have - determines how many balloons I fill and what number I begin counting down the days.  This year I have 22 students so we began this week.  I hung 22 balloons from the ceiling filled with slips of paper that have some sort of special activity on it.

The kids are SO excited to see all the balloons in our room... but the best part is each student gets to POP a balloon to help us count down our last days of school.  At the end of each day, I pick a stick and that student gets to pop our next balloon to tell us what tomorrow has in store for us.  Here is a close up of one of our balloons.  See the slip of paper inside?

So what did day 22 have in store for us?  It was BUBBLE GUM DAY!  I bought a HUGE tub of bubble gum - enough for the kids to have 4 pieces that we spread throughout the day.  It wasn't just about chewing gum but there was much more in store.  First, we read about how bubble gum was invented.  Here is the book we read:

Then we read the book "Lester Fizz, Bubble Gum Artist" by Ruth Spiro.

  

This book is about a boy who grows up in a family of artists.  Lester doesn't seem to be good at anything.  Members of his family can paint, collect, make sculptures... but Lester is good at blowing bubbles.  He finds out that he can blow amazing art bubbles the shapes of things like the Mona Lisa, the Statue of Liberty or a portrait of his whole family!  This book is not only adorable but it uses a lot of alliteration that you can touch on throughout the book.  After reading this story, students had to think about what would they make if they could blow a magnificent art bubble?  Just look at what they came up with:

I took a picture of each student like they were blowing a bubble and then they used pink construction paper to design their bubble after writing about it!  I thought they turned out super cute!

If you would like a copy of our writing paper, please grab your copy here:

We have a bunch of days planned with lots of fun activities.  I will be posting them (hopefully) every day or every other day as I get pictures uploaded.  My students look forward to what tomorrow has in store and the activities help to "curb" the last day blues.  

I would also like to add that Charity Preston over at The Organized Classroom Blog has encouraged bloggers to take the 5 Star Blogger Challenge!  Are you up to the challenge?  Go check it out! 

Have you lost your rainbow?

Have you read the book "The Leprechaun Who Lost His Rainbow" by Sean Callahan?  We created some rainbows this week!  In this story, the leprechaun is named Roy G. Biv.  We talked about the colors of the rainbow and the order of the colors using this leprechaun's name.  The little girl in this story has to help Mr. Biv build a rainbow by putting items into his hat that match these colors.  When he has something for each color a rainbow magically appears out of his hat.  This story inspired me to create this fun writing prompt and craft that goes along with the story.  

The students had to think of items that belonged to them that were a color of the rainbow and write about it.  In the story, the little girl had to place one item that was very special to her that she did not want to give up, but sacrificed in order to make the rainbow. At the bottom of the paper, the students had to tell me which item was the most precious to them and why.  Here is a student example.  I apologize for the pics. I took them with my iphone and they are just not very good.  

Here they are lined up in the hall:

I guess it's time to take my snowflakes down.  They are clashing with our spring writing!

The kids enjoyed coming up with items they would put in the hat and what item they would sacrifice.  I have included the writing page I used below.  The kids loved this book and as soon as I put it back on our seasonal shelf, they were fighting over who gets to read it again first.  

On another note, our super scientists have been going great!  I can't wait to paste some pictures and information about what awesome scientists we have in first grade.  Happy Wednesday!

Dr. S Inspired -ink Word Family Freebie!

I know that Read Across America Week is over, but last week our word family was -ink.  I couldn't help but make a connection with the book "Oh the Thinks You Can Think"!  So we read the book and put together these funny little guys from the book.  I drew these on a piece of paper and then copied onto construction paper. 

Students then turned them over and wrote a silly sentence using their -ink words.  Here was my example:

Sorry for the crummy picture.  You don't actually realize how filthy your whiteboard is until you take a close-up picture.  Anyway, we tried to THINK of as many -ink words as we could.

Here was our chart of -ink words we thought of after reading the book:



After we created our chart the kids got to work making their "Think Characters".  We hung them from our clips from the ceiling so we could see our words and the sentences we created.  Here are a few examples of the kids work:

Here is another example.  I just loved the faces they put on these characters!

I scanned my drawings and placed them in google docs in case anyone would want to make these cuties with their kiddos.  The scanned images are not that great so I apologize for the quality but hope you can make it work if you like the idea. I can't believe tomorrow is already hump day!  Only 3 more days and then our Spring Break begins!  The weather here has been beautiful - sunny and 70 degrees!  Hope this beautiful weather continues into next week.  Have a great evening!

Click on either picture to download the patterns or click HERE!

-Ight Pad Freebie!

So as I was planning for this week, I decided to create this little activity for my kiddos.  Our word family is    -ight this week.  I have seen so many cute long i pad sorts from different bloggers but I really wanted to focus specifically on this word family.   I came up with this "-ight pad" super quick.  I'm not sure if you will want it, but feel free to grab it if you think you might find it useful.  Just click on the picture to download.

My daughter wanted to fill out one and here is how hers turned out:

Sorry about the picture quality.  I also made an -ight pad for my higher students that will allow them to make their own -ight words.  It is also included in the download. 

We had 2 snow days last week and a professional development day on Friday.  Our Valentine's Day party was rescheduled for our first day back from the snow.  The kids came in ready to party!  I had some amazing Valentine's Day boxes.  Here are some pictures:

How adorable!

The boys LOVED this one!

I thought this one was super clever!  From the outside it looks like a laptop and it actually OPENS.  Look at this:

We had a great time playing Valentine's Day Bingo, eating ice cream sundaes and dipping all our goodies in our chocolate fountain!  Can anyone say SUGAR OVERLOAD???!!

We were going to have President's Day off... but since we were off for the snow, we are headed to school tomorrow.  That means a five day week!  We will be doing lots of President's Day stuff and studying American symbols this week.  Thanks to all you creative bloggers out there, I have lots of activities to do with my kiddos!