A Little (Not School Related) Summer Reading!

*This is probably my first ever non-school post!*

So I have enjoyed laughing at the Catalog Living blog for the past 2 or so years. If you haven't come across it before, the blog author basically takes pictures from catalogs (like Pottery Barn, for example) and puts a funny caption on them to explain the scene. Maybe that sounds kind of lame, but it's H-I-L-A-R-O-U-S! Here are some examples of the posts to further explain:

Funny, right?!? (Anyone?.....Anyone?...) Anywho, I was SO excited to read that a book was in the works!! The book has all new content and I'm going to go laugh at it riiiiiiiight now! I recommend it (or at least the free blog) if you're looking for a little summer fun! ;)

Have you ever read Catalog Living??

Square Numbers and Daily 5--What Do They Have in Common??!?

What do Square Numbers and Daily 5 have in common??! They are the newest products in my store! I made an activity pack on Square Numbers to go along with a multiplication unit. You can see below that the pack includes a math journal page, 3 games, bookmarks, a chart, vocab cards and a cute little minibook with tutorial! I am so excited about it and sad that I won't get to use it with first grade, hahahahahaha. I hope this is something that you are able to use!

I also made rotation cards to go along with my ocean-themed Daily 5 and CAFE poster sets. I posted this to my store a few days ago and a lot of you have already downloaded it. Feel free to head over and download your FREE copy!

Available in kid clip art...

...or ocean clip art!

Snag any of the products listed above by visiting one of my shops! Click below to get there!

As always, if you are one of the first 3 people to comment, I will send you a free copy of the Square Numbers Activity Pack! Don't forget your email! :)

Monday Made It!

I am happy to participate this week (on Tuesday, haha)!!! I've been working on my teacher toolbox for like, 3 weeks now and FINALLY finished it! :) I'm into rainbows and fun colors, as you can see by my choice of spray paint. I didn't realize it would be that HOT orange, but I looooove it!!! It's SO me! And it will match my Chicka Chicka Boom Boom classroom!

What do ya think?!

*Since some of you asked--I (well...my husband, haha...) spray painted it with plastic primer first, then orange, and then a clear, glossy spray paint. And I'm pretty sure he only did one coat of each??*

Spring Symmetry!

Well, I OFFICIALLY finished Grad School on Saturday!!! And the good news is, I finished school with a BANG! I totally rocked the last course. This degree was a loooong and time-consuming journey but I did it and it's D-O-N-E. And with a 4.0 GPA. Thank you very much. ;) I find myself not knowing how to use all of this "extra" time I now have!! I am very excited to dedicate it to family, preparing for school, and BLOGGING! :)


So here's a post I meant to put up in April. Whoops. ;)

On one afternoon of our many, many state testing days (yes, 4 days constitutes as many, many) student teacher #3 and I decided that even though we were way behind in math and the next test was coming up soon and EVERY LITTLE SECOND COUNTS, the kids still needed to have fun after taking a test all day. Sooo we decided to do a quick little art activity in preparation for symmetry and transformations using these materials:

(I should have taken pictures while we were doing all of this!!! Aaahhhh!)

We cut up several pieces of string (between 12" and 16") and gave a few to each student. We then poured paint into the pie pans (one color per pan) and spread them out among the room. Each student had a piece of thick, white construction paper to use as their canvas. Before we started we talked a little about the line of symmetry, though not too much because I wanted to save it for after the activity. To begin, we folded the paper in half, then opened it up (which, of course, revealed one line of symmetry). After that they picked a paint color, dipped the string in it, placed it on one side of the paper, and refolded the paper. When they opened the paper and removed the string, they were amazed to see an awesome symmetrical picture! Take a look at some of these!!!!!:

And the best one...

This one turned out SOOOO cool!!! Can you see the dog face??! Totally unplanned by this little artist.

After the activity, we discussed more about the line of symmetry and how much FUN the kids had doing this activity. After that, we made new locker name tags that were symmetrical. That was incredibly difficult and required very refined fine motor skills (which 4th graders do not have, lol). It was a borderline NIGHTMARE to do but it came out great!! I don't have close-ups but you can make out some of the names. The kids folded a paper in half, wrote their name right above the fold on one side in block letters (making sure to connect the letters to each other and to the line of symmetry), and cut it out. We opened up the names and glued them onto another piece of paper so the name stood out.

I hope you enjoyed the activity pictures!

What do you do for symmetry?

And the Winners Are...

Thanks, everyone!! You left such sweet comments! The winners of a free copy of the calendar set are:

Congratulations to Kaitlyn, Catherine and Heidi!! I will be emailing you soon! If you didn't win, you can grab a copy from one of my stores! And I'm thinking bugs may be the next set I make! Thanks for the input! :)

Ocean-Themed Calendar Set

I fulfilled another request by making an ocean-themed calendar set! The set includes:

• number cards 1-31, including 23/30 and 24/31 (3"wide x 2.75" tall)
• headers for each month
• headers for the days of the week
• "Yesterday was", "Today is" and "Tomorrow will be" fill-in-the-blank cards
• "Yesterday was", "Today is" and "Tomorrow will be" poster with cards for the days of the week
• "Today's date is" fill-in-the-blank card
• "Today's Temperature" fill-in-the-blank card

I really had fun making this one! I plan on making more sets using different themes. Any theme suggestions??

Would you like a copy of this set??? Check it out in my TPT or TN store. You can also comment below with an email address and I will randomly draw 3 names to win a free set at the end of the day. I hope you like it!!

CAFE Posters

I received a special request to make ocean-themed CAFE posters to go along with the Daily 5 posters I posted a few days ago. Here they are, free, of course! Enjoy!! :)

You can download your copy by following either of my store links below:

Daily 5 Copyright Issues

TPT sent an email to all sellers today (and you've probably already heard about this in blogland somewhere). The 2 Sisters (from the Daily 5)  have issued a cease and desist order for selling anything for the Daily 5 or The CAFE. However, we have been granted permission to post products for FREE, soooo the Daily 5 poster set that I posted last week is now FREE! :)

You can download a copy for free by following either of my store links below.

2D and 3D Objects Bulletin Board

I am a little sad that this is the best picture I have of my bulletin board. :( I accidentally deleted the other pictures of it from my iPhone when I was filtering through my 8,000 (yes, 8,000) photos to make more room on my phone! Oh well--you can still understand the purpose (though I am sad that you don't get to see the end-product):

This board was up during our geometry unit. The kids were asked to bring in items from home that represented 2D and 3D shapes. They brought in several papers, baseball cards and photos for 2D objects and for 3D objects they mostly brought in boxes. One kid, however, brought in a cologne bottle! (You can see it in the bottom right corner.) Two students that didn't bother to forgot to bring in an item from home contributed the tissue box and dictionary (at the bottom of the photo) that they found in our classroom. The kids and I all enjoyed this activity. I had to stop them from bringing in items because we ran out of room!

Below, you will find a free copy of the assignment sheet I used to go with this board. You can also download it from my TPT store or TN Shop. Enjoy! :)

Number Chart Freebies!

Well, the first official thing I've made for 1st grade is a hundreds chart (though it obviously isn't just 1st grade specific). I wanted to spruce up the basic hundreds chart just a little, so I added fun backgrounds! AND I want to share them with you!

Two that I will definitely be printing for my Chicka Chicka Boom Boom themed-classroom are pages 25 and 26:

*After receiving feedback from Jessica down below, I went ahead and made a numbers chart from 1-120 since I know a lot of you use the Common Core Standards. We don't in my district (and I'm thinking that Texas doesn't at all?? Idk).

Anyway, if 1-120 is what you are needing, then you will find those in my store as well!

Get your copy of ALL of these charts by clicking on one of the buttons below!

A Thank You, an Announcement, a Question, and Technology Camp!!

Well, my summer OFFICIALLY begins tonight! I had a few trainings to attend the week after school ended and this past week was Technology Camp, something I teach at every summer (since its inception 4 years ago). Visit the link in the previous sentence to read about last summer's camp--see the bottom section of this post for cool pics and activities from this year's camp!

First things first--A Thank You!
THANK YOU SO MUCH for your support and advice in regard to my move!!! Within hours of my announcement several of you responded to my post and HUNDREDS of you responded to my survey about what to do with my blog! It is such an incredibly awesome feeling to know that you all are behind me, especially when I have yet to meet any of you face to face!! :)


An Announcement
I have decided to keep this blog and simply adjust my tagline, especially since 81% of you suggested I do that!! I'll get around to emailing my awesome blog designer, Alicia, for an adjustment sometime this summer... ;)


A Question
I have decided to change my classroom theme from frogs! I love the colorful frogs and all but I think new grade level, new theme. Yesterday, I was struck with inspiration to do a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom theme! My question is, is that even plausible?? I think the book is an enjoyable read AND it would be SO cute to have those cute little coconut trees around! What do you think?? Any suggestions?!


Technology Camp
Picture this--teaching a class with an engaging topic that includes activities that you have complete control in planning for, no grades or test pressure, all the technology you need/want, all the supplies you need/ask for, an aide to help out, a small group of kids AND only 4 hours long...oh, and NO professional teacher wear, strictly t-shirt and jeans or shorts attire...sounds awesome, right??! That's Technology Camp in my district!!!! This is the best part of my summer each year!!

This year, I planned and taught "Germs, Mold and Other Gross Stuff" to kids that will be entering 4th and 5th grade next school year. I ended up having 5 girls and 4 boys, most of which just finished 3rd grade. I also ended up having two aides to help out for most of the week, so that was super nice. We did a variety of utterly GROSS activities and projects. I actually didn't get as many pictures as I wanted to because we were so busy the whole time. I did, however, capture a few things! I will also share some of the actual activities/projects we did with you (probably in a later post because this one's length is approaching "never-ending").

First project to share...bird poop paintings!!

First, the students chose a bird and we used PebbleGo to research them, particularly the bird's diet. We then talked about how a bird's poop should reflect its diet. After that, the students summarized the bird's diet and turned it into a QR code using Kaywa, which we glued onto their paper. We then took ketchup and mustard squeeze bottles and put some white tempera paint in them. Using the bird's diet, the students placed bits of various items into the paint, such as nuts, berries, grass and twigs. For the meat-eating birds we just tore up bits of construction paper and put it in the paint. After mixing up the paint the kiddos squeezed the paint onto their paper to make the poop.

It was wayyyyy fun--they had a blast with it! Here are a few more examples--enjoy! (And yes, I realize that some may be a little extreme...what can I say, they had wayyyy too much F-U-N with it!):