Measuring Tails

I spent all day doing things with/for my kids. Pool, bicycles, running, scooters, Subway, BBQ ribs, and ice cream sandwiches. They are tired and I am glad I decided to turn the computer off. The weather was beyond beautiful.

I wanted to share something super quick I did with my other kids last week. They loved it!

I found this mouse clip art in one of my measuring files. They got two mice and a half sheet of construction paper. The directions were to create two tails and measure them. One side in centimeters, the other side in inches. It was a hit!

 

What do you think? Should we call the exterminator? :) 

A Rough Week and Two OK Fundraisers

It has been a hard week. A long week.

You want the year to be over. The to-do list is so overwhelming you just want it to end. 25 school days plus a week of meetings. Then you decide you do not want the year to end because your almost perfect class is moving on. You contemplate looping. You contemplate staying home and calling it quits. You realize this is your thing, and you are not ready to stop doing what you love (most days). You have parents who love you, appreciate you and sent you amazing (thank you) e-mails, and others that do not think you have done enough. You beat yourself up until you receive the nicest compliment from your AP. You miss your mentor. You do assessments and hug those who have worked so hard to meet benchmark. You go home and your husband makes it all better by telling you, you are amazing and everything will be just fine. Tomorrow :)

I feel better now :)  Thanks for listening.

Then you hear about the devastation in Oklahoma and your little problems make you feel so guilty. You decide to help.

I made my donation here @ teacher Notebook.

Teachers Notebook put a bundle valued at more than $2000. It is available for purchase until May 28. 

So far $60,000 and still growing. Teaches are amazing!

TPT is also helping out. They put together 4 different bundles. Two bundles for K-2 and two for 3-6. You can get them for $25.00 each.

These will be available until June 3rd.

               

                             ***Find it HERE.                                                         Find it HERE.
***My best seller is found in this bundle.

              

                                   Find it HERE.                                                      Find it HERE.

Making this world a better place has always been our mission as teachers.
I will be hugging my kids and my 'borrowed' kids a little tighter, because one, never knows what the future holds.

End of the Year Awards in Spanish!

Me encanta tener la oportunidad de practicar my primer idioma!

Just kidding...

Awards in Spanish are here! Arrriba!  I mean, the newest End of the Year Award buttons in Spanish have arrived.

40 buttons, planning sheet, editable. 

Find them here.

A muy grande thank you to Krista for helping me with these. My Spanish is getting rusty and Krista saved me. I owe you girl!

I hope you can roll your rrrrrrrrrrrrrs :)

100 New Books and Jaime's Blogiversary.

I finally organized all the books from the Book Sale I attended last week.  The kids were dying to get their hands on them, and seeing them on my floor were driving my OCD me crazy!

100 books for $0.00 = a very happy teacher!  

Chapter books, nonfiction books, picture books... you name it, we got a bit of everything.  

All of us spend tons of money getting books for our libraries. I encourage you to call your public library and ask about a future sale. 

The other thing I wanted to post about was Jaime's blogiversary. She is celebrating her first one!  I am so having a cupcake in her honor, or maybe a donut. Stop by, say hi, and don't forget to enter the giveaway :) You maybe the lucky one!

Find it HERE. 

I think I missed my blogiversary :(  but I am this close to celebrating 500 followers. Can't wait to plan for that!

Our Hearts and Teacher Love Book.

We are still working on our expert writing unit. Don't tell anyone, but I am reviewing my first idea and it is taking me a while to fix my mistake reorganize my thoughts and edit the whole thing. Boo!
I will catch up. Promise.

One of  the parents in my classroom is a cardiologist. He came to do a presentation for the class and show us how an expert knows tons about a specific topic. His topic: the heart.

I took tons pf pictures, but they are not blog worthy because my students happy faces are everywhere and putting fake faces on students pictures (to post on blogs) creeps me out.

We made him a thank you book showing him what we learned.

Another one of my parents had the kids make a  book with a note from each of my students. 

Here is what they wrote: 

I received plenty of love during teacher appreciation week. I hope all of you did too :)

Spam Problems, and free books for my classroom.

You know that word verification password you have to type to prove you are 'human'?  I am sorry friends, but I had to turn it on. I am getting tons of very inappropriate comments and I need a break from deleting them. I do know this may reduce the amount of times someone comments on my blog (I hope not), but the language being used is kinda nasty. I may try to turn it off in a few weeks and try again. I'm sorry!

This is a picture of all the books I have in my library, minus all the books the kids have in their browsing boxes. 

I have never thought I have enough books. I always want more books. I always need more books :)

I get books from our monthly Scholastic book club, and today...

I attended a book sale. Today,  teachers are allowed to grab as many books as you want for free. The book sale for the public begins tomorrow. I walked out with 3 huge boxes and a big smile. 

Where do you get your books from?

Time for me to shop! Today is the last day and clipart, borders and a few other second grade products are waiting for me. Hello Wishlist!  Don't forget to leave feedback. 

Don't forget to leave feedback. MSS Store.

Mother's Day Album and Sale.

I finished it. Our 2013 Mother's Day project is done!.
I instagramed (that is a new verb found in the dictionary...somewhere) last night when I could not work on it any more. My bump hurt. Now it is all done with pictures and student samples.

Wait until you see these cuties. 

 I know the moms are going to love it.

Find it HERE :)

I purchased 24 photo albums at the Dollar Store (Dollar Tree in our town).

I created small prompts for the kids to write about their mom. Each prompt has a frame where students illustrated the answer. There are 40 prompts to use depending on what you like. There will be some empty photo pockets. For that, I had asked the kids to bring pictures of their moms to include. 

I printed the pages. Cut in half and had the kids cut around the edges. Insert on the right side pocket of the album. 

One of my favorite pages.

What is a mom? 

- A person who has a baby or more.

- A person who takes care of you and cooks for the family.

- A person who takes care of you and loves you.

- A person who cooks dinner.

- Someone who took care of you when you were little.

- A person who cares for you.

- A mom is sometimes sweet and sometimes not.

- A person that takes care of  you and loves you.

- A loving caring person who takes care of you everyday.

- A nice person who has patience.

- A person who gives birth to babies.

- A girl who raises you as a child.

- A person who loves their kids and will give you all you need.

- A person who loves you and gave birth to you.

It sounds like my kids are very well loved, doesn't it?

I am pretty happy with our latest project. Mother's Day Album will be a hit with all of our amazing moms!

And now...get ready for the sale!  My graphics "wish list" is long. I am hoping to score some great deals. My little store will be 20% plus the sale TPT provides on top of that. 

Thanks for Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah Designs for the button and her amazing graphics!

Need a Graph?

Have you met Jaime? Her blog Bright Concept 4 Teachers is full with great ideas and her craftivities are super cute.

She is the sweetest bloggy friend ever! Our classes are Pen Pals. I have to confess I am doing a super bad job with the pen paling (that is a word, right?). It has been hard for me to be on time with our letters.

She checks out anything I send her  and gives me great feedback. I feel loved by her. I feel her love every time we converse via email :)

She lives pretty much on the side of the country. NC and CA are not that close. Boo! 

So, once, not so long ago, we exchanged a product we both needed. Score!

Let me show you...

Gotta love collecting data!  I mean, we (as teachers) collect enough data. This time, the kids do all the work :)

My kids enjoyed the variety. I surely did!

You'll find all of these in her packet. 

The best part was finding a variety of levels. I used every single one of her graphs.

I separated my class. My struggling ones sat at the rainbow table and did the graphs with me. I did a lot of reviewing and questioning. I also met with the intermediate kids. They solved their graphs with a partner at the rainbow table as well. My high kiddos had a ball working on collecting data (surveys). They did all of their work independently (music to my ears).

Graphing Through the Year was a huge success in my room. If you need a graph for your low, medium and high kiddos. This is it. I promise you, you will not be very pleased :) Find it HERE. 

THANKS Jaime!

Now... who should I beg for a product next?  :)